by James Laxer
The U.S. soldiers marched out of the fort as the American flag was lowered. A British sailor pulled a Union Jack out from under his coat, and it was raised to loud cheers.
General Brock sent the news of his brilliant success to General Prevost, dating his report “Detroit, August 16, 1812.”
“I hasten to apprize Your Excellency of the capture of this very important post: 2,500 troops have this day surrendered prisoners of war, and about 25 pieces of ordnance have been taken without the sacrifice of a drop of British blood,” Brock wrote. “I had not more than 700 troops, including militia, and about 600 Indians to accomplish this service. When I detail my good fortune, your excellency will be astonished.”9
Americans saw the capitulation at Detroit as an act of ignominy. Other American soldiers who had been involved in the engagement furiously and vociferously countered Hull’s case for the need to surrender the fort. Lewis Cass, colonel of the third regiment of Ohio volunteers, wrote a lengthy letter to Eustis setting out the way Hull had acted to produce “so foul a stain upon the national character.” He argued that the United States had available at Fort Detroit sufficient forces, weapons, and ammunition to make a successful stand, and that Hull had vastly exaggerated the size of the enemy he faced. “I was informed by General Hull the morning after the capitulation, that the British forces consisted of 1,800 regulars, and that he surrendered to prevent the effusion of human blood. That he magnified their regular force nearly five fold, there can be no doubt . . . Confident I am, that had the courage and conduct of the general been equal to the spirit and zeal of the troops, the event would have been as brilliant and successful as it now is disastrous and dishonourable.”10
The day after the Union Jack was raised, the British celebrated their triumph by firing a salute in front of Fort Detroit. The gun they used to mark their victory was a brass 6-pounder with a brass plaque on it. The plaque read “16 October 1777.” The gun had been captured from British General John Burgoyne’s defeated army following the Battle of Saratoga during the American War of Independence. Firing a return salute from the lake were the guns of the British ship Queen Charlotte.
Brock and Tecumseh feted their common victory with gestures of praise toward one another. The Shawnee chief told Brock that the Americans had been denying the valour of British generals, but what he had seen at this battle had removed any doubts on that score. Brock made a gift of a pair of pistols to Tecumseh and took the silk sash from his own uniform and placed it across Tecumseh’s shoulders. Tecumseh presented a decorative scarf to the general. The exchange was spontaneous. The two men had known each other so briefly and had achieved so much together in that short time.11 Tecumseh’s warriors, following the American surrender, considered the lives of the prisoners to be theirs to protect. No massacres or scalpings ensued.
Hull’s officers were in a bitter mood during the traditional surrender ceremony. The 47th U.S. Regiment and the Ohio volunteers turned over 1,900 muskets, and 1,150 weapons were surrendered by members of the Michigan militia and other units. Among the cache of weapons the British acquired were thirty-nine brass and iron cannon of various kinds, four hundred rounds of 24-pound shot, and one hundred thousand cartridges.12 The 1,606 members of the Ohio militia who laid down their weapons were paroled and allowed to return to their homes. Their names were duly placed on the roll of prisoners, meaning that they could not serve in the military again until they had been formally exchanged for British prisoners. British soldiers escorted them on the first leg of their journey home.13 General Brock also paroled the members of the Michigan militia.14
Back in York at the end of August 1812, Brock reflected on his encounter with Tecumseh and on the cause for which the Shawnee chief was fighting. In a letter to the Earl of Liverpool written on August 29, 1812, he noted, “Among the Indians whom I found at Amherstburg . . . I found some extraordinary characters . . . He who attracted most my attention was a Shawnee Chief, Tecumseh, brother to the Prophet, who for the last two years has carried on (contrary to our remonstrances) an active warfare against the United States. A more sagacious or a more gallant warrior does not, I believe, exist. He was the admiration of everyone who conversed with him. From a life of dissipation he is not only become in every respect abstemious but has likewise prevailed on all his Nation, and many other Tribes, to follow his example.”
On the war aims of Tecumseh and his warriors, Brock wrote, “They appear determined to continue the contest until they obtain the Ohio for a boundary. The United States Government is accused, and I believe justly, of having corrupted a few dissolute characters, whom they pretend to consider as Chiefs, and with whom they contracted engagements, and concluded Treaties, which they have been attempting to impose on the whole Indian Race. Their determined opposition to such fictitious and ruinous pretentions which if admitted would soon oblige the Indians to remove beyond the Mississippi is the true ground of their enmity against the Americans.”15
Brock’s reference to Tecumseh’s earlier “life of dissipation” is a theme picked up by others who have written about the Shawnee chief. Significantly, it was a view not shared by Stephen Ruddell. In his account of Tecumseh’s younger years, Ruddell wrote, “He rarely ever drank ardent spirits to excess — when inebriated he was widely different from other Indians — perfectly good humoured and free from those savage ideas which distinguished his companions.”16
During the months prior to the assault on Fort Detroit and during the brief time he spent with Tecumseh, Brock came to comprehend the politics and goals of the native confederacy. He understood they had war aims that were quite distinct from those of the British government, and he geared his military strategy to complement the goals of Britain’s native allies, calculating that it was the only way to prevail in the southwestern corner of the province.
