Battle on the Thames

The American flotilla that bore the troops across the lake reached Detroit on the 29th of September. On the same day Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, with a troop of cavalry, arrived at Detroit, and Harrison encamped with his army at Sandwich. Informed that Proctor and Tecumtha were flying eastward toward the Moravian town on the Thames, or La Tranche, as the French called the stream, eighty miles from Detroit, Harrison began a pursuit on the morning of the 2d of October, with about thirty-five hundred troops. Johnson and his mounted men led the van, and Shelby's Kentuckians composed the bulk of the pursuers. They overtook the fugitives on the 5th, a short distance from the Moravian town, and there, in an open wood, with the Thames on one flank and a deep swamp on the other, a severe battle was fought. Tecumtha was slain, and his amazed followers, who had fought desperately, broke and fled to the shelter of the swamp. The whole British force, about eight hundred strong, were speedily vanquished, and most of them were made prisoners. Proctor escaped in his carriage, with his personal staff, a few dragoons and mounted Indians, hotly pursued by Johnson and his horsemen. He made his way to the western end of Lake Ontario, and there his military career was ended. Proctor was rewarded by the censure of his superiors, the rebuke of his sovereign, and the scorn of all honorable men, for his career in America had been marked by cowardice and cruelty.

Harrison's victory was complete. His praises were sounded from the St. Croix to the delta of the Mississippi; and Congress gave him and Shelby the thanks of the nation and each a gold medal. At that battle six brass field-pieces taken from Hull at Detroit were recaptured, on two of which were engraved the words: "Surrendered by Burgoyne at Saratoga." They may now be seen at West Point, on the Hudson. The Moravian town, near the battle-ground, is a village in the township of Oxford, and was a settlement of Indian Moravian converts who had fled from the Muskingum, Ohio, in 1792.

This victory was an important one. All that Hull had lost was recovered. The Indian Confederacy in the Northwest was broken up, and the war on the northwestern border of the Union was ended. The achievement was fully appreciated, and a member of the House of Representatives said in his place: "Such a victory would have secured to a Roman general, in the best days of the Republic, the honors of a triumph." The frontier being now secured, Harrison dismissed a greater portion of the volunteers; and leaving Colonel Lewis Cass with a garrison of a thousand regulars, as military governor at Detroit on the 23d of October (1813), he proceeded to Niagara with the remainder of the troops, to join the army of the centre. For some unexplained reason, General Armstrong; the Secretary of War, treated Harrison so badly that the latter resigned, and his country was deprived of his valuable services at a most critical time.

During the winter of 1813, there were some stirring events on the St. Lawrence frontier. The repulse of the British at Ogdensburg has been noticed. After that, under the pretence of looking for desertes, British soldiers crossed the river and captured some Americans and committed robberies. Major Forsythe, in command of riflemen at Ogdensburg, retaliated by crossing to Elizabethtown (now Brockville) and releasing all the prisoners in jail there. This was resented by the British, who, on the morning of the 22d of February, 1813, about eight hundred strong, crossed the St. Lawrence River on the ice and entered Ogdensburg. The inhabitants fled into the country. A conflict of an hour ensued in the streets between the invaders and Forsythe's little force, and the enemy became masters of the village. Then they plundered every house in the town except three, burned the barracks near the river and two gun-boats and two armed schooners frozen in the ice, and returned to Canada with their plunder. These events accelerated the gathering of militia on the northern frontier, especially at Sackett's Harbor; but these troops, undisciplined, were of little immediate service.