The Story of Isaac Brock: Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada/16
Under an August moon Lake Erie shone as a shield of silver. Brock, with a fleet of small craft, batteaux and boats of every kind given him by the settlers, had pulled out from Long Point with 40 regulars and 260 militia for the relief of Amherstburg, two hundred miles distant.
The news of the fall of Mackinaw and the official declaration of war had only reached him as Parliament rose. He had proclaimed martial law before leaving York. He had also heard details of the attack by Hull's raiders on the Moravian settlement, sixty miles up the Thames. He knew of the repulse of 300 United States troops in three attempts to cross the Canard River bridge for an attack on Amherstburg, and of their being driven into the open plains, with loss, by Procter's men.
It was in one of these attacks that the first scalp in the war of 1812 was taken—not by one of Brock's terrible Indians, whose expected excesses had been referred to by Hull, but by a captain of Hull's spies. This officer—one hates to describe him as a white man—wrote his wife, he "had the pleasure of tearing a scalp from the head of a British redskin," and related at length the brutal details of his methods. They were those of a wild beast. "The first stroke of the tomahawk," Hull had stated in his proclamation, "the first attempt with the scalping-knife, will be the signal of a scene of desolation." Yet the first scalp taken in the Detroit campaign was by one of his own officers![Pg 93]
Brock knew that the valorous Hull, dismayed at the advance of the British, had recrossed the river with all but 250 of his men and was hard at work on the defences of Fort Shelby, behind which he had retired. Brock also knew of the affair at Brownstown, where the Indian chief Tecumseh, with twenty-five warriors, had separated himself from Major Muir's detachment, sent to intercept a transport on its way from Ohio to Detroit with supplies for Hull. He had been told of the stratagem by which the great Shawanese warrior had ambushed the 200 American soldiers, near the Raisin River, who had marched from Detroit to escort this convoy and the mails. Seven American officers were killed at the Raisin, twelve of all ranks wounded, and seventy reported missing after the fight. In addition to the provision train, Tecumseh captured what was of much greater importance, another batch of Hull's despondent despatches. It was here that swift justice overtook the scalping Captain McCullough, of Hull's spies, who himself met with the fate of his former victim—the fate he deserved.
Brock also received despatches describing the daring attack by Lieutenant Roulette, of the provincial marine, who in a small boat with a handful of men had boarded and seized in the Detroit River a brigade of eleven batteaux! These, loaded with food, were on their way from Black Rock, and now carried fifty-six wounded American soldiers and two English prisoners. This bold feat of "cutting out" took place under the eyes of an armed escort of 250 American soldiers marching along the river bank.
Messengers from Procter had also informed Brock of the fight at Maguagua, fourteen miles below Detroit. It[Pg 94] was here that Muir, with 200 regulars and militia and less than 200 Indians, instead of waiting to be attacked, recklessly assailed a force of 600 Americans who were halted on the edge of the oak forest, supported by two six-pounder guns. Fighting without hope against such odds, the British were outflanked, Muir himself wounded, and an officer killed—the second British soldier to fall in the war of 1812. The American loss was eighteen killed and sixty-three wounded. Though the difference in arms and men was greatly in favour of the Americans, the British were enabled to retreat to the river, where they regained their boats. The American force, suffering from greater casualties, did not attempt to follow them.
Apart from the inferior strength of the British, the chief cause of their reverse at Maguagua was the blunder of some men of the 41st, who fired upon a body of Tecumseh's Indians. In rushing from the woods the redmen were mistaken for the enemy, and falling into a similar error themselves, they returned with interest the fire of the British soldiers. The disorder that followed created a panic. While Tecumseh with his own Indians fought bravely, the seventy Lake Indians under Caldwell suffered from "chill" and fled at the first shot. The most encouraging of these facts, when told to the expedition, aroused in Brock's followers a wild desire to meet Hull's army in battle.
Our hero's trip from Long Point was full of peril and hardship. The lake shore in places was extremely rugged. Precipitous cliffs of red clay and sun-baked sand rose two hundred feet from the boulder-strewn coast. Scarcely a creek offered shelter. The weather was unusually stormy. A heavy surf boomed on the shore. Flocks of water-fowl[Pg 95] were driven before the wind. The men were drenched by torrents of rain. Though thirty miles in twenty-four hours was considered the maximum distance for rowing a batteau, nothing could retard this strange armada or dampen the confidence of the men in their resolute leader, who in an open boat led the way. In this boat, which was "headquarters," were Brock and his two aides. A lighted flambeau at the bow acted as a beacon during the night. After five days of great vigilance and galley-slave work, the toilers reached Amherstburg. Without the help of these hardy and resourceful men of the Canadian militia this trip could not have been accomplished.
The conduct of these bold frontiersmen aroused Brock's admiration. His own example had again acted as an inspiration. Shortly after leaving Port Talbot, his batteau, pounding in the sea, ran upon a reef that extended far from shore, and despite oars and pike-poles, remained fast. In the height of the confusion "Master Isaac" sprang overboard, and a moment later voyageur and raw recruit, waist deep in water, following the example of the hero of Castle Cornet, lifted the batteau over the dangerous ledge.
When at midnight the boats passed up the Strait—through which the ambitious La Salle and Father Hennepin had passed in 1679—and grated on the gravel beach at Amherstburg, Brock was greeted with a volley of musketry by the Indians. This was contrary to his rigid rubric of war. Such waste of powder must not be tolerated. He turned to the Indian superintendent, "Do pray, Colonel Elliott," said he, "explain my reasons for objecting to the firing and tell the Chiefs I will talk with them to-morrow."