it required all the influence of the field officers with the men to prevail on them to submit to the order from Washington, assigning him to the command of high-spirited but insubordinate volunteers, who thought they had a right to name their own commander. By kindness, patience, and generosity, not by the energy with which Jackson would have repressed this untoward spirit, Winchester succeeded, at last, in overcoming it. When he commanded at the river Raisin, he enjoyed the good-will of his troops; but, though a brave and good officer in many respects, he was probably unequal to the perilous independent command of the day which defeated him and destroyed so many valuable lives. On the 20th January, 1813, he joined Lewis on the Raisin. His report of his advance to Harrison, reached the latter at Sandusky the 19th, with intelligence of the battle and victory of the 18th. Harrison instantly set off for Winchester's encampment at the rapids, but did not get there till Winchester was gone. Harrison followed as fast as he could, retarded by swamps almost impassable to artillery, having dispatched his InspectorGeneral, Captain Nathaniel Hart, to Winchester, with orders to maintain the position at the river Raisin, at any rate. Winchester had sent word to Harrison that he thought he could do so, if reinforced. Harrison accordingly forwarded reinforcements to Winchester, but they did not reach him till after his defeat. In all these proceedings, even the unpractised in military affairs perceives the want of unity, of subordination, above all, of fortune, which must combine for victory.

The weather was severe winter, in a climate of unusual rigour to our troops. The ground was covered with deep snow; yet the everlasting swamps of that region were not hard frozen. The gallant volunteers were ill provided with clothing and camp-covering; too many of the officers ignorant and negligent ⚫ of indispensable precautions in the midst of an Indian country, within twenty miles of their English allies under Colonels Proctor and St. George, Major Muir, and other thorough-bred soldiers, unscrupulous of whatever means would lead to the great end of success, and relying for it chiefly on their numerous savage auxiliaries. As is generally the case, a small error or blunder, superadded to the imperfect state of the forces altogether, occasioned, probably, the terrible calamities of the battle of the 22d, and cruel massacre of the 23d January, at

the river Raisin, which will long be lamented in the accounts of western warfare. When Winchester arrived at the Raisin with some 300 men, he found Lewis with 600, posted in gardens, yards, and the enclosures within them, well prepared for any emergency. On Lewis's right was an open field bounded by another enclosure like those in which he had posted his men. With General Winchester came Colonel Wells, who, being of the regular army, outranked Colonel Lewis of the volunteers. Lewis' advice to Winchester was to post the 300 men with Wells in the enclosure on Lewis' left. To this Wells objected, requiring the right of Lewis, which General Winchester allowed him to take, in an open exposed field, instead of being under cover of the enclosures. To this slight circumstance may be attributed much of the misfortune of a fatal day. The British and Indians attacked early in the morning of the 22d January, 1813. Colonel Wells' detachment resisted, unprotected by any cover, the fierce attack of superior numbers, fought not only with unflinching bravery, but with great effect, till their ammunition began to fail; a sad deficiency which ought not to have occurred. General Winchester, who courageously commanded, ordered Wells to retire into the enclosures where Lewis was stationed. Attempting to execute this difficult movement, to withdraw in the face of a superior enemy pressing upon them, Wells' men fell into confusion. Directions to fall back into Lewis' enclosures, were mistaken for an order to retreat. Instead of falling back upon Lewis, which would have rendered them quite safe, with an officer of experience as well as courage, the bewildered men, unhappily passed over the river on the ice, and retired into the woods, towards the rapids. They were immediately, in fact constantly, pursued by the Indians, who surrounded and cut them to pieces, fighting to the last with the utmost resolution, selling their lives dearly, and inflicting on their assailants heavy loss. All of Wells' detachment were killed but twenty-eight, and about forty taken prisoners. General Winchester and Colonel Lewis, who accompanied and attempted to rally them, with the general's aid and son, were taken prisoners. The general's official account of the action, written at Malden the next day, says, that "the few of us that remained with the retreating party, borne down by numbers, at length submitted." By thus losing their two principal officers, our troops, never

