War of 1812: U.S. military blunder shapes course of continent
Gen. William Hull's embarrassment at Detroit cements Canadian resolve in warding off American invasion.
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Those Yankee hearts began to ache,
Their blood it did run cold,
To see us marching forward
So courageous and so bold.
Their general sent a flag to us,
For quarter he did call,
Saying, “Stay your hand, brave British boys,
I fear you’ll slay us all.”
— From an 1812 campfire ballad, “Come All Ye Bold Canadians.”
DETROIT—There’s a plaque on the side of the Comerica Bank building, at the corner of Fort and Shelby streets.
It tells how this spot was once the southwest bastion of Fort Lernoult, built by the British in 1778-79.
Detroit and the rest of Michigan technically became part of the United States after the American Revolution, but the British lingered until 1796 as a way of securing the region’s rich fur trade.
The rest of the plaque reads as follows:
“In 1812, Fort Lernoult was surrendered to the British, but was regained by the Americans in 1813 and renamed Fort Shelby.”
As an act of public amnesia, that little concision might be breathtaking but also, in its way, understandable.
What happens here 200 years ago is one of the biggest blunders in American military history, made all the more arresting by the bombast that precedes it.
The implications on both sides of the border will be profound, shaping the course of a continent.
A fledgling United States, then teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, is already deeply divided over plans to conquer Canada, and the huge American embarrassment at Detroit helps spawn secessionist movements across New England.
On the other side of the Detroit River, the effect is precisely opposite — a spine-stiffening moment that cements Canadian resolve in warding off American invasion, dashing former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson’s grand hopes for “the addition of Canada to our confederacy.”
For Upper Canadians, having already endured public threats and the ransacking of farms by U.S. raiding parties, it doesn’t hurt that the American general who’d authorized both would be the one to suffer such an epic and ultimately comic humiliation: William Hull.
A hero in the American Revolutionary War, William Hull had gone on to become a successful Republican politician in Massachusetts but a failed land speculator in Vermont.
He hopes to rebuild his fortune as governor of the pre-state Michigan territory, a job he lands in 1805. By early 1812, though, he’s lobbying Jefferson and then-President James Madison for the right to lead an invasion of Canada.
There is already much belligerent clamour in Washington, and by early April — more than two months before the formal declaration of war — a three-pronged strategy is set in place.
Rather than attempt a single invasion of Lower Canada via Lake Champlain, as the Americans had tried during the American Revolution, they plan simultaneous attacks on Montreal and, through Detroit and Niagara, Upper Canada.
But in picking generals to execute that plan, Madison relies on distant glory. One general, Henry Dearborn, is so old and corpulent that even his own troops privately call him “Granny.”
Hull, at 59, is of similar ilk, but with a weakness for boasting and a preening need to add as much superfluous plumage to his uniform as possible.
“If an army was made up of fiddlers and dancers and nothing else was to be done but. . . drink wine and brandy, he would make a good general to command it,” says one American officer.
Nor are Hull’s plans much of a secret. In early May, one Baltimore newspaper publishes a report from Pennsylvania that Hull is passing through on his way to Detroit, “whence he was to make a descent upon Canada with 3,000 troops.”
He raises about 1,600 militiamen in Ohio and, together with 400 regular troops, is soon embarking on his month-long journey to destiny and Detroit.
By early July, Hull’s army finally reaches the Maumee River, which flows into Lake Erie, and Hull’s foolishness begins in earnest: he decides to send his personal luggage ahead to Detroit by schooner rather than lug it overland.
Still unaware that war has been formally declared, Hull seems blithely unconcerned that the schooner will have to sail through a narrow passage on the Detroit River in full view of British cannon at Amherstburg.
But before it can get that far, the ship encounters a Canadian longboat of the Provincial Marine, under the command of Lt. Frederic Rolette. The British and Canadians, courtesy of John Jacob Astor’s fur empire, already know that war is underway.
A 29-year-old French Canadian, Rolette is no stranger to combat. He’s already fought under Lord Nelson at two of the era’s epic sea battles, the Nile and Trafalgar, and he isn’t about to fool around now.
Before the startled American crew realizes what’s happening, Rolette boards and seizes control of the ship, locking 30 sick American officers and men in the hold.
