In the War of 1812, sometimes called "the Second American Revolution," the U.S. Navy distinguished itself while the U.S. Army, hampered by incredibly bad leadership and state militia units whose discipline often left much to be desired, suffered greatly. The greatest American land victory, the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, was actually fought weeks after a peace treaty had been signed between the United States and Great Britain. And yet there were some earlier, less-famous victories on land that did credit to U.S. arms.
One such success was the Battle of the Thames, called the Battle of Moraviantown by the British and Canadians. Fought on Canadian soil, it secured the strategic Northwestern frontier from further attacks by the British and their Indian allies.
Beginnings Of The War
The War of 1812 was officially declared over the right of U.S. sailing ships to be free from search and seizure by the Royal Navy, then at war with Napoleonic France. Other underlying factors, however, were the ongoing British policy of aiding the Indians of the Northwestern frontier against American settlement and the desire by an aggressive-minded congressional faction, known as the Young War Hawks, to invade Canada. It was one of America's most unpopular wars, bitterly opposed in New England; the militia, in many instances, refused to cross the border into Canada to fight the enemy. The initial strategy of the U.S. Army, officered at the top by aging veterans of the Revolution, was to invade Canada in four separate but uncoordinated offensives. Those plans were made without taking into consideration the Royal Navy's supremacy on the Great Lakes.
In the Western theater, the Americans encountered another problem. When 61-year-old Brig. Gen. William Hull led 2,200 men out of Detroit to invade Canada, his flanks came under a series of harassing attacks by Shawnee, Wyandot, Chippewa and Lakota warriors, all led by the charismatic Shawnee Chief Tecumseh. An eloquent orator and able diplomat, Tecumseh also proved to be a canny tactician, and his harrying raids convinced Hull to double back to Detroit. Later, joined by a British force under Maj. Gen. Isaac Brock, Tecumseh convinced the British commander -- against the advice of his own officers -- to attack Detroit without delay. Marching his 600 braves three times through a clearing in view of the fort so that Hull would exaggerate their numbers, Tecumseh helped convince the elderly general to surrender Detroit to Brock on August 16 -- the only capitulation of a city in the United States to a foreign invader.
American forces failed not only in the Northwest but also on other fronts. On October 13, an American invasion across the Niagara River, led by Maj. Gen. Stephen van Rensselaer, was driven back in the Battle of Queenston Heights. Unfortunately for the British, however, Sir Isaac Brock -- who had been knighted after his success at Detroit -- was among those killed. His replacement in the West, Colonel Henry Proctor, would not match his leadership qualities.
William Henry Harrison
In 1813, the prime objective of President James Madison's Department of War was to recover Detroit and to invade Upper Canada (now Ontario province). For that task, the War Department picked the governor of the Indiana Territory, 40-year-old William Henry Harrison, the Virginia-born son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
As a 19-year-old subaltern, Harrison had served as an aide to Maj. Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, in which Wayne's American Legion defeated the Indians near the present-day site of Toledo, Ohio, on August 20, 1794. Also a participant in that battle was the Shawnee brave Tecumseh, who was to face Harrison again at the Battle of the Thames.
Harrison quit the service and went into politics not long after the engagement at Fallen Timbers. Returning to active duty in 1811, he defeated Tecumseh's brother, Tenskwatawa, called "The Prophet," at Tippecanoe Creek in Indiana on November 7.
A year later, Harrison was promoted to major general and assigned to command the Army of the Northwest. His deputy was the controversial Brig. Gen. James Winchester, who was defeated by the British and their Indian allies at the Battle of Frenchtown, near Monroe, Mich., on January 22, 1813, resulting in the surrender of 550 troops. The battle was fought along the Raisin River and was thenceforth known as the "River Raisin Massacre" by the Americans because, despite a promise of protection from the British commander, Colonel Proctor, wounded American prisoners were butchered by the Indians, some being burned to death in huts.
The Butcher In Petticoats
Proctor -- known to the bitter Americans thereafter as "the Butcher" -- and the River Raisin Massacre were to remain vivid in the memories of the Americans who survived and either escaped or were paroled. Many of them were Kentuckians who would confront Proctor and his Indian allies again at Moraviantown.
