by James Laxer
Then Brock took aim at Hull’s warning about the dire consequences that would follow if any white soldier stood side by side with a native warrior. “Be not dismayed at the unjustifiable threat of the commander of the enemy’s forces to refuse quarter, should an Indian appear in the ranks,” he declared. “The brave bands of aborigines which inhabit this colony were, like his majesty’s other subjects, punished for their zeal and fidelity, by the loss of their possessions in the late colonies, and rewarded by his majesty with lands of superior value in this province . . . The Indians feel that the soil they inherit is to them and their posterity . . . They are men, and have equal rights with all other men to defend themselves and their property when invaded.”23
After affirming the rights of the native peoples to their lands, Brock declared that the war was not just about whether Britain or the United States would rule Upper Canada — the war was a struggle for the rights of all of the subjects of the king. With this statement, Brock made common cause with the native enemies of the U.S.
On July 27, Brock met the newly elected legislative assembly at York, under circumstances dramatically different from those of his first meeting with the assembly a few months earlier. Again he pressed for amendments to the Militia Act and sought the suspension of habeas corpus. The members of the assembly did agree to amend the Militia Act to strengthen the government’s ability to insist that orders be obeyed. They also passed a measure to raise ten thousand pounds to fund the militia. But the assembly refused to revoke habeas corpus. Even under these dire circumstances, the elected members were not prepared to give the government carte blanche. It was a unique situation faced by the democratic branch of the Upper Canadian regime, and in the end the members of the assembly insisted that the government not completely abridge the rights of the subjects of the Crown in the province. Brock accused them of wasting time during an emergency.
On August 3, Brock turned to the appointed Executive Council, whose members could be expected to be more compliant, and spelled out for them the threat of the American invasion of the western corner of Upper Canada. The following day, in a letter to Prevost, he reported that the council had adjourned for deliberation. He was confident that the members would recommend the prorogation of the assembly and a proclamation declaring martial law.24
A few weeks earlier, uncertain about how to proceed on the question of martial law, Brock had sought the advice of Prevost on how far his authority extended. On July 31, the governor wrote back advising, “I believe you are authorized by the Commission under which you administer the Government of Upper Canada to declare Martial Law in the event of Invasion or Insurrection. It is therefore, for you to consider whether you can obtain anything equivalent from your Legislature.” And then he let Brock know that he had been having his own problems with his legislature: “I have not succeeded in obtaining a modification of it in Lower Canada, and must therefore upon the occurrence of either of those Calamities [invasion or insurrection], declare the Law Martial unqualified . . .”25
Despite the unease he felt dealing with politicians and acting as head of government, there was one place where Brock did feel at home — on a battlefield, where he would soon find himself.
In the first days of the war, with a foothold secured in Upper Canada, Hull had the opportunity to achieve a decisive victory for the United States. With bold moves, he could have won over much of the Upper Canadian population with the proposition that the Americans were going to win and it made sense to side with the victors. Decisiveness could also have convinced many of the native peoples who were hostile to the U.S. that they should sit on the sidelines rather than rally to a losing British cause.
This was the moment for an audacious general to take advantage of the fact that the Americans had twice as many men as the British in the immediate zone of conflict. Hull needed to strike from his base on Upper Canadian soil and seize Fort Malden, the principal British strongpoint, in a dramatic coup. Hull, however, was anything but audacious. He was the classic ditherer, so fearful of threats to his position that he threw away his opportunities.
On August 4, Porter Hanks wrote to Hull with the devastating news that he had surrendered Michilimackinac. He explained that he had been compelled to give up the post to a superior force without a shot being fired in its defence. He concluded his letter with a personal plea: “In consequence of this unfortunate affair, I beg leave, sir, to demand that a court of inquiry may be ordered to investigate all the facts connected with it; and I do further request, that the court may be specially directed to express their opinion on the merits of the case.”26 Hand-wringing combined with self-justification was to be characteristic of missives written by American commanders following their defeats in the coming months.
