Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (24 page)

AUGUST
5, 1812. At the River aux Ecorces, on the American side of the Detroit, Robert Lucas the scout lies hidden in the bushes, waiting for the dawn, watched by unseen eyes. Two fellow rangers lie beside him along with the ranger captain McCullough, who has the dubious distinction of being the only American thus far to take an Indian scalp.

The four men lie on the left flank of an armed body sent across the river by Hull to make contact with the wagon train of supplies, which he desperately needs to feed his army. The supply train, under the command of a young Chillicothe lawyer, Captain Henry Brush, has reached the Rapids of the Maumee and is moving on to the River Raisin after a gruelling march through dense thickets and treacherous mires. But Brush does not dare continue to Detroit without an escort, for his cattle train and pack animals must pass within cannon shot of Fort Amherstburg. Hull has answered his plea by dispatching two hundred Ohio volunteers under Major Thomas Van Horne. Some of these are the same men who refused to cross the river in July; Van Horne has picked them up at Detroit along with their company commander, the recalcitrant Captain Rupes, who, astonishingly, is still in charge, having been re-elected by democratic vote after a court martial ordered him cashiered.

Dawn breaks. McCullough and his scouts rise and mount their horses, making a wide reconnaissance sweep around the detachment. They scent trouble, noting tracks on the road and trails in the grass—evidence that a party of Indians has been watching them during the night. Out on the river, a faint splish-splash penetrates the shroud of mist that hangs over the water. Oars! Hull’s army cannot remain long on Canadian soil unless its supply lines are secured. The British, who control the river, intend that this shall not be.

The detachment moves, McCullough, Robert Lucas, and Van Horne’s black servant riding out in front. Lucas continues to eye the river. Is a British force crossing over from Fort Amherstburg? The mist frustrates his view.

They ride through the Wyandot village of Maguaga. It is deserted, the houses empty. Tecumseh and Matthew Elliott have preceded them and persuaded the wavering Walk-in-the-Water to cross to British territory with his followers. Brock’s assessment has been correct: news of the victory at Michilimackinac has tipped the scales, and the tribe wants to be on the winning side.

The road forks around a corn field. Lucas and a companion take the right fork; McCullough takes the left and rides into an ambush. Lucas hears a volley of shots, but before he can reach him, the scalper is himself scalped, tomahawked, riddled with musket balls. The rear guard is in a panic, but the Indians have already vanished into the tall corn.

Shaken, the detachment moves on, leaving three corpses under a cover of bark and ignoring a Frenchman’s warning that a large force of Indians is waiting for them at Brownstown. The Americans do not trust the French settlers, some of whom are pro-British and seek to confuse them with false reports.

The war party moves in double file. Between the files, mounted men escort the mail—a packet of personal letters written by Hull’s soldiers to their families and friends, many of them critical of their general, and, more significantly, Hull’s official dispatches to Washington, revealing both his plans and his pessimism.

Brownstown village lies ahead, but Brownstown Creek must first be crossed. The only practical ford lies in a narrow defile with thick bushes on the right and fields of tall corn on the opposite bank and on the left. It is the perfect spot for an ambush; Lucas recognizes the danger and rides along the right column warning the men to see that their muskets are freshly primed. Tecumseh has recognized it, too. He and his followers are flat on their bellies directly ahead—twenty-four Shawnee and Ottawa and one white man, Matthew Elliott’s son Alexander.

As Tecumseh silently waits, the American files close up to cross the creek. Then, at a range of no more than twenty-five yards, the Indians rise out of the corn, their high-pitched war cries mingling with the explosion of their weapons. Lucas’s horse is shot, topples sideways against another wounded animal, pitches its rider onto the ground, his musket flying from his hand. Weaponless, Lucas tries with little success to rally the men. The odds are twenty to one in favour of the Americans, but the Indians are shouting so wildly that Van Horne believes himself outnumbered. It is scarcely necessary to order a retreat; his men fling down their weapons, scatter the mail, and plunge headlong back the way they came, actually outrunning their pursuers, who follow them for three miles before giving up the chase. Robert Lucas, covering the retreat as best he can, is the last man to escape.

The Battle of Brownstown, as it will be called, represents a serious setback for Hull. Van Horne has lost eighteen men killed and twenty
wounded. Some seventy are missing, many hiding in the bushes; the following day, most straggle back. Worse than the loss of seven officers is the abandoning of the mail. This will raise Brock’s spirits, for here, in letters home, is strong evidence of the discontent and illness in the ranks, of a lack of confidence in the leadership, and, even more important, Hull’s letter of August 4 to the Secretary of War, outlining the critical situation of his army, pleading for another two thousand men, and expressing his deep-seated fear of the Indians who he believes will shortly be swarming down from Mackinac Island.

At Brownstown, meanwhile, a strong detachment of the British 41st accompanied by militia and civilian volunteers under Major Adam Muir has crossed the river, too late to take part in the skirmish but prepared to frustrate any further attempt by Hull to open the supply line. The men have waited all night, unable to light a fire, shivering in the damp, without blankets or provisions. Now they are exposed to a spectacle calculated to make them shudder further.

The Indians hold a young American captive and are intent on killing him. Muir does his best to intervene, offers a barrel of rum and articles of clothing if the prisoner’s life is spared. But then a series of piercing cries issues from the forest—the funeral convoy of a young chief, Blue Jacket, the only casualty among Tecumseh’s followers. Four tribesmen carry in the body. Thomas Verchères de Boucherville, a citizen volunteer and experienced fur trader from Amherstburg, realizes there is no hope for the American, for the Indians are intent on avenging their chief. They place his corpse at the captive’s feet and he, too, seems to understand his fate.

