Canada. General James Winchester, in command of the advance corps of Harrison's forces, imprudently engaged in conflict with a much more numerous body of British at Frenchtown, on the River Raisin. Nearly all his troops, numbering about eight hundred, were killed or captured, and some of the captives were massacred. General Winchester himself was taken prisoner. Soon afterward the British General Proctor issued a proclamation requiring the citizens of Michigan to take the oath of allegiance to the British crown, or leave the Territory. The American residents in Detroit, under the terms of the capitulation, remained undisturbed in their homes, but their hearts were continually wrung by the spectacle of cruelties practiced by Indian allies of the British upon American captives. Many families parted with all but necessary wearing apparel to redeem the sufferers, and private houses were turned into hospitals for their relief. Mr. Kinzie, of Chicago, who was now paroled prisoner in Detroit, was foremost in this work of patriotism and humanity.

a

The defeat at the River Raisin was a hard blow to General Harrison, especially as the troops to make up his army of ten thousand men were slow in arriving. He did not lose courage, however, and when General Proctor sent an imperious demand for the surrender of Fort Meigs, Harrison answered: "He will never have this post surrendered to him upon any terms. Should it fall into his hands, it will be in a manner calculated to do him more honor and to give him larger claims upon the gratitude of his government than any capitulation could possibly do." "There will be none of us left to kill" was the reply of Captain Crogan at Fort Stephenson, when Proctor's messenger menaced him with Indian vengeance, should he fail to surrender. Harrison, reinforced by General Clay Green, from Kentucky,

compelled the besiegers to withdraw, and the heroic Crogan mowed down with one discharge of his single cannon more than fifty of the assailants who were advancing to carry his fort by storm. Hardly had the remainder fled when the Americans let down pails of water from the wall of the fort for the relief of their wounded enemies. The formation of an army for the invasion of Canada now went forward in earnest, while the retreat of the British shook the confidence of Tecumseh and his Indian followers in England's ability to protect them against the Americans.

The Niagara frontier was the scene of desultory warfare, with varied fortune for both sides. The battle of Queenstown, October 13, 1812, although it resulted in the defeat and capture of the Americans engaged and witnessed a pitiable exhibition of cowardice on the part of militiamen who refused to cross the river to the aid of their countrymen, was attended by a loss for the Canadians that more than counterbalanced their victory, in the death of Major-General Isaac Brock, whose well-deserved monument is a conspicuous feature of the Niagara landscape. Among the Americans who surrendered on this occasion was Colonel Winfield Scott, who, while himself a prisoner, took a resolute and memorable stand against the British claim that certain Irishmen captured in the American ranks should be sent to England to be tried for treason. The Irishmen, twenty-three in number, were put in irons and deported to England, but in the following May Colonel Scott, after the battle of Fort George, selected twenty-three British prisoners, not of Irish birth, to be dealt with as the British authorities should deal with the Irish-Americans. The latter were finally released and returned to America, and the British doctrine of perpetual allegiance was shattered without treaty or diplomacy.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Battle of Lake Erie-Master-Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry-Building a Fleet-Perry on the Lake-A Duel of Long Guns-Fearful Slaughter on the Lawrence-"Can Any of the Wounded Pull a Rope?"-At Close QuartersVictory in Fifteen Minutes-"We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Ours"-The Father of Chicago Sees the End of the Battle-The British Evacuate Detroit-General Harrison's Victory at the Thames-Tecumseh Slain-The Struggle in the Southwest-Audrew Jackson in Command-Battle of Horseshoe Bend-The Essex in the Pacific--Defeat and Victory on the Ocean-Captain Porter's Brave Defence-Burning of Newark-Massacre at Fort Niagara-Chippewa and Lundy's Lane-Devastation by the British Fleet-British Vandalism at WashingtonAttempt on Baltimore-" The Star Spangled Banner."

