Gen. 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 first 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 second, a letter of the same date of that received upon the twentyfourth of June, reached him with the intelligence that war had that day been declared. Before his astonishment was over, word was brought of the capture of his packet off Malden, with all his official papers. The latter passed into the hands of the foe, and thus informed them of his purposes and his strength. However no effort was made by the British to prevent the Americans from marching to Detroit, nor to interfere with their passage across the river to Sandwich, where they established themselves on the twelfth of July, preparatory to attacking Malden itself. "And here, at once," says Mr. Peck, in the Western Annals, "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, 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 desert him." Thus embarrassed, he proclaimed freedom to the Americans, holding out inducements to the British militia to desert, and to the Indians to keep quiet. Satisfied with this he sat still at Sandwich, endeavoring to pacify his bloodthirsty backwoodsmen, who seemed furious to attack Malden. Meanwhile Col. Cass and Col. 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 the appointed time arrived that the army was to make the assault, Hull, for some reason, returned with most of his army to Detroit, "having effected nothing except the destruction of all confidence in him on the part of the whole force under his control, officers and privates."

By this time, Col. Proctor had reached Malden, and perceiving at once 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. He stopped the stores on their way to Detroit, at the river Raisin, and defeated the insufficient band of two hundred men under Van Horn, sent by Hull to escort them. Further than this, he so far withstood a detachment of five hundred under Col. Miller as to cause Hull to recall the remnant of that victorious and gallant band, though it had completely routed both British and Indians. In this way Proctor held the Americans in check until the arrival of Gen. Brock. This officer reached Malden on the thirteenth of August, and immediately began operations for the conquest of Detroit.

On the fourteenth of August, while a party under Col. McArthur was dispatched by Hull to open communication with the river Raisin, Gen. Brock appeared at Sandwich and began to erect batteries to protect his further operations. Hull would not permit any of his men to molest these batteries, saying that if the enemy did not fire on him he would not on them, and though, when summoned to surrender on the fifteenth of August, he stoutly refused, yet, upon the sixteenth, without striking a blow, he surrendered the town of Detroit

* See Hull's Defense-Western Annals.

and territory of Michigan, together with fourteen hundred men, longing for battle, to three hundred English soldiers, four hundred Canadian militia, disguised in red coats, and a band of Tecumseh's warriors.* For this conduct he was accused of treason and cowardice, and convicted of the latter. "Nor can we doubt," says Mr. Peck, "the justice of the sentence. However brave he may have been personally, he was as a commander a coward; and moreover he was influenced, confessedly, 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 paralized by fear; fear that he should fail; fear that his troops would be unfair to him; fear that the savages would spare no one if opposed with vigor; fear of some undefined horrid evil impending."

summer.

But the fall of Detroit was not the only misfortune of this On the seventeenth of July a British force, together with Canadians and Indians, numbering in all, one thousand and twenty, attacked the American garrison at Mackinac, and the latter, 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..

*McAffee's Account-Hull's Trial-Western Annals.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHICAGO-ITS EARLY SETTLEMENT

ITS CONDITION IN 1812-ORDER FOR EVACUATION - COUNCIL WITH THE INDIANS THEIR PROMISES AND THEIR TREACHERY-THE MASSACRE-HEROISM OF WOMEN ACCOUNTS OF MRS. HELM AND OTHERS - THRILLING INCIDENTS.

WE next come to one of the saddest events in the whole narrative the massacre of Chicago. A small trading post had been established at Chicago in the period of French explorations, but no village formed; and it will be remembered that at the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, the Pottawatomies, Miamis and other nations agreed to relinquish their right to a peace of land six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago river, "where a fort formerly stood."

It

The United States erected a small fort upon the site of the present city of Chicago in 1804, called Fort Dearborn. stood in the same place where the fort was erected in 1833, but was of a different construction, having two block houses on the southern side, and on the northern side, a sally port or subterranean passage from the parade ground to the river. In 1812 the fort was garrisoned by Capt. Heald, commanding, Lieut. Helm, Ensign Ronan, Surgeon Voorhees and seventyfive men, very few of whom were effective.

The Indians in the vicinity had always manifested a friendship for the officers and soldiers of the garrison. However, the principal chiefs and braves of the Pottawatomie nation visited Fort Malden, on the Canada side, annually, received presents to a large amount, and were in alliance with Great Britain. Many Pottawatomies, Winnebagoes, Ottawas and Shawanoes were in the battle of Tippecanoe, yet the principal chiefs in the immediate vicinity were on amicable terms with the Americans at this post. Besides those persons, attached to

the garrison there was in the fort the family of Mr. Kinzie, who had been engaged in the fur trade at that spot from 1804, and a few Canadians, or engages, with their wives and children.

On the seventh of April, 1812, a band of hostile Winnebagoes attacked Mr. Lee's settlement, at a place called Hardscrabble, about four miles from Chicago, and massacred a Mr. White, and a Frenchman in his employ. Two other men escaped. For some days after this there were signs of hostile Indians, and repeated alarms at the garrison, but the whole passed off in quietness until all apprehension was dismissed. On the seventh of the following August, Winnemeg, or Catfish, a friendly Pottawattomie chief, arrived at Chicago (Fort Dearborn) bringing dispatches from Governor Hull, the commander-in-chief in the Northwest. These dispatches

announced the declaration of war between the United States and Great Britain; that General Hull, at the head of the army in the Northwest, was on his way from Fort Wayne to Detroit, and that the British had possessed themselves of Mackinac. His orders to Captain Heald, were, "to evacuate the post, if practicable, and, in that event, to distribute the property belonging to the United States, in the fort, and in the factory or agency, to the Indians in the neighborhood."*

Chief Winnemeg, after delivering his dispatches, repaired to the house of Mr. Kinzie and stated to him that he was acquainted with the purport of the communications he had brought, and begged him to ascertain if it were the intention of Captain Heald to evacuate the post. He advised strongly that such a step should not be taken, since the garrison was well supplied with ammunition, and with provisions for a six month's siege. He added that it would be far better to remain until a reinforcement could be sent to their assistance. If, however, Capt. Heald should decide on leaving the post, it should by all means be done immediately. The Pottawatomies, through whose country they must pass, being ignorant of Winnemeg's mission, a forced march might be made before the hostile Indians were prepared to interrupt them.

*Western Annals.