CHAPTER XXVIII.
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 (eachintensest of its kind) predominated, let us return to the scene where wefirst introduced him to the reader, and take a review of the militaryevents passing in that quarter.
After the defeat of the British columns at Sandusky, so far from anyrenewed attempts being made to interrupt the enemy in his strongholds,it became a question whether the position on the Michigan frontier couldbe much longer preserved. To the perseverance and promptitude of theAmericans, in bringing new armies into the field, we have already hadoccasion to allude; but there was another quarter in which theirstrength had insensibly gathered, until it eventually assumed an aspectthat carried apprehension to every heart. Since the loss of theirflotilla at Detroit, in the preceding year, the Americans had commencedwith vigour to equip one at Buffalo, which was intended to surpass thenaval force on Lake Erie; and so silently and cautiously had theyaccomplished this task, that it was scarcely known at Amherstburg that asquadron was in the course of preparation, when that squadron, to whichhad been added the schooner captured from Gerald Grantham the precedingautumn, suddenly appeared off the harbor, defying their enemies to thecombat. But the English vessels were in no condition to cope with sopowerful an enemy, and although many a gallant spirit burned to be ledagainst those who so evidently taunted them, the safety of the garrisonsdepended too much on the issue, for that issue to be lightly tempted.
But misfortune was now beginning to overcast the hitherto fair prospectsof the British arms in the Western District of the Canadas; and what thetaunts of an enemy, triumphing in the consciousness of a superiornumerical force, could not effect, an imperative and miserablyprovided-for necessity eventually compelled. Maintaining as they did alarge 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, theprodigal waste of which they were often guilty. Acknowledging no otherlaw than their own will, following no other line of conduct than thatsuggested by their own caprice, they had as little respect for theCanadian inhabitant as they would have entertained for that of theAmerican enemy. And hence it resulted, that if an Indian preferred apiece 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 hefound grazing on the skirt of the forest, secure the small portion hewanted, and leave the remainder to serve as carrion to the birds of preyof the country. Nay, to such an extent was this wanton spoliationcarried, that instances have repeatedly occurred wherein cattle havebeen slain and left to putrify in the sun, merely because a warriorfound it the most convenient mode by which to possess himself of apowder-horn. All this was done openly--in the broad face of day, and inthe full cognisance of the authorities; yet was there no provision madeto meet the difficulties so guilty a waste was certain eventually toentail. At length the effect began to make itself apparent, and it wasshortly after the first appearance of the American fleet that thescarcity of food began to be so severely felt as to compel the Englishsquadron, 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 therewere no guns of the description used on ship-board wherewith to arm her;but now that the occasion became imperative, all nicety was disregardedin the equipment; and guns that lately bristled from the ramparts of thefort were soon to be seen protruding their long and unequal necks fromthe ports. She was a gallant ship, notwithstanding the incongruity ofher armament, and had her brave crew possessed but the experience ofthose who are nursed on the salt waves of ocean, might have fought amore fortunate fight (a better or a braver was impossible) than she did.But in the whole of the English fleet there could not be countedthree-score able or experienced seamen; the remainder were children ofthe Canadian Lakes, warm with the desire to distinguish themselves inthe eyes of their more veteran European companions, but without theknowledge to make their enthusiasm sufficiently available. TheAmericans, on the contrary, were all sons of the ocean and equallybrave.
It was a glorious day in September, the beautiful September of Canada,when the gallant Commodore Barclay sailed with his fleet, ostensibly infulfilment of the mission for which it was dispatched, but in realityunder the firm expectation of being provoked to action by his strongerand better disciplined enemy. To say that he would have sought thatenemy, 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 andthe personal courage of the men, he was not one to shun the battle thatshould 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 effortsof his own could hold mastery; and as he gazed at his armless sleeve, hesighed for the presence of those whose agency had coupled therecollection of past victory with that mutilated proof of honorableconduct. He knew, moreover, the magnitude of the stake for which he wasthus compelled to play, and that defeat to him would be the loss of thewhole of the Western District. While the British ascendancy could bemaintained on the lake, there was little fear, lined as the forests werewith Indian warriors, that the Americans would push any considerableforce beyond the boundaries they had assigned themselves at Sandusky andon the Miami; but a victory once obtained by their fleet, there could benothing to oppose the passage of their army in vessels and boats acrossthe lake.
Such were the thoughts that filled the mind of the Commodore (in commonwith all who calmly reasoned on the subject), as he crossed the bar thatseparated 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 whenlater the hostile fleet was signalized as bearing down upon them, hegave his order to prepare for action, in the animated voice of one whofinds certain victory within his reach, and exultingly hastens to secureit.
The events of that day the page of history has already recorded, interms alike flattering to the conqueror and the conquered. Let itsuffice that the Americans fought with determined bravery, andeventually triumphed.
The result of the unlucky contest was, as had been anticipated, to opena free passage across the lake to the American armies, whose advance byland had been so repeatedly and effectually checked on former occasions,as to leave them little inclination for a renewal of an attempt in thatquarter. Now however that they could forward a fleet of boats undercover of the guns of their squadron, to the very outworks ofAmherstburg, the difficulty was at once removed; and an overwhelmingarmy of not less than ten thousand men, was speedily assembled nearSandusky, with a view to the final invasion of Amherstburg andconsequent recapture of Detroit.
