Union 1812 by A. J. Langguth

Author:A. J. Langguth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames

Chapter Eighteen

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

(1813)

Before Harrison could chase down Henry Proctor, he had to send a detachment to the lake’s shore to receive the 308 British prisoners that Perry’s crews had taken. They were to be marched to a detention camp at Chillicothe by a band of Pennsylvania militiamen who had invoked their right not to be sent into Canada.

On board the ships, Perry ordered the dead enlisted men sewn into their hammocks with a thirty-two-pound shot and, at sunset, sent to the bottom of the lake. Bodies of fallen British and American officers were kept aboard while Perry took the fleet to Put-in Bay and then rowed ashore. Robert Barclay could barely stand, but he insisted on attending the memorial. Perry steadied him while the Episcopal service was read and muskets fired in tribute. He promised to parole Barclay as close as possible to the British lines on Lake Ontario.

* * *

Meantime, Perry had transferred his flag to the Ariel and was allowing himself less than a week to prepare to join Harrison in battle. In his official report, Perry tried halfheartedly to exonerate the behavior of his laggardly second in command: “Of Captain Elliott, already so well-known to the government, it would almost be superfluous to speak.” He stretched a point and extolled Elliott’s bravery and judgment. But Perry knew better, and Elliott never forgave him for that knowledge.

Perry was homesick enough to ask that Secretary Jones allow him to return to Rhode Island as soon as he could be spared. But first he had to carry the American troops into a climactic battle. He brought Harrison and his staff aboard the Ariel to plan strategy and by September 20 had moved the first contingent of soldiers to Put-in Bay. Bad weather and the small size of the ships slowed their progress. For the next three days, Perry ferried more troops, including Kentuckians led by their famous governor, Isaac Shelby.

His men called Shelby “Old King Mountain” because during the Revolution he had fought a battle at that site in western Virginia. His victory had come in 1780, the year Harrison was born. Now, at sixty-three, Shelby had signed up three thousand volunteers, many of them in their teens and new to any sort of discipline. Ohio had also raised a sizeable number of militia, but they were disappointed to be sent home because Harrison had no supplies for them. His expanded army totaled fifty-five hundred men.

For two days beginning on September 25, Perry transported the army to a forward position at Middle Sister Island. Merely the sight of American vessels on the lake could now panic the British since they had no ships of their own to protect them. As Perry sailed near Amherstburg and Fort Malden, Proctor’s lieutenant colonel began preparing to evacuate the nearby town of Bare Point.

* * *

Despite recent defections, Tecumseh expected to supply the British with as many as two thousand warriors. But many of them had listened

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