The fight near Fort Dearborn took place on the same day that the detachment under Colonels McArthur and Cass left Detroit. The next day, August 15th, the British General Isaac Brock, who had arrived at Malden a few days before and assumed command there, formally demanded the surrender of Detroit. This demand included a plain threat of massacre in case of refusal. Said Brock in his letter: "It is far from my intention to join in a war of extermination; but you must be aware that the numerous bodies of Indians who have attached themselves to my troops will be beyond my control the moment the contest commences." This is a fine example of the art of putting things; The reader { 035}would suppose from Brock's words--"the Indians who have attached themselves to my troops"--that the savages in red skins had insisted on accompanying the expedition in spite of the most strenuous efforts on the part of the savages in red coats to shake them off; whereas Brock had just held a formal council with the Indians, and regularly arranged the terms of alliance. Two years later, when peace was being negotiated, the British commissioners spoke of these Indians, not as an irresponsible force, but as regular allies, who must share in the treaty.
General Hull gave a defiant reply, ordered McArthur and Cass to return at once with their detachment, and made admirable arrangements to defend the place. In the afternoon there was an artillery duel between two twenty-four pounders in the fort and a British battery at Sandwich on the opposite side of the river.
Brock's force, according to his own testimony, numbered 1330 men, including 600 Indians, and he had also two ships of war. Hull had present for duty about 1000 men. * Brock sent a large body of Indians across the river that night, at a point five
* It is impossible to reconcile the conflicting statements as to the numbers on either side.
{ 036}miles below the fort, and early in the morning crossed with the remainder of his troops, and at once marched on the place. Hull had posted his regulars in the fort, and his militia in the town, where the stout palings that surrounded the little kitchen gardens gave them an admirable shelter. The two twenty-four pounders were loaded heavily with grape and placed so as to command the road by which the enemy was approaching, in close order, twelve deep. Never was there a better opportunity to do wholesale execution by a single discharge. Everybody was watching in breathless expectation to see the match applied and the murderous iron go surging through those beautiful ranks, when, to the astonishment cf friend and foe alike, a white flag was hung out upon the wall of the fort. Brock himself was surprised, when, sending to know what it meant, he learned that Hull had determined to surrender. The articles of capitulation were drawn up, and the American general surrendered not merely the fort and its garrison, but the whole Territory of Michigan, of which he was Governor. Thus ended this miserable campaign.