Arriving at the scene of the massacre about a week later, Harrison built a new stronghold, Fort Meigs, along the Maumee River. On May 1, 1813, the new fort came under siege by Proctor and Tecumseh. On May 5, the Americans tried to rush and take British batteries on the north and south banks of the river, but British and Indian forces counterattacked, killing or capturing about 600 of the Americans.
At that point, an incident occurred that gives some insight into Proctor's responsibility for the River Raisin Massacre. Again, the Indians began attacking the prisoners, taking 20 scalps before Tecumseh arrived and stopped the slaughter of the helpless prisoners, shaming the warriors by shouting, "Are there no men here?" Finding Proctor nearby, Tecumseh asked why he had not stopped them earlier. "Your Indians cannot be controlled, cannot be commanded," replied the British general.
"You are not fit to command," said Tecumseh contemptuously. "Go put on your petticoats!"
On May 9, Proctor proved Tecumseh's point again -- he abandoned the siege.
"We Shall Never Return"
On July 20, Tecumseh and his warriors tried to lure Fort Meigs' defenders out again, but the garrison's commander, Colonel Greene Clay, would not fall for the ruse. In that same month, Proctor retired to Fort Malden, virtually handing the initiative to Harrison. Tecumseh responded to Proctor's timidity with a pointed speech, comparing Proctor's conduct to "a fat animal that carries its tall, bushy tail upon its back; but when affrighted, it drops it between its legs and runs off." Still, even after 800 of his braves had deserted him, Tecumseh told one of his 1,200 remaining warriors, "We are now going to follow the British, and I feel certain that we shall never return."
On September 10, 1813, U.S. Navy Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a squadron of British ships on Lake Erie in the bloodiest naval battle of the war. This was the first time in the history of the Royal Navy that an entire squadron was forced to surrender. After defeating British Captain Robert Barclay -- a veteran of Lord Horatio Nelson's famous victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 -- the young American hero sent a message to Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours -- two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."
The way was open at last for Harrison to invade Upper Canada and to recapture Detroit. Shortly after Perry's victory had secured Lake Erie, Harrison moved out with some 4,500 men -- a handful of regulars, the rest mostly volunteers from Kentucky. Meanwhile, the British abandoned Detroit on September 18 and nearby Fort Malden on the 24th and withdrew north along the Thames -- much to the unconcealed disgust of their Shawnee ally, Tecumseh.
Choosing The Site
At age 48, Proctor was now a brigadier general in command of the Right Division of the Army of Upper Canada. His forces consisted of Tecumseh's Indian tribes and his old regiment, the 41st Foot, whose members were known as "the Invalids" because they had originally been hospital troops.
After considerable haggling over the precise place along the Thames to stand and fight the invading Yankees, on October 4, Proctor chose a spot not far from an Indian Christian settlement called Moraviantown.
That night, Tecumseh told those Indian leaders who had gathered: "Brother warriors, we are about to enter into an engagement from which I shall never return. My body will remain on the field of battle." He then gave a sword the British had given him to another Indian and said, "When my son becomes a noted warrior, give him this." When the great warrior went into battle the next day, he wore buckskin, ostrich feathers on his head and a medal around his neck.
Preparing For Battle
The site of the battle, near the present-day town of Thamesville, Ontario, is described thus in the Pictorial Field-book of The War of 1812: "The ground chosen -- was well selected. On his [Proctor's] left was the River Thames, with a high and precipitous bank, and on his right, a marsh running almost parallel with the river for about two miles. Between these, and two and three hundred yards from the river, was a small swamp, quite narrow, with a strip of solid ground between it and the large marsh. The ground over which the road [to Detroit] lay, indeed the whole space between the river and the great swamp, was covered with beech, sugar-maple, and oak trees with very little undergrowth."
Moraviantown, to the east of the battle site, had been established in 1792 by the Delaware Indians who had been converted to the Christian faith by Moravian missionaries. A year after the initial settlement, the provincial government gave the Indians 50,000 acres of land upon which they built their village. By October 1813, the village had some 100 homes, a meetinghouse, a schoolhouse and a common garden.
On October 5, the day of the battle, Proctor placed his single battalion of the 41st on his left, across the road, between the river and the smaller swamp. The Indians were on his right and on the road was a single brass 6-pound field gun, Proctor's only artillery.
Next: Battle Of The Thames
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