ENGLISH AND INDIAN SAVAGES.
[Illustration: INDIAN WARRIOR]
THE WINNEBAGOES, we observe, are charged by Captain Heald
with this outbreak of lawlessness.
The Pottowatomies always averred that they had nothing to do with the
great massacre, and this may be true of the tribe as a whole, but it is
well known that many of its members, as well as the Winnebagoes, had
been engaged with the Ottawas and Shawnees at the battle of Tippecanoe,
less than a year before. The English, ever since the Revolution, had
been seeking their friendship--and our injury--by giving them yearly
presents at Maiden (in Canada, near Detroit), and they placed much
foolish reliance on the red-men's help in prosecuting the war of 1812.
Foolish, because the unspeakable savage was only formidable in sneaking
hostilities against women and children, and against men unwarned and
overmatched; not in a fair fight on equal terms. In all that contest
they were simply murderously hostile. Wau-Bun gives an incident which
displays their animus. In the spring of 1812 two Indians of the Calamic
(Calumet) band came to the fort to visit Captain Heald. One of them,
Nau-non-gee, seeing Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm playing battle-door on the
parade-ground, said to the interpreter (probably John Kinzie): "The
white chief's wives are amusing themselves very much; it will not be
long before they will be hoeing in our cornfields."
The service they rendered England is such as England should blush to
receive. It was the service of inspiring terror in the hearts of the
helpless. Two days after the massacre at Chicago, the unfortunate and
execrated General Hull surrendered Detroit to the British and Indians.
Why did he do so? He had suffered no defeat. He could have crossed
the river and fought them with every prospect of victory. But could
he leave that town at the mercy of fiends who knew no mercy? He could
have given battle at Detroit itself, but the British General (Proctor)
kindly told him that if he should be compelled to assault he would not
be able to control his Indian allies. Now, in case of defeat, Hull's
army could take care of themselves, either as prisoners or fugitives;
but what might become of a thousand helpless, hapless women and
children, and the wounded men he would have on his hands? What would
have become of them? Read further on in this narrative and see!
So, in an evil hour for himself. General Hull took the merciful course,
and innocent blood was spared. The fall of Detroit was directly due
to non-military caution, a mercifulness that had nothing to do with
the hazard of civilized war and the fate of the army. The unfortunate
commander, a man of undoubted courage, a man who had served his country
through the Revolution, was tried by court-martial and condemned to
death. The sentence was not carried out in form, but in substance it
was, for he lived in obscurity, if not obloquy, and died with a stained
name which is slowly recovering its proper place.
* * * * *
Vain is it for apologists to try to shift on to local subordinates the
blame for the shameful course of Lord Liverpool's government. The same
king was (nominally) reigning who had employed these same allies only
thirty years before, George Third was on the throne through both wars;
that of the Revolution and that of 1812. English ears--such as were
sensitive to just and bitter denunciation--must still, in 1812, have
been ringing with the public outcry against the infamy of 1775-82. Even
England's own servants protested against it. Doubtless they felt, as
any gentleman must feel, that he who stays at home in personal safety
and employs base minions to do his murdering, is more contemptible than
are the minions themselves, for they at least take their lives in their
hands when they set out.
Where stand the guilty in this business? Lower than where we should
stand if we had, during our Civil War, incited the negroes to the
destruction of their masters' families, for the negro cannot be as
cruel as the Indian could not helping being. Lower than Russia would
stand if, in a war along the Afghan frontier, she should scheme for
a new Sepoy rebellion, with its ravishing and maiming of well born
English women. Such women were treated worse than even Dante's fancy
could portray, and yet not worse than were the survivors of the Chicago
Massacre.
* * * * *
In the little settlement a wild season of alarm followed the double
murder at Hardscrabble. The surviving civilians, consisting of a
few discharged soldiers and some families of half-breeds, organized
themselves for defense. They took for their stronghold the Agency House
already-mentioned as standing on the river-bank just west of the fort.
The house (as has been said) was built of logs and had porches on both
its long sides. They planked up the porches, leaving loopholes for
firing through, and set guards in proper military fashion. To quote
once more from Munsell.
