Leaving the lost Gerald for a time to all the horrors of his position,
in which it would be difficult to say whether remorse or passion (each
intensest of its kind) predominated, let us return to the scene where we
first introduced him to the reader, and take a review of the military
events passing in that quarter.
After the defeat of the British columns at Sandusky, so far from any
renewed attempts being made to interrupt the enemy in his strongholds,
it became a question whether the position on the Michigan frontier could
be much longer preserved. To the perseverance and promptitude of the
Americans, in bringing new armies into the field, we have already had
occasion to allude; but there was another quarter in which their
strength had insensibly gathered, until it eventually assumed an aspect
that carried apprehension to every heart. Since the loss of their
flotilla at Detroit, in the preceding year, the Americans had commenced
with vigour to equip one at Buffalo, which was intended to surpass the
naval force on Lake Erie; and so silently and cautiously had they
accomplished this task, that it was scarcely known at Amherstburg that a
squadron was in the course of preparation, when that squadron, to which
had been added the schooner captured from Gerald Grantham the preceding
autumn, suddenly appeared off the harbor, defying their enemies to the
combat. But the English vessels were in no condition to cope with so
powerful an enemy, and although many a gallant spirit burned to be led
against those who so evidently taunted them, the safety of the garrisons
depended too much on the issue, for that issue to be lightly tempted.
But misfortune was now beginning to overcast the hitherto fair prospects
of the British arms in the Western District of the Canadas; and what the
taunts of an enemy, triumphing in the consciousness of a superior
numerical force, could not effect, an imperative and miserably
provided-for necessity eventually compelled. Maintaining as they did a
large body of wild and reckless warriors, together with their families,
it may be naturally supposed the excesses of these people were not few;
but it would have required one to have seen, to have believed, the
prodigal waste of which they were often guilty. Acknowledging no other
law than their own will, following no other line of conduct than that
suggested by their own caprice, they had as little respect for the
Canadian inhabitant as they would have entertained for that of the
American enemy. And hence it resulted, that if an Indian preferred a
piece of fresh, to the salted meat daily issued from the commissariat,
nothing was more common than for him to kill the first head of cattle he
found grazing on the skirt of the forest, secure the small portion he
wanted, and leave the remainder to serve as carrion to the birds of prey
of the country. Nay, to such an extent was this wanton spoliation
carried, that instances have repeatedly occurred wherein cattle have
been slain and left to putrify in the sun, merely because a warrior
found it the most convenient mode by which to possess himself of a
powder-horn. All this was done openly--in the broad face of day, and in
the full cognisance of the authorities; yet was there no provision made
to meet the difficulties so guilty a waste was certain eventually to
entail. At length the effect began to make itself apparent, and it was
shortly after the first appearance of the American fleet that the
scarcity of food began to be so severely felt as to compel the English
squadron, at all hazards, to leave the port in search of supplies.
At this period, the vessel described in the commencement of our story,
as having engaged so much of the interest and attention of all parties,
had just been launched and rigged. Properly armed she was not, for there
were no guns of the description used on ship-board wherewith to arm her;
but now that the occasion became imperative, all nicety was disregarded
in the equipment; and guns that lately bristled from the ramparts of the
fort were soon to be seen protruding their long and unequal necks from
the ports. She was a gallant ship, notwithstanding the incongruity of
her armament, and had her brave crew possessed but the experience of
those who are nursed on the salt waves of ocean, might have fought a
more fortunate fight (a better or a braver was impossible) than she did.
But in the whole of the English fleet there could not be counted
three-score able or experienced seamen; the remainder were children of
the Canadian Lakes, warm with the desire to distinguish themselves in
the eyes of their more veteran European companions, but without the
knowledge to make their enthusiasm sufficiently available. The
Americans, on the contrary, were all sons of the ocean and equally
brave.
