Battle of Longwoods

From Wikipedia.

Took place during the War of 1812 (I see it is now referred to as the Anglo-American War of 1812) but I will continue to just refer to it as the War of 1812).

On 4 March 1814, a party of mounted Americans defeated an attempt by British regulars, volunteers from the Canadian militia and Native Americans to intercept them near Wardsville, in present-day Southwest Middlesex, Ontario.  (Near London, Ontario)

In October 1813 following the American naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie, an American Army under Major General William Henry Harrison recaptured Detroit and the abandoned British post of Fort Malden at Amherstburg in Canada.

They then defeated a retreating British and Native force at the Battle of Moraviantown, in which Indian leader Tecumseh was killed.  However, further American operations were called off as the enlistments of Harrison's militia was about to expire.

--Brock-Perry

Caldwell's Western Rangers

From Wikipedia  "Canadian Units in War of 1812."

Known as Western Rangers or Caldwell's Rangers.  Unit named after its leader, William Caldwell, noted Loyalist and Indian trader,   The unit was a relatively small one, probably not more than fifty men, normally organized into two companies.  

They worked in conjunction with the Indian Department and often fought alongside the Indians (chiefly the Ojibwe, Wyandotte and Pottowottomi).

The unit, or parts of it fought at the Battle of Moraviantown,  the Battle of Longwoods,  the Battle of Lundy's Lane and in several actions on the Niagara Peninsula.

--Brock-Perry

What Tecumseh Fought For-- Part 5: Aftermath of Tecumseh's War

The Battle of Moraviantown (Battle of the Thames) produced a considerable array of elected officials, among them three Kentucky governors, a vice president (Richard Johnson), and a president, an aging William Henry Harrison, who campaigned in 1840 under the slogan of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too").

And because Tecumseh had died in a British fight, near a river that borrowed its name from England, his doomed war was  easily swallowed up by the larger War of 1812 between the British and Americans.

And then, an unrelenting stream of Americans poured into the Old Northwest Territory and Indians began fighting an increasingly lost war to delay them.  Tecumseh's War presaged  the Black Hawk War of 1832 in Illinois and Wisconsin; the deadly removal of Potawatomi people from Indiana to the Great Plains in  1838; the Dakota Uprising of 1862, in Minnesota.

Trace such conflicts back to Pontiac's Rebellion and what emerges  is not a picture of  innocent pioneer settlement in the continental heartland but a full century of Midwestern dispossession and resistance.

--Brock-Perry

What Tecumseh Fought For-- Part 3: The Battle of the Thames

Continued from October 30.

The British figured that each Indian warrior was worth three American soldiers and when they marched into battle in their traditional red coats, Tecumseh and his warriors would be protecting the flanks.

Tecumseh seemed to be everywhere during the first years of fighting: fighting, recruiting, saving prisoners from torture from his men,  cajoling the British to maintain supplies, food and men, and even rallying their troops in the field on occasion.

The British failed in almost every aspect of the war.  (Of course a big part of this was because Britain was much more heavily engaged with Napoleon and his French army in the war for control of Europe.)  The world's strongest maritime power lost  the fight for the Great Lakes, saw its supply lines to  the Northwest cut, and , in the fall of 1813, were chased by William Henry Harrison and a large American force into a panicked retreat across Upper Canada.

British commander, General Henry Procter, made a strategic blunder before taking an ill-prepared stand near Moraviantown on the Thames River, in early October.

Tecumseh and  some five hundred warriors supported the British line in what became known as the Battle of the Thames, but those lines collapsed almost immediately in the face of an American cavalry charge.  A small group of Americans led by Richard Mentor Johnson, a Kentucky militia colonel,  charged the Indian lines on horseback, hoping to draw their fire and thus reveal the Indian positions for the next wave of soldiers.

--Brock-Perry

Battle of the Thames-- Part 4: Proctor Was Found Wanting of Leadership

Henry Proctor's retreat vegan 27 September 1813.

Major General William Henry Harrison, future U.S. president, led his American force cautiously following the retreating British and Indians and was soon joined by 500 mounted riflemen from Kentucky.  Proctor was "a slow and uninspired leader."

He did little to obstruct the American advance.  "Worse, Proctor's command of battle tactics were soon tested and found wanting."

"After a slow and disorderly withdrawal," Proctor turned and made a stand near Moraviantown with only a single 6-pdr. artillery piece with no ammunition.  The Aboriginals were in a swamp on the British right.  Tecumseh rode by the British soldiers, shaking the hand of each one to bolster their courage.

--Brock-Perry

Battle of the Thames (Moraviantown)-- Part 3: Tecumseh's Distrust of the British

From the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Fought October 5, 1813.

This account was not too friendly toward British commander Henry Proctor.

After the Battle of Lake Erie in September, Henry Proctor saw the need to withdraw from the Detroit  area as he was cut off from supplies and reinforcements now that the Americans had control of Lake Erie.  Also, he was badly outnumbered.

Shawnee War Chief Tecumseh contested the decision to retreat.  His warriors were eager to fight.  Also, he feared that the British would betray the trust of the First Nations as they had done in the past.

In addition, he feared this would also put Aboriginal settlements west of Detroit in danger from American retaliation.

--Brock-Perry

Canada's Fairfield on the Thames Nat. Hist. Site-- Part 2

The site is referred to as Old Fairfield and Hat Hill Cemetery.  It was destroyed by an invading American force after the Battle of the Thames, 5 October 1813.

The Village of Fairfield was founded in 1792 by fleeing Indians from the persecution they were getting in the United States after they refused to take sides during the American Revolution.  They had been converted to Christianity by German-speaking Moravian missionaries.

The largest of the group who settle in Fairfield, also called Moraviantown or Moravian Town. were the Delaware Indians.  Hat Hill cemetery was founded at the same time.

The village stood for 21 years until the British force and their Indian allies were defeated at the Battle of the Thames, also called the Battle of Moravian Town.

After the battle,  the Americans accused the pacifist residents of Fairfield  of hiding British officers.  A search didn't find any hidden British officers, but the village was plundered anyway and burnt to the ground after the residents were allowed to escape.

The village was subsequently rebuilt on the other side of the Thames River.

--Brock-Perry

The Battle of the Thames-- Part 10: The Battle of Moraviantown and "Old King's Mountain"

**  Called the Battle of Moraviantown by the British and Canadians.

**  William Henry Harrison had with him in the campaign 120 regulars of the newly-formed 27th U.S. Infantry, 260 Indians and a corps of Kentucky volunteers consisting o foot soldiers and mounted infantry under the command of Major General Isaac Shelby.

**  Major General Isaac Shelby was 66-years-old and had the nickname "Old King's Mountain" because of his victory there during the American Revolution.

**  He led five brigades of buckskin-clad infantry men.

**  Also, technically under his command, but more often operating as an independent unit were the men of the 3rd Regiment Mounted Riflemen under the command of "War Hawk" Congressman Richard M. Johnson.

--Brock-Perry