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[Illustration: _Monument commemorating the Fort Dearborn Massacre_]
With Letters and Narratives of Contemporary Interest
WHOSE MARVELOUS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT I HAVE WATCHED WITH PRIDE AND UNFAILING INTEREST SINCE THE YEAR 1835
Judge Woodward's Letter to Colonel Proctor 9
Lieutenant Helm's Letter to Judge Woodward 13
The Capture by the Indians of Little Eleanor Lytle 109
Monument commemorating the Fort Dearborn Massacre _Frontispiece_
The narrative of Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, one of the two officers who survived the Chicago Massacre, mysteriously disappeared nearly one hundred years ago. This manuscript has lately been found and is now in the possession of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, by whose kind permission it is here presented to the public, together with letters explaining its loss and its recovery. It is the earliest extant account given by a participator in the fearful tragedy of August 15, 1812. It was written by Lieutenant Helm in 1814, at the request of Judge Augustus B. Woodward, of Detroit, and was accompanied by a letter asking Judge Woodward's opinion as to whether the strictures made in the narrative upon the conduct of Captain Heald would result in Helm's being court-martialed for disrespect to his commanding officer.
Judge Woodward evidently advised Lieutenant Helm not to take the risk, for the manuscript was found many years later among the Judge's papers. That Lieutenant Helm was a soldier rather than a scholar is evidenced by the faulty construction of his narrative. Its literary imperfections, however, in no way detract from its value as a truthful account of the events he describes.