As this was outside of garrison duty, it must have required a
volunteer force, organized and armed; and this seems to furnish a
clue hitherto unmarked by any historian, to explain the presence of
"twelve militia" who were mentioned by Captain Heald in his report
as having taken part in the fight of August 15th, and as having been
every one killed. No other mention of these devoted twelve exists in
any form except the grim memorandum of death at the post of duty.[Y]
Evidently they must have been organized and armed under the auspices
of the government force at this time, from the discharged soldiers
and half-breeds, and perhaps included Lee, Pettell, Burns, Russell,
etc., all of whom were probably enrolled and expected pay from the
government, albeit their claim necessarily lapsed with their own
death on that bloody day. In confirmation of this suggestion we have
Mrs. Kinzie's remark (Wau-Bun, p. 244) that Lee, his son, and all his
household, except his wife and daughter, had perished in the affray.
Also her mention of Mrs. Burns and her infant among the survivors; no
word being uttered about the husband and father.
[Y] See Mrs. Kinzie's narrative and Captain Heald's letter, hereinafter
quoted.
The Kinzies did not return to their North Side house. Mr. Kinzie
had succeeded Lalime as government interpreter, and doubtless the
garrison needed his services almost continually. There were several
slight alarms and disturbances. A night patrol fired at a prowling
red-man, and a hatchet hurled in return missed its mark and struck
a wagon-wheel. A horse-stealing raid upon the garrison stables,
failing to find the horses, was turned into an attack on the sheep,
which were all stabbed and set loose. These alarms and other things
combined to show that the quiet of the preceding days had come to an
end. The unspeakable Indian had been bribed, tempted and misled by
the miserable Englishman to take up again his cruelties; his burning,
scalping, tomahawking, knifing and mutilation of combatants and
non-combatants alike, men, women and children.
War was declared by the United States against England on June 12, 1812.
Mackinaw was taken by the British on July 16. Having Detroit to protect
and a force of British and Indians to oppose, General Hull naturally
aimed to mass his forces and abandon all indefensible outlying posts,
such as Fort Dearborn evidently was. Therefore, about August 1st, he
sent by Winnemeg, a friendly Indian, a dispatch to Captain Heald,
ordering him to evacuate the fort and to proceed to Detroit by land
with his command, leaving it to his discretion to dispose of the public
property as he might think proper.[Z] Mrs. Kinzie, in Wau-Bun, says
that the messenger arrived on August 7th, instead of the 9th which
Captain Heald names as the date of his receipt of the order, and adds
that the same letter brought news of the declaration of war (which
had taken place about two months earlier) and of the loss of the post
at Mackinaw. She also gives us a new reading of the dispatch, quite
different from that given by Captain Heald. She says the orders to
Captain Heald were "to vacate the fort if practicable, and in that
event to distribute all the United States property contained in the
fort and in the United States factory, or agency, among the Indians
in the neighborhood." This discrepancy between our two sources of
information becomes important in judging of the blame, if any,
attributable to Captain Heald for the disaster toward which all were
hastening. Guided by the ordinary rules of evidence, we must take
Captain Heald's version as the true one, and believe that the order was
peremptory, only to be disobeyed if the subordinate officer felt sure
that it would not have been given if his superior had been on the spot;
and also that the distribution of goods was, on Captain Heald's part,
a voluntary concession intended to win the favor of the Indian--the
incurable savage.
[Z] See Appendix E.
It should here be stated that there is a broad divergence--one might
say a contradiction--between the Kinzie account and the Heald account
of the occurrences of that troubled, appalling, disastrous time. Mrs.
Kinzie says that Winnemeg privately told Mr. Kinzie that the fort ought
not to be evacuated, seeing that it was well supplied with provisions
and ammunition, and advised waiting for reinforcements. Also that if
Captain Heald was to go at all, he should start at once, to get out
of the way of the hostiles by a forced march while the Indians were
dividing the spoil. (How many "forced marches" would it have taken to
make that lumbering caravan safe from pursuit by the red runners of the
wilds?) She says:
The order for evacuating the post was read next morning upon
parade. It is difficult to understand why Captain Heald, in such
an emergency, omitted the usual form of calling a council of war
with his officers. It can only be accounted for by the fact of a
want of harmonious feeling between himself and one of his junior
officers--Ensign Ronan, a high-spirited and somewhat overbearing, but
brave and generous young man.