Under these disheartening circumstances--the want of provisions beingdaily more and more felt by the troops and inhabitants--it becamenecessary to hold a council of war, to determine upon the course thatshould be pursued. Accordingly the whole of the chiefs and officers ofthe garrison met in the hall already described in the beginning of ournarrative, when it was proposed by General Proctor, at the conclusion ofa speech in which the increasing difficulties and privations of thegarrison were emphatically enumerated, that the fortifications should berazed to the ground, the dock yards and other public works destroyed,and the allied forces of English and Indians make the best of their wayby land to join the centre division of the army on the Niagara frontier.
This was warmly opposed by Tecumseh, but despite his eloquence andremonstrance, a few days later, and the work of destruction was enteredupon and soon completed. The little British army, scarcely exceedingeight hundred men of all arms, commenced its march at night, lighted bythe flames of the barracks which had giv
en them shelter for the lasttime. As they passed the fort of Detroit the next day, dense columns ofsmoke and flame were to be seen rising high in air, from the variouspublic edifices, affording a melancholy evidence of the destructionwhich usually tracks a retreating army. Many an American inhabitantlooked on at the work of destruction, as if he would fain have arrestedthe progress of an element which at once defaced the beauty of the town,and promised much trouble and inconvenience to those whom they knew tobe at hand, for their final deliverance from the British yoke. But thegarrison continued stern spectators of the ruin they had been compelledto effect, until the flames had attained a power which rendered thensuppression an impossibility; then and then only, did they quit thescene of conflagration, and embarking in the boats which had been keptin readiness for their transport, joined their comrades, who waited forthem on the opposite bank. The two garrisons thus united; the wholepreceded by a large body of Indians, were pushed forward to the positionwhich had been selected on the Thames, and both shores of the Detroitwere left an unresisting conquest to the Americans.
Meanwhile, these latter had not been slow in profiting by the importantadvantages which had crowned their arms on the lake. On the third dayafter the retreat of the British garrison from Amherstburg, a numerousfleet of large boats was discovered from the town pushing for Hartley'spoint, under cover of the united squadrons. Unopposed as these were,their landing was soon effected, and a few hours later the Americanstars were to be seen floating over the still smoking ruins of theBritish fortress. Emboldened by the unexpected ease with which he hadrendered himself finally master of a position long coveted, the AmericanGeneral at once resolved to follow and bring his retreating enemy toaction if possible. A force of five thousand men (fifteen hundred ofwhom were mounted rifles) was accordingly pushed forward; and so rapidand indefatigable was the march of these, that they came up with theretreating columns before they had succeeded in gaining the village, atwhich it was purposed that their final stand should be made. The anxietyof General Proctor to save the baggage waggons containing his ownpersonal effects, had been productive of the most culpable delay, and atthe moment when his little army should have been under cover ofentrenchments, and in a position which offered a variety of naturaldefensive advantages, they found themselves suddenly overtaken by theenemy in the heart of a thick wood, where, fatigued by the long andtedious march they had made under circumstances of great privation, theyhad scarcely time to form in the irregular manner permitted by theirbroken position, before they found themselves attacked with great spiritand on all sides, by a force more than quadruple their own. The resultmay easily be anticipated. Abandoned by their General, who at the veryfirst outset, drove his spurs into the flanks of his charger and fleddisgracefully from the scene of action, followed by the whole of hispersonal staff, the irregularly formed line of the little British army,was but ill prepared to make effectual resistance to the almostinvisible enemy by whom it was encompassed; and those whom the rifle hadspared, were to be seen, within an hour from the firing of the firstshot, standing conquered and disarmed, between the closing lines of thevictorious Americans.
But although the English troops (sacrificed as they must be pronouncedto have been, by their incapable leader) fell thus an easy prey to theoverwhelming force brought against them, so did not their Indian allies,supported and encouraged as these were by the presence of their belovedChieftain. It was with a sparkling eye and a glowing cheek that, just asthe English troops had halted to give unequal battle to their pursuers.Tecumseh passed along the line, expressing in animated language thedelight he felt at the forthcoming struggle, and when he had shakenhands with most of the officers he moved into the dense forest where hisfaithful bands were lying concealed, with a bounding step that provednot only how much his heart had been set upon the cast, but howcompletely he confided in the result. And who shall say what that resultmight not have been even notwithstanding the discomfiture of the Englishhad the heroic Chieftain been spared to his devoted country! But thiswas not fated to be. Early in the action he fell by the hand of adistinguished leader of the enemy, and his death carried, as it couldnot fail to do, the deepest sorrow and dismay into the hearts of hisfollowers, who although they continued the action long after his fall,and with a spirit that proved their desire to avenge the loss of theirnoble leader, it was evident, wanted the directing genius of him theymourned to sustain them in their effort. For several days after theaction did they continue to hang upon the American rear, as the armyagain retired with its prisoners upon Detroit; but each day their attackbecame feebler and feebler, announcing that their numbers were fastdispersing into the trackless region from which they had been brought,until finally not a shot was to be heard disturbing the night vigils ofthe American sentinels.
With the defeat of the British army, and the death of Tecumseh, perishedthe last hope of the Indians to sustain themselves as a people againstthe in-roads of their oppressors. Dispirited and dismayed, they retiredback upon the hunting grounds which still remained to them, and theregave way both to the deep grief with which every heart was overwhelmedat the loss of their truly great leader, and to the sad anticipationswhich the increasing gloom that clouded the horizon of their prospectsnaturally induced.
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