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more than half the number of their enemies, were not only reduced to less than 500 remaining with Major Madison within the pickets, but were deprived of their principal commanders, and at least 300 of their companions. Thus reduced, however, the remainder maintained their position with undaunted and even desperate spirit, repulsing the British regulars several times. and killing many more of them than their official accounts after the battle acknowledged. The false report of the British Adjutant-General Edward Baynes, dated at Quebec the 8th February, 1813, was, that 400 took refuge in the houses of the town, and kept up a galling fire from the windows. The fact was that Madison repulsed every attack on his position, and maintained it till near noon from day-break, when the battle began; the British having suffered so severely that they deemed it necessary to resort to a stratagem in which they unhappily succeeded. Falsehood is perhaps not among the forbidden arts of war, and the mere stratagem by which the surrender of the remainder of our brave men was effected, might not be deemed contrary to the usages of legitimate hostilities. But the vile use made of, at any rate, rather an unmanly trick, calls for the strongest reprobation of a base contrivance. General Winchester was prevailed upon, when taken prisoner, from motives of humanity, to send his aid Major Overton with a flag of truce to Major Madison, with proposals for an honourable capitulation, if he would surrender. At that time the firing had so far ceased, that our men supposed that the British flag had come to propose a cessation of hostilities. General Winchester had only acceded to Proctor's proffer of an honourable capitulation, in order to save the lives of many valuable men, the flower of the citizens of Kentucky, who were with Major Madison. Proctor told him that unless they surrendered, the buildings in which they were would be immediately set on fire, and that he would not be responsible for the conduct of the Indians, who were greatly exasperated by the number of their warriors killed in the action. In this critical situation, desirous of saving the lives of the brave men with Major Madison, and expressly stipulating with Proctor that they should be protected from the savages, allowed to retain their private property, and have their side arms returned to them, Winchester yielded to Proctor's earnest solicitation, and sent Major Overton with the flag of truce to

Major Madison, who, not without great reluctance and every proper and possible precaution, finally submitted himself and his gallant comrades, prisoners of war. Between 400 and 500 men thus fell into the hands of the enemy, of whom a great many were wounded, and doomed next day to horrible assassination. The British account claims to have killed between 400 and 500 of our people; Adjutant-General Baynes, in his official report, boasting that the Indian chief, Round-head, with his band of warriors, rendered essential service by their bravery and good conduct; and that all the Americans who attempted to save themselves by flight, were cut off by the Indian warriors. It was Round-head who captured General Winchester, and delivered him to Colonel Proctor, to be the amiable and goodnatured instrument of his vile contrivances.

Such was the battle of the River Raisin on the 22d of January, 1813, preceding the massacre of the next day, which covered nearly every respectable family in Kentucky with mourning, filled every generous American bosom with indignation; was visited by condign retribution at the battle of the Thames in the following October, and should forever be exposed among the detestable acts of English barbarity in that war, which, nevertheless, found disaffected Americans graceless enough if not to vindicate, at all events to palliate and rejoice over.

After the capitulation, Major Madison strongly remonstrated with the British commanding officer upon the necessity and duty of protecting the wounded American prisoners from the savages, who were hovering about like blood-hounds thirsting to prey upon them. The stipulated protection was again promised, with renewed assurances that the terms of capitulation should be faithfully and justly complied with. Next day, after General Winchester and other superior officers had been removed to Malden, when but two of the seven American surgeons survived the action of the day before, our wounded officers and men, in want of every thing and suffering the rigours of a winter, the severest almost ever known in that cold climate, (when, if they had surrendered at discretion, every dictate of humanity and principle of manhood, even without regard to articles of capitulation, required their protection,) were given up by British officers to the ruthless brutalities of the Indians, and put to death according to their most barbarous proceedings on such occasions.

Never giving or taking quarter, they make no prisoners, but exercise what is, perhaps, the sternest right of war, by putting all their captives to death. According to the regulations of civilized hostilities, this right does not exist but in case of absolute necessity for self-preservation; and under no circumstances can it be exercised with tortures, mutilation, scalping, burning, and other abominable excesses. All our prisoners were, according to promise, to have been conveyed in sleighs from the Raisin to Malden. Instead of that, every one of them unable to march, was not only murdered, but most of them tortured to death by the savages, as mischievous children torment insects by tearing them to pieces. Captain Nathaniel Hart, Mr. Clay's brother-inlaw, had been wounded in the battle in the knee, and was unable to walk. He had greatly signalized himself by undaunted intrepidity. A half-breed Indian, Elliott, holding the King of England's commission, who had been a college companion of Captain Hart, promised to have him carried to Malden and there taken care of in Elliott's own house. A band of ruffian savages, nevertheless, tore him from the bed on which he was lying, and were about to kill him when he was rescued by a brother officer. Soon after, while mounted on a horse on his way to Malden, (on the 23d January,) he was shot by a party of Indians, tomahawked, and scalped, his body left on the road unburied to be devoured by hogs. The fate of many other most respectable men was similiar to Captain Hart's. Nearly all our prisoners were stripped of their clothing, rifled of their money, the officers' swords given up to the savages; men of education, talents, and the highest respectability treated by British officers of every grade, from the highest to the lowest, with supercilious harshness, unmanly, ungentlemanly, and inhuman. When an American officer urged the necessity of British surgical assistance to the wounded, (as five of our seven surgeons were killed,) Elliott's execrable reply was, the Indians are excellent doctors. Sixty-four wounded Americans were left on the ground, under the care of Doctors Tod and Bowers, (the two surviving surgeons,) with every assurance and full reliance that they would be kindly removed in sleds next day to Malden. At sunrise, on the 23d, a large body of Indians stripped them, as they lay extended on the cold ground, tomahawked, and scalped all who were unable to march, (such was their frightful surgery,) and