Andrew Hunter Holmes-- Part 3

After the Battle of Lake Erie (September 10, 1813) when Americans recovered Fort Detroit, Holmes' regiment was ordered to assist Major General William Henry Harrison's invasion of Canada.  Holmes was present at the Battle of the Thames (October 5, 1813) and was later assigned to the U.S. garrison at Amherstburg (Fort Malden).

From Amherstburg, Holmes commanded a raid against British outposts at Delaware (present-day Middlesex Centre, Ontario) and Port Talbot, Ontario.  On March 2, 1814, as Holmes neared Delaware, he received news that the British were aware of his presence and had dispatched a large force to intercept him.

Holmes withdrew to Twenty Mile Creek. 

On March 4, 1814, he fought at the Battle of Longwoods.

--Brock-Perry

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

This Month in the War of 1812: Napoleon, Embargo Act, Treaty of Ghent, William Henry Harrison and USS Constitution

DECEMBER 4, 1804

**  Napoleon is crowned Emperor of France following a coup d'etat.  (Thankfully because he kept the British tied up fighting him  at first in the war.)

DECEMBER 22, 1807

**  The Embargo Act passed.

DECEMBER 24, 1814

**  The Treaty of Ghent was signed ending the war.

DECEMBER 28. 1812

**  William Henry Harrison formally resigns as Governor of Indiana Territory and takes the rank of brigadier general.

DECEMBER 29, 1812

**  The USS Constitution defeats the HMS Java.

--Brock-Perry

River Raisin Massacre-- Part 12: 'Remember the Raisin' and Aftermath

This deliberateness of behavior from the Indians did not diminish, and perhaps intensified, the horror many survivors later described.  Indeed, the most vivid recollections related to to the systematic nature of the killings and treatment of the remains.

The battle ended in what was described as a "national calamity" by Major General, and later president of the United States, William Henry Harrison.  

It also left an impact on the broader American consciousness.  The Americans who pushed north to liberate Detroit went to destroying the British-Canadian-Indian coalition in the west at the Battle of the Thames, near present-day Chatham, Ontario, on October 5, 1813.

Fueled by the battle cry, "Remember the Raisin!" their massive victory sealed the War of 1812 in the western theater for the United States, claimed the life of the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh, and resulted in the end the American Indian Confederation.

In an even broader sense, the aftermath of these battles resulted in the implementation of the U.S. policy of Indian removal from the Northwest Territory at the conclusion of the War of 1812, leading to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a policy that continues to resonate today.

--Brock-Perry

Horrors of the River Raisin-- Part 9: An Unmitigated Disaster for the Americans

These were brave words, but the Kentuckians' position was dire.  Their ammunition was low, they were completely hemmed in on the south, British artillery was in position to fire volleys of gunfire through their defensive lines and Confederacy warriors were firing into the heart of the settlement while preparing to set it on fire.

In short, Major George Madison of the Kentucky 1st Regiment had two choices:  surrender to the British or, as he put it, "be massacred in cold blood."  Still, Madison was commited to holding out long enough to influence the terms of surrender.

After some back-and-forth with the British over the disposition of prisoners, protection from Confederacy forces and care for the wounded, Madison formally capitulated.

Expecting American reinforcements from General Harrison's troops, the British quickly withdrew due to heavy casualties.  The battle was costly for the British Regulars and Canadian militia, but for the Americans it was an unmitigated disaster:  Of the 934 who had heard the morning's reveille, 901 were either dead, sounded or prisoners of war.

--Brock-Perry

How the Horrors of the River Raisin Became a Rallying Call-- Part 3: Efforts to Recapture Detroit

The British and their Native allies were able to secure firm control over much of the Old Northwest as they pushed the frontier back to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Upon liberating Fort Wayne, Major General William Henry Harrison soon turned his sights on coordinating efforts to recapture Detroit.  He established a base at the Maumee Rapids, south of present-day Toledo, Ohio.

In January 1813, these American forces were assembling for a winter campaign to retake Detroit.  American Revolution war veteran Brigadier General James Winchester, an early arrival, received a request from River Raisin settlers to lift British control of their community.

