standing all the precautions which had been taken, the Indians perceived what had been going on, and on the following day, when again meeting Capt. Heald in council, reproached him in the severest terms for having violated his promises. After the council had adjourned, Black Partridge, one of their chiefs, repaired to Capt. Heald, and delivered to him a medal, given him by the Americans as a token of friendship, assigning as the reason for so doing, that he could no longer restrain his warriors, and would not wear a token of peace when compelled to act as an enemy. Information was also received from another Indian chief, that the Pottawatomies, who had promised to protect the troops, could not be trusted.

Notwithstanding these repeated warnings, Capt. Heald, at the head of his garrison, marched out of the fort on the morning of the 15th, with the families and baggage of the soldiers, and the invalids, being followed in the rear by about 500 Pottawatomies, who were to escort the troops to Fort Wayne. Whilst the soldiers pursued their march, the Pottawatomies suddenly left the road, and turning the flank of the troops, poured in a volley of musketry upon them. The treacherous plot of the Indians could no longer be mistaken. The battle at once became general; the Americans fought with the greatest gallantry, till twothirds of their number were slain; the remainder, 27 in all, surrendered, after stipulating for the safety of their families and themselves. In the hurry of the moment, the wounded prisoners were not thought of; therefore the Indians, considering them as excluded from the stipulation, tomahawked and butchered them with the most savage ferocity, during the following night, when they had returned with their captives to their camp, near the fort. A soldier, mortally wounded, and writhing in agony on the ground, was attacked with a pitchfork by an old squaw, and literally stabbed to death. Another of the savages, in direct violation of the treaty, assailed a baggage-wagon, and massacred and scalped in cold blood the children who were within, twelve in number. Whilst many other atrocities of a like nature were committed by the blood-thirsty savages, it is but just to observe, that a few of them, amongst whom Black Partridge, the magnanimous chief, was the most conspicuous, did the utmost in their power to save the lives or soothe the sufferings of their prisoners. Capt. Heald and his wife, the former twice, the latter seven times wounded, were nobly

released by the Indian, who had taken them prisoners, and afterwards conveyed to Detroit. The soldiers, with their families, were dispersed among the Pottawatomies, and eventually ransomed; the fort was plundered and burnt to ashes.

These repeated disasters, and the actual occupation of Michigan, Northern Illinois and Mackinaw, by the British, aroused the nation to extraordinary efforts. Whole regiments and large bodies of volunteers were raised and equipped in a surprisingly short time. Gen. Hopkins and Gen. Edwards, of Illinois, undertook expeditions against the Indians of the Illinois and Wabash rivers, many of whom had participated in the massacre at Chicago. They destroyed several of their villages, and laid waste their fields, thus punishing them for the cruelties they had perpetrated at Chicago.

Appointed by Congress in the latter part of the year 1812, commander of the Northwestern army, Gen. Harrison undertook to drive the British from the Northwestern Territory; nothing was, achieved, however, except the reduction of Fort Defiance, by Gen. Winchester, the next in command.

Thus terminated the land campaign of 1812.

On the sea, contrary to expectation, the Americans had been signally successful, and in three decisive engagements had humbled the flag of the proud mistress of the seas.

Early in the year 1813, the inhabitants of Frenchtown notified Gen. Winchester, that a large body of British and Indians were hovering about their town, and requested him to relieve them. Yielding to the entreaties of his volunteers, Gen. Winchester moved to the town, but before he arrived thither with the main body of his army, his vanguard, under Cols. Allen and Lewis, had attacked the British and Indians, and after a severe conflict, expelled them from the town. Two days after having joined his troops, on the 22d of January, he was assailed by nearly double the number of British and Indians. He was taken prisoner, and his troops, after a desperate defence, in which nearly one half of them, about 300, were killed, finding further resistance useless, surrendered, under promise of protection from Col. Proctor, the commander of the British force. The unfortunate troops paid dearly for their reliance on British faith; being delivered up to the Indians to be brought in the rear of the army to Malden, in Upper

Canada, they were, with scarce an' exception, massacred and tomahawked by the blood-thirsty savages, without the interference of the British officers, who witnessed the scene. Their bleeding bodies were mutilated and scalped, and left to putrefy on the ground. But a very small remnant reached Fort Malden alive.

Gen. Harrison about that time had built a fort at the Rapids, which, in honor of the Governor of Ohio, he called Fort Meigs. He returned afterwards to Ohio for reinforcements. Receiving intelligence that the British threatened to attack Fort Meigs, he repaired thither, and was besieged by a powerful force under the former Col. Proctor, whom the British government, by way of approving his barbarous, fiend-like cruelty, had then promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. Gen. Clay, from Kentucky, marched to the relief of Gen. Harrison with 1200 men. Before reaching the fort, part of his troops, under Col. Dudley, were attacked and defeated by Tecumseh and Proctor, with a loss of 250 men; Col. Dudley himself being killed. Having driven the prisoners into a ruined fort, the Indians commenced a frightful slaughter among them, in presence of Gen. Proctor himself, and several of his officers, who seemed to delight at the inhuman spectacle. "While this carnage was raging," relates Drake, in his life of Tecumseh, "a thundering voice was heard in the rear, and in the Indian tongue; and on turning round, Tecumseh was seen advancing on horseback with the utmost speed to where two Indians had an American down, and were in the act of killing him. He sprang from his horse, caught one by the throat, the other by the breast, and threw them to the ground; and drawing his tomahawk and scalping knife, he ran in between the Americans and Indians, daring any one of the hundreds that surrounded him to attempt the murder of another American. They were all confounded, and immediately departed. He then demanded where Proctor was, and eyeing him at a distance, sternly inquired why he had not put a stop to the inhuman massacre. 'Sir,' said Proctor, 'your Indians cannot be commanded.' 'Begone,' thundered Tecumseh:

petticoats !'"

You are unfit to command; go and put on

On the 9th of May the siege of Fort Meigs was raised. Proctor departed with all his forces, but soon returned with reinforcements, this time selecting Fort Stephenson as the theatre of savage massacre.

He summoned the garrison to surrender; but they, determined to be cut to pieces sooner than to entrust their persons to his tender mercies, returned for answer: "When the fort shall be taken, there will be none left to massacre, as it will not be given up while a man is still alive." He then made an assault upon the fort, and was repulsed once, with a loss of 150 men, by a force scarcely a tenth of his own, not daring another assault.

On the 10th of September, a splendid naval victory was gained on Lake Erie, by the gallant Commodore Perry, in which the whole British squadron, consisting of six vessels, were captured, and more prisoners taken, than there were men in Perry's whole fleet. By this decisive victory the road to Canada was effectually opened, and Gen. Harrison, reinforced by a body of 4000 volunteers, under the command of Col. Johnson, was enabled to invade Canada without further delay. He advanced against Fort Malden, but on his arrival thither, found that it had been destroyed by Gen. Proctor, and that the latter, together with the gallant Tecumseh and his warriors, had retreated to the Moravian towns. After delivering the Northwestern Territory from the odious presence of the British, and hoisting again the American flag on the ramparts of Detroit, Gen. Harrison set out in pursuit of Gen. Proctor, reaching him on the banks of the river Thames. Determined to make his last stand here, Gen. Proctor, on the 7th of October, 1813, drew up in battle array his entire force of 800 of the line, and 2000 Indians; the greater part of the former, with the chief part of the artillery, occupied the left wing, resting on the river bank, and the Indians under Tecumseh the right wing, between two swamps. The position was skilfully chosen; Gen. Proctor, however, who knew, that the Americans had a numerous and well-appointed cavalry force, committed a grave error in forming his troops in open order, with intervals of three or four feet between the files, since he might have foreseen, that his troops, thus drawn up, would be unable to resist a cavalry charge.

Gen. Harrison, who had a force of 3500 men, inclusive of cavalry, with him, no sooner perceived the tactical error of the enemy, than he ordered two of his battalions of mounted men, of which one was under the immediate command of Col. Johnson, to the charge. So spirited and vigorous was the charge made by these troops, that at

their first onset the rank and file of the British were scattered like leaves before the blast, and all the efforts of the British officers to form the broken ranks again, proved utterly unavailing. Seventy of the British regulars were killed and wounded, and more than 600 taken prisoners. Gen. Proctor's escape was merely due to the fleetness of his horse.

A far more serious trial awaited the Americans, who had to attack the Indians, commanded by the brave and noble Tecumseh. For although Col. Johnson succeeded in breaking their lines at the second charge, the Indians, unlike the British, disdaining to yield, continued the fight with desperate valor, and had nearly forced their way through the American lines, when they were repulsed with great slaughter by a regiment of Kentucky volunteers, led on by the intrepid Shelby. Still the Indians, to the number of 1200, stimulated to extraordinary efforts by their beloved commander, whose voice could be distinctly heard in every part of the battle, continued the combat, with heroic self-devotion, gathering round their illustrious chief, with an apparent determination to conquer or die by his side. But after Proctor's defeat, the event of the battle could no longer be doubtful. Unwilling to survive the slaughter of his countrymen, the generous Tecumseh fell, nobly battling at their head. About the same time Col. Johnson, conspicuous by the white horse he rode, was pierced by several balls, and fell. The Indians, whom the voice and example of Tecumseh could no longer animate, at last gave way on every side. Where Tecumseh had fallen, 36 men, both whites and Indians, were found literally cut and stabbed to pieces.

Thus fell Tecumseh, no doubt the greatest and most exalted of his race, and respected by all his enemies as a great and magnanimous chief. To a powerful intellect uniting the soul of a hero, he was in war the bravest of the brave, most eloquent in council, and generous and humane in every one of his acts. He died the greatest champion of his people; his death deprived them of their last protector, and sealed their doom forever.

Long afterwards his grave was to be seen beside a large fallen oak. He was there left alone in his glory. The British government having previously appointed him a brigadier-general, afterwards granted a pension to his mourning family.

The victory at the Thames, the fall of Tecumseh, and the inglorious