Catastrophe at Moravian Town

The English General did not expect to be immediately followed up by Harrison, knowing the difficulties in the way of his progress.

Continuing Canada Versus USA 1812-1814,
with a selection from The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 15 by Agnes M. Machar published in 1905. This selection is presented in 7 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Canada Versus USA 1812-1814.

Without supplies, deprived of the arms and ammunition of which Fort Malden had been stripped in order to supply the fleet, General Proctor’s prospects seemed gloomy indeed. Retreat across the wilderness behind him in rainy autumn weather might be arduous and ruinous enough, yet it seemed the only escape from hopeless surrender. And so, despite the earnest and eloquent remonstrances of Tecumseh, who thought he should have held his ground, and who, doubtless, remembered the bold and victorious advance of General Brock at the head of his little force one year before, he abandoned and dismantled Fort Detroit, crossed over to Sandwich, whither he transported his guns, and commenced his retreat upon Burlington Heights with a force of eight hundred thirty men. The faithful Tecumseh, grieved and indignant as he was at the General’s determination to retreat, adhered to the fortunes of his British allies with noble constancy, and accompanied Proctor with his band of three hundred Indian followers.

[* Extract from Tecumseh’s despairing appeal to General Proctor:

We are astonished to see our Father giving up everything and preparing to run away without letting his red children know what his intentions are. You always told us you would never draw your foot off British ground. But now, Father, we see you are drawing back, and we are sorry to see our Father doing so without seeing the enemy. We must compare our Father’s conduct to a fat dog that carries his tail upon his back, but when affrighted it drops it between its legs and runs off. Father! you have got the arms and ammunition which our great Father sent for his red children. If you have an idea of going away, give them to us, and you may go and welcome. Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are determined to defend our lands, and if it be his will we wish to leave our bones upon them.”]

The English General did not expect to be immediately followed up by Harrison, knowing the difficulties in the way of his progress. But the Kentucky “mounted infantry,” or forest rangers —- each carrying, wherever practicable, a foot soldier behind him —- proved capital bush-warriors. Harrison’s army of three thousand five hundred men came up with the little retreating force before it could have been supposed possible, surprised Proctor’s rear-guard, captured his stores and ammunition and one hundred prisoners. Thus, brought to bay, the British General, apparently stunned and bewildered by accumulated misfortunes, felt compelled to risk an almost hopeless fight. His little band of footsore and weary men-—–dejected, hopeless, exhausted by a harassing and depressing retreat, weakened by the effects of exposure and fatigue, and by the ravages of fever and ague, insufficiently clothed, scantily fed, and further disintegrated by the want of harmony and the relaxed discipline which unfortunately characterized Proctor’s command —- were faced about to strike one last despairing blow. The position taken by Proctor at Moravian Town, on the Thames, seems to have been a good one, but the General seems to have lost all energy and fore sight. No protective breastwork was thrown up —- no sharp watch kept on the enemy’s advance. The latter, having reconnoitered carefully the British position, opened a skillful and vigorous attack and in a short time the exhausted and hopeless troops were totally routed, Proctor and a remnant of his troops effecting a wretched retreat to Burlington Heights, while a number of the captured British soldiers were taken in triumph to “grace a Roman holiday,” some of them, instead of being treated honorably as prisoners of war, being consigned to penitentiary cells.

Tecumseh, with his band of Indians, had taken up a position in the swamp to the right of the British force. His last words, as he shook hands with Proctor before the engagement, were, “Father, have a big heart!” It was indeed the thing that Proctor most needed and most lacked just then. Tecumseh was to make his onset on the discharge of a signal gun. But the gun was never fired, and Tecumseh found himself deserted by his English allies and surrounded by the enemy. Attacked by the dismounted riflemen in the swamp, like a lion in the toils, Tecumseh and his “braves” fought on till the noble chieftain fell —- as courageous a warrior and faithful an ally as ever fought under the union jack.

Proctor survived, but his military career was closed forever, and the dishonor of its termination fatally tarnishes the glory of his earlier success. The catastrophe of Moravian Town, giving the Americans complete possession of Lakes Erie and Huron, and undisturbed range of the Western frontier, striking a blow at the British ascendency, and giving renewed hopes of success to the Americans, though it awoke a spirit of more intense and dogged resolution in the Canadians, was the saddest reverse of the war, and is said to be “unparalleled in the annals of the British army.”

But it did not come singly. On the very day of Proctor’s defeat, a body of two hundred fifty soldiers, proceeding from York to Kingston in two schooners, without convoy, were captured on Lake Ontario. These accumulated disasters, added to the knowledge that the Americans were concentrating their forces on Montreal and Kingston, with the probability of the advance of Harrison’s army toward the Niagara frontier, compelled General Vincent to raise the blockade of Fort George, on which Prevost had made another of his undecided and ineffectual demonstrations, and retire to Burlington Heights. The unfavorable aspect of affairs, indeed, spread such consternation at headquarters that Prevost issued orders to abandon the Upper Province west of Kingston. In the face of this order, however, a council of war, held at Burlington Heights, decided at all hazards to maintain the defense of the Western Peninsula. The Ameri can Government, sure apparently that the British forces would make good their retreat, recalled their victorious General to Detroit just at the time when his advance would have been most disastrous to the small British force on the Niagara frontier.

Agnes M. Machar begins here. David Ramsay begins here.

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