It was a glorious day in September, the beautiful September of Canada,
when the gallant Commodore Barclay sailed with his fleet, ostensibly in
fulfilment of the mission for which it was dispatched, but in reality
under the firm expectation of being provoked to action by his stronger
and better disciplined enemy. To say that he would have sought that
enemy, under the disadvantages beneath which he knew himself to labor,
would be to say that which would reflect little credit on his judgment;
but, although not in a condition to hold forth the flag of defiance,
where there was an inferiority in all but the skill of the leader and
the personal courage of the men, he was not one to shun the battle that
should be forced upon him. Still to him it was an anxious moment,
because the fame of other days hung upon an issue over which no efforts
of his own could hold mastery; and as he gazed at his armless sleeve, he
sighed for the presence of those whose agency had coupled the
recollection of past victory with that mutilated proof of honorable
conduct. He knew, moreover, the magnitude of the stake for which he was
thus compelled to play, and that defeat to him would be the loss of the
whole of the Western District. While the British ascendancy could be
maintained on the lake, there was little fear, lined as the forests were
with Indian warriors, that the Americans would push any considerable
force beyond the boundaries they had assigned themselves at Sandusky and
on the Miami; but a victory once obtained by their fleet, there could be
nothing to oppose the passage of their army in vessels and boats across
the lake.
Such were the thoughts that filled the mind of the Commodore (in common
with all who calmly reasoned on the subject), as he crossed the bar that
separated him from his enemy; but neither in look, nor word, nor deed,
was there aught to reveal what was passing in the inward man; and when
later the hostile fleet was signalized as bearing down upon them, he
gave his order to prepare for action, in the animated voice of one who
finds certain victory within his reach, and exultingly hastens to secure
it.
The events of that day the page of history has already recorded, in
terms alike flattering to the conqueror and the conquered. Let it
suffice that the Americans fought with determined bravery, and
eventually triumphed.
The result of the unlucky contest was, as had been anticipated, to open
a free passage across the lake to the American armies, whose advance by
land had been so repeatedly and effectually checked on former occasions,
as to leave them little inclination for a renewal of an attempt in that
quarter. Now however that they could forward a fleet of boats under
cover of the guns of their squadron, to the very outworks of
Amherstburg, the difficulty was at once removed; and an overwhelming
army of not less than ten thousand men, was speedily assembled near
Sandusky, with a view to the final invasion of Amherstburg and
consequent recapture of Detroit.
Under these disheartening circumstances--the want of provisions being
daily more and more felt by the troops and inhabitants--it became
necessary to hold a council of war, to determine upon the course that
should be pursued. Accordingly the whole of the chiefs and officers of
the garrison met in the hall already described in the beginning of our
narrative, when it was proposed by General Proctor, at the conclusion of
a speech in which the increasing difficulties and privations of the
garrison were emphatically enumerated, that the fortifications should be
razed to the ground, the dock yards and other public works destroyed,
and the allied forces of English and Indians make the best of their way
by land to join the centre division of the army on the Niagara frontier.
This was warmly opposed by Tecumseh, but despite his eloquence and
remonstrance, a few days later, and the work of destruction was entered
upon and soon completed. The little British army, scarcely exceeding
eight hundred men of all arms, commenced its march at night, lighted by
the flames of the barracks which had given them shelter for the last
time. As they passed the fort of Detroit the next day, dense columns of
smoke and flame were to be seen rising high in air, from the various
public edifices, affording a melancholy evidence of the destruction
which usually tracks a retreating army. Many an American inhabitant
looked on at the work of destruction, as if he would fain have arrested
the progress of an element which at once defaced the beauty of the town,
and promised much trouble and inconvenience to those whom they knew to
be at hand, for their final deliverance from the British yoke. But the
garrison continued stern spectators of the ruin they had been compelled
to effect, until the flames had attained a power which rendered then
suppression an impossibility; then and then only, did they quit the
scene of conflagration, and embarking in the boats which had been kept
in readiness for their transport, joined their comrades, who waited for
them on the opposite bank. The two garrisons thus united; the whole
preceded by a large body of Indians, were pushed forward to the position
which had been selected on the Thames, and both shores of the Detroit
were left an unresisting conquest to the Americans.