A "council of war" between the captain and his two lieutenants and
(perhaps) the surgeon, to debate an unconditional order received from
the general commanding the division, does not strike the average reader
as an "usual form," nor does any disaffection on the part of the junior
among the officers seem likely to enter into the question, one way
or the other. But the suggestion throws a side-light on the unhappy
state of things at Fort Dearborn. It seems unquestionable that this
young ensign was not in accord with his captain, and that the Kinzies,
especially the young story-teller, Mrs. Helm (who was Mrs. Kinzie's
authority), sided with the junior--as was perhaps natural. To quote
from Munsell:
It becomes necessary here to call to mind the possible bias which
may have existed in the hearts of the narrators in handing down the
story to Mrs. Kinzie, the writer of Wau-Bun, who probably never saw
the principal actor in it, John Kinzie, behaving died two years
before her marriage with his son, John H. Kinzie. The latter was only
nine years old at the time of the massacre. His mother, however,
Mrs. Kinzie, she did know well, also his aunt, Mrs. Helm [John's
step-daughter], from whose lips the Wau-Bun account of the massacre
was taken down by her. It is quite certain that departure meant
ruin to John Kinzie; for of all the property he had accumulated
in his long, able, arduous and profitable business life, not a
handful could be carried away by land. And the event showed that he,
personally, had nothing to fear from the Indians.
Here is what Mrs. Heald says about these matters:
It is all false about any quarrel between Ronan and Captain Heald.
The ensign thought the world of the captain, and gave him a big book
with their two names written it. Among the property recovered after
the massacre was this book, which the Indians thought was the Bible.
They would pass their hands across the pages and point significantly
heavenward; but in fact the book was a dictionary and is still in
possession of the family, having been bound in buckskin to preserve
such part as has not already succumbed to the many vicissitudes.
Occasionally Indians would come and steal horses when the men were
some distance away cutting hay for the winter's supplies, and they
were apt to try to get the scalp of any white person against whom
they had any hard feeling.
Mrs. Heald recalls a particular case where a soldier, a great
stammerer, was out on picket, and from the block-house window she
saw an Indian try to get between him and the fort. To attract the
soldier's attention Captain Heald had a gun fired, and the man, when
he saw his peril, started homeward, the Indian at the same time
starting to cut him off. The soldier was the best runner, and when
the Indian called out to him some taunting expression, he looked over
his shoulder and tried to shout a retort, but his stuttering tongue
made this take so long that he came near losing his life, though at
last he got in safely.
In writing the story of the events of that eventful time, there
being but two sources of information--to some extent divergent, even
contradictory--one is tempted to print them in parallel columns and let
the reader take his choice. Each has the same degree of authenticity,
seeing that Mrs. Helm, an actor in the tragedy, told Mrs. Kinzie
the story, who gives it to us; while Mrs. Heald, also an actor (and
besides, a badly wounded sufferer), told it often to her son, the Hon.
Darius Heald, who gives it to us. But as the parallel columns might
prove more controversial than interesting, the plan I have pursued is
the presenting of undisputed facts, and, in case of controversy, the
account which seems most probable, with the adverse side when necessary.
NOTE.
The Heald story is now for the first time made a part of permanent
history. In 1891, while writing the "Story of Chicago," I learned
that Darius Heald, son of Nathan and Rebekah [Wells] Heald, was still
living; whereupon I got him to come to Chicago from his home in
Missouri, bringing all the relics and mementoes of his parents which
he could find. He came, and sat for a portrait with the relics by
his side, and his entire story was taken down in short-hand from his
own lips. The little which was available is included in my "Story of
Chicago," and the remainder I caused to be published in the Magazine
of American History. (See Appendix E.)
[Illustration: GEORGE THIRD.]