Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (78 page)

Within the ruined walls of the old fort, hundreds of Kentucky prisoners mill about. Underwood, exhausted, rests on the ground, his head in the lap of a fellow soldier. But the terror has not ended. A gigantic rawboned brave, face and body painted jet black, climbs on an earthen embankment and harangues the crowd in an angry voice. Some of the British who understand the Potawatomi tongue attempt to reason with him.

“Oh,
Nichee wah!”
they cry, again and again. “Oh, brother, don’t do it!”

It is useless. The Indian raises his rifle, shoots a man at the foot of the embankment, reloads, shoots another dead. Panic ripples through the crowd. The big Potawatomi leaps down, draws his tomahawk, sinks it into the head of another victim. Those closest to the attacker scramble to get away, trampling their own comrades including Underwood, who, face down and half smothered by his own gore, can hear the cracking of skulls around him. When he
extricates himself, he counts four corpses on the floor, their scalps already dangling from the Potawatomi’s belt.

A general massacre seems inevitable. The Indians are already throwing the covers off their rifle locks. Suddenly a tall warrior in fringed deerskin gallops into the fort, makes his way to the heart of the throng, climbs onto the embankment, shouting over the din. The crowd grows quiet, the Indians begin to grunt as the stranger points directly at the murderer and delivers what is clearly a dressing-down. The Potawatomi warrior scowls, shakes his head, turns on his heel, leaves. Only later do the prisoners realize that their deliverer is the celebrated Tecumseh.

Nobody can be sure what the Shawnee war chief has said for none can understand his tongue. It is well known that he abhors torture and the slaying of prisoners—has been opposed to it since his boyhood when he watched a white man slowly roasted at the stake and swore he would never again countenance such savagery. Later the story of his intervention at Fort Miami will take on the trappings of legend, for this is a man who, being larger than life, inspires myth. Some will pretend to recall that he buried his tomahawk in the head of the murderer, but that is fancy. The Shawnee does not need to indulge in violent gestures; his tongue is enough to subdue his followers.

He is Tecumseh and he is unique. After a year of warfare he has managed to hold together the fragile alliance of tribesmen entirely through the iron force of his personality. There are some this day who fancy they see in those dark features omens of despair. Some profess to see tears in the hazel eyes. Others claim that he cries out in passion, “Oh! What will become of my Indians?”—that he seeks out Procter and asks why he has not intervened, that he attacks the British general, sneering, “Begone, you are unfit to command; go and put on petticoats.”

It is possible. He has little love for Procter, whom he considers a weak commander. But none can really know what transpires between them, for, apart from Matthew Elliott of the British Indian Department, no one speaks Shawnee—and Elliott is unlikely to tell.
Elliott has seen massacres before, has in fact taken part in several; in that sense he is as savage as the Indians.

The prisoners, secure at last from further attack, are formed up in four lines to be counted. One of the Kentucky men strips off Underwood’s mud-streaked bloody garments and offers him his hunting jacket, saved from the looters. As the Indians begin to select prisoners to be taken to the villages for ransom or adoption, the younger men, who are most wanted, try to crowd into the centre of the mob, beyond reach.

Unable to struggle, the wounded Underwood is thrust to the outside. An Indian hands him a piece of meat, and the soldier is certain he intends to carry him off. He decides to act boldly, borrows the Indian’s knife, cuts the meat into pieces, offers it to his friends, saving a small bit for himself mostly as a show of politeness, for he has little appetite. When he returns the knife the Indian leaves—he was only being friendly—and Underwood sighs in relief. Shortly he will be paroled to his home in Kentucky. For him the war is over, and he can return to his fledgling law practice. Some day he will be a United States senator, a judge, a presidential elector. And always he will carry in the flesh of his back the leaden musket ball discharged from an Indian gun during the bloody battle of Fort Meigs.

OLD FORT MIAMI, OHIO, MAY 6, 1813

The day after the battle, as dusk descends, John Richardson accompanies Major Adam Muir of the British 41st on a stroll through the Indian encampment, a few hundred yards from the British tents.

A grotesque sight meets his eyes. Here are Chippewa and Menominee warriors decked out in the blue-and-gold uniforms of American officers, strutting about in unaccustomed high leather boots which force them into awkward postures. Here are others—Sioux, Winnebago, Potawatomi—wearing ruffled shirts that contrast with their dusky bodies. Behind them are tepees ornamented with saddles, bridles, rifles, daggers, swords, pistols, many intricately wrought and exquisitely designed. Mingled with these trophies are
the scalps of the Americans, half dried, dyed with vermilion, suspended from poles, swinging gently in the night breeze. Interspersed with these grisly trophies are hoops upon which portions of human skin have been stretched—a hand here, a foot there, with the nails still clinging to it—while strewn about the camp are the flayed limbs, half gnawed by packs of wild dogs that roam among the tents.

On the face of it, the plunder suggests a stupendous British victory. Here, for instance, parcelled among the tribesmen, is the personal baggage of Brigadier-General Green Clay, captured after he left his boat in the shadow of the American fort the previous morning. A general officer does not travel light. Clay’s camp kit includes a trunk, a portmanteau, flat iron, coffee mill, razor strop and box, inkstand and quills, reams of paper, three halters, shoebrushes, blacking, saddle and bridle, tortoise-shell comb and case, a box of mercurial ointment, silver spoons, mattresses and pillows, three blankets, three sheets, two towels, linen for a cot, two volumes of
M’Kenzie’s Travels
, two maps, spyglass, gold watch, brace of silver-mounted pistols, umbrella, sword, two pairs of spurs (one silver), a pair of shoes, bottle-green coat, scarlet waistcoat, blue cashmere and buff cashmere waistcoats, striped jean waistcoat, cotton pantaloons, bottle-green pantaloons, cord pantaloons, short breeches, flannel waistcoat and shirt, five white linen shirts, two check shirts, nine cravats, six chamois, two pairs of thread stockings, three pairs of thread socks, hunting shirt, hat, two pairs of gloves—all in the hands of the Indians.

