The Ojibwas and the Sacs, two rivals of long standing, were the contestants and excitement ran high. Captain Etherington, with one of his lieutenants, was lounging at the gate of the fort whooping on the Ojibwas, for he had promised them that he would bet on their side. Suddenly the ball arose in the air in a graceful curve and fell within the walls of the fort. The players, an excited mob, burst after it yelling. Suspecting nothing, Etherington stepped aside with a laugh to let the howling mass sweep in the walls of the citadel.
The Indians’ stratagem had been completely successful. Before he knew what was being done, Etherington, with his lieutenant, was seized and bound, while the Indians, reinforced by their comrades amongst the spectators of the game, seized tomahawks which the squaws had concealed beneath their blankets and fell on the hapless members of the little garrison. There commenced one of those familiar scenes of butchery with which border tradition and the accounts of witnesses who escaped have made us familiar. Men were stricken down and held between Indians’ knees while they were scalped, still alive. Women and children were slaughtered. Bodies of both sexes were mangled. Frenzied red warriors scooped up handfuls of blood and drank it in gulps. Soon the chapter was ended. Only a few of the little garrison--kept, like Etherington, on account of rank or for some particular reasons--were left alive.
FORT MICHILLIMACKINAC AND STATE PARK, MACKINAC ISLAND, MICHIGAN]
From this day for four years Fort Michillimackinac was without a garrison. Then, with the subjection of the red tribes, the English came back to their border posts and Michillimackinac was once more filled with soldiery. In the early days of the Revolution the walls of the fort were strengthened and the garrison was increased.
The strategic location of the fort had never been advantageous for purposes of defence, however, so in November, 1779, Major de Peyster, fearful of attacks by the Americans, moved his garrison over to the little island of Michillimackinac and built the third Fort Michillimackinac, that which is standing to-day. The location which Major de Peyster chose was on the southeastern portion of the island, which is three miles wide and seven miles long, and there is a fine harbor at the point chosen for the location of the fort. This third fort Michillimackinac was occupied by the British on July 15, 1780, but was not used by them during the Revolution. In 1796 it was turned over to an American garrison as the sequel of an extensive correspondence between the young new nation and its tenacious old mother country.