Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (80 page)

Yet he must do
something
, for the Indians are becoming restless. Supplies are so short that they are living mainly on bread; the traditional presents, by which the tribesmen are mollified, have not arrived. They chafe for action; without it even the best efforts of Tecumseh cannot keep them in line. Without a battle to fight, without glory and excitement, without the prospect of loot, scalps, or prisoners to ransom, the Indians will drift away to their villages and Procter’s army will be irretrievably weakened.

Procter is made uncomfortably aware that he does not command the Indians. If anything, the Indians command him; they far outnumber his own force. To a very large degree his movements are “subject to their Caprices and Prejudices.” One group is loyal to Tecumseh and his brother, the Shawnee Prophet, the other—recently arrived from the Far West—to Robert Dickson, the Red-Haired Man. Even Dickson cannot control his followers for long.

Tecumseh and the others insist on mounting a second attack on Fort Meigs. Procter believes, with good reason, that Harrison’s stronghold is too tough a nut to crack. Yet he has no choice: if he does not go on the attack he will lose his Indian allies. So Fort Meigs it must be.

Tecumseh has worked out an ingenious plan to take the fort by deception, for he, too, realizes that it cannot be captured without heavy artillery. The trick is to lure the Americans
out
of the fort and fall upon them from an ambush. To that end he proposes to stage a sham battle at some distance from the palisade. Hearing the sounds
of conflict, the Americans will believe that reinforcements are on their way to relieve the fort but are being attacked. Tecumseh’s hope is that the enemy will burst out of the fort to aid their comrades, whereupon Procter’s superior force will cut them up.

Within Fort Meigs, Brigadier-General Green Clay has been preparing for trouble. Spies and deserters have already informed him that the Indians are eager to resume the siege. He himself is bedridden with one of the several fevers that no surgeon can properly diagnose, but he keeps one-third of his force on duty at all times and orders the rest to sleep on their arms. Meanwhile he sends word to Harrison, at Lower Sandusky, that he will presently need reinforcements. If worse comes to worst, he has a suicidal plan: he will fire the magazine and blow up the fort and its occupants rather than face the hatchets and scalping knives of the tribesmen.

Procter’s army, five thousand strong, reaches the mouth of the Maumee on July 20. Clay informs Harrison at once. Harrison, who does not yet know the British intentions, responds that he will send reinforcements if needed; meanwhile, Clay is to beware of surprise. Harrison moves his own headquarters nine miles up the Sandusky to Seneca Town. From that point he can co-operate with either Fort Meigs or Fort Stephenson near Sandusky Bay, in case the attack should come at the latter point.

Procter moves up the Maumee, reaches Fort Meigs on the twenty-fifth, places his troops in a ravine on the right bank just below the fort. His cavalry is concealed in a neighbouring thicket. At the same time Tecumseh and his Indians circle around and lurk in the forest close to the road that leads to Lower Sandusky. It is along this road that Harrison’s reinforcements must come. If Clay believes they are being attacked he will surely order his men out of the cover of the stockade, expecting to catch the Indians in a trap. At least that is the Shawnee’s reasoning.

With his comrades in the 41st back on familiar ground, John Richardson waits impatiently in the concealing skirt of wood, half soaked in the clammy drizzle. Hours pass. Will the sham battle never begin? And when it does begin, will Tecumseh’s ruse work?

Finally, from the southeast comes an explosion of musket fire, desultory at first, accompanied by savage yells, then increasing in volume until, approaching the fort, it becomes one incessant roar.

Within the fort, Clay’s men hear it too, and are eager to be off to rescue their comrades. The wounded throw away their crutches, the sick abandon their bunks; but Clay restrains them. Harrison’s message about reinforcements has arrived only a short time before. Clay simply does not believe that any relief could have come so quickly—especially as Harrison was awaiting word from the fort before committing his men. Clay is convinced that the musket fire is part of a grand deception. But he has difficulty in convincing his officers and restraining his troops, who are indignant at being held back. The fortunate advent of a thunderstorm forestalls what might have been a difficult situation.

Tecumseh has failed, but the Indians are still full of fight. If they cannot take Fort Meigs they are determined to seize Fort Stephenson, the lightly held bastion just upriver from Sandusky Bay. Procter has no choice but to follow where they lead.