The American turns pale, looks about him, asks in a low voice if it is possible that the English allow such acts of barbarity. The cries of the Indians drown out the response.

The oldest Potawatomi chief raises his hatchet over the prisoner; a group of Indian women draw near. At the chiefs signal, one plunges a butcher knife into the victim’s head; a second stabs him in the side while the chief dispatches him with a tomahawk. Tecumseh, who would surely have prevented the execution, is not present.

The white witnesses including Alexander Elliott (himself in Indian dress) are stunned. They feel impotent, knowing that these dark allies hold the keys to British success. Young Thomas de Boucherville, the fur trader, who will never shake the incident from his memory, puts their dilemma into words:

“We all stood around overcome by an acute sense of shame. We felt implicated in some way in this murder … and yet, under the circumstances what could we do? The life of that man undoubtedly belonged to the inhuman chief. The government had desperate need of these Indian allies. Our garrison was weak and these warriors were numerous enough to impose their will upon us. If we were to rebuke them in this crisis … they would withdraw from the conflict, and retire to their own country on the Missouri whence they had come to join us.”

De Boucherville is coming to realize what others will soon grasp—that the British are, in a subtle way, as much prisoners of the Indians as the young American whose tomahawked corpse lies stretched out before them.

SANDWICH, UPPER CANADA
, August 6, 1812. In his headquarters in François Bâby’s half-finished mansion, General Hull continues to vacillate. He has promised his impatient officers that he will attack the fort whether the artillery is ready or not. Now he has second thoughts. In Washington he allowed himself to be talked out of his original proposal: that America take steps to control the water routes. Now he himself is paying the price for that negligence. He cannot float his artillery downriver in the teeth of British gunboats. But his enemies can cross the river at will to harass his supply lines and herd Walk-in-the-Water’s Wyandot followers into Canada to reinforce Fort Amherstburg.

He seriously considers retreat but backs off after a stormy meeting with Colonel McArthur. He broods, changes his mind, calls a council of his commanders, finally agrees to adopt their plan of attacking
Fort Amherstburg. He will move against it at the head of his troops “and in whatever manner the affair may terminate, I will never reflect on you, gentlemen.”

Dazzling news!
Robert Lucas, back from the debacle at Brownstown, is exultant: the long faces of his comrades have been replaced by smiles. A wave of good cheer surges over the camp. The sick rise from their beds and seize their muskets; the wounded urge the surgeons to pronounce them fit for duty. Orders are issued for five days’ rations, three to be cooked—pork the staple fare. Ammunition and whiskey (twelve barrels) are loaded into wagons, axes, picks, and spades requisitioned, cannon placed on floating batteries. All unnecessary tents, baggage, and boats are sent back to Detroit.

Then, on the afternoon of August 7, hard on the heels of the news from Brownstown, comes an express rider with dispatches for Hull from two American commanders on the Niagara frontier. Boats loaded with British troops have been seen crossing Lake Erie and heading for Amherstburg; more British regulars accompanied by Canadian militia and Indians are en route from Niagara by boat to the fort. Since the British control the lakes, there is nothing the Americans can do to stop them.

Hull is badly rattled. What is happening? Washington’s overall strategy was to pin down the British forces on the Niagara frontier by a series of attacks that would leave Fort Amherstburg lightly held. Now the British are taking troops from Fort George and Fort Erie, leaving that frontier exposed to attack. That may be of some comfort to his colleagues on the Niagara River, but it is disastrous for Hull; it is impossible for him “to express the disappointment which this information occasioned.” What he does not know is that Prevost has sent an emissary to discuss an immediate armistice with General Henry Dearborn, the American commander-in-chief. Brock does not know this, either, but things are so quiet on the Niagara frontier that he feels justified in taking a gamble; he will reduce his forces there to a minimum in order to bolster his defence at Amherstburg and frustrate any attack by General Hull.

Both commanders—Hull at Sandwich, Brock at York—are suffering from bouts of gloom and frustration. Half blinded by the myopia of war, each believes his own position to be untenable, his adversary’s superior. Brock, thwarted by timid civilians and a lukewarm militia, expects Hull to attack his weak garrison at Fort Amherstburg at any moment. He is desperate to reinforce it but despairs of holding it against greater numbers. Hull, isolated on Canadian soil, is convinced that Brock’s combined force is not only stronger but also growing at an alarming rate.

Unlike Brock, Hull is no gambler. He feels doomed by bad fortune: the supposedly friendly Indians turning their coats and crowding into Amherstburg; the blocking of his supply train; now a fresh onslaught of fighting men. The General sees himself and his troops suddenly trapped in an unfriendly country, their backs to the river, their food running out, surrounded by Indians, facing Brock’s regulars and Tecumseh’s braves. Irresolution at last gives way to decision, but a decision tainted with panic. He must get his army back onto American soil, with the barrier of the river between him and his enemies—to Detroit at the very least, and perhaps all the way to the Maumee.

He sends again for his officers and breaks the news. It is his responsibility, and his alone, he declares, to decide the ultimate fate of the army. “Well, General,” says the swarthy McArthur, “if it is your opinion, it must be so, but I must beg leave to decline giving any further opinion as to the movements of the army.”