Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/29

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of honor." Brigadier-General Hull replied, on the same day, that he was prepared to meet any force which might be at the disposal of the British general ; who, nothing daunted, and contrary to the opinion of the next in command, issued orders to cross the strait, or river, which is here about three fourths of a mile in width, on the following morning, in the hope of inducing the enemy to meet his little force in the field. Accordingly, at the first blush of dawn, on Sunday the 16th of August, thirty men of the royal artillery, two hundred and fifty of the 41st regiment, fifty of the Newfoundland regiment, together three hundred and thirty regulars, with four hundred militia and about six hundred Indians, were embarked, with five pieces of light artillery, in boats and canoes of every description, and soon effected a landing without opposition ; the white troops at Springwell, three miles below Detroit, and the Indians two miles lower down. The former marched towards the fort, along the banks of the river, while the latter moved forward through the woods, and covered the left flank. We learn from Morse's American Geography, on the acknowledged authority of Governor Hull, that Fort Detroit, in 1810, was a regular work of an oblong figure, " covering about an acre of ground. The parapets were about twenty feet in height, built of earth and sods, with four bastions, the whole sur- rounded with pallisadoes, a deep ditch, and glacis. It stood immediately back of the town, and had strength to withstand a regular siege, but did not command the river." And as the American government had been for some time secretly preparing for war, it may be safely inferred, that in the mean while this fort had been rather strengthened than permitted to fall

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