And now came the struggle for the control of Lake Erie-a struggle on which depended whether England should succeed in preventing the western growth of the United States, or be driven forever from the soil which Americans claimed as their own. Master-Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry was but twenty-six years of age when the Navy Department called him from his pleasant home at Newport and sent him to command a navy summoned from the primeval forests of the Northwest. Young as he was Perry had seen service in the wars with France and Tripoli, and he had requested the Navy Department at the commencement of the conflict with England to send him where he could meet the enemies of his country. Perry arrived at Erie, then known as Presque Isle, in March, 1813. Sailing Master Daniel Dobbins and Noah Brown, a shipwright from New York, were busily at work on the new fleet. Two brigs, the Niagara and the Lawrence, were built with white and black oak and chestnut frames, the outside planking being of oak and the decks of pine. Two gunboats were newly planked up, and work on a schooner was just begun. The vessels had to be vigilantly guarded

against attack by the British, who were fully aware of the work being done. The capture of Fort George left the Niagara River open, and several American vessels which had been unable before to pass the Canadian batteries were now, with great exertion, drawn into the lake. These

were the brig Caledonia, the schooners Somers, Tigress and Ohio, and the sloop Trippe. An English squadron set out to intercept the new arrivals, but Perry succeeded in gaining the harbor of Erie before the enemy made their appearance.

The American ships were ready for sea on July 10, but officers and sailors were lacking, and it was not until about the close of the month that Perry had three hundred men to man his ten vessels. While the British squadron, under Captain Robert Heriot Barclay maintained a vigorous blockade, Perry found that his new brigs could not cross the bar without landing their guns and being blocked up on scows. Commander Barclay, thinking that Perry could not move, made a visit of ceremony with his squadron to Port Dover, on the Canadian side. During Barclay's absence Perry got the Lawrence and Niagara over the bar, and the British commander was astonished, when he returned on the morning of August 5, to see the American fleet riding at anchor, and ready for battle. Barclay wished to delay the naval combat until after the completion at Malden of a ten-gun ship called the Detroit, which was to be added to his force, and he therefore put into that harbor.* Perry improved the delay to exercise his crews, largely made up of soldiers, in seamanship.

It was not until September 10 that the British squadron came out to give battle. Master-Commandant Perry had nine vessels mounting fifty

*Malden, on the Detroit River, eighteen miles below the city of Detroit, is now known as Amherstburg.

four guns, with 1536 pounds of metal. The British squadron consisted of six vessels, mounting sixtythree guns, with a total weight of 852 pounds. The American vessels were manned by 490 men and the British by 502 men and boys. In discipline, training and physical condition, however, the difference of crews was much more in favor of the British than the numbers indicate. The brig Lawrence was Perry's flagship; Barclay's pennant flew on the Detroit. As the American vessels stood out to sea Perry hoisted a large blue flag with the words of the dying Lawrence in white muslin "Don't give up the ship!" He prepared for defeat as well as for victory, by gathering all his important papers in a package weighted and ready to be thrown overboard in the event of disaster. It may be said that Perry fought the earlier part of the battle almost alone, a slowsailing brig, the Caledonia, being in line ahead of the Niagara, and Perry, having given orders that the vessels should preserve their stations.

In the duel of long guns the British had a decided advantage and their fire being concentrated on the Lawrence that vessel soon became a wreck. Of one hundred and three men fit for duty on board the American flagship, eighty-three were killed or wounded. These figures sufficiently indicate the carnage; but Perry fought on. "Can any of the wounded pull a rope?" cried Perry, and mangled men crawled out to help in training the guns. For nearly three hours the Lawrence with the schooners Ariel and Scorpion, fought the British fleet. Then Master-Commandant Elliott, of the Niagara, fearing Perry had been killed, undertook, notwithstanding Perry's previous orders, to go out of line to the help of the Lawrence. Perry then changed his flag to the Niagara, leaving orders with First Lieutenant John J. Yarnall, of the Lawrence, to hold out to the last. Perry at once sent Master-Commandant