Shocked by the bad news from the north, Hull also grew anxious about the security of his lengthy supply lines south to Ohio. An intrepid commander would have understood that war, especially in its early phases, is highly fluid; he would have brushed aside the bad news and put off concerns about his supply lines for the moment. Capturing Fort Malden would have more than offset the problems that were beginning to immobilize Hull.
Hull’s opponents were fortunate to have a leader on their side who was anything but a ditherer. At this critical moment, Tecumseh brought his towering skills to the aid of the British, who themselves were poorly prepared to meet the American assault. At the end of June, when the Shawnee chief reached Fort Malden, news had just arrived that war had broken out. Tecumseh was immediately prepared to throw himself into the fight, although he had few warriors with him. In the days that followed, he managed to convince other native leaders and their followers not to back the Americans, and he pulled some neutral tribes off the fence to side with the British. The British quickly realized that Tecumseh was the decisive figure in determining how much military support they could receive from the native peoples. In a series of small-scale clashes with the Americans north of Fort Malden, Tecumseh showed his offensive spirit while fighting alongside the redcoats. While the battles were indecisive, the initial sense that an American victory was inevitable was quickly fading.
During the critical early weeks of the conflict, General Brock behaved as though he had nothing on his mind but the upcoming battle against the Americans. In truth, Brock and Prevost had been thinking about whether a deal might be negotiated to bring an early end to the war. They were acutely aware that one of the U.S. government’s major quarrels with Britain was the British Orders in Council directing the Royal Navy to blockade all continental ports and halt the entry of foreign ships, including U.S. vessels, unless they first landed at a British port and paid customs duties.
Having rather reluctantly led the United States into war with Great Britain, the Madison administration was also not averse to seeking ways to end the conflict. A few weeks after the declaration of war, Secretary of State James Monroe instructed the administration’s chargé d’affaires in London, Jonathan Russell, to attempt to work out a deal to end the conflict. Monroe required two concessions from the British. The first was the repeal by the British of the Orders in Council; the second was an end to the practice of impressment.
In fact, on the eve of the outbreak of the War of 1812, the British had decided to offer the Americans an olive branch by repealing the Orders in Council. Two days before the United States declared war, the Parliament at Westminster took steps to repeal the Orders, and three days after the declaration of war, they were repealed. The Americans, of course, were not aware that the British had made this conciliatory gesture.
Meanwhile, Monroe’s other demand — that impressment be stopped — had not been met. Toward the end of August 1812, when Russell outlined the American case to Britain’s foreign minister, Lord Castlereagh, he added as a further inducement that the U.S. Congress would swiftly pass legislation prohibiting the use of British seamen on American vessels, a policy that the Americans believed would end the practice of
impressment.
Castlereagh responded that he believed that the repeal of the Orders in Council gave sufficient incentive to stop the American rush to war. He rejected the impressment demand with derision. “I cannot refrain on one single point from expressing my surprise,” declared Castlereagh, “that as a condition preliminary even to a suspension of hostilities, the Government of the United States should have thought fit to demand that the British Government should desist from its ancient and accustomed practice of impressing British seamen from the merchant ships of a foreign state, simply on the assurance that a law shall hereafter be passed to prohibit the employment of British seamen in the public or commercial service of that state.” Castlereagh closed the matter by saying that his government could not “consent to suspend the exercise of a right upon which the naval strength of the empire mainly depends.”27 As far as direct negotiations between the two belligerent powers were concerned, that was that, for the time being.
