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 attempt being made to interrupt the
enemy in his strong holds, 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,
in number and weight of metal, 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 harbour,
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 we 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 property of 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 wax 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 cognizance
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.
It was a glorious day in September, the beautiful September
of Canada, when the gallant Commodore Barclay sailed with
his fleet, ostensibly in fulfilment on the mission for
which it was dispatched, but in reality winder 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 orders to prepare formation,
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 triumphed.
What the issue would have been, independently of all the
disadvantages under which the English Commodore labored,
had the latter not been borne severely wounded to his
cabin early in the action, it is impossible to say; but
as the final defeat was owing to his two principal vessels
getting foul of each other, without being able to extricate
themselves, it is not unfair to presume that his presence
on deck would have done much to remedy the confusion
produced by the accident.
One incident only connected with this action, and in
which two individuals with whom our readers have made
partial acquaintance, were the principal performers, we
will venture to relate. It will be recollected that at
the dinner table at Colonel D'Egville's on the day of
the capture of Major Montgomerie, and his party, among
the guests were the chiefs Split-log and Walk-in-the-Water,
the former distinguished by a huge bulbous excrescence
miscalled a nose, and exquisitely slit ears that dangled
gracefully upon his shoulders, at every movement of his
Memnon-like head: the latter by his striking resemblance
to the puritans of the days of the Commonwealth. Now it
so happened that Messieurs Split-log and Walk-in-the-water
were filled with an unconquerable desire to distinguish
themselves at sea, as they had often done on terra firma,
and they accordingly proffered their services in the
forth-coming struggle. We hope we shall not be considered
as detracting in the slightest degree from the courage
of these chiefs, when we state that the position chosen
by them on board the Commodore's ship, was one where they
apprehended the least danger to themselves--namely in
the tops; for although an Indian will scorn to shrink
from a rifle bullet or tomahawk, it by no means enters
into his code of bravery that he is to submit himself to
the terrible ordeal of being battered to a jelly by a
huge globe of solid iron. With, an alertness not common
to the habits and corpulence of these celebrated chiefs,
and fully calculating on exemption from danger while they
plied their rifles successfully themselves, they ascended
to the main top long before the action commenced. But
they had counted without their host, for no sooner did
the enemy begin to suffer from their fire, and perceive
the quarter whence it came, when a swivel gun, loaded
with grape, was brought to hear upon the point where they
lay concealed. They had provided themselves with a breast
work against small arms, but no breast work could resist
the shower of iron hail that was directed towards them;
and in proportion as the splinters and shot flew about
their ears, so did their desire to distinguish themselves
oze forth from the palms of Messrs. Split-log and
Walk-in-the-Water; in so much so indeed that, without
waiting to descend the rigging in the usual manner, each
abandoning his rifle, slid down by the first rope on
which he could lay his hands; nor stayed his course until
he found himself squatted, out of all reach of danger in
the lowest hold, and within the huge coils of a cable
where already lay ensconced a black bear, the pet of one
of the sailors. In this comfortable hiding place were
Messrs Split-log and Walk-in-the-Water found, when at
the close of the action they became, in common with those
with whose fortunes they had identified themselves,
prisoners of the Americans.
The action between the adverse fleets had been witnessed
by many of the inhabitants of Amherstburg, and by the
officers of the Garrison who, at the first sounds of
conflict, had ridden along the banks of the lake to be
as near spectators of the event as the distance of the
combatants, and the thick smoke in which they speedily
became enveloped, would allow. High in hope, and strong
in the reliance they placed upon the skill and experience
of the English Commodore, each had looked forward with
confidence to the overthrow of the enemy, even with the
limited means and unequal resources placed at his disposal.
Great therefore was the disappointment of all, when after
the firing, which raged for two hours without intermission,
had finally ceased, they found the English squadron lay
a mere wreck upon the waters, and in the very act of
being towed by their more fortunate enemies into the
harbour they had but recently quitted to engage them.
