a period of military inactivity, he wrote a letter to the secretary of the navy, proposing the construction of a fleet to compete with the English for the possession of Lake Erie, and to drive them from its waters, if possible. He argued that this plan was cheaper than land operations and probably the best means of regaining the ground lost by Hull's ill-advised surrender. The secretary of the navy was attracted by the idea, and at once proceeded to put it into execution. The United States. axe and saw in hand, went into the forest with a divine purpose, emerging therefrom with a newly made navy which, under the gallant Perry, boldly attacked and defeated the proud officers of the supposed invincible British navy. Too much honor cannot be paid to the memory of Commodore Perry and his gallant officers and men, but General Harrison's memory should also receive equal honors.

General Winchester in January, 1813, despatched a force of some seven hundred Kentuckians under command of Colonels Lewis and Allen, to meet a threatened attack by the English upon the settlements at Frenchtown and in its vicinity. This force, reaching Frenchtown after forced marches, found that place occupied by the enemy who were concealed in the homes of the residents. An immediate attack was made and the enemy was driven out and retreated for about half a mile. Reforming his broken lines, the English commander made a stand with small arms and a single gun battery. The Kentuckians were divided, a portion of them remaining in front of the enemy while the remainder were sent around the English left, thus causing the latter to retreat for two miles or more, when darkness came on and put an end to the engagement. The losses of the Kentuckians were twelve killed and fifty-five wounded. The English losses were estimated as three times those of the American force.

Frenchtown, where this victory was gained by the American forces, was but eighteen

miles from Malden, the headquarters of the English army. When news of the defeat of the latter reached General Winchester, that officer, believing that the commanding officer at Malden would at once send out reinforcements to his beaten forces, led a column of two hundred and fifty men, all that could be spared from the Rapids, to reinforce the victorious Kentucky troops. On joining these, it was determined to at once begin the construction of fortifications. On the next day, the 21st, he received information that a force of three thousand English and Indians were preparing to march upon and attack the American forces on the River Raisin. For some inexplicable reason, no attention was paid to this information by General Winchester. Colonel Lewis and Major Madison, of the Kentucky forces, were more alert and cautioned their men to remain under cover of the houses and other protection at Frenchtown. Men who have had experience as soldiers will be surprised that a camp, in the presence of the enemy, who threatened to immediately attack, was unprotected by pickets, the excuse for this negligence being the extreme cold of the night. Even the road by which the enemy was expected to approach, it is stated by the historians of that period, was unprotected by a picket. It is difficult to believe that a man who had experience in the Revolution, as had General Winchester, could be so remiss in duty. Better a thousand pickets suffering in the cold than an army surprised.

It appears that some one kept awake in the American camp, for at daybreak reveille was sounded. In a few moments a yet sterner call to duty was heard. Three guns, sounded in quick succession, told of the near approach of the enemy. The Americans had scarcely formed until the enemy's artillery opened on them from a point only three hundred yards away. The English troops charged the front of the American lines, while the Indians attacked on both right and left flanks. No more

complete a surprise could have occurred. Half a score of pickets on duty under competent officers, could have averted the disaster. Colonel Lewis' men poured a deadly fire into the enemy repulsing him on the left and center, but on the right the reinforcements that had accompanied General Wnichester, being unprotected, as were those of Colonel Lewis,

were

driven back and Winchester's most strenuous efforts could not rally them. The British troops poured a hot fire into them in front; the Indians flanked them on the right and the disaster was complete, a retreat on the order of every man for himself resulting. Colonels Lewis and Allen made gallant but ineffectual efforts to rally the men on the south side of the river, but the Indians had gained their flank and rear; human nature has its limitations, and they too joined in the disastrous retreat. The Indians, finding the Americans at their mercy, shot, tomahawked and scalped them at will, regardless of efforts to surrender. It is stated that one hundred men were thus maltreated in a space one hundred yards square. Colonel Allen and Captain Simpson of the Kentucky volunteers were among those who were killed, as was Captain Meade of the regular forces. Hundreds were overtaken in the deep snow, which retarded their retreat, and were ruthlessly tomahawked and scalped.

