526 Hull sends his papers, &c., by water to Detroit. 1812. hoped by the presence of two thousand soldiers, to effect the capture or destruction of the British fleet.* Nay, so blind was the War Department, that it refused to increase the number of troops to three thousand, although informed by General Hull, that that was the least number from which success could be hoped. When, therefore, Governor, now General Hull (to whom, in consideration of his revolutionary services, and his supposed knowledge of the country and the natives, the command of the army destined for the conquest of the Canadas had been confided) commenced his march from Dayton on the 1st of June, it was with means which he himself regarded as utterly inadequate to the object aimed at, a fact which sufficiently explains the conduct of his vacillating, nerveless conduct.‡ Through that whole month, he and his troops toiled on toward the Maumee, busy with their roads, bridges and blockhouses. On the 24th, advices from the Secre tary of War, dated on the 18th, came to hand, but not a word contained in them made it probable that the long-expected war would be immediately declared,§ although Col. McArthur at the same time received word from Chillicothe warning him, on the authority of Thomas Worthington, then Senator from Ohio, that before the letter reached him, the declaration would have been made public. This information McArthur laid before General Hull; and when, upon reaching the Maumee, that Commander proposed to place his baggage, stores, and sick on board a vessel, and send them by water to Detroit, the backwoodsman warned him of the danger, and refused to trust his own property on board.** Hull, however, treated the report of war as the old story which had been current through all the spring, and refused to believe it possible that the government would not give him information at the earliest moment that the measure was resolved on. He, accordingly, on the 1st of July, embarked his disabled men and most of his goods on board the Cuyahoga Packet, suffering his aid-de-camp in his carelessness to send by her even his instructions and army-roll, and then proceeded upon his way.†† The next day, July 2nd, a * Madison's Message, November 4, 1812. Hull's trial. General Porter's testimony-quoted Armstrong's Notices, i. 50. In relation to Hull's appointment, see the statement by John Johnston of Piqua. (Cist's Miscellany, ii. 298.) McAfee's History, 50 to 56. McDonald's Life of McArthur. § Hull's Defence, 7. Hull's Defence, 10. ** Ibid, 11. ++ Ibid, 16. 1812. Blunders of the Government. 527 letter of the same date with that received upon the 24th of June, reached him, and apprised him that the declaration was indeed on that day made ;* and before his astonishment was over, word was brought of the capture of his packet off Malden, with all his official papers. The conduct of the executive at this time was certainly most remarkable; having sent an insufficient force to effect a most important object, it next did all in its power to ensure the destruction of that force. On the 1st of June, Mr. Madison recommended war to the Senate ;† on the 3d of June, Mr. Calhoun reported in favor of it, and in an able manifesto set forth the reasons;‡ and on the 19th proclamation of the contest was made. Upon the day preceding, Congress having passed the needful act, the Secretary of War wrote to General Hull one letter saying nothing of the matter, and sent it by a special messenger, and a second containing the vital news, which he confided to a half organized post as far as Cleveland, and thence literally to accident.§ Nor is this all while the General of the northwestern army was thus, not uninformed merely, but actually misled, letters franked by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States bore the notice of what had been done to the British post of St. Joseph, near the northwestern shore of lake Huron; and also to Malden, which place it reached upon the 28th of June. And as if to complete the circle of folly, the misled General, through neglect,** suffered his official papers, which he owned ought never to have been out of his possession, to pass into that of the foe, and thus informed them of his purposes and his strength. That strength, however, was such, compared with their own, that no effort was made to prevent the march of the Americans to Detroit, nor to interfere with their passage across the river to Sandwich, where they established themselves on the 12th of July, preparatory to attacking Malden itself, and commencing the conquest and conversion of Upper Canada.†† And here, at once, the incapacity of Hull showed itself; by his own confession he took every step under the influence of two sets of fears; he dared not, Hull's Defence, 11, 12. American State Papers, iii. 567. † American State Papers, iii. 405. § Armstrong's Notices, i, 48.-Hull's Defence, 11. 14, 15. ¶ Armstrong's Notices, i. appendix, No. 6, p. 195. ** Hull's Defence, 17. There is no reason to think that Hull knew these papers were sent he expressly denies it. ++ McAfee, 60. 528 Hull retires to Detroit. 1812 on the one hand, act boldly for fear that his incompetent force would be all destroyed; while, on the other hand, he dared not refuse to act, for fear his militia, already uneasy, would utterly desert him.* Thus embarrassed, he proclaimed freedom and the need of submission to the Canadians;† held out inducements to the British militia to desert, and to the Indians to keep quiet, and sat still at Sandwich, striving to pacify his bloodthirsty backwoodsmen, who itched to be at Malden. To amuse his own army, and keep them from trying dangerous experiments, he found cannon needful to the assault of the British posts, and spent three weeks making carriages for five guns. While these were under way, Colonel Cass and Colonel Miller, by an attack upon the advanced parties of the enemy, demonstrated the willingness and power of their men to push their conquests, if the chance were given, but Hull refused the opportunity :|| and when at length the cannon were prepared, the ammunition placed in wagons, and the moment for assault agreed on, the General, upon hearing that a proposed attack on the Niagara frontier had not been made, and that troops from that quarter were moving westward, suddenly abandoned the enterprise, and with most of his army, on the night of the 7th of August, returned to Detroit, § having