Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (28 page)

From the outset he has thought of Hull as a weak old man. Now other, more sinister epithets begin to form in his mind. Cass is contemplating something very close to treason, a word he will shortly apply to his commanding officer.

His style is as blunt as his body. He has powerful arms and legs and a trunk like an ox. Nobody would call him handsome. Long, unruly hair dominates a coarse face. A later official portrait shows him scowling blackly at the artist, one hand thrust into his tunic, Napoleon-fashion. At thirty, he has the resonant voice of a frontier lawyer, toughened on the court circuit, his endurance tested by years spent on horseback on old Indian trails or on pitching flatboats in wilderness rivers, arguing and pleading in primitive courthouses where the judge, on occasion, has been known to descend from the bench to wrestle a pugnacious spectator into submission.

He is an ambitious man, Cass. He has been a member of the Ohio House, a state marshal, a brigadier-general in the militia. He
loves the military life, likes to wear splendid uniforms (his officer’s plume is the highest of any), insists on parading his men whenever the opportunity allows, believes in regular, arduous drilling. For all that he is popular, for his is the easy camaraderie of the circuit court. He mixes freely with his men, who respect him in spite of a certain humourlessness. Unlike Hull, Cass conveys an air of absolute conviction; he
knows
he is right; and the fact that Hull, in Cass’s view, is wrong drives him to distraction. In spite of his ponderous appearance he has all the nervous energy of a tomcat—not the kind of man to sit quietly by and watch the enemy preparing for an assault.

Cass’s disillusionment with Hull is shared by his fellow officers and has filtered down through the ranks. On this same day (the very day on which Wellington’s forces enter Madrid), the scout Robert Lucas is writing to a friend in Portsmouth, Ohio, in much the same vein:

“Never was there a more Patriotic army … neither was there ever an army that had it more completely in their power to have accomplished every object of their Desire than the Present, And must now be sunk into Disgrace for want of a General at their head—

“Never was there officers … more united than our Patriotic Colonels … to promote the Public good neither was there ever men of talents as they are so shamefully opposed by an imbesile or Treacherous Commander as they have been.… Would to God Either of our Colonels had the command, if they had, we might yet wipe off the foul stain that has been brought upon us.…”

The army is close to mutiny. A round robin is circulating among the troops urging that Hull be replaced by McArthur. Cass, Findlay, and McArthur meet with Miller and offer to depose Hull if he will take command. Miller refuses but agrees to unite with the others to oppose Hull and give the command to McArthur. McArthur, who has already said privately that Hull will not do, also refuses—nobody wants to bell the cat. All three turn to Cass, who agrees to write secretly to Governor Meigs of Ohio, urging him to march at once with two thousand men. The assumption is that Meigs will depose Hull.

“From causes not fit to be put on paper but which I trust I shall
live to communicate to you, this army has been reduced to a critical and alarming situation,” Cass writes. When he finishes the letter, he, McArthur, Gaylor (the Quartermaster General), and Elijah Brush of the Michigan state militia all affix their signatures to a cryptic postscript:

“Since the other side of this letter was written, new circumstances have arisen. The British force is opposite, and our situation has nearly reached its crisis. Believe all the bearer will tell you. Believe it, however it may astonish you; as much as if told by one of us. Even a c———is talked of by the———! The bearer will supply the vacancy. On you we depend.”

The missing words are “capitulation” and “commanding officer.” The signature of Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, the career officer, is conspicuously absent.

Hull by this time knows of the incipient plot against him but hesitates to arrest the ringleaders, fearing perhaps a general uprising. He has, however, the perfect excuse for ridding himself temporarily of the leading malcontents. Captain Henry Brush, still pinned down at the River Raisin, has discovered a back-door route to Detroit; it is twice as long as the river road but hidden from Fort Amherstburg. When he asks again for an escort for his supply train, Hull is only too pleased to dispatch both Cass and McArthur with 350 men for this task. They leave Detroit at noon on August 14.