Winchester dispatched more than 550 men from the 1st and 5th Kentucky Volunteer Regiments, under the command of Colonels William Lewis and John Allen to the River Raisin.

Once there, American efforts to outflank allied Canadian militiamen and Confederacy warriors proved unsuccessful, and the fighting dissolved into a series of fierce skirmishes through the dense woods to the north.

--Brock-Perry

Standing Tall on Lake Erie-- Part 5: 'We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Ours'

Despite losing his flagship, Oliver Hazard Perry was able to disable and scatter the British fleet.

When it came time for their surrender, he had the site moved back to his flagship, the USS Lawrence, so they could see the damage they had done to the ship.

He wrote a letter to General William Henry Harrison with the now famous statement:  "We have met the enemy and they are ours.  Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."

This enabled Harrison, then, to launch his invasion of the western part of Upper Canada, which ended in the British total defeat at the Battle of the Thames and the death of Indian chief Tecumseh.

Perry was hailed as the "Hero of Lake Erie."

Dedicated in 1931, Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial is a testimony of the American victory on Lake Erie and a nod to a long-standing peace among the U.S., Britain and Canada.  Initially, three American and three British military members were buried at the monument as a reminder of the losses suffered by both sides during the fierce 1813 battle.

The bodies were later exhumed and reburied at De Rivera Park.

There is no doubt that the towering structure embodies a history of great proportions.

--Brock-Perry

Events During the War of 1812 Occurring in December: Hartford Convention, Fort Niagara, Embargo Act, Treaty of Ghent, USS Constitution

From the December 2021 American Battlefield Trust calendar.

**  DECEMBER 14, 1814

Delegates of the Hartford Convention meet in Hartford, Connecticut.

**  DECEMBER 19, 1813

Capture of Fort Niagara.

**  DECEMBER 22, 1807

The Embargo Act passes.

*********************************************

**  DECEMBER 24, 1814

Treaty of Ghent signed.

**  DECEMBER 28, 1812

William Henry Harrison formally resigned as governor of the Indiana Territory and takes the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army.

**  DECEMBER 29, 1812

The USS Constitution defeats the HMS Java.

--Brock-Perry

U.S. Presidents Who Served in the War of 1812-- Part 2: Andrew Jackson and Others

As mentioned in the previous post, James Buchanan served in the War of 1812 as a private in Henry Shippen's Company, 1st Brigade, 4th Division of the Pennsylvania Militia and participated in the defense of Baltimore.

As stated before, only two of the Founding Fathers served in the American Revolution, but a total of five were in the War of 1812.  Starting with Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) and then William Henry Harrison (1841), John Tyler (1841-1845), Zachary Taylor (1849-1850) and James Buchanan (1857-1861).

But, the War of 1812 is forever linked to Andrew Jackson who led American forces to victory at the Battle of New Orleans.  It was a battle where a ragtag American Army defeated a larger trained professional British Army in a battle that saved the Mississippi River from British control and was actually fought after the war was over, but due to slow communication no one knew it was over.

It should also be noted that Jackson's military career began when he was just thirteen.  as a teenager, he served as messenger for an American unit during the American Revolution.  But he was definitely not one of the Founding Fathers at that age.

Moreover, during his quite colorful life, Jackson took part in 103 duels -- however killing just one man.

--Brock-Perry

The Treaty of Spring Wells-- Part 2: What Did It Mean and Who Signed It

Then object of the treaty was to absolve the Indians for supporting Britain during the War of 1812 and secure their future allegiance to the United States.  The treaty officially ended all hostilities between the United States  and the Indians and reaffirmed  the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

The U.S. agreed to restore to the Indians all of their possessions, rights and privileges as of 1811.  In return, the Indians agreed to place themselves under the protection of the U.S. government and repudiate all ties with Britain.

Furthermore, the U.S.  also "agree[d] to pardon such of the chiefs and  and warriors of said tribes as may have continued hostilities against them  until the close of the war with Great Britain."

The negotiations for the United States were conducted by treaty commissioners William Henry Harrison, Duncan McArthur and John Graham.  Native leaders who signed the treaty were Tarhe (Wyandot), Pacanne (Miami) and Black Hoof (Shawnee).