SENECA TOWN ON THE SANDUSKY, OHIO, JULY 29, 1813

William Henry Harrison calls a council of his officers, here at his new headquarters, nine miles up the Sandusky. The General has just learned from Clay that Procter has abandoned the attempt on Fort Meigs and may be advancing on Fort Winchester, farther up the Maumee. Harrison does not believe it; the British have nothing to gain there. He assumes, correctly, that Procter will attack Fort Stephenson.

The council of nine is unanimous. The fort, a mile or so upriver from Sandusky Bay, with its weak garrison of 160 soldiers and its huddle of wooden buildings, cannot be held against an army of five thousand. Harrison scribbles an order to the fort’s young commander, Major George Croghan:

Immediately on receiving this letter you will abandon Fort Stephenson, set fire to it and repair with your command this night to headquarters.…

It is 10
P.M
. Harrison’s messenger, John Conner, accompanied by two Indians, sets off in the dark, only to find the swamp and thickets teeming with Tecumseh’s tribesmen, who have come overland from the Maumee while Procter’s force moves by water toward Sandusky Bay. Conner loses his way and arrives at Fort Stephenson tardily, just before noon.

Croghan reads Harrison’s note and curses roundly. He has already written to a friend that he will “defend this post to the last extremity.” Now he swears that he will fight the British even though he may be the first man killed in the attack. The lateness of Harrison’s messenger gives him an excuse. He calls a council of his officers and pens an immediate reply:

Sir: I have just received yours of yesterday, 10 o’clock p.m., ordering me to destroy this place and make good my retreat, which was received too late to be carried into execution. We have determined to maintain this place and by heavens we can.

He hands the letter to Moses Wright, a veteran of Tippecanoe and Fort Meigs and the best rider in the garrison. Tecumseh’s men seem to be lurking behind every tree as Wright gallops through a hail of bullets. A ball goes through his cap, another clips his heel, his horse is mortally wounded. When he finally arrives at Harrison’s tent, his clothes are in tatters from forcing his way through the heavy brush. The General puts down his morning coffee, reads the note in anger, swears that Croghan ought to be shot immediately for insubordination, and orders him removed from command. Colonel Sam Wells with an escort of dragoons is sent to relieve him.

Wells and his escort run into an Indian ambush, fight their way out, and deliver Harrison’s blunt note, written by an assistant, to Croghan:

Sir: The General has just received your letter of this date informing him that you had thought it proper to disobey the order … delivered to you this morning. It appears that the information which
dictated this order was incorrect, and as you did not receive it in the night, as was expected, it might have been proper that you should have reported the circumstance and your situation before you proceeded to its execution. This might have been passed over; but I am directed to say to you that an officer who presumes to aver, that he has made his resolution, and that he will act in direct opposition to the orders of his General, cannot longer be entrusted with a separate command. Colonel Wells is sent to relieve you. You will deliver the command to him and repair with Colonel Ball’s squadron to this place.

Young George Croghan is not in the least abashed. He is only twenty-one, handsome and debonair, with a long aristocratic face, high forehead, and Roman nose. He comes from a line of fighting Irish. His family is both affluent and distinguished. His father has an enviable record as a Revolutionary officer. Two of his uncles on his mother’s side are famous. One, William Clark, Governor of Missouri Territory, became, with Meriwether Lewis, the first white American to cross the continent to the Pacific. The other, General George Rogers Clark, is known as the Hannibal of the West for his conquest of the country northwest of Vincennes. Croghan himself is a veteran of the Battle of Tippecanoe under Harrison who, in recommending him for a commission in the regulars, wrote that he “possesses all the courage and fire which are so necessary to form a good officer.”

Has that courage and fire caused Croghan to overstep the mark? By the time the dragoons escort him to Seneca Town, he has an ingenious explanation for his apparent flouting of orders. He has written the letter, he insists, in such a way as to deceive the enemy should it be captured—for any attempt to withdraw in daylight “would be more hazardous than to remain in the fort under all its disadvantages.”