The General has, of course, weakened his own garrison in spite of strong evidence that the British, now directly across the river at Sandwich, are planning an attack. What is in Hull’s mind? Has he already given up? He has in his possession a letter, intercepted from a British courier, written by Lieutenant-Colonel Procter to Captain Roberts at Michilimackinac, informing him that the British force facing Detroit is so strong that he need send no more than five thousand Indians to support it!

It is a sobering revelation. Brock and Tecumseh face Hull across the river; now at his rear he sees another horde of painted savages.

He cannot know that the letter is a fake, purposely planted by Brock and Procter, who already have an insight into his troubled
state of mind through captured documents. There are only a few hundred Indians at Mackinac, and on August 12 they are in no condition to go anywhere, being “as drunk as Ten Thousand Devils” in the words of John Askin, Jr. But Brock well knows that the threat of the Indians is as valuable as their presence and a good deal less expensive.

Many months later, when his peers sit in judgement upon him, Hull will swear to his firm belief that the British had no intention of attacking Detroit. He believes their conduct of the war will be entirely defensive. He has put himself in Prevost’s shoes but certainly not in those of Isaac Brock who, contrary to all instructions, is preparing to invade the United States.

Brock is completing the secret construction of a battery directly across from Detroit—one long eighteen-pound gun, two long twelve-pounders, and a couple of mortars—hidden for the moment behind a building and a screen of oak. Lieutenant James Dalliba of Hull’s ordnance department suspects what is going on. Dalliba, who has twenty-eight heavy guns and has constructed his own battery in the centre of town, asks Hull if he may open fire.

“Sir, if you will give permission, I will clear the enemy on the opposite shore from the lower batteries.”

Dalliba will not soon forget Hull’s reply:

“Mr. Dalliba, I will make an agreement with the enemy that if they will never fire on me I will never fire on them,” and rides off, remarking that “those who live in glass houses must take care how they throw stones.”

The following morning, to the army’s astonishment, Hull has a large marquee, striped red and blue, pitched in the centre of camp, just south of the walls of the fort. It is a measure of the army’s low morale and lack of confidence in their general that many believe Hull is in league with the British and that the coloured tent is intended as a signal.

In a barrack room, a court of inquiry under the ailing Lieutenant-Colonel Miller is investigating Porter Hanks’s surrender of Mackinac. Hanks has asked for a hearing to clear his name. But part way through the testimony an officer looking out onto the river spies
a boat crossing from the opposite shore under a white flag. Miller adjourns the hearing. It will never be reopened.

Up the bank come Brock’s two aides, Major J.B. Glegg and Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell, with a message for Hull. They are blindfolded and confined to a house in the town near the fort while Hull ponders Brock’s ultimatum:

“The force at my disposal authorizes me to require of you the immediate surrender of Fort Detroit.…”

The force at his disposal!
Brock has at most thirteen hundred men; Hull has more than two thousand. Brock is proposing to attack a fortified position with an inferior force, an adventure that Hull, in declining Amherstburg, has said would require odds of two to one.

But Brock has studied his man, knows his vulnerable spot:

“It is far from my intention to join in a war of extermination; but you must be aware that the numerous body of Indians who have attached themselves to my troops will be beyond my control the moment the contest commences.… Lieutenant-Colonel M’Donnell and major Glegg are fully authorised to conclude any arrangement that may lead to prevent the unnecessary effusion of blood.”

What Brock is threatening is a war of extermination—a bloody battle in which, if necessary, he is quite prepared to accept the slaughter of prisoners and of innocent civilians, including women and children. He is, in short, contemplating total war more than a century before the phrase comes into common use. The war is starting to escalate as all wars must; a zeal for victory clouds compassion; the end begins to justify the means.