While the victors at Detroit savoured their hour of glory, the losers suffered a different fate. General Hull and the 582 U.S. regulars who had been taken prisoner began their journey by boat to Fort Erie and then to Kingston, and from there to Montreal on foot. The arrival of the American captives in Montreal generated a carnival-like atmosphere in the city. A Montreal journalist who dubbed the spectacle “an exhibition equally novel and interesting” went on to note that “it unfortunately proved rather late in the evening for the vast concourse of spectators assembled to that gratification they so anxiously looked for. This inconvenience was, however, in great measure remedied by the illuminations of the streets through which the lines of march passed.”
The Americans were the centrepiece of the parade, which was held to cheer the inhabitants. A military band and British soldiers led the procession. Next came General Hull, who rode in a carriage alongside a British captain. Four carriages carrying wounded American officers followed. On foot came American officers and then non-commissioned officers and finally private soldiers. The Montreal journalist told readers, “The general appears to be about sixty years of age, and is a good looking man . . . He is communicative, and seems to bear his misfortunes with a degree of philosophical resignation that but few men in similar circumstances are gifted with.”17 General Hull was taken to the residence of General Prevost, the officers were housed in a hotel, and the soldiers had to make do with a British barracks.
News of the catastrophe at Detroit did not reach President James Madison for a couple of weeks. By then the president, who hated Washington’s intolerable summer weather, had left town with his wife, Dolley, to spend some time at his estate in Montpelier, Virginia, in the cooler clime of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They had arrived at Dumfries Tavern, where a messenger raced to deliver the terrible news. Madison read the missive from Eustis, which told him that Hull had surrendered Fort Detroit and its 2,500 men without firing a shot.
The following morning, he returned to the capital, where he called the second full cabinet meeting of his presidency. The fall of Detroit stiffened the spines of the members of t
he administration. The president posed two questions to the cabinet: First, should the United States undertake a swift recapture of Detroit? And a second, longer-term, strategic question: did the U.S. need to establish a viable naval force on the Great Lakes? The cabinet answered both questions in the affirmative.
Despite Madison’s injunction to the members of his administration that he did not want General Hull to be publicly pilloried until all the facts were known, the nation’s rush to judgement was already well underway. The president directed Richard Rush, his comptroller, to write a piece about the debacle at Detroit for the National Intelligencer. However, Rush failed to adhere to Madison’s instructions to be even-handed, saying of Hull, “The nation had been deceived by a gasconading booby.”
Even Dolley Madison had trouble sticking to the president’s line. “Do you not tremble with resentment at the treacherous act?” she wrote of Hull’s surrender to a friend. She did, however, add, “We must not judge the man until we are in possession of his reasons.”18
The surrender of Detroit would haunt the disgraced General Hull for the rest of his life. On January 17, 1814, in Albany, New York, he had his day in court. At the military tribunal, where he faced a court martial, Hull pleaded not guilty to the charge of treason. Hull’s officers testified that the general had spoken in a trembling voice during the brief British siege of Fort Detroit. They told the court of Hull’s dishevelled demeanour as tobacco-stained spittle dripped from his mouth.
While the twelve-member court did not find Hull’s behaviour treasonous, its members did find him guilty of neglect of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer. Two-thirds of the judges concluded that he should be executed by firing squad. Three months later, President Madison reviewed the sentence and wrote that in view of Hull’s contribution to the United States during the American Revolution, “the sentence of the court is approved, and the execution of it remitted.” Hull was allowed to return home to Massachusetts.19
Hull spent his latter years in an effort to recover his lost reputation. He wrote two books, Detroit: Defence of Brigadier General William Hull and Memoirs of the Campaign of the North Western Army of the United States, A.D. 1812. The publication of the latter in 1824 convinced at least a part of the public to view him more favourably. In the spring of 1825, a dinner was held in his honour in Boston. In June of that year, the Marquis de Lafayette visited him and declared, “We both have suffered contumely and reproach; but our characters are vindicated; let us forgive our enemies and die in Christian love and peace with all mankind.” A kindly word from this hero of the American Revolution could only help the general’s standing with his fellow countrymen. On November 29, 1825, Hull died at his home in Newton, Massachusetts.
The triumph of Tecumseh and Brock at Detroit threw the American invasion of Canada off stride. Conquering Canada would not be “a mere matter of marching,” as Thomas Jefferson had forecast. The twin victories at Detroit and at Queenston Heights a few months later were as important to the future independence of Canada as was the victory of the Americans against General Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War.‡‡ At Detroit and later at Queenston Heights, the Americans discovered that wresting Canada from the grip of the British Empire would be no easy matter. It would take two more years of bitter fighting for that lesson to sink in. And indeed, many later episodes in the relationship of Canadians with their more powerful southern neighbour would show that the lesson was a hard one to learn. The path of American expansion, it turned out, would be to the west and the southwest, and not to the north, at least militarily. In later decades, the Americans would tear off a large portion of the territory of Mexico, not British North America.