Several weeks earlier, on July 31, 1812, still hopeful that a deal might be reached to bring about an early end to the war, General Prevost, writing from Quebec, alerted General Brock at Fort George that “should the intelligence which arrived yesterday by the way of Newfoundland, prove correct, a remarkable coincidence will exist in the revocation of Our Orders in Council as regards America, and the declaration of war by Congress against England, both having taken place on the same day in London and at Washington, the 17th June.”28
In a further letter, sent two days later, on August 2, and marked “private and confidential,” Prevost acquainted Brock with a communication he had received “referring to a declaration of Ministers in Parliament, relative to a proposed repeal of the Orders in Council, provided the United States Government would return to relations of amity with us.” Prevost held out the prospect to Brock that a deal might be worked out that would “induce the American Government to agree to a suspension of Hostilities as a preliminary to negotiations for Peace.”29
Hoping for an early end to the war, Prevost at once sent Colonel Edward Baynes, the adjutant general for British forces in Canada, under a flag of truce to meet with General Dearborn in Albany to propose an armistice. Dearborn was favourable to the idea, but he lacked the authority to negotiate an armistice. He was willing, nonetheless, to order his officers to limit themselves to defensive measures until he received word from the U.S. government about its wishes. As it turned out, President Madison was completely hostile to Dearborn’s proposal of an armistice. As far as the president and the members of his administration were concerned, only one of their two demands had been addressed with the repeal of the Orders in Council. And to halt the war only a few weeks after it had been declared would leave the United States looking weak and foolish.
While U.S. political leaders were preoccupied with matters of high policy, General Hull became ever more obsessed with his supply lines. He dispatched two hundred U.S. Army regulars under the command of Major Thomas Van Horne to proceed to the River Raisin south of Detroit and meet an expected supply convoy under the command of Captain Henry Brush. Van Horne’s men planned to escort Brush’s convoy back to the American base at Sandwich. A native scout discovered Van Horne’s marching route and reported it to Tecumseh. With seventy warriors, the Shawnee chief lay in wait in a wooded position beside the road and launched a surprise attack on the Americans. Having failed to send scouts ahead of his main force, Van Horne was thrown into panic by Tecumseh’s well-planned ambush. Before the Americans could disengage and escape, one hundred troops were killed.
Tecumseh’s attack took advantage of the strengths of native warriors against a European-style foe. Native forces were more mobile than those of the Americans and the British and they were less dependent on water transport. Both sides deployed native forces, the Americans much less effectively than the British. While the native warriors relied on the British or the Americans for ammunition and sometimes for food, they were far more capable of living off the land. They were also most effective fighting in the open and ambushing enemy units. Because they lacked artillery, they were less successful in sieges of forts.
Among the items Tecumseh retrieved from the shattered American force was a mailbag containing a letter from Hull to U.S. Secretary of War William Eustis, in which the general admitted that he feared being besieged by thousands of native warriors. The letter could only raise the morale of Tecumseh and his men, as well as that of the British. By the time of the assault on Van Horne’s men, Hull’s officers were growing restive under his command. Some of his Ohio officers circulated a petition “requesting the arrest and displacement of the General.”30
Hull took the news of the ambush hard. Panic was in the air. Hull decided that he had to go on the defensive at Detroit. On August 7, he ordered the evacuation of Sandwich, and his troops crossed the Detroit River. His invasion of Canada had lasted just twenty-seven days. Still preoccupied with his supply lines to the south, Hull chose Lieutenant Colonel James Miller to lead a force of six hundred men to complete the job that had eluded Van Horne.
Meanwhile, Tecumseh’s scouts kept him apprised of Miller’s slow progress, which was dangerously retarded by the unwise decision to take along heavy pieces of artillery. Cannon were immensely difficult to tow on poor roads and tracks and across open countryside. Teams of horses dragged a gun and its ammunition on a limber. This slow process stalled infantry, leaving it more vulnerable to enemy attack.
Usually, cannon were deployed on the flanks of a force of artillery. Fired at a rate of about one round per minute, their preferred use was against foot soldiers rather than against opposing cannon. There was always the risk of gunners’ being exposed to an enemy flanking attack or assaults from sharpshooters or skirmishers. When attacked from the flank, the first choice of gunners was to hitch up the horses and tow the guns and ammunition out of danger. As a last resort, if their position was likely to be taken by the enemy, they spiked their guns, disabling them by driving a nail into the touch hole.