General Winchester, Colonel Lewis and other officers and men, being captured by the English troops, escaped murder after capture. Majors Graves and Madison, two brave Kentucky officers commanding Kentuckians of equal bravery, held their positions and refused to surrender. Proctor, the English commander, with much discretion, after withstanding their deadly fire until ten o'clock, withdrew his white forces, intending to renew the attack on the return of his brutal savage allies from their saturnalia of murder in the ranks of the fleeing soldiers.

Proctor advised his prisoner, Winchester,

to surrender his entire force as in no other manner could their slaughter by the savages be prevented. The English commander had willingly engaged the services of the devil, and now confessed his inability to control the myrmidons of His Satanic Majesty. Our cousins across the seas seem to have had some original ideas as to how best to conduct their military operations. In the Revolution they confronted the Continental forces with hired Hessians; in 1812-15 they found their allies among the cruelest of savages whom they ruthlessly set upon the men, women and children of their own kith and kin, "bone of their bone; flesh of their flesh."

Winchester, in the hands of the enemy, was unaware that two Kentucky officers and their gallant followers were still holding out against the enemy's attacks. Graves and Madison, still fighting and ready to fight on, were surprised when one of their comrades, Major Overton, accompanied by Proctor, approached with a flag of truce. Then only did they learn that General Winchester was a prisoner and that he had sent them an order to surrender. It is not often that the annals of warfare record instances where the commander of an army, a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, issues an order to those of his subordinates who are still free and still fighting, to surrender to an enemy who has been unable to dislodge them or prevent the continuance of their defense. Madison, the fire of conflict burning in his soldierly eyes, answered the surprising demand for a surrender by stating his knowledge of Indian warfare and declining to surrender unless the fullest protection was afforded his command. Proctor demanded to know if Madison proposed to dictate to him, to which the gallant Kentuckian replied that he proposed to dictate for himself and that he and his men proposed to continue fighting rather than to be murdered by the savage allies of the English forces.

Proctor then agreed that private property

should be respected; that the sick and wounded American soldiers should be taken to Malden for treatment and that they should be protected. It will be noted that no promise was made for the protection of those who were neither sick nor wounded. Major Madison, upon inquiry among his subordinate officers, found that the supply of ammunition was almost exhausted; that half, or more, of the army had already surrendered, and that the success of a retreat was impossible. Therefore he accepted Proctor's terms and surrendered his gallant fellows to a fate worse than leath-to the ruthless savagery of a body of Indians who knew not mercy and reveled in butchery undeterred by their white allies.

When the English forces withdrew on the return march to Malden, bearing their own sick and wounded and leaving behind those of the American army, the promised guard of protection was found to consist of one English Major and two or three interpreters. The stage was set for a tragedy and it quickly followed. The main body of the Indians accompanied the English for a few miles on the return march to Malden. But they did not continue their march. Early on the morning of the following day, hundreds of them returned to the scene of the preceding day's battle, hideous in their war paint and rending the air with their murderous yells of triumph. They broke into and plundered the houses where lay the sick and wounded whom they murdered and scalped. Captain Hickman, a wounded officer of the Kentucky troops, was dragged from his bed, tomahawked, scalped and thrust back into the house which had sheltered him and which was immediately set on fire. The houses where most of the wounded lay were fired and the suffering wounded men, who had been surrendered to an English officer on his promise to protect them, were burned to death in the beds from which their wounds prevented their escaping. Those who were equal to attempting escape.

Vol. 1-14.

were met by the red demons, tomahawked and scalped. None escaped their savage fury. Major Woolfolk, Major Graves, Captain Hart, other officers of lesser grade and all the private soldiers, met the same fate, either at Frenchtown, or on the road to Malden. And Proctor had solemnly promised protection to the sick and wounded. The value of an English officer's word, at least in those days, may be estimated by the bloody record written by savage hands on the banks of the River Raisin, where lie the whitening bones of hundreds of murdered Kentuckians.