The real prize, however, is Hull’s luggage — two trunks containing complete details of Hull’s strategy, the number of troops under his command and his correspondence with U.S. Secretary of War William Eustis.
The trove is promptly shipped to British General Isaac Brock at York (Toronto), who’s frantically preparing to ward off the attacks everyone knows are coming.
His eventual foe, Hull, finally reaches Detroit on July 5 and even the locale now seems to unnerve him — an odd development for the territory’s ostensible governor.
The area’s nearly 5,000 settlers are 80 per cent French and, by dint of trade, language, religion and intermarriage, they have far more in common with the roughly equal number of habitants on the Canadian side of the river.
As Hull notes, he’s “surrounded by a Savage foe, in the mist of a people, strangers to our language, our customs and manners.”
With a 2:1 advantage in manpower, however, Hull could easily overwhelm Amherstburg in short order. He opts instead to invade the village of Sandwich, present-day Windsor, and issue a proclamation, printed in English and French, which initially casts the Americans as would-be liberators who “come to protect you not to injure you.”
But Hull also wants to frighten Canadian militia into neutrality and, ever wary of Indians, he threatens that if “the savages are let loose to murder our citizens and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination.
“The first stroke with the Tomahawk, the first attempt with the scalping knife will be the signal for one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man fighting by the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner. Instant destruction will be his lot.”
Hull’s gambit has some initial success, as the militia at Amherstburg dwindles to fewer than 500 from more than 800 in barely a week, but he soon negates that advantage.
Still incensed by the seizure of his luggage, Hull takes his revenge by plundering the homes of Sandwich’s leading men, including Col. François Bâby, whose house sits directly across from Fort Lernoult, by now better known as Fort Detroit.
Raiding parties begin seizing flour and livestock from local farmers. Entire orchards are cut down for firewood. Rather than friendly liberators, the Americans now look like barbarous thieves.
Still, Hull dithers at Sandwich for weeks without striking Amherstburg, ostensibly awaiting cannon to be readied at Detroit and shipped across the river.
What advance troops he does send toward Amherstburg are rebuffed with such relative ease that British officers are scarcely able to contain their derisive laughter. With the Canadian militia returning, and Brock on his way, the British quickly shelve all thoughts of abandoning Amherstburg.
For Hull, the bad news is only starting to pile up. He now knows that Michilimackinac has fallen, giving the British control of the Upper Great Lakes, and Hull will soon respond by ordering the evacuation of Fort Dearborn (now Chicago).
The Wyandot tribe, living southwest of Detroit, decides to shed its neutrality and decamp to the Canadian side of the river.
Hull’s supply lines, meanwhile, are long and tenuous and coming under regular attack by Tecumseh’s Indians. The mutilated American corpses left in the wake of one skirmish seem to spook Hull to his core.
Just two days later, on Aug. 7, Hull abandons Sandwich and retreats to the relative safety of fortress Detroit.
But Tecumseh’s raids have also produced another rich harvest: U.S. mail bags, whose letters reference the deep discord in the American camp and the near-mutiny of senior officers exasperated by Hull’s reign of indecision.
One letter in particular, from Hull to Eustis, is a kind of welcoming gift for Brock. It tells of Hull’s great worry that an Indian siege is imminent — a fear Brock will soon use to superb advantage.
Isaac Brock may be a great hero in Canada today, but this is scarcely his preferred side of the Atlantic.
Born in Guernsey in 1769, Brock enlists as an ensign at 16, and a year after seeing action with Nelson at Copenhagen in 1801, he’s posted to Lower Canada. By 1811, he’s acting lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, and dreadfully unhappy.
While his peers are covering themselves in glory as part of the Duke of Wellington’s campaigns against Napoleon, Brock is languishing. As he writes in one letter to a relative in 1810, he fears “fate decrees that the best portion of my life is to be wasted in inaction in the Canadas.”
The War of 1812 finally offers him, if not an equal alternative to the Napoleonic war, at least a chance to make his mark.
At 42 and six-foot-three, Brock is an imposing figure, but he also knows how much is resting on his shoulders. His British superiors have allotted him only 1,200 British regulars to defend the entire border of Upper Canada.
If he’s to fight off any American invasion, he’ll need both Canadian militia and the Indians — and more than a dash of daring and good luck.