Harrison is mollified and also half convinced by Croghan that the fort can be held. The young major has constructed two new blockhouses and topped the sixteen-foot palisade with heavy logs,
calculated to fall on the attackers. He has surrounded the entire stronghold with a ditch eight feet deep and eight feet wide. On the northwest angle of this formidable moat he has placed his only cannon, a six-pounder, and he has evacuated all the women, children, and invalids.

Croghan’s enthusiasm is catching. Harrison returns him to his command, warning that if attack seems imminent Croghan is to burn the fort and retire upriver. But Harrison, one suspects, is well aware by now that his young subordinate is reluctant to leave without a fight.

FORT STEPHENSON, OHIO, AUGUST 1, 1813

Major-General Procter’s gunboats sweep up Sandusky Bay and enter the river, pushed forward by a spanking breeze. By mid-afternoon they have landed in a cove, about a mile from the fort. Procter has Croghan outgunned. He will storm the palisades with three six-pounders and two 5½ inch howitzers. Croghan has “Old Betsey,” an ancient six-pounder left over from the Revolution—nothing more.

Procter has five hundred regulars from the 41st light infantry and some seven hundred Indians—Winnebago, Menominee, Sioux—under the legendary Robert Dickson and Matthew Elliott, the aging superintendent of the British Indian Department. Hidden in the woods between Fort Meigs and Seneca Town are Tecumseh’s followers, perhaps two thousand strong. Their presence makes retreat impossible—or so George Croghan will claim.

Harrison does not believe the fort can be held; the British outnumber the defenders seven to one. Procter, on the other hand, does not believe the fort can be taken—or so
he
will claim. Yet he has no choice but to attack. Hundreds of his native allies, disappointed by the failure to seize Fort Meigs, have already deserted him. Tecumseh has trouble holding on to his own people, many of whom are off chasing after cattle. Now Matthew Elliott, Tecumseh’s long-time comrade, ailing and so infirm he can hardly sit a horse, issues what amounts to an ultimatum on behalf of the tribesmen: unless the fort
is stormed, the British will never be able to bring another Indian into the field of battle.

Procter feels his command slipping away. He does not like the Indians nor their leaders, has never liked them. To him they have become a nuisance and a burden, consuming vast quantities of rations, refusing to take direction from their own chiefs, coming and going as they please. Yet he recognizes their proven value. Without the Indians in 1812, the British could not have held Upper Canada. Procter knows he cannot dispense with them and so agrees to Elliott’s plan. If Procter’s regulars will storm one face of the fort, Elliott promises, the Indians will storm the other.

But first, Procter decides to use a time-tested tactic: he will attempt to frighten Croghan into surrender by threatening an Indian massacre. Elliott, accompanied by Major Peter Chambers of the 41st approaches the fort under a flag of truce and is met by a young Kentucky subaltern, Edmund Shipp. The British major points out that his commander has a large number of cannon, a sizeable body of troops, and so many Indians that it will be impossible to control them once the fort is captured.

Shipp has already been told what to reply: “My commandant and the garrison are determined to defend the post to the last extremity, and bury themselves in its ruins rather than surrender it to any force whatever.”

Elliott intervenes: “You are a fine young man. I pity your situation; for God’s sake, surrender and prevent the dreadful slaughter that must follow resistance.”

“When the fort shall be taken,” Shipp retorts, “there will be none to massacre.”

As Shipp turns away, an Indian springs forward, seizes him by the coat, tries to take his sword. Elliott makes a show of aiding Shipp, expressing anxiety for his safety, perhaps to demonstrate that he cannot control his followers.

All this is too much for Croghan, watching from the ramparts.

“What does that mean?” shouts the Major. “Shipp, come in, and we will blow them all to hell.”

No sooner is Shipp back inside the palisade than Procter’s artillery opens up on the fort. Croghan replies with Old Betsey, but sparingly, to husband his ammunition, moving the six-pounder from place to place to make Procter believe he has more than one piece. Most of the British fire seems to be directed toward the pickets at the northwest angle of the fort. Croghan guesses that the main attack will come at that point. Late that night, he orders his second-in-command to move Old Betsey into a blockhouse where it can rake that portion of the ditch from behind a concealed porthole.