by Ron Carter
Major Thomas Van Horne reported to General Hull, then led his one-hundred-fifty-man detail south along the crude road the army had cut from Ohio to the fort as they came. General Hull watched them out of sight with one thought bright in his mind. Indians. What happens if Tecumseh finds them?
At the riverbank, where men were systematically loading crates of food and cannon into longboats, half a dozen wild-eyed horses reared and fought the ropes as they were being led onto the barges, terrified at leaving solid ground to step onto a shifting, rocking thing that was somehow connected to the water. Men grabbed the cheek-straps of their halters while others blindfolded the plunging animals. Then they threw the quivering horses off their feet, tied their legs together, and picked them up like a huge bundle to lay them on their sides atop the barge, still tied and blindfolded. The loading went on hour after hour, with the men shedding their tunics and wiping at the sweat that ran from their faces into their beards. They paused for midday mess and to collapse in shade wherever they could find it, then went back to the heavy labor of loading boats and barges that worked their way across the river, unloaded, and returned, time and time again.
They took their evening mess and returned to the boats for the last two crossings, to finish the long, weary day in late dusk. Tired men built their campfires on British soil and rolled into their blankets to sleep the dreamless sleep of the exhausted beneath the stars, with their tents still tied and stacked.
With smoke from the morning cookfires rising straight up in the still air, General Hull gathered his staff of officers into his tent, where they sat in canvas chairs while he faced them on his side of a small, scarred table. He spat into the spittoon and wiped his mouth and beard before he spoke.
“Gentlemen, commend the men for their performance yesterday. So far as I know we did not lose a man or a horse or any of our freight.”
He glanced at them, waiting for a grin or a smile, or any response at all. There was none, and he went on.
“We have previously detailed the assignments that will be carried out for the next several days. Specifically, Mister McArthur, you will take your men out into the local vicinity to forage for food and observe any activities that might be detrimental to our effort.”
McArthur nodded but said nothing, and Hull moved on.
“Mister Cass, you will maintain your detail here at the river. They will construct a temporary dock and maintain the longboats and intercept all traffic on the river. They will allow passage, up the river or down, only to those vessels friendly to our cause. All others will be confiscated and their crews held until it is determined what shall be done with them.”
Cass said, “Yes, sir.”
“Mister Findlay, your command will construct cannon carriages, and at least every other day a small party will approach Fort Malden to the south to be certain they are not preparing for an attack on us. Be very astute. Do not provoke a fight.”
“Yes, sir,” Findlay said quietly. “We’re prepared.”
“You all understand that it is our intent that our presence here will persuade the Canadians and the Indians that with our force near double that of General Brock at Fort Malden, we will have little trouble subduing him and then all others who oppose us. If they see us preparing for such an attack, it is possible they will desert, and perhaps even surrender without need for firing a shot.”
For a few moments Hull waited for any response, but there was none. He fumbled for a few seconds, knowing what he wanted to say but not knowing how to say it. He cleared his throat and finally asked, “Now that we are here, do any of you have any response to the plan?”
McArthur raised and dropped a hand. “When do we attack Fort Malden? The men want to know.”
Hull locked eyes with him. “That is undetermined. If the Indians and Canadians do not join the British at Fort Malden, we will attack soon. Otherwise, we will have to wait until our own reinforcements arrive. That is all I can say at this time.”
“May I tell the men that?” McArthur asked.
“You may. Is there anything else?”
The officers shook their heads.
“You are dismissed.”
The officers pushed through the tent flap and each went his own way to his command to give orders. For a long time, Hull sat in his chair with a rising knot of fear in his middle. Can those men be trusted in an emergency?—what happens if the Indians do join the British?—will they fight?
He stood and gathered his papers with his thoughts running. What is General Isaac Brock doing at Fort Malden at this minute? His patrols have reported our crossing by now—what’s in his mind?—what does he mean to do about it?—how will he strike back?
Twenty miles south, on the banks of the Detroit River, British general Isaac Brock sat at his desk facing Major Dennis Courtney. Between them was a large map of central Canada. Brock spoke.
“You’re aware our scouts reported the Americans have crossed the Detroit River. They’re camped twenty miles north of us on Canadian soil. They’re making cannon carriages and doing all they can to influence the citizenry up there against us. It’s obvious they’re getting ready to attack.”
“I know about it, sir.”
“Good. Let me tell you why you’re here. General Hull is depending on his ability to get help from both north and south.” Brock leaned forward to tap the map with a finger, and Courtney rose to lean over the desk, studying the Great Lakes intently.
“Here,” Brock said. “Right here. At the top of Lake Huron. Do you see this small island?”
“Yes, sir,” Courtney replied.
“The Americans have a fort up there. Fort Michilimackinac. Some call it Mackinac. Hull is certain that in an emergency he can bring troops from there down to here. I intend removing that possibility.”
Courtney began to smile, and Brock continued.
