Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (88 page)

Unlike the aloof New Englanders or the hesitant Pennsylvanians, Kentuckians regard the invasion of Canada as a holy war, “a second revolution as important as the first,” in Johnson’s belief. It is also seen as a war of conquest: Johnson makes no bones about that. England must be driven from the New World: “I shall never die contented until I see … her territories incorporated with the United States.”

The “men of talents, property and public spirit” who flock to Johnson’s banner in unprecedented numbers—old Revolutionary soldiers, ex-Indian fighters, younger bloods raised on tales of derring-do—agree. All have made their wills, have resolved never to return to their state unless they come back as conquerors “over the butcherly murderers of their countrymen.” Robert McAfee, first captain of the first battalion, is typical. On reaching the shores of Lake Erie he foresees in his imagination huge cities and an immense trade—the richest and most important section of the Union. “It is necessary that Canada should be ours,” he writes in his journal.

Johnson and his brother, James, have fifteen hundred six-month volunteers under their command, each decked out in a blue hunting shirt with a red belt and blue pantaloons, also fringed with red. They are armed with pistols, swords, hunting knives, tomahawks, muskets, and Kentucky squirrel rifles. Their peregrinations since mid-May have been both exhausting and frustrating, for they have been herded this way and that through the wilderness for more than twelve hundred miles without once firing a shot at the enemy.

At last the action they crave seems imminent. Johnson can hardly wait to get at the “monster,” Procter. His men are no less eager as they ride toward Detroit, swimming their horses across the tributary streams, on the lookout for hostile Indians, elated by news of the British withdrawal. On the afternoon of the thirtieth they reach their objective. The entire population turns out to greet them, headed by the Governor of Kentucky himself, old Isaac Shelby, who
at Harrison’s request has brought some two thousand eager militiamen to swell the ranks of the invading army.

The tide is turning for the Americans. Johnson learns that Harrison has already occupied Amherstburg, surprised that Procter abandoned it without offering resistance. Harrison now has a force of five thousand men, including two thousand regulars. He does not expect to catch Procter because the British have commandeered every horse in the country. It is all he can do to find a broken-down pony to carry the ageing Shelby.

Harrison has one hope: that Procter will make a stand somewhere on the Thames. His “greatest apprehensions,” as he tells the Secretary of War, “arise from the belief that he will make no halt.” In that case, perhaps he ought to move his army up the north shore of Lake Erie aboard the fleet, and attack the British rear.

At dawn on the morning of September 30 he and Shelby meet in a small private room in his headquarters at Amherstburg to discuss tactics. The Governor is here at Harrison’s personal request, technically in command of all Kentucky militia.

“Why not, my dear sir, come in person?” Harrison asked him in a flattering letter. “You would not object to a command that would be nominal only. I have such confidence in your wisdom that you in fact should be ‘the guiding head and I the hand.’ ”

Harrison—a scholarly contrast to the ragtag crew of near illiterates who officer the militia—cannot resist a classical allusion:

“The situation you would be placed in is not without its parallel. Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage, did not disdain to act as a lieutenant of his younger and less experienced brother, Lucius.”

It is a shrewd move. Shelby, an old frontiersman and Revolutionary warrior, cannot resist Harrison’s honeyed pleas. He is sixty-three, paunchy and double-chinned, with close-cropped white hair. But he commands the respect of Kentuckians, who call him “Old King’s Mountain” after his memorable victory at that place in 1780 and flock to his command in double the numbers required.

Harrison wants the Governor’s opinion: the army can pursue Procter by land up the Thames Valley or it can be carried by water
to Long Point, along the lake, and march inland by the Long Point road to intercept the British.

Shelby replies that he believes Procter can be overtaken by land. With that the General calls a council of war to confirm the strategy. It opts for a land pursuit.

Harrison decides to take thirty-five hundred men with him, leaving seven hundred to garrison Detroit. Johnson’s mounted volunteers, brought over early next morning, will lead the van. The remainder of the force, whose knapsacks and blankets have been left on an island in the river, will follow.

The General has the greatest difficulty persuading any Kentuckian to stay on the American side of the Detroit River. All consider it an insult to be left behind; in the end, Harrison has to resort to a draft to keep them in Detroit. The Pennsylvania militia, on the other hand, stand on their constitutional right not to fight outside the territorial limits of the United States.