Yet all this loot is deceptive. While Dudley was attacking the British batteries, Clay himself with six boatloads of Kentucky soldiers was successfully fighting his way into Fort Meigs. And though he lost his personal kit he managed to bring in all the cannonballs and ammunition. Harrison’s two sorties, timed to coincide with the attack on the guns, have both been successful. The British battery on the American side of the river has been destroyed, the Indians driven off.

Moreover, under pretence of a prisoner exchange Harrison has been able to take advantage of a brief armistice to bring in the rest
of the ammunition the defenders need so badly. A message from Procter, calling on him to surrender, is treated with disdain.

Both sides have reached a stalemate. Harrison is so exhausted from lack of sleep, so miserable from the cold and the driving rain that he has not the strength to compose a detailed account of the affair for the Secretary of War. His men, too, are worn out. The wounded lie untended in the trenches, supported on rails that barely keep their bodies above water. But the fort still stands. Procter has not been able to capture it.

Nor can he. The Indians, loaded with plunder, are drifting back to their villages with their wounded to display their prisoners and their trophies. A deputation of chiefs waits upon the British general to explain that they cannot prevent this exodus; it is the custom after every battle. Only Tecumseh and a handful of followers remain.

The citizen soldiers cannot be relied on either. Another deputation of eight officers from the 1st and 2nd Regiments of the Essex and Kent militia makes it clear that if the men are not allowed to return to their farms to sow their spring wheat and corn, “the consequence must be famine next winter.” Indeed, half the militiamen have already taken off; it is beyond the power of any commander to hold on to the rest.

The regulars are in a bad state, suffering from dysentery, ague, and fatigue as a result of wretched weather, poor food, and exhausting fighting. On top of this comes the news that Little York has fallen to the enemy—a piece of intelligence not calculated to lift the army’s morale. Procter has no choice but to raise the siege and return to Amherstburg.

Both commanders in their official reports put the best possible face on the battle, overestimating their adversary’s strength as well as his losses and minimizing their own.

Procter writes to Sir George Prevost that he believes the enemy’s casualties to have been between one thousand and twelve hundred. Harrison assures Armstrong that no more than fifty Kentuckians have been killed and that he has reason to believe that many have escaped up the river to Fort Defiance.

As a result of Procter’s report, Prevost’s General Order announces “the brilliant result of an action which took place on the banks of the Miami river … which terminated in the complete defeat of the Enemy and the capture, dispersion or destruction of 1300 Men by the Gallant division of the Army under the Command of Brig. General Procter.…”

Harrison in a similar General Order, issued about the same time, “congratulates the troops upon having completely foiled their foes and put a stop to their career of victory which has hitherto attended their Arms. He cannot find words to express his sence [sic] of the good conduct of the Troops of every description and of every corpse [sic].”

Only at the end does he temporize:

“It rarely occurs that a General has to complain of the excessive ardor of his men yet such appears always to be the case whenever the Kentucky Militia are engaged. It is indeed the sorce [sic] of all their misfortunes. They appear to think that valor alone can accomplish anything.… Such temerity although not so disgraceful is scarcely less fatal than Cowardice.…”

FOUR
The Northwest Campaign: 2
The Contest for Lake Erie

June–September, 1813

American strategy in the Northwest is to destroy the British-Indian alliance. That will secure their left flank and free thousands of troops for the main struggle farther to the east. But the Americans cannot move their army out of Fort Meigs until they control Lake Erie and the Detroit River, at present British waterways. The spring and summer of 1813 find both sides engaged in a shipbuilding contest for supremacy on the lake—the Americans at Presque Isle, the British at Amherstburg
.

ABOARD THE BRIG
CALEDONIA
, EN ROUTE FROM BUFFALO, NEW YORK, TO PRESQUE ISLE, JUNE 13, 1813

Oliver Hazard Perry, the American commodore, returning to Lake Erie after his part in the capture of Fort George, lies tossing in his bunk, a victim of what the doctors call “bilious fever.” It is a recurring malady. The invalid looks the picture of health—a tall robust naval commander, his plump cheeks framed by dark, curly sideburns. Those who encounter him are struck by the symmetry of his figure, the grace of his movements. Yet with Perry appearances are deceptive: in moments of stress he falls prey to what is virtually a chronic complaint.

For the past several weeks, the stress has been almost constant: the responsibility of constructing a new fleet from scratch, the long horseback ride along the Niagara followed by the attack on Fort George, and, most recently, a struggle to warp a small flotilla of five vessels out of their haven near Black Rock on the Niagara and on to Presque Isle on Lake Erie, where the major American warships are under construction.

It has not been easy. On Perry’s arrival at Black Rock a strong west wind made any movement impossible for a week. Finally, with the help of two hundred soldiers and several teams of oxen, his men managed to haul the boats upstream for three miles in the teeth of the gale. Now at last he is on his way, leading the flotilla in the prize brig
Caledonia
, seized from the British the preceding summer by Lieutenant Jesse Elliott.

Elliott, though junior in rank to Perry, is far better known to the American public, a national hero, awarded a sword by Congress for that daring escapade—the only victory in a string of scandalous defeats. A veteran, also, of the recent attack on York, chosen originally to command on Lake Erie, he finds himself, at thirty-one, superseded by a late arrival four years younger than himself and with less battle experience. In such circumstances only a man devoid of human flaws—and Elliott has his share—could fail to be a little jealous. And Elliott is vain, given to boasting, and not always generous with subordinates, for he likes to retain the credit for any accomplishment.