But on none did the disappointment of that hour sit more
heavily than on Tecumseh. He had watched the whole conflict
with an anxious eye and a swelling heart, for he well
knew what important results to himself and kindred hung
upon the issue; but filled with enthusiastic admiration
as he was of the Naval Captain, he had believed that
personal devotedness and heroism alone were sufficient
to compensate for the absence of advantages he had heard
named, without fully comprehending either their import
or their influence upon the chances of victory. The event
painfully undeceived him, and although his generous heart
warmed with the same love for him whose valour, profitless
even though it proved, was sufficiently attested by the
shattered condition of almost every vessel of his little
Squadron, he read in the downfall of him in whose aid he
had so much confided, the annihilation of the English power
in that remote region of the Canadas, and the consequent
destruction of all his hopes of retrieving his race from
the hated thraldom of American tyranny and American
usurpation. Such was the first feeling of that noble Warrior,
but his was not a soul to despond under the infliction of
even a worse trial than that just recorded, and in proportion
as the danger and difficulty increased, so rose his energy
and his desire to surmount them.
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, were 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.
The indignation of Tecumseh, at what he conceived to be
a base and cowardly abandonment of a position which stout
hearts and willing hands might yet make available against
any force the enemy should push forward for its reduction,
was excessive and appropriately expressed. Filled with
esteem as he was for the character and courage of General
Brock, while a no less sincere admiration of the gallant
but unfortunate Commodore Barclay animated his noble and
generous heart, he could ill disguise his contempt for
the successor of the former. Little familiarized as he
was with the habits of European warfare, it could not
escape the penetrating observation of such a mind, that
the man who now proposed giving up his command without
a struggle in its defence, was the same who, at French
town, had suffered his troops to be cut to pieces, through
mere nervousness to attack with the bayonet; and who,
later at Sandusky, had through grossest neglect and
ignorance, not only lost the means of securing a certain
victory, but occasioned the most shameful waste of human
life; neither had it escaped his observation that on
almost every occasion wherein the hostile armies were
brought in contact, he who called himself a leader was
invariably a follower, and a follower at a most respectful
distance--a mode of heading an army, so differing from
Tecumseh's own view of the duties of a great chief, that
he could not understand by what perversion of the judgment
of his really brave fellows, who were erroneously called
his followers, he had been suffered to continue in his
command so long.
Under this impression of feeling towards the General, it
may readily be supposed that Tecumseh was not sparing of
his censure on the mode of proceeding which had been
suggested by that officer--nay, he even carried his
contempt and indignation so far, as to term him the coward
he believed him to be; and had this merit, that he told,
in plain and unvarnished language, what many of the
English officers most religiously believed also, although
their tongues dared not of course give utterance to the
thought. He threw additional force into his spirited and
exciting speech, by instituting a comparison between him
to whom he addressed himself, and the gallant but
unfortunate officer whose defeat had driven them to the
necessity of debating the unworthy question of flight--a
comparison which tended but to show how high the one had
been raised, how low the other had been sunk, in the
estimation of the truly brave; and concluded by a vivid
expression of his determination to remain with the warriors
and maintain the contest alone.
The animated delivery of the Warrior had communicated to
the lesser chiefs an enthusiasm of approbation that
carried them wholly beyond the bounds of the quiet and
grave demeanor, so usually distinguishing their deliberative
assemblies; and like the wild outburst of a fitful storm,
rose the clamorous yells that told how responsively the
heart of each excited chief beat to that of his great
leader. There was a moment during that wild and tumultuous
expression of the common feeling, when the British officers
looked as if they expected some more serious results of
the General's proposition than the mere utterance of the
dissatisfaction it, had created. But the apprehension
soon passed away, for a sudden and commanding movement
of the proud Tecumseh stayed the tempest his own powerful
eloquence had raised,--and the quiet and order of the
scene were restored, with a promptitude not inferior to
that with which it had been interrupted.
The result of the proceedings of the day, was a compromise
of the views of the two parties; and it was decided, that
although the defences of Amherstburg and Detroit should
be destroyed, and those forts evacuated, a final stand
should be made near the Moravian village, on the banks
of the narrow river Thames, on the line of communication
with the Niagara frontier. If the opportunity permitted,
and the Americans suffered them to remain unmolested,
fortifications were to be constructed on this spot, and
a rallying point for the numerous tribes of dispersed
Indians finally preserved.
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 frem 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 their 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 so
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 onset, 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 (we fancy we
can feel the generous pressure of his fingers even at
this remote period) 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, [Footnote: Colonel Johnson, now Vice-President of
the United States.] 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 the 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 inroads 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.