ty. By his error
in this regard General Dearborn injured the American cause more than a
severe defeat would have done, leaving as he did General Hull and his
handful of men, who were not included in the armistice, to bear the brunt
of British hostility. The government at Washington disapproved General
Dearborn's course, and the armistice was cancelled, but not in time to
prevent the loss of Detroit.

General Hull had only eight hundred men in Detroit when General Brock
attacked the place by land and water, with a much more numerous force of
British and Indians, assisted by ships of war. It is often asserted that
General Hull surrendered the place without serious defence. This is not
true. In addition to the official statements of both sides, and General
Hull's own vindication, the journal of an Ohio soldier named Claypool who
was in the American ranks at the time, shows that the Americans returned
the British fire vigorously during August 15, and for several hours on
the following day, when General Hull, in view of the overwhelming force
opposed to him, capitulated. General Hull was afterward tried by
court-martial and sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried
out, the United States escaping a stain like that which attaches to
England for the fate of Admiral Byng. Hull had proven during the
Revolution that he was no coward. Whatever may have been his errors of
judgment before the surrender, at the time of the surrender Detroit was
indefensible.

* * *

The English were now masters of Michigan Territory, and the western
forests were alive with Indians on the warpath. Fort Wayne was besieged,
and Captain Zachary Taylor bravely defended Fort Harrison. General
Harrison, appointed to the command of the Northwestern army, promptly
relieved both posts, and the government ordered that ten thousand men
should be raised to recover Detroit and invade Canada. General James
Winchester, in command of the advance corps of Harrison's forces,
imprudently engaged in conflict with a much more numerous body of British
at Frenchtown, on the River Raisin. Nearly all his troops, numbering
about eight hundred, were killed or captured, and some of the captives
were massacred. General Winchester himself was taken prisoner. Soon
afterward the British General Proctor issued a proclamation requiring the
citizens of Michigan to take the oath of allegiance to the British crown,
or leave the Terr