Fort Detroit

“ A brave army of martyrs, over 2,000 strong, was rightabout faced, and drinking the cup of humiliation, that only men of courage can drain to the bitter dregs, this army, eager to lock bayonets with the British, was actually ordered to retreat into the shelter of Fort Detroit! ”

“ Victories elsewhere finally obliged the British to evacuate, and on the eighteenth of October, General Harrison and Commodore Perry issued a proclamation from this fort, which once more assured the people of Michigan of protection.
Passing through the test of fire and sword, Detroit has gradually progressed in all those ways which go to make up a great and prosperous city. Fulfilling her natural destiny she has become one of the most important commercial centres in the United States, and as a port of entry can boast with reason of her strength. ”

“ There was Fort Detroit which commanded all access from Lake Erie to lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. There were forts La Bœuf, Venango, and Duquesne to hold the Ohio, Fort Sandusky to hold the Sandusky river, Fort Miami at the head of the rapids on the Miami-of-the-Lakes, to hold that river, and the portage to the Wabash, and Vincennes and Kaskaskia and other posts in the Illinois country. ”

“ It withstood, like Fort Detroit, a long siege by the savages, was reinforced, the reinforcements, before reaching the fort, having given battle to, and defeated the Indians.
The Indians, disheartened by their overwhelming defeat, and despairing of success against the fort, now that it was so heavily reinforced, retired sullenly to their homes beyond the Ohio, leaving the country between it and the settlement free from their ravages. Communication being rendered safe, the fugitives were able to return to their friends, or take possession of their abandoned cabins. ”

“ French forts were placed. Fort Frontenac, first founded in 1673 by the great French governor whose name it bore, guarded, on the site of the present city of Kingston, the outlet of the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario. Fort Niagara, begun by La Salle in the winter of 1678-9, on the eastern bank of the Niagara river, near its entrance into Lake Ontario, covered the portage from that lake to Lake Erie. Fort Detroit, dating from the first years of the eighteenth century, stood by the river which carries the waters of Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie. ”

“ The fort of Detroit, as it was originally constructed by the French, stands in the middle of a common, or description of small prairie, bounded by woods, which, though now partially thinned in their outskirts, were at that period untouched by the hand of civilisation. ”

“ The sleepless garrison, worn by fatigue and ill fare, and harassed by constant petty attacks, were yet farther saddened by the news of disaster which thickened from every quarter. Of all the small posts scattered at intervals through the vast wilderness to the westward of Niagara and Fort Pitt, it soon appeared that Detroit alone had been able to sustain itself. ”

“ While these lurid clouds, charged with death and destruction, were gathering, unseen, about the heads of the adventurous pioneers, who had penetrated that beautiful region, a family of eastern settlers, named Rouse, arrived in the territory, and, disregarding the admonitions of the officers in the fort at Detroit, pushed on twenty miles farther west and planted themselves in the heart of one of those magnificent oak-openings which the Almighty seems to have designed as parks and pleasure-grounds for the sons and daughters of the forest. ”

“ The news that Fort Detroit had surrendered to the English was true. Immediately after the fall of Montreal, as already described in detail in this series, General Amherst ordered Major Robert Rogers, of Rogers' Rangers fame, to ascend the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and take possession of Detroit, Michillimackinac—now called Mackinaw—and other French strongholds which had not yet been turned over to the British. ”

“ The news from Fort Dearborn had been stirring but this from Detroit was overwhelming, both in its immensity and in the consequences it portended. The Bondies, Alagwa, and even Metea himself had come, through many years’ experience, to look upon the Americans as foes who fought to the death and who, even when conquered, took bitter toll of those who slew them. That Captain Heald and his garrison had been massacred was terrifying but not altogether amazing, for he was outnumbered and isolated. ”

“ Our interest for the present is with Pontiac. Ten days before the date fixed for the general uprising and attack, he called his warriors together some miles from the fort, and made them a fiery address which aroused them to hurricane ardor. He had chosen as the special object of their attention, Detroit itself. He was allowed to come and go unquestioned, and had used the chance to study every point connected with the fort,—every weak and strong spot. ”

“ Of the fort of Detroit itself we will give the following brief history:—It was, as we have already stated, erected by the French while in the occupancy of the country by which it is more immediately environed; subsequently, and at the final cession of the Canadas, it was delivered over to England, with whom it remained until the acknowledgement of the independence of the colonists by the mother-country, when it hoisted the colours of the republic ”

“ All orders came to the captain commanding at the fort through the commandant at Detroit, Colonel Jacob Kingsbury, until the breaking out of the war with England, when General William Hull, previously the Governor of Michigan Territory, was placed in command of the Northwestern army then assembling at Detroit. ”

“ His orders to the commanding officer at Detroit were to send a body of men to construct and garrison a fort at the mouth of the Chicago River. This locality had long been considered a suitable one for the construction of a frontier military post. A tract "six miles square, at the mouth of the Chikago River," had been ceded by the Indians to the United States at the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, evidently with a view to its favorable location as the site of a fort. ”

“ To-morrow we will be taken to Detroit as British prisoners—for how long we do not know. The Indians have burned the Fort, but some day, when the war is over, we must come here to live, for to go back is to acknowledge defeat. ”

“ During this summer the conqueror of Illinois expected to complete his triumph by the capture of Detroit. A messenger from Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, brought tidings that troops for this expedition would be forthcoming from Virginia and Kentucky, and rendezvous at Vincennes in July. When the time came, Clark found only a few soldiers from Kentucky and none at all from Virginia. The Detroit expedition fell through because of Virginia's poverty in money and in men; though artillery, ammunition, and tools had been secured for the campaign from Fort Pitt, at Washington's command. ”