--Brock-Perry

About That Fort Detroit, Shelby and Wayne in Detroit-- Part 3: So, Which Fort Was the War of 1812 Fort?

Actually, the War of 1812 fort was not Fort Wayne, which still stands and was constructed after the war.  The fort that William Hull surrendered in 1812 was Fort Detroit which was renamed Fort Shelby in 1813.

Fort Shelby was occupied by the British for awhile and when they pulled out, American troops reoccupied it.

In 1815, the site of the future Fort Wayne was where American government officials and Indian leaders  met to sign the Treaty of Spring Wells.  This marked the end of hostilities between tribes that had Britain during the war and the United States.  Among those present at the signing were Michigan Territorial Governor Lewis Cass and William Henry Harrison.

In the late 1830s, there were a series of rebellions in Canada with led to a series of American militia attacks across the river in what is known as the Patriot War.  At the time, the U.S. government realized that the whole northern border of the country lacked fortifications to stop a British attack.  In particular, British Fort Malden, located near Detroit in Amherstburg was a potential threat.

In 1841, Congress appropriated funds to build a string of fortifications from the east coast to Minnesota, including one at Detroit.

--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 4: The Impact of the Death of Tecumseh and Aftermath

Somewhere in the smoke and fury, Tecumseh went down.  Col. Richard Mentor Johnson, severely wounded himself, recounted pulling out his pistols and shooting an Indian -- maybe Tecumseh?  In later years, Johnson built his political career on the claim that he had slain the mighty Tecumseh himself.

Tecumseh's death put in motion a series of events and consequences.    Furious about the British failure, many of Tecumseh's allies quickly signed an armistice with Harrison, who then sought  o enlist them to fight the British.

Even as many American settlers  spoke explicitly   about the "extermination" of  Indian people, their leaders  negotiated a series of treaties with confederacy tribes.  The British confirmed their faithlessness in the 1814 Treaty of Ghent, which  ended the war, but sold out their Indian allies.

Without Tecumseh, his brother, Tenskwatawa, the Prophet, floundered, and he eventually helped the Americans to persuade the Shawnees to leave their lands and relocate in Kansas.  There, in 1828, he set up a sad little Prophetstown of four remote cabins, where he faded away to a lonely death less than a decade later.

--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

What Tecumseh Fought For-- Part 2: An Indian Confederation

Tecumseh's 1811 diplomatic mission among the various Indian tribes rallied the Upper Creeks, but  most of the southern tribes rejected it. As a result, most of his efforts  remained centered in the Old Northwest, where he drew together the Shawnee, Delaware, Miami, Potawatomi, Wyandot, Kickapoo, Saulk, Meskwaki, Ottawa and Ojibwe.

To Tecumseh, the Americans were set on domination of the continent and the Indians were in the wat and must be removed.

William Henry Harrison's victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe might have ended the Indian conflict, but it didn't.  He was sure of it, but was very wrong about it.  Tecumseh and his brother, The Prophet, regrouped their people around a powerful ally, Britain, America's opponent in the approaching  maritime war.

Again, Tecumseh's aspirations were frustrated by circumstance.  Still hoping for an Indian confederacy, Tecumseh found his hand forced by the War of 1812.

For the next three years, the incomplete Indian alliance challenged American armies across the Native homelands.  They pummeled the Americans at the River Raisin, took Fort Dearborn (Chicago), chased settlers out of the borderlands, and orchestrated a three-pronged  offensive against the remaining American forts.

--Brock-Perry

Mary Todd Lincoln's Uncle, David Todd-- Part 2: Missouri and a Whig

In 1819, President James Monroe appointed him territorial circuit judge of northern Missouri.    When Boone County, Missouri, separated from Howard County, Todd was one of the citizens who purchased land on which Columbia was laid out in 1818-1819.

When Missouri became a state in 1821, Governor Alexander McNair appointed Todd  state circuit judge, a position he held until 1837.

In the summer of 1840, Mary Todd traveled to Columbia, Missouri, and visited with her uncle, David Todd.  While there, she became good friends with the judge's daughter, Ann.  This was also the year in which Mary became engaged to Abraham Lincoln.