On Aug. 13, Brock finally arrives near Amherstburg as part of a motley flotilla carrying about 400 men.
He wastes little time before his now-legendary first meeting with Tecumseh, the great Shawnee leader. The two practically fall over each other in mutual admiration. Of Tecumseh, Brock says: “A more sagacious or a more gallant warrior does not, I believe, exist.”
Tecumseh remarks of Brock: “Here, is a man.”
Rather than await Hull’s next move, Brock decides to attack as soon as possible. He now has roughly 1,900 men at his disposal: 358 British regulars, 133 lake sailors, 807 Canadian militia and 600 Indians.
Hull has a larger force — about 2,500 — but Brock, having read the captured letters, knows that morale at Detroit is tanking, its leadership in disarray.
Once at Sandwich, Brock sends a message to Hull on Aug. 15, demanding his immediate surrender.
“It is far from my inclination to join in a war of extermination,” writes Brock, “but you must be aware, that the numerous body of Indians who have attached themselves to my troops, will be beyond my control the moment the contest commences.”
Hull refuses to surrender, but Brock has cleverly planted a seed in Hull’s increasingly enfeebled mind: Indians, extermination….
At the back of Col. Bâby’s house, which Hull had used for his headquarters in Sandwich, Brock sets up an 18-pound cannon. A block away, at the foot of present-day Ouellette Ave., sit two 12-pounders.
Two brigs — the Queen Charlotte and General Hunter — are also brought upriver, putting their 18-pounders within range of Fort Detroit.
That evening, the British shelling begins in earnest.
Drinking heavily, the American general is soon rattled when a cannon ball rips through the officer’s mess. It isn’t a pretty sight. As one of Hull’s officers later recalls: “His lips (were) quivering, the tobacco juice running from the sides of his mouth upon the frills of his shirt.”
Early the next morning, Brock sets out with roughly 1,300 men to cross the river downstream from Detroit, embarking near the current site of a Hydro One plant.
Canadian John Richardson, an officer with the British Army and future novelist, would later write of the crossing that “a soft August sun was just rising, as we gained the centre of the river.” Mixed in with their boats are “numerous canoes filled with Indian warriors, decorated in their half nakedness for the occasion, and uttering yells of mingled defiance of their foes and encouragement to the soldiery.”
Once on American soil, Brock is the perfect foil to Hull, riding so nonchalantly at the head of his troops that even his own officers beg Brock to make himself a less conspicuous target.
But Brock will have none of it, and reputedly replies that “many men follow me from a feeling of personal regard, and I will never ask them to go where I do not lead them.”
Brock’s troops are almost within range of American cannon before they wheel sharply to the left and the protection of a small ravine.
A shrewd judge of character, Brock also has psychology in his arsenal. He’s already had Canadian militia dress in discarded British uniforms to make them appear to be hardened redcoats.
Now he has Tecumseh’s Indians file across a meadow, within full view of the fort but out of range, then disappear into the forest where they circle back to cross the meadow again in a continuous loop.
The Americans are duped — they think Tecumseh’s band of painted, screeching warriors is enormous.
Hull is so terrified of a massacre that he quickly resolves to surrender and sends word to Brock, asking for three days to prepare the evacuation. Brock gives him three hours, after which he says he’ll attack.
It’s a stunning, bloodless victory.
Hull is soon handing over 2,500 American troops, along with 33 cannon and nearly 3,000 muskets, plus tons of gunpowder and lead. Some of Hull’s own officers, suddenly realizing they’ve been beaten by a force barely half as large, break swords over their knees in protest.
One Ohio volunteer will soon write bitterly to the U.S. secretary of war that Hull had brought about “so foul a stain upon the national character.”
More than 2,000 American militiamen are “paroled” — sent home on pledges they won’t fight again until their names are exchanged for those of similarly paroled Canadian militiamen.
Hull and more than 500 U.S. regulars are duly marched to Quebec as prisoners, a parade expressly designed to boost Canadian morale.
But the British shrewdly release Hull in September, knowing his arrival in the United States will roil the republic, where he’s already being dubbed a “gasconading booby.”
Tried for cowardice, only a presidential pardon saves him from the firing squad, but his reputation is in tatters.
As Madison himself will later write, Hull “sunk before obstacles at which not an officer near him would have paused, and threw away an entire army.”
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