“I believe the boys are not willing to go, General,” one of their captains tells him.

“The boys, eh?” Harrison remarks sardonically. “I believe some of the officers, too, are not willing to go. Thank God I have Kentuckians enough to go without you.”

Speed is of the essence. As Shelby keeps saying: “If we desire to overtake the enemy, we must do more than he does, by early and forced marches.”

And so, at first light on October 2, as Procter dawdles, the Americans push forward, sometimes at a half run to keep up with the mounted men. Johnson asks Harrison’s permission to ride ahead in search of the British rearguard. Harrison agrees but, remembering the disaster before Fort Meigs, adds a word of caution.

“Go, Colonel, but remember discipline. The rashness of your brave Kentuckians has heretofore destroyed themselves. Be cautious, sir, as well as brave and active, as I know you all are.”

Johnson rides off with a group of volunteers. Not far from the Thames, they capture six British soldiers and learn that Procter’s army is only fifteen miles above the mouth of the Thames. It is now
nearly sunset, but when the regiment hears this, it determines to move on to Lake St. Clair. In one day Harrison’s army has marched twenty-five miles.

The troops set off again at dawn. Since only the three gunboats with the shallowest draft can ascend the winding Thames, Oliver Hazard Perry, who is eager to see action, signs on as Harrison’s aide. Harrison concludes that Procter is unaware of his swift approach, for he has not bothered to destroy any bridges to slow the American advance. Then, at the mouth of the Thames, an eagle is spotted hovering in the sky. Harrison sees it as a victory omen, especially after Perry tells him his seamen had noticed a similar omen the morning of the lake battle. The Indians, it seems, are not the only warriors who believe in signs and portents.

That afternoon, the army captures a British lieutenant and eleven dragoons. From these prisoners Harrison learns that the British have as yet no certain information of his advance.

By evening, the army is camped ten miles up the river, just four miles below Matthew Dolsen’s farm at Dover, from which the British have only just departed. It has taken Procter’s army five days to make the journey from Sandwich. Harrison has managed to cover the same ground in less than half the time.

DOLSEN’S FARM, DOVER, UPPER CANADA, OCTOBER 3, 1813

Augustus Warburton is a confused and perplexed officer. Procter’s second-in-command has no idea what he is to do because his commander has not told him. Word has reached him that the Americans are on the march a few miles downstream. His own men have reached the place where Procter decided to make a stand, but Procter has rushed up the river to Moraviantown, having apparently decided to meet the enemy there.

Now Captain William Crowther comes to Warburton with a problem. Procter has ordered him to fortify Dover; he wants to throw up a temporary battery, cut loopholes in the log buildings, dig trenches. But all the tools have been sent on to Bowles’s farm
seven miles upriver, and there are neither wagons nor boats to bring them back. Crowther is stymied.

It is too late, anyway, for Tecumseh, on the opposite bank, insists on moving three miles upstream to Chatham, at the forks. It was there that Procter originally promised to make a stand and, if necessary, lay his bones with those of the Indians. Tecumseh has not been told of any change of plans.

Nor has Warburton. His officers agree that the Indians must be conciliated. As a result, the army, which has lingered at Dolsen’s for two days, moves three miles to Chatham and halts again. Tecumseh—not Procter, not Warburton—is calling the tune.

Tecumseh is in a fury. There are no fortifications at Chatham; Procter has betrayed him! Half his force leaves, headed by Walk-in-the-Water of the senior tribe of Wyandot. Matthew Elliott’s life is threatened.

Elliott crosses the river and, in a panic, urges Warburton to stand and fight at Chatham.

“I will not, by God, sacrifice myself,” he cries, in tears.