“You will pick two hundred men who can travel light and fast, and lead them on a forced march from here to Fort Michilimackinac. As you go, gather as many Canadians and Indians as will volunteer, and attack the fort and subdue it. That will cut off any hope General Hull and his Americans have for help from the north.”
“I understand, sir.”
Brock went on. “Right now there is an American supply train camped at the River Raisin, across the river and thirty-five miles south.”
“I know of it, sir.”
“Yesterday a detachment of American soldiers started south to escort them on into Fort Detroit.”
“I know of that, too, sir.”
“I have already sent a detachment to catch that American relief column and stop them. If we do, Hull is going to conclude that he is trapped. He can’t get help from either north or south. From there, we’ll just have to wait and see what he does. If necessary, we’ll cross the river and attack Fort Detroit.”
Courtney was beaming. “Very good, sir. Very good. When do you want me to leave?”
“As soon as you can get your men picked and supplied.”
“I can be ready by morning, sir.”
“Good. Avoid being seen by the Americans if you can.”
“I shall, sir.”
“Excellent. Carry on.”
In the black stillness of four o’clock am, the gates of Fort Malden slowly swung open and Major Dennis Courtney sat his gray horse to lead two hundred picked men out into the starry night. Each had his backpack stripped to the bare essentials and his musket and wore the crimson tunic known to every nation in the world. They moved rapidly due east, then north to pass the American camp unnoticed, then back west to cross the St. Clair River into the United States territory of Michigan. As they traveled, they sent men scouting ahead, stopping at the log cabins and the tiny villages, with a single message: Come with us! We’re going to drive the Americans from Fort Michilimackinac. Come join us!
As if by magic, armed Canadians began to appear from nowhere to fall in behind the column, eager, ready. On the third day, half a dozen buckskin-clad Indians appeared, followed by other
s in twos and threes, solemn, stone-faced, armed, some with scalps dangling from their belts. They spoke little English, but it was plain they meant to be rid of the Americans up north.
Courtney’s line of march corrected to northwest for two days, then due north in a straight line toward the northern tip of Lake Huron and Michilimackinac Island, just east of the junction of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The morning their advance scouting party sighted the shores of the huge lake, the two-hundred-man column that had left Fort Malden had grown into a one-thousand-man column, nearly half of them Indians with tomahawks in their belts and a fierce light in their eyes.
The main column caught up with their scouts by noon. Before dusk, Courtney had scouted the shoreline and knew the concentration of Americans and the location of the fort on the island and had gathered canoes and longboats for twenty miles up and down the lake. All night men cut and stripped trees and lashed cleats to the trunks for use in scaling the walls of the fort, while others silently made the crossing to the island, back and forth. In the dark before dawn the entire force was crouched in the woods facing the American fort, scaling ladders in place.
The Indians talked to each other with bird calls so authentic the British soldiers looked about to locate the birds, with Courtney waiting until his Indian scouts nodded to him that everything was in place. With the eastern sky just beginning to show a sun not yet risen, Courtney took a deep breath and broke from cover.
“All right,” he shouted. “Follow me, lads! Follow me!”
Instantly the night was filled with the battle cry of five hundred fighting men and the terrifying screams of nearly five hundred Indians, and within seconds they hit the front gates of the sleeping fort. The scaling ladders came banging against the wall, and with stunned pickets staring in stark disbelief, the first of the redcoats and Indians were over the top and on the parapets and then swarming inside the fort. Within minutes the defending Americans were waving the white flag of surrender, with their muskets on the ground and their hands in the air. Half an hour later, Courtney handed a written message to a sergeant and a picked squad of four enlisted men.
“Leave now and take this back to General Brock. It is critical that he knows we have taken this fort and that we are leaving a small detachment here to hold it while we return with the prisoners of war and about eight hundred Indians and Canadians who have joined us.”
The sergeant, still heady from the brief fight, took the document and shoved it inside his tunic. “Yes, sir.”
Within the hour the small detail was on its knees in a large, light, birchbark, Huron Indian war canoe, digging the paddles deep into the waters of Lake Huron as they sped south, one mile from the Michigan shoreline. Two days later they beached the canoe on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, six miles above the fort, and disappeared into the forest. The following morning they hailed the pickets at Fort Malden and the gates swung open. Two minutes later they were standing at attention before General Brock. They were disheveled, unshaven, in uniforms that showed days and nights of traveling fast, but their shoulders were square, their chins were sucked in, their heels were clacked together, and their eyes were bright with pride as they stared straight ahead.
“Sir,” the sergeant said, “Major Colonel Courtney wished to have this delivered to you earliest.” He drew out the document and General Brock took it eagerly. He broke the seal and read it twice before he raised his eyes back to the sergeant.
“You know the contents of this message?”
“No, sir. It was sealed.”
“It says your force took Fort Michilimackinac in less than half an hour. You had hundreds of Canadians and Indians join you.”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant could not repress a grin. “Good fight, while it lasted, sir.”
“I would like to have been there,” Brock said. A quizzical look crossed his face. “You came from Michilimackinac in three days?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How?”