Like other commanders, Brock salves his conscience with the excuse that he cannot control his native allies; nonetheless he is quite happy, in fact eager, to use them. It is sophistry to say they have “attached themselves” to his troops; he and his colleagues have actively and consistently enlisted their support. The Americans are equally hypocritical; they pompously upbraid the British for waging uncivilized warfare, but their own men take scalps indiscriminately. The conflict, which began so softly and civilly, is beginning to brutalize both sides. The same men who censure the Indians for
dismembering non-combatants with tomahawks are quite prepared to blow the limbs off soldiers and civilians alike with twenty-four-pound cannonballs. Though it may offer some comfort to the attacker, the range of the weapon makes little difference to its victim.

Hull mulls over Brock’s extraordinary document for more than three hours while the General’s two aides fidget behind their blindfolds. At last he summons up an answer:

“… I have no other reply than to inform you, that I am prepared to meet any force which may be at your disposal, and any consequences which may result from any exertion of it you may think proper to make.”

At about three that afternoon, Major Josiah Snelling of Miller’s 4th Infantry steps out onto the street to see the General’s son and aide, Captain Abraham Hull, heading off with his father’s reply in his pocket. The little village is alive with people running toward the fort carrying their family possessions or burying their valuables. Snelling picks up his glass and sees that the British across the river are chopping down the oaks and removing the building that masks their battery. He forms up his men, marches them through the gates of the fort, and, on Hull’s orders, mans the ramparts.

Hull’s back seems to have stiffened.

“The British have demanded the place,” he says. “If they want it they must fight for it.”

He sends a messenger to recall the party under Cass and McArthur, who have become entangled in a swamp some twenty-five miles away. The troops in Detroit, knowing their force to be superior, are astonished at what they consider the insolence of the British.

The boat carrying Brock’s aides has no sooner reached the Canadian shore than the cannonade commences. Hundreds of pounds of cast iron hurtle across the mile-wide river, tearing into walls and trees and plunging through rooftops but doing little damage. James Dalliba with his battery of seven twenty-four-pounders replies immediately to the first British volley. He stands on the ramparts until he sees the smoke and flash of the British cannon, then shouts “Down!” allowing his men to drop behind the parapet before the shot strikes.
The British are aiming directly at his battery, attempting to put it out of action.

A large pear tree near Dalliba’s battery is blocking the guns and giving the British a point to aim at. Dalliba orders a young Michigan volunteer, John Miller, to cut it down. As he is hacking away, a cannonball finishes the job for him. Miller turns and shouts across the water: “Send us another, John Bull; you can cut faster than I can!”

The artillery duel continues until well after dark. The people scramble after every burst, ducking behind doors, clinging to walls, until they become used to the flash and roar. In the doorway of a house by the river a
Canadien
stands unconcerned, puffing on his pipe, as the hot metal screams by him until a shell fragment tears the stem from his mouth. Infuriated, he seizes his musket, wades out into the river, and fires back at the British battery until his ammunition is exhausted.

A mortar shell, its fuse burning brightly, falls upon the house of Augustus Langdon on Woodward Avenue. It tears its way through the roof, continues through the upper storey and into the dining room, dropping directly upon the table around which Langdon and his family are sitting. It rips through the table, continues through the floor and into the cellar as the family dashes for safety. They are no sooner clear than the shell explodes with such power that it tears the roof away.

Hull’s brigade major, Thomas Jesup, reports that two British warships are anchored in midstream just opposite Spring Wells, two miles from the fort, and that the British appear to be collecting boats for an invasion. At sundown, Hull sends Major Snelling to Spring Wells to report on the British movements. Snelling reports that the
Queen Charlotte
is anchored in the river but can be dislodged by one of the fort’s twenty-four-pounders. Hull shakes his head, finds reasons why the gun can’t be moved. Something odd is happening to the commander. To Jesup he seems pale and very much confused.

At ten that evening the cannonade ceases. Quiet descends upon the American camp. The night is clear, the sky tinselled with stars,
the river glittering in the moonlight. At eleven, General Hull, fully clothed, his boots still laced, slumps down in the piazza of the barracks and tries to sleep. Even as he slumbers, Tecumseh and his Indians are slipping into their canoes and silently crossing to the American side.