afterwards rejoined their companies, there were scarcely any desertions.
On the other side of the river bodies of fresh troops were constantly arriving, but their militia was represented as being very much dissatisfied and extremely inefficient. Sickness prevailed in their camps and funerals were daily observed. Several men of the 6th United States Infantry deserted in a body and attempted to swim the river, six of whom perished in sight of both armies. Undeterred by the fate of his unfortunate comrades, another man of the same regiment plunged in next day and swam over amid a shower of bullets. Two companies that had arrived during the armistice, each consisting of sixty men, he said, had already been reduced one half by desertion.
By the middle of September, two companies of the Royal Newfoundland and six of the 49th regiment arrived from Kingston, and ninety men of the 41st came down from Detroit. These slender reinforements were ostentatiously paraded in view of the enemy as they arrived and marched from place to place with marked effect as we have already observed. Three hundred Indians had come in and two hundred more were promised, but Brock placed little dependance upon auxiliaries of such uncertain temperament. “They may serve to intimidate,” he said, “but no effective service can be expected from this degenerate race.” To Prevost he wrote that there was no doubt great discontent existed among the American forces, ‘‘and much might be done, but keeping in mind Your Excellency’s instructions, and aware of the policy of permitting such a force to dwindle away by its own inefficient means, I do not contemplate any immediate attack.” But to his brother a few days later he disclosed his real impatience at his forced inactivity. ‘‘My instructions oblige me to adopt defensive measures, and I have evinced greater forbearance than was ever practiced on any former occasion. It is thought that without aid of the sword, the American people may be brought to a due sense of their interests. I firmly believe that at this moment I could sweep everything before me from Fort Niagara to Buffalo, but my success would be transient.”
In fact the arrival of his reinforcements had almost produced a panic in the American camp. Party strife raged among the officers with unabated fury. Porter and his friends styled the commanding general a traitor, while Soloman Van Rensselaer announced his intention of publishing Porter as ‘‘a poltroon, coward, and scoundrel.” In this dilemma General Dearborn suggested that the Governor of the state should assumed supreme command himself and march thither with as large a force of militia as he could assemble, while he endeavored to draw off part of the British troops by a movement towards Montreal by way of Lake Champlain. Tompkins was too shrewd a politician to peril his reputation by such a step, but he displayed great vigor in pushing forward troops, and stores, and invested Van Rensselaer with authority to call out an almost unlimited number of militia from the neighboring counties. Dearborn at the same time dispatched regiment after regiment of regular troops to Van Rensselaer’s assistance, while the secretary of war sent sailors to equip and man the boats and vessels at Buffalo, and was urging forward another army to recover Detroit. Two thousand men from Pennsylvania were at the same time ordered to march to the Niagara.
There long continued efforts to enlist the Indians residing in New York and Pennsylvania actively on their side now promised to be successful. Already in July Erastus Granger, the American Indian agent for the state of New York, held a council with the Senecas at Buffalo, during which he proposed that they should permit two hundred of their young men to join the Americana army. This they refused to do, but consented to send some of their chiefs to Grand river to dissuade the Indians from joining the British. In this mission they were unsuccessful, but Granger appears to have represented to his government that they were anxious to be employed themselves, for as early as the 27th of July, the secretary of war wrote to Dearborn, enclosing a letter to Granger, authorizing him to organize the warriors of the Six Nations conditionally. At this time it was quite impossible for him to know that any Indians had joined the British. About the middle of September Van Rensselaer held a grand council with the Tuscaroras, and advantage was craftily taken of the appearance of a British scouting party upon Grand Island, which was still the property of the Senecas, to excite alarm amongst them lest they should be deprived of these lands. They were induced to declare war formally, and Red Jacket pompously announced they would put 3000 warriors in the field. Several hundred Indians were also brought down from the Alleghany river and a great feast and war dance held in the streets of Buffalo. Almost at the instant that these events were taking place, the secretary again wrote to Dearborn:—‘‘By letters received from Erastus Granger it appears that
