The Battle of the Thames

The naval victory on Lake Erie was quickly followed by an equally decisive one on the land. General Harrison, with an army of seven thousand men, was at that time on the southern shore of the lake, and immediately after Perry's victory embarked on his fleet, and was conveyed to the vicinity of Malden, the central point of the British movements in the West. The disaster to their fleet seem to have demoralized the British troops, or at least to have frightened their commander, General Proctor, who displayed a cowardice equal to that of Hull. He hastily retreated from Malden, after destroying the navy-yard and barracks. Tecumseh, the Indian chief, who was with him, strongly remonstrated against this flight, as unwise and unmilitary, but without success. Everything was burned that could not be carried off, and the retreat of the army was the precipitate flight of a panic-struck host, being conducted so rapidly that no effort was made to impede pursuit by burning bridges and obstructing roads. The story of the succeeding events we select from the "Historical Sketch of the Second War with Great Britain," by Charles J. Ingersoll, a member of Congress at that period.

GENERAL HARRISON almost despaired of overtaking the fugitives. On the 27th September, 1813, he wrote to the Secretary of War that he would pursue them next day, but that there was no probability of overtaking them. But the Kentuckians were resolved on the revenge of, at any rate, a battle with their murderers at Raisin.. They were not to be disappointed by any irresolution or deterred by any obstacle. Harrison, therefore, with Commodore Perry, General Cass, General Green Clay, and an army eager for action, pushed forward without delay or hesitation, by forced marches, over rivers, morasses, through broken countries, attended by some boats and water-craft; continually finding Proctor's stores, provisions, ammunition and arms, either deserted by the way, or so weakly guarded, by small detachments of the enemy, as to offer no resistance. Seldom was flight more mismanaged than that of the English.. The whole way from Malden to the Thames betrayed their extreme perturbation.

At length, on the morning of the 5th October, 1813, near an Indian settlement called the Moravian towns, on the river Thames, Harrison came up with the English, eight hundred regular troops under Major-General Proctor, and twelve hundred Indians headed by Tecumseh. By this time Colonel Johnson's regiment of twelve hundred mounted men, armed with guns, without either pistols or sabres, had joined General Harrison, having, by forced marches, followed from the moment they got his orders to do so.

The night before the battle of the Thames, Walk-in-the-water, with sixty followers, deserted Proctor, and threw themselves in General Harrison's arms. Large quantities of English stores fell into our possession continually. Late at night Proctor and Tecumseh descended the river clandestinely, and made a reconnoissance, with a view to attack Harrison, which was Tecumseh's desire, and probably Proctor's best plan for escape; but the English general did not choose to risk what would have been not only less dishonorable, but much safer, than the battle he was forced to accept.