"General Hull is prepared to meet any force brought against him, and accept any consequences."
Brock instructed his gunners to acknowledge the receipt of this challenge with the thunder of their batteries, and from then, far into the night, shells and round-shot shrieked their way across the river, the answering missiles from Hull's seven twenty-four-pounders breaking in a sheet of flame from the very dust created by the British cannon-balls that exploded on the enemy's breastworks. Through the irony of fate, the first shot fired under Brock's personal orders in the cause of Canadian freedom killed a United States officer, an intimate friend of the British artilleryman who had trained the gun. Such are the arguments of war.
The cannonade proving ineffective, as judged by visible results, Brock issued orders to cross the river at dawn, when he would make the attempt to take the fort by storm--and soldier and militiaman bivouacked on their arms.
Camp fires were extinguished, but the tireless fireflies danced in the blackness of the wood. The river gurgled faintly in the wind-stirred reeds. From out the gloom of the thicket came the weird _coco-coco_ of the horned owl. From the starlit sky above fell the shrill cry of the mosquito hawk, "_peepeegeeceese, peepeegeeceese_!" From an isolated bark tepee came the subdued incantation of the Indian medicine-man, while above the singing of the tree-tops and over all, clear and with clock-like regularity, floated the challenge of the sentry and answering picket:
Morning came all too slowly for Brock's impatient soldiers. At last the _reveille_ warned the expectant camp. The sun rose, a red-hot shell out of the faint August haze, huge and threatening. With its advent the British batteries resumed their fire, aided by the guns on the _Queen Charlotte_ and _Hunter_, which lay in the river, above the village known to-day as Windsor, to cover the embarkation of the troops in batteaux and canoes.
Brock's entire force consisted of only 330 regulars and 400 militia, some of whom, acting on a happy thought, were disguised in discarded uniforms of the 41st. This army was supported by five pieces of artillery. All crossed the river in safety, landing at Spring Wells, four miles below. The Indians, 600 strong, under Tecumseh, in addition to the men of his own nation, consisted of many Sioux, Wyandottes and Dacotahs. The majority of these crossed under cover of the night. History records no instance of a determined force being stopped by a river. The Detroit River presented an animated picture. Edging their way through a maze of boats and batteaux, and in marked contrast to the scarlet-coated soldiers and blue-shirted sailors, bark canoes on which were drawn in flaring colours a variety of barbaric designs, flitted here and there, their crews of half-naked savages fearsome in fresh war-paint and gaudy feathers. Coo-ees, shrieks and shrill war-whoops--"Ah-oh! Ah-oo!" like the dismal yells of a pack of coyotes--rent the air, the discordant din ever and anon drowned by the thunder of the guns from the Sandwich batteries.