He was an ardent Whig, serving as a delegate to the Whig National Convention that selected William Henry Harrison, Todd's commanding officer during the War of 1812,  for president in 1840.

In 1850, he was practicing law in Boone County and owned real estate valued at $3,500.

--Brock-Perry

Swords Seized in Connecticut May Be William Henry Harrison's-- Part 2: Real Or Not?

James Kochan, the sword's owner, said it was authentic and that it belonged to him, but he reluctantly turned it over to the police.  It is now in the custody of Hamilton County where the Harrison-Symmes Foundation says  they had donated it to the Hamilton County Probate Court in 1922.

Documents show the court loaned it to the Cincinnati Historical Society, which used it in their 1976 Bicentennial display,, but sometime in the next few years, it disappeared while in the society's storage in its museum.

The Society didn't publicize the  theft and the Harrison-Symmes Foundation became aware that it was gone when they asked for it back for a display in the 1993 celebration of the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Village of Cleves, 15 miles west of Cincinnati where John Simmes was a pioneering landowner.

So, Is It Or Isn't It The Real Deal?  --Brock-Perry

Sword Seized by Connecticut Cops May Have Been Wielded by President in the War of 1812-- Part 1

From the Nov. 7, 2019, Fox News by Frank Miles.

A sword from the American Revolution that may have been used by a future president of the United States has been recovered in Connecticut.  Studies will be made to determine whether it is or not.  Is it the same one that disappeared from the Cincinnati Historical Society forty years ago?

It is believed that this sword was carried into battle by future President William Henry Harrison in the War of 1812, and before him, carried into battle in the American Revolution by  Continental Army Col. John Cleves Symmes, Harrison's future father-in-law.

Police in Windsor, Ct. seized the sword just before it was to be auctioned by James Kochan of Wiscasset, Maine.  Kochan, a collector, said he bought the sword in 2015 from a collection being sold by Christie's auction house in New York.

It was spotted online by Dave Sunberg, a member of the Harrison-Symmes Memorial Foundation who alerted police.

--Brock-Perry

Ohio's War of 1812 Forts-- Part 1: The Land and Rivers Were Different Back Then

Since I have been writing about Fort Stephenson and Meigs in Ohio during the war, I came across this on all of the state's forts during the war.

From the Touring Ohio site "Ohio's forts during the War of 1812."

When the war broke out and after the surrender of Hull at Detroit, Ohio's new commander, William Henry Harrison began preparing for the expected invasion of northwest Ohio by the British

At that time, northwest Ohio was often called the Black swamp.  It was a mucky ware-logged area that made travel by land very difficult.  Harrison decided to build a number of forts and supply depots along the rivers.

The rivers of northwestern Ohio back then were different than they are today.  They were mostly slow-moving, deep water rivers that retained their levels most of the year. thanks to the swampy land supplying them with water.

Even during hard rains the rivers would remain relatively level since the water had to flow through the swamps before entering the river.  Later, as the land was cleared and turned into farmland, came the wide fluctuations in water level we have today.

--Brock-Perry

Battle of Fort Stephenson-- Part 5: Honors and Reburial

Once the British and General Proctor were defeated at Fort Stephenson, he withdrew back to Fort Detroit, with the Americans under Gen. Harrison following closely.  Shortly after Fort Stephenson, Commodore Perry would defeat the British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie near Put-In-Bay.

The Americans now had complete control of Lake Erie and British prospects of supplies and reinforcements essentially ceased.

For his exploit, despite disobeying orders, George Croghan was brevetted to lieutenant colonel by the President of the United States.  In 1835, the U.S. Congress awarded him the Gold Medal.  later, he was made Inspector general with the rank of colonel.

During the Mexican War, he served with General Taylor.  Two years later, he died in New Orleans.  In 1906, he remains were disinterred from his family plot in Kentucky and  moved to Fremont, Ohio (site of Fort Stephenson) and placed in a special crypt at the base of the Soldiers' Monument honoring Fremont's veterans and specifically the Battle of Fort Stephenson, 1813.

--Brock-Perry