The Americans Invade...Again
The evacuation from Fort Amherstburg of British General Proctor’s army, the women and children, the townspeople, the sick and dying, as well as military stores to the Thames River by wagon and scow, is more than chaotic. The same scene is taking place across the Detroit River with the evacuation of Fort Detroit. As Fort Detroit is also put to the torch, the realization sinks in that all of the territory captured by General Brock in August 1812 will revert back into American hands. As if that was not enough for General Proctor to worry about, the Natives were becoming a problem. The Ottawas and the Chippewas have sent warriors to sue for peace with Harrison. The Wyandot, Miami and even some of the Delaware tribes are thinking of following their example. Tecumseh can’t be everywhere. He admits that he is “Tired of it all.” His dream of a Native Confederacy is slipping away. He has less than a thousand Natives left when they reach the mouth of the Thames River. The Natives are following behind Proctor’s army. Proctor elects not to burn the bridges behind him, for he believes that the Natives would interpret the burning of those bridges as tantamount to abandonment by the British. Proctor chooses to dash ahead for a personal reconnaissance of the area for possible defensive sites along the Thames. He leaves Lieutenant-Colonel Warburton, his second-in-command, behind with instructions to keep everyone moving. He tells Warburton next to nothing about his plans. Perhaps he doesn’t actually have any.... His engineering officer, Captain Matthew Dixon, returns with news that Chatham and the surrounding area is not a suitable place to make a stand. Moraviatown, twenty-six miles upstream, might be more suitable. Meanwhile, General Harrison, after stopping to bury the bleached bones of his countrymen killed in the Frenchtown Massacre the previous January, hurries on to occupy Fort Amherstburg as well as Fort Detroit. At Fort Amherstburg, he welcomes the Governor
of Kentucky, Isaac Shelby, in whose honour Fort Detroit will be renamed Fort Shelby. Shelby, sixty-three years old and a veteran of the American Revolution, has brought some two thousand Kentuckians with him, each one spoiling for a fight. Harrison and Shelby confer. They can either sail along the Lake Erie shoreline to Long Point (Colonel Talbot’s command) and intercept the British on their way to the Niagara Theatre, or they can pursue them up the Thames Valley. Shelby chooses the latter route. General Hull had difficulty getting his men to cross the border; Harrison couldn’t keep them back! Harrison opts to take thirty-five hundred men with him and leave seven hundred to garrison Fort Detroit. By marching his men up to twenty-five miles a day, Harrison hopes to overtake the British. The choice of routes is a good one since Harrison’s Engineering officer, Major Simon Zelotes Watson, and his chief scout, Captain Andrew Westbrook, who joined the force from Fort Detroit, will gladly show them the way. (To be continued...)
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October 2024 Page 9
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