Meanwhile, these latter had not been slow in profiting by the important
advantages which had crowned their arms on the lake. On the third day
after the retreat of the British garrison from Amherstburg, a numerous
fleet of large boats was discovered from the town pushing for Hartley's
point, under cover of the united squadrons. Unopposed as these were,
their landing was soon effected, and a few hours later the American
stars were to be seen floating over the still smoking ruins of the
British fortress. Emboldened by the unexpected ease with which he had
rendered himself finally master of a position long coveted, the American
General at once resolved to follow and bring his retreating enemy to
action if possible. A force of five thousand men (fifteen hundred of
whom were mounted rifles) was accordingly pushed forward; and so rapid
and indefatigable was the march of these, that they came up with the
retreating columns before they had succeeded in gaining the village, at
which it was purposed that their final stand should be made. The anxiety
of General Proctor to save the baggage waggons containing his own
personal effects, had been productive of the most culpable delay, and at
the moment when his little army should have been under cover of
entrenchments, and in a position which offered a variety of natural
defensive advantages, they found themselves suddenly overtaken by the
enemy in the heart of a thick wood, where, fatigued by the long and
tedious march they had made under circumstances of great privation, they
had scarcely time to form in the irregular manner permitted by their
broken position, before they found themselves attacked with great spirit
and on all sides, by a force more than quadruple their own. The result
may easily be anticipated. Abandoned by their General, who at the very
first outset, drove his spurs into the flanks of his charger and fled
disgracefully from the scene of action, followed by the whole of his
personal staff, the irregularly formed line of the little British army,
was but ill prepared to make effectual resistance to the almost
invisible enemy by whom it was encompassed; and those whom the rifle had
spared, were to be seen, within an hour from the firing of the first
shot, standing conquered and disarmed, between the closing lines of the
victorious Americans.
But although the English troops (sacrificed as they must be pronounced
to have been, by their incapable leader) fell thus an easy prey to the
overwhelming force brought against them, so did not their Indian allies,
supported and encouraged as these were by the presence of their beloved
Chieftain. It was with a sparkling eye and a glowing cheek that, just as
the English troops had halted to give unequal battle to their pursuers.
Tecumseh passed along the line, expressing in animated language the
delight he felt at the forthcoming struggle, and when he had shaken
hands with most of the officers he moved into the dense forest where his
faithful bands were lying concealed, with a bounding step that proved
not only how much his heart had been set upon the cast, but how
completely he confided in the result. And who shall say what that result
might not have been even notwithstanding the discomfiture of the English
had the heroic Chieftain been spared to his devoted country! But this
was not fated to be. Early in the action he fell by the hand of a
distinguished leader of the enemy, and his death carried, as it could
not fail to do, the deepest sorrow and dismay into the hearts of his
followers, who although they continued the action long after his fall,
and with a spirit that proved their desire to avenge the loss of their
noble leader, it was evident, wanted the directing genius of him they
mourned to sustain them in their effort. For several days after the
action did they continue to hang upon the American rear, as the army
again retired with its prisoners upon Detroit; but each day their attack
became feebler and feebler, announcing that their numbers were fast
dispersing into the trackless region from which they had been brought,
until finally not a shot was to be heard disturbing the night vigils of
the American sentinels.
With the defeat of the British army, and the death of Tecumseh, perished
the last hope of the Indians to sustain themselves as a people against
the in-roads of their oppressors. Dispirited and dismayed, they retired
back upon the hunting grounds which still remained to them, and there
gave way both to the deep grief with which every heart was overwhelmed
at the loss of their truly great leader, and to the sad anticipations
which the increasing gloom that clouded the horizon of their prospects
naturally induced.