“Canoe most of the way, sir. Colonel Courtney suggested you were waiting for this report.”
“I was. It’s vital. When did you eat last? Sleep?”
For a moment the sergeant pondered. “We ate yesterday morning, sir. We slept two days ago. I think.”
Brock pointed. “Take your detail to the mess hall and tell the officer in charge I said to prepare anything you want. Then go on over to the barracks and tell the officer you’re to be given bunks to sleep. Get a bath. Have the laundry clean your uniforms. You have done well, Sergeant, you and your detail.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The five-man squad turned on its heels and marched from the room.
Brock stepped back to his desk and spread a map of the area to study it, tracing roads and rivers with a finger. All right, General Hull—you’ve lost Michilimackinac to the north. Now we’ll see how matters develop here.
* * * * *
Twenty miles north, on Canadian soil just east of the Detroit River, the American cooks were setting the tripods and great black kettles on chains over cookfires to boil cabbages and turnips for evening mess when a shout came from the men assigned to control the river.
“Longboat approaching from Fort Detroit!”
Inside his tent, General Hull sat bolt upright, then listened as the call came a second time. “Longboat approaching from Fort Detroit!”
Longboat? Who is it? No one was ordered to make the crossing. He stood, clamped his tricorn on his head, and pushed the tent flap aside to walk out into the late afternoon sunlight. He strode rapidly to the makeshift dock his men had built and shaded his eyes against the western sun, studying the oncoming boat. It was thirty yards from the dock before Hull recognized Major Thomas Van Horne sitting on the middle bench. Hull met him as he stepped from the boat onto the dock. Van Horne came to attention and saluted but could not bring his eyes to meet Hull’s.
Hull stammered when he asked the fearful question. “Did you bring the column and the supplies from the River Raisin?”
Van Horne glanced about at the silent men staring at him, waiting for his answer. “Sir,” he began quietly, “this matter should be handled in your tent.”
Hull’s face went white, and he ignored Van Horne’s plea for privacy. “I’ll take your answer here and now. Did you bring them?”
Van Horne straightened and looked directly into Hull’s face. There was an edge in his voice. “No, sir. I did not. We had not yet reached them when we were surrounded and attacked by Shawnee Indians with a force far in excess of our own. We think Tecumseh led them. We took cover and formed ranks and returned fire. The battle carried into the second day, when we regrouped and broke through their lines to return to Fort Detroit. We were in a running fight with them for twenty miles before they withdrew and disappeared. There was no possibility of our reaching the supply column. We sustained thirteen casualties. My command is across the river at the fort.”
For long seconds Hull stood in shocked silence, his mind paralyzed, unable to function. Then he suddenly came to himself and looked about at the men gathered around, watching, listening, visibly shaken by one of their greatest fears.
Tecumseh! The Shawnee have gathered! How many? When do they strike us?
Only then did Hull realize why Van Horne had requested that he make his report in the privacy of Hull’s tent. Within minutes every man in camp would know that Tecumseh and his warriors had surrounded the Ohio supply column and had ambushed Van Horne’s relief force—driven them back in a running fight. What had happened to the two hundred men and the supplies south of them on the River Raisin? Did they escape? Make a run—a retreat—for Ohio? Dead? Massacred?
For several seconds the only sounds were of birds in the woods and the lapping of the river against the longboat and the dock. Then Hull said, “I will take your report in my tent.” He turned, and Van Horne followed him back up the incline to the camp, and on into Hull’s tent where both men took chairs on either side of Hull’s small table.
“Give me the d
etails,” Hull demanded.
“They caught us at dawn. Came from nowhere. Half a dozen of my men were down before we knew what was going on. For a time it was hand-to-hand before we drove them back into the woods and regrouped and took cover. We could hear them all around us, but we couldn’t see them. For most of the day it was them firing from cover and us shooting back at the musket smoke. We tried twice to form and break out of the circle, but each time they were there in numbers at least double ours. We finally broke out the second morning and made a run with them following. We lost thirteen men. Four of them we had to leave behind.”
Van Horne stopped and for several seconds looked down to study his hands, working them together, while in his mind he was seeing what Indians do to the bodies of their enemy dead. He raised his eyes. “That’s about all. Sir.”
“Did you bring back your mail pouch with my written orders in it?”
“No, sir. It was lost in the ambush. The bag and some notes I entered in a log, and a few letters written by the soldiers, and your letter to Secretary Eustis.”
“Do the British have it, then?”
Van Horne shook his head. “I don’t know. It was there. I don’t know if they found it.”
Van Horne saw the panic enter Hull’s eyes as he spoke. “Return to your command at the fort and make a written report. I will expect it by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Is there anything else, sir?”
“No. You are dismissed.”
Van Horne walked from the tent and down to the waiting longboat, aware of the men who slowed from their work and eyed him, murmuring quietly. He saw the fear in their faces and the question in their eyes.
Evening mess was finished when General Hull sent a written message to Lieutenant Colonel James Miller.