The American army's loss was almost total. There were two hundred and ninety men killed in actual conflict or murdered by the savages; five hundred and ninety-two were made prisoners, and a mere handful-thirtythree, escaped. Of the English troops, their commander reported one hundred and eightytwo killed and wounded. He made no report of the Indian losses, perhaps because he had no use for a dead Indian; the only Indian who was valuable to him was one who would murder, scalp and burn his sick and wounded enemies to whom he had promised protection.

The story of that English commander, Colonel Hamilton, whom Gen. George Rogers Clark called "the hair buyer," has been told at an earlier period in this work. Hamilton offered a premium for the scalps of white men, women and children brought to him by the Indians. Proctor, it seems, profited by this early scheme of his fellow-butcher Hamilton, and also offered a price for scalps. The Indians learned that by refraining from murdering their white captives and holding them for ransom, they could receive a greater return than Proctor paid for scalps. Therefore, the returns from the scalp industry fell off and Proctor, making inquiries, learned that the trade in ransoms had affected the market for scalps. He therefore issued an order "forbidding individuals to ransom any more prisoners of the Indians," but at the same time

The English language usually supplies a medium for the full expression of any sentiment, but it is sadly at fault in that it has no words with which to properly characterize this atrocity of Proctor's. To call him a beast or a brute is to cast a stigma upon every animal of field or forest.

That the conduct of Proctor met the approval of his superiors in command, is shown by the congratulatory order of the commander-in-chief, who announced his gratification at the butchery of sick and wounded prisoners and commended Proctor for the notable display of his gallantry "in his humane and unwearied exertions which succeeded in rescuing the vanquished from the revenge of the

cluded that the British government was entirely willing to use as allies savages who could only be prevented from wreaking vengeance on the sick and wounded "by the humane and unwearied exertions" of English officers.

For this modern exhibition of savage barbarity on the part of an officer of an English army, Proctor was promoted to be a brigadier general. It is difficult to understand this moderation. It was to be expected that he would be made nothing less than a lieutenant general at least. Certain organizations of today, in our own country and in the piping times of peace, make lieutenant generals of even cheaper material than Proctor.

When the news came from the River Raisin, there were few families in Kentucky that were not stricken with grief. The very flower of the young men of the state was represented in the ranks of the volunteers who had bared their bosoms to the storm of savage battle and gone down to death in that awful strife. But the feeling was not all of grief. There was even a deeper feeling than any personal sorrow, a feeling that the disaster must be retrieved; that the victors, white savages and red, should be made to feel the hand of retribution. The people, young and old, had never been so aroused as now.

That sturdy old patriot, Isaac Shelby, had again come into the governorship as the successor of Governor Scott. As governor, he was commander-in-chief of all the military forces of the state, but was not expected to engage in active service. But the people knew his worth as a soldier, which had been proven in the Revolution, and the legislature, recognizing the voice of the people, adopted a resolution asking the sturdy old patriot to take command in the field of a new levy of militia, authorizing him to call for three thousand

troops. At once, he responded and ordered that the troops called for should compose four regiments, to be commanded by Colonels Boswell, Dudley, Caldwell and Cox, the brigade thus formed to be commanded by Gen. Green Clay. The first two regiments were hastily assembled at Newport and hurried to Fort Meigs, a new defense recently constructed at the Rapids.

Gen. Green Clay was a Virginian who came in early life to Kentucky, settling in Madison county. He was from the beginning of his career in Kentucky a noted man. He was first appointed a deputy surveyor of Lincoln county when it was one of the three counties of Kentucky district. He was a delegate from Madison county to the Virginia convention which ratified the constitution of the United States. He served twenty years in the Kentucky legislature and was the author of the charter of the Bank of Kentucky. He was a member of the convention which framed the second constitution of Kentucky in 1799, and in 1808 was speaker of the senate. After a long and useful life, he died in 1826, leaving a large estate. He left two sons-Cassius M.