“ The English officers then at Detroit did not [112] have an easy life. There were resident rebel Americans who made much trouble—some of whom were sent away and others fined. American prisoners, too, were brought here. Some were compelled to work in the streets, in ball and chain, and others were forced to cut wood on Belle Isle.
At last Detroit and the West were yielded by treaty to the United States, but on one pretext or another they were not actually surrendered until July 11, 1796. On that day Fort Lernoult for the first time displayed the Stars and Stripes. ”

“ In due time, whites came to such a centre of population and established a trading post; here and there, as at Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Vincennes, and Kansas City (Westport) , the post in due time developed into a garrisoned fort; and the surrounding community, at first dependent on the fur trade or the military, under modern conditions became a town of importance. ”

“ Farmer (p. 221) gives a description of Fort Pontchartrain as built by Cadillac, and (p. 33) a map of 1796, defining its position in respect to the modern city. Cf. also Roberts’ City of the Straits, p. 40. The oldest plan of Detroit is dated 1749, and is reproduced by Farmer (p. 32) . Of the oldest house in Detroit, the Moran house, there are views in Farmer (p. 372) and Roberts (p. 50) , who respectively assign its building to 1734 and 1750.
Among the later histories, not already mentioned, reference may be made to Charlevoix (Shea’s ed., vol. v. 154) ”

“ First into Detroit, formerly the French Fort Pontchartrain, and now become the capital of Michigan State. Opposite Detroit runs the Canadian shore, to which we are borne by a steam ferry boat, and where the same contrast strikes me as at Niagara. On the American side I find a very pretty town, with all the comforts of civilisation, a scene of hard-working activity. On the Canadian shore I see a village of poor cottages, surrounded with apple orchards, like a village in Normandy, in front of which the red sentry marches up and down, as stiff as an automaton. ”

“ The men belonging to the flank companies who had been allowed to return to their homes to assist in the harvest were summoned to rejoin, and 500 more held in readiness to support them.
On the 20th of August, the inhabitants were thrown into a frenzy of delight by the almost incredible intelligence that Detroit had been taken with the entire American army. A few hours later, General Van Rensselaer who was still in ignorance of this event, signed an armistice which put an end to any further apprehension of an attack for several weeks. ”

“ Fort Dearborn stood at the mouth of Chicago River, and was occupied by a garrison of about fifty soldiers, with several families. Captain Nathan Heald, commanding the 033post, had been ordered by General Hull to abandon it and remove his force to Detroit. With so small a force, moving more than two hundred miles through a wilderness in time of war, it was especially desirable to retain the good will of the Indians. ”

“ Both in advance and retreat, in this expedition, the Indians marched with perfect order. Their encampments were square and regular, and they moved upon the fort in seventeen columns, at wide distances apart. Many white men were in their ranks, supposed to be the inhabitants and militia of Detroit. Officers in British uniform were likewise so near the scene of action as to be distinctly discerned. Several valuable officers of Major McMahon's corps fell at the first onset, among whom was the gallant Major himself. The total loss of the Americans was twenty-two killed and thirty wounded. ”

“ Not more than seven or eight hundred British soldiers ever crossed the Detroit River; but the United States raised fully twenty thousand men, and spent at least five million dollars and many lives in expelling them. The Indians alone made this outlay necessary. The campaign of Tippecanoe, the surrender of Detroit and Mackinaw, the massacres at Fort Dearborn, the river Raisin, and Fort Meigs, the murders along the frontier, and the campaign of 1813 were the price paid for the Indian lands in the Wabash Valley. ”

“ Half a mile to the south of the new fort, where the Maumee turns in its course toward the east, lay the village of Kiskakon. Most of its inhabitants had joined the English at Pickawillany. Writing to Governor LaJonquiere in September, 1749, DeRaymond reported that the attitude of all the nations was very bad and apparently was becoming worse. [48] Again in 1751, he reported:
My people [the French traders] are leaving me for Detroit. Nobody 10 wants to stay here and have his throat cut. ”

“ The victorious savages scalped all the wounded, claiming that they had not been included in the capitulation, and the bloody trophies were sold to Colonel Proctor, who had offered a premium for American scalps.
The fight near Fort Dearborn took place on the same day that the detachment under Colonels McArthur and Cass left Detroit. The next day, August 15th, the British General Isaac Brock, who had arrived at Malden a few days before and assumed command there, formally demanded the surrender of Detroit. This demand included a plain threat of massacre in case of refusal. ”

“ The scarcity of provisions at Detroit was such that Gladwyn decided to reduce his garrison. Keeping about two hundred men in the fort, he sent the rest to Niagara. Then the force remaining at Detroit braced themselves to endure a hard, lonely winter. Theirs was not a pleasant lot. Never was garrison duty enjoyable during winter in the northern parts of North America, but in previous winters at Detroit the friendly intercourse between the soldiers and the settlers had made the season not unbearable. ”

“ Secondly, that was it not for the purpose of comprehending the settlement of Detroit within the jurisdiction of the new government a more compact and better shaped District for a State would be for the above described line to proceed from the Miami Fort and village along the river of that name to Lake Erie, leaving in that case the settlement of Detroit and all the territory north of the rivers Miami and St Joseph's between the Lakes Erie, St Clair, Huron, and Michigan to form hereafter another State equally large, compact and water bound. ”

“ In the surrender of Detroit was included the brig-of-war Adams, which left the Americans with no 048naval force whatever on the upper lakes. Lieutenant Jesse D. Elliott, of the navy, was sent to Buffalo to organize a flotilla, and soon after a detachment of sailors to man it was ordered thither from New York. In October the Adams, which the British had renamed Detroit, and a smaller vessel, the Caledonia, which had taken part in the capture of Michilimackinac, came down Lake Erie, and cast anchor near Fort Erie. ”