What made Tecumseh and Brock such natural allies, not merely from a personal point of view, was their approach to combat. Both were inclined to fight offensive battles, to strike quickly, and to cede as little ground as possible to the enemy. Realizing that when the Americans mobilized to their full capacity they would outnumber the native warriors, British regulars, and Canadian militia, they counted on a war of movement, in which swift attacks would disrupt the enemy, endanger his lines of supply and communication, and prevent him from assembling his superior numbers on a field of battle where he could achieve a strategic victory. Brock’s regular army, outfitted with cannon, was an ideal match for Tecumseh’s warriors, who were much more akin to a guerilla force, relying on an unexcelled knowledge of the terrain and a capacity to strike swiftly at points of their choosing.
During the battle for Detroit, Tecumseh and Brock reinforced each other’s strengths, marrying the speed and flexibility of the native force to the firepower and solidity of the British regulars. That potent combination proved lethal for the cumbersome Americans and their shaky commanders. The consequence was a victory that should not have been won.
It was on the evening of August 13 that Brock arrived at Fort Malden and met Tecumseh; three days later, the Union Jack flew over Fort Detroit. This was a moment when the fate of the continent hung in the balance. But now the brief triumph shared by Tecumseh and Brock was over. Each continued to fight the Americans, but never again together.
* * *
‡‡ An 1822 painting by John Trumbull titled The Surrender of General Burgoyne hangs in the rotunda of the United States Capitol.
Chapter 11
Death of the General
WARRIORS WHO FALL in battle appear in retrospect to have been journeying all their days to their appointed places of death. The Spartans led by King Leonidas who fell fighting the Persians are inexorably journeying to Thermopylae. No matter what part of Nelson’s career we explore, he is always en route to Trafalgar on the deck of the HMS Victory. So it is with Brock and Queenston Heights. It can scarcely be doubted that Brock was likely to die on a battlefield. He could have died at Egmont-op-Zee in 1799, when a spent bullet struck the handkerchief he wore over his cravat. If Hull hadn’t been so anxious to surrender at Detroit, it is not hard to imagine Brock leading a charge and being picked off there.
The story of Queenston Heights does not begin heroically with Brock, however. It begins in the weeks before the fall of Detroit, this time at the Niagara Frontier. Over the previous two decades, both the Americans and the British had regarded this frontier, along the gorge through which the Niagara River roared, as a crucial flashpoint in the event of a future war. In 1791, the British decided that this location at the foot of the Heights was a propitious place to locate a post. The village that consequently developed drew its name, Queenston, from the detachment of Queen’s Rangers located there. On the Heights, the British embedded an 18-pounder and a mortar in an earthwork that faced in two directions at right angles.
In 1791, the capital of Upper Canada was located at Newark, at the northern end of the river where it emptied into Lake Ontario. (In 1796, the capital was moved to the more militarily defensible position of York.) Farther upstream from Newark was Fort George, the main British military base in the region. Directly across the river from Newark was Fort Niagara, the principal base of the United States.
The Americans were determined to avenge the disaster at Fort Detroit. From Monticello, his retirement home in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s most esteemed elder statesman, wrote a letter to President Madison warning that the Americans must move quickly to put things right. “I fear that Hull’s surrender has been more than the mere loss of a year to us,” he wrote. “Besides bringing on us the whole mass of savage nations, who fear and not affection, had kept in quiet, there is a danger that in giving time to an enemy who can send reinforcements of regulars faster than we can raise them, they may strengthen Canada and Halifax beyond the assailment of our lax and divided powers.”1
To lead the assault at Niagara, the U.S. Department of War had endorsed the selection of Stephen Van Rensselaer by New York Governor Daniel Tompkins prior to the disaster at Detroit. Although he held the rank of major ge
neral of volunteers, Van Rensselaer had no military experience. His was a political appointment, pure and simple. The New York governor reasoned that by appointing a distinguished Federalist and a member of the party that was out of power in the nation’s capital, he could help heal the country’s political divisions and encourage other Federalists to back the war effort. It was hoped that the major general would receive advice from his cousin, Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, New York’s adjutant general. The colonel had seen action in 1794 at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, where Tecumseh had fought in a losing cause.
The major general travelled to Ogdensburg, a post on the St. Lawrence River. Arriving on July 16, he found the position threatened by the presence across the river of two British warships, the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Moira. Van Rensselaer’s first thought was to take offensive action, but of the four hundred militiamen assembled for the task, only sixty-three were fit for duty. The major general thought better of attacking the British, and on July 29 he and his men left Ogdensburg for the two-week journey to the Niagara River.
He set up his headquarters in Lewiston, located on the narrow, swift-flowing Niagara downstream from Niagara Falls. His task was to guard the crucial fifty-two-kilometre line from Fort Niagara in the north, on the shore of Lake Ontario, to Black Rock in the south, on the shore of Lake Erie.2 British regulars, Canadian militia, and their native allies were posted opposite him on the Canadian bank of the Niagara River.