effected nothing except the destruction of all confidence in himself on the part of the whole force under his control, officers and privates. Meantime, upon the 29th of July, Colonel Proctor had reached Malden, and perceiving instantly the power which the position of that post gave him over the supplies of the army of the United States, he commenced a series of operations the object of which was to cut off the communications of Hull with Ohio, and thus not merely neutralize all active operations on his part, but starve him into surrender or force him to detail his whole army in order to keep open his way to the only point from which supplies could reach him. A proper force on lake Erie, or the capture of Malden, would have prevented this annoying and fatal mode of warfare, but the imbecility of the government and that of the General, combined to favor the plans of Proctor. Having by his measures stopped the stores on their way to Detroit, at the river Raisin, he next defeated the insufficient band of two hundred men * Hull's Defence, 42. 49, 50. + See the Proclamation, McAfee, 61. + Hull's Defence, 59, 60. See McAfee, 60, &c. § McAfee, 64, &c. See Cass' Letter of July 17, 1812, in Niles' Register, ii. 383. Hull's Defence, 70, 71. McAfee, 76, 77. ¶ Armstrong's Notices, i. 24, 25. 1812. Hull's Surrender. 529 under Van Horne, sent by Hull to escort them; and so far withstood that of five hundred under Miller,† as to cause Hull to recall the remnant of that victorious and gallant band, though it had completely routed the British and Indians.‡ By these means Proctor ainused the Americans until General Brock reached Malden, which he did upon the 13th of August, and prepared to attempt the conquest of Detroit itself. And here again occurred a most singular want of skill on the part of the Americans. In order to prevent the forces in Upper Canada from being combined against Hull, General Dearborn had been ordered to make a diversion in his favor at Niagara and Kingston;§ but in place of doing this, he made an armistice with the British commanders, which enabled them to turn their attention entirely to the more distant west, and left Hull to shift for himself. On the 14th of August, therefore, while a third party, under McArthur, was despatched by Hull, to open his communications with the river Raisin, though by a new and impracticable road, General Brock appeared at Sandwich, and began to erect batteries to protect his farther operations. These batteries Hull would not suffer any to molest, saying that if the enemy would not fire on him he would not on them; and though, when summoned to surrender upon the 15th, he absolutely refused,‡‡ yet upon the 16th, without a blow struck, the Governor and General crowned his course of indecision and unmanly fear, by surrendering the town of Detroit and territory of Michigan, together with fourteen hundred brave men longing for battle, to three hundred English soldiers, four hundred Canadian militia disguised in red coats, and a band of Indian allies.|||| For this conduct he was accused of treason and cowardice, and found guilty of the latter.§§ Nor can we doubt the justice of the sentence. However brave he may have been personally, he was as a commander a coward; and moreover, he was influenced, con See on this expedition, Armstrong's Notices, i. 26 to 30; and especially Dalliba's O Narrative. Hull sent a written order to return, while Miller and his men thought only of advancing. (Dalliba, 35.) Armstrong's Notices, i. 31, note. Ibid, i. 97. 207. Ibid, i. appendix, No. 10, p. 206. ** McAfee, 84, 85. ++ Dalliba's testimony, Hull's Trial, quoted in Armstrong's Notices, i. 33, note. # See his answer, McAfee. 86. I See terms of capitulation, McAfee, 90. §§ See charges and sentence in Hull's Trial: the charges are in Hull's Defence also. 530 Mackinac and Fort Dearborn lost. 1812 fessedly, by his fears as a father, lest his daughter and her children should fall into the hands of the Indians.* In truth his faculties seem to have been paralyzed by fear;† fear that he should fail, fear that his troops would be untrue to him, fear that the savages would spare no one if opposed with vigor, fear of some undefined and horrid evil impending. Mc'Afee accuses him of intempe rance, but no effort was made on his trial to prove this, and we have no reason to think it a true charge; but his conduct was like that of a drunken man, without sense or spirit.|| But the fall of Detroit, though the leading misfortune of this unfortunate summer, was not the only one. Word, as we have stated, had been sent through the kindness of some friend under a frank from the American Secretary of the Treasury, informing the British commander at St. Joseph, a port about forty miles from Mackinac, of the declaration of war; while Lt. Hanks, commanding the American fortress itself, received no notice from any source. The consequence was an attack upon the key of the northern lakes on the 17th of July by a force of British, Canadians and savages, numbering in all 1021; the garrison amounting to but fifty-seven effective men, felt unable to withstand so formidable a body, and to avoid the constantly threatened Indian massacre, surrendered as prisoners of war and were dismissed on parole.§ Less fortunate in its fate was the garrison of Fort Dearborn at Chicago. General Hull sent word to the commander at that fortress, (Captain Heald,) of the loss of Mackinac, and directed him to distribute his stores among the Indians, and retire to Fort Wayne. Heald proceeded to do this, but it was soon evident that the neighboring savages were not to be trusted, and he in consequence determined not to give them, what they most of all wanted, the spirit and the powder in the fortress. This they learned, and this it was, as Blackhawk asserted, which led to the catastrophe. On the 15th of August, all being ready, the troops left the fort, but before they had proceeded more than a mile and and a half, they were attack Hull's Defence, 101. + See the evidence of many officers quoted in his evidence, 179 to 210. + McAfee, 82. The British account of Hull's surrender may be found in Niles's Register, iii, 14, 33, 265 to 267. Cass' account do. 37 to 39. Hull's do. 53 to 57. Articles of Capitulation, do. 13. Various anecdotes, do. 44. § See report of Lieutenant Hanks, McAfee 71, 72. Also, British account, which makes the assailing party less, in Niles' Register, ii. 413, 425. |