He is a ruined man, Elliott, in every sense, and knows it. Financially, he is approaching destitution. His handsome home at Amherstburg has been gutted by the Kentuckians—the furniture broken, fences, barns, storehouses destroyed. His personal possessions are in immediate danger of capture. And his power is gone: the Indians no longer trust him. Once he was the indispensable man, his influence over the American tribes so great that the British restored him to duty after a financial scandal that would have destroyed a lesser official. Now all that has ended. The frontier days are over. The Old Northwest, which Elliott and his cronies, Simon Girty and Alexander McKee, knew when they fought beside the braves against Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne, is no more. Except for Tecumseh’s dwindling band, the native warriors have been tamed. The old hunting grounds north of the Ohio are already threatened by the onrush of white civilization. Here on the high banks of the Thames, the faltering Indian confederacy will stand or fall.

Warburton asks Elliott to tell Tecumseh that he will try to comply with Procter’s promises and make a stand on any ground of the Indian’s choosing. He has already sent two messages to Procter, warning him that the enemy is closing in and explaining that he has moved forward to Chatham. But Procter goes on to Moraviantown regardless and, after sending his wife and family off to safety at Burlington Heights, remains there for the night.

The Indians are angered at Procter’s inexplicable absence. Tecumseh’s brother, the Prophet, says he would like personally to tear off the General’s epaulettes; he is not fit to wear them. The army, too, is disturbed. Mutiny is in the air. There is talk of supplanting Procter with Warburton, but Warburton will have none of it, a decision that causes Major Adam Muir of the rearguard to remark that Procter ought to be hanged for being absent and Warburton hanged with him for refusing responsibility.

Early on the morning of October 4 (the Americans have been camped all night at Dolsen’s), Warburton gets two messages. The first, from Procter, announces that he will leave Moraviantown that day to join the troops. The second, from Tecumseh, tells him that the Indians have decided to retire to the Moravian village.

Warburton waits until ten; no Procter. Across the river he can hear shots: the Indians are skirmishing with the enemy. Just as he sets his troops in motion another message arrives from Procter, ordering him to move a few miles upriver to Bowles’s farm. The column moves slowly, impeded by the Indian women who force it to halt time after time to let them pass. At Bowles’s—the head of navigation on the river—Warburton encounters his general giving orders to destroy all the stores collected there—guns, shells, cord, cable, naval equipment. In short, the long shuttle by boat from Amherstburg, which delayed the withdrawal, has been for nothing. Two gunboats are to be scuttled in the river to hinder the American progress.

At eight that evening the forward troops reach Lemuel Sherman’s farm, some four miles from Moraviantown, and halt for the night. Here, ovens have been constructed and orders given for bread to be baked; but there is no bread, the bakers claiming that they must
look first to their families and friends. Footsore, exhausted, and half-starved, their morale at the lowest ebb, the men subsist on whatever bread they have saved from the last issue at Dolsen’s.

Tecumseh, meanwhile, has fought a rearguard action at the forks of the Thames—two frothing streams that remind him, nostalgically, of his last home, Prophetstown, where the Tippecanoe mingles its waters with those of the Wabash. In this strange northern land, hundreds of miles from his birthplace, he hungers for the familiar. His Indians tear the planks off the bridge at McGregor’s Creek and when Harrison’s forward scouts, under the veteran frontiersman William Whitley, try to cross on the sills, open fire from their hiding place in the woods beyond. Whitley, a sixty-three-year-old Indian fighter and Kentucky pioneer, has insisted on marching as a private under Harrison, accompanied by two black servants. Now he topples off the muddy timbers, falls twelve feet into the water, but manages to swim ashore, gripping his silver-mounted rifle. Major Eleazer Wood, the defender of Fort Meigs, sets up two six-pounders to drive the Indians off. The bridge is repaired in less than two hours, and the army pushes on.

That evening, Tecumseh reaches Christopher Arnold’s mill, twelve miles upriver from the forks. Arnold, a militia captain and an acquaintance from the siege of Fort Meigs, offers him dinner and a bed. He is concerned about his mill; the Indians have already burned McGregor’s. Tecumseh promises it will be spared. He sees no point in useless destruction; with the other mill gone, the white settlers must depend on this one.

In these last hours, fact mingles with myth as Tecumseh prepares for battle. Those whose paths cross his will always remember what was done, what was said, and hand it down to their sons and grandsons.

Young Johnny Toll, playing along the river bank near McGregor’s Creek, will never forget the hazel-eyed Shawnee who warned him, “Boy, run away home at once. The soldiers are coming. There is war and you might get hurt.”