The Fight for a Free Sea | Page 7

Fort Meigs, the murders along the
frontier, and the campaign of 1813 were the prices paid for the Indian
lands in the Wabash Valley."
Before the story shifts to the other fields of the war, it seems logical to
follow to its finally successful result the bloody, wasteful struggle for
the recovery of the lost territory. This operation required large armies
and long campaigns, together with the naval supremacy of Lake Erie,
won in the next year by Oliver Hazard Perry, before the fugitive British
forces fell back from the charred ruins of Detroit and Amherstburg and
were soundly beaten at the battle of the Thames--the one decisive,
clean-cut American victory of the war on the Canadian frontier. These
events showed that far too much had been expected of General William

Hull, who comprehended his difficulties but made no attempt to batter
a way through them, forgetting that to die and win is always better than
to live and fail.

CHAPTER II
LOST GROUND REGAINED
General William Henry Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe and the
Governor of Indiana Territory, whose capital was at Vincennes on the
Wabash, possessed the experience and the instincts of a soldier. He had
foreseen that Hull, unless he received support, must either abandon
Detroit or be hopelessly hemmed in. The task of defending the western
border was ardently undertaken by the States of Kentucky and Ohio.
They believed in the war and were ready to aid it with the men and
resources of a vigorous population of almost a million. When the word
came that Hull was in desperate straits, Harrison hastened to organize a
relief expedition. Before he could move, Detroit had fallen. But a high
tide of enthusiasm swept him on toward an attempt to recover the lost
empire. The Federal Government approved his plans and
commissioned him as commander of the Northwestern army of ten
thousand men.
In the early autumn of 1812, General Harrison launched his ambitious
and imposing campaign, by which three separate bodies of troops were
to advance and converge within striking distance of Detroit, while a
fourth was to invade and destroy the nests of Indians on the Wabash
and Illinois rivers. An active British force might have attacked and
defeated these isolated columns one by one, for they were beyond
supporting distance of each other; but Brock now needed his regulars
for the defense of the Niagara frontier. The scattered American army,
including brigades from Virginia and Pennsylvania, was too strong to
be checked by Indian forays, but it had not reckoned with the obstacles
of an unfriendly wilderness and climate. In October, no more than a
month after the bugles had sounded the advance, the campaign was

halted, demoralized and darkly uncertain. A vast swamp stretched as a
barrier across the route and heavy rains made it impassable.
Hull had crossed the same swamp with his small force in the favorable
summer season, but Harrison was unable to transport the food and war
material needed by his ten thousand men. A million rations were
required at the goal of the Maumee Rapids, and yet after two months of
heartbreaking endeavor not a pound of provisions had been carried
within fifty miles of this place. Wagons and pack-trains floundered in
the mud and were abandoned. The rivers froze and thwarted the use of
flotillas of scows. Winter closed down, and the American army was
forlornly mired and blockaded along two hundred miles of front. The
troops at Fort Defiance ate roots and bark. Typhus broke out among
them, and they died like flies. For the failure to supply the army, the
War Department was largely responsible, and Secretary Eustis very
properly resigned in December. This removed one glaring incompetent
from the list but it failed to improve Harrison's situation.
It was not until the severe frosts of January, 1813, fettered the swamps
that Harrison was able to extricate his troops and forward supplies to
the shore of Lake Erie for an offensive against Amherstburg. First in
motion was the left wing of thirteen hundred Kentucky militia and
regulars under General Winchester. This officer was an elderly planter
who, like Hull, had worn a uniform in the Revolution. He had no great
aptitude for war and was held in low esteem by the Kentuckians of his
command--hungry, mutinous, and disgusted men, who were counting
the days before their enlistments should expire. The commonplace
Winchester was no leader to hold them in hand and spur their jaded
determination.
While they were building storehouses and log defenses, within
dangerously easy distance of the British post at Amherstburg, the
tempting message came that the settlement of Frenchtown, on the
Raisin, thirty miles away and within the British lines, was held by only
two companies of Canadian militia. Here was an opportunity for