In his pursuit of the Americans, Tecumseh was joined by ten British regulars and by militiamen under the command of Major Adam Muir. Tecumseh and his warriors lay flat on the ground, hiding themselves in tall grass to await the Americans, while Muir’s men positioned themselves on a nearby rise. The U.S. troops, advancing slowly across the plain, walked straight into the trap. When they were within range, the warriors leapt to their feet and opened fire.
In a desperate battle that lasted for two and half hours, the Americans fixed bayonets and repulsed an enemy charge. The horses used to haul the U.S. artillery pieces bolted. Muir’s men, brightly clad in red, made easy targets for the Americans, and fell back. Tecumseh and his warriors held their ground and prevented Miller from going after the retreating British. The Shawnee chief, though nicked by a bullet in the neck, fought alongside his warriors.
Eighteen Americans died in the fight, and sixty-four were wounded. Five of Muir’s men died, fourteen were wounded, and two went missing. According to the best estimate — neither the British nor the Americans made exact counts of native casualties — eleven of Tecumseh’s warriors died and six or seven were wounded. A brief episode of friendly fire increased the casualties. When the British mistook some of the warriors for Americans and fired on them, the natives returned their fire. Despite this mishap, Miller was forced to halt his march and to return to Detroit.31
The momentum of the war was shifting. What looked at the outset like a triumphal American occupation of western Upper Canada now took on the appearance of an American fortress under siege. Hull and Tecumseh had been the key actors in the first weeks of the war. Another major player was about to arrive on the scene.
Chapter 9
Two Warriors
IN EARLY AUGUST, General Isaac Brock left York with a small force. He travelled to Burlington Bay, at the western edge of Lake Ontario, and then by land to Long Point, on Lake Erie, where 40 British regulars, 260 Canadian volunteers, an
d about 60 Mohawk warriors joined him. Brock’s men commandeered all the boats they could find in the area, and in this rather ramshackle convoy they set out on the five-day passage up the lake, rowing in heavy rain to Fort Malden.1
When Brock arrived at Fort Malden to take command of a larger force and work out a plan with native allies, his presence would stiffen the spines of the men he had to rally. The general was far from vainglorious, but he was well aware of his ineffable ability to transmit spirit and energy to a body of men. He would not have described himself as charismatic, but he was exactly that. He insisted that his fitness to lead his men was a function of his rank. But he understood that there was much more to it. He knew that his unusual height made him physically imposing and that the sight of him in his scarlet uniform made soldiers confident of what they could do. For thousands of years, warriors have followed such leaders into battle, gaining strength from the sight of them. Brock drew much of his power from the ancient code of the warrior, while his scarlet uniform announced that British power was alive and well in the heart of North America.
Late on the evening of August 13, Brock’s flotilla reached Amherstburg, near Fort Malden. Native warriors fired muskets into the night air to welcome the general and the recruits he had brought with him. Brock immediately sent Matthew Elliott, who had served for decades as the British Indian agent in the region, to find Tecumseh. Elliott had two messages for the Shawnee chief. The first was to ask Tecumseh to tell his warriors to stop shooting and save their ammunition for the Americans. The second was that Brock wanted to meet Tecumseh immediately. Brock knew that Tecumseh commanded native forces that he himself could not control, forces that could well prove decisive on the battlefield over the next few days.
Tecumseh, too, was anxious to meet Brock. His opinion of British commanders was not high — he remembered the numerous occasions when the British had played a double game with the natives and the Americans — but he was ready to make up his own mind about the major general. As a show of respect, Tecumseh dressed more ornately than was his custom for the occasion. He wore a large silver medallion of George III, the long-serving British monarch who had sat on the throne since 1760, attached to a coloured wampum string around his neck. Suspended from the cartilage of his nose were three small silver crowns. He was attired in a tanned deerskin jacket and trousers of the same material, and he wore his leather moccasins decorated with dyed porcupine quills.2