no disposition to move. They had
settled down and were practicing masterly inactivity at Sandusky.
Proctor determined upon disturbing them. He moved rapidly upon Lower
Sandusky, and invested it with five hundred regulars and militia, and
upwards of three thousand Indians. The Indians were commanded by
Tecumseh. Having battered the fort well and made a breach Proctor
determined upon carrying the place by assault. The Indians, however,
were worthless for the assault of a fortified place. Concealed in the
grass of the prairie, or hidden in the trees of the forest, they could
fire steadily and watch their opportunity to rush upon the foe, but
they had a horror of great guns and stone walls. They kept out of range
of the American cannon. Nothing could induce them to consent even to
follow their British allies up to the breach. The assault was,
nevertheless, determined upon, and Colonel Short led the storming party
of regulars and militia. Under cover of the fire of cannon the gallant
band reached the summit of the glacis and stood with only the ditch
between them and the fort. The heavy fire of the enemy upon men in a
position so exposed at first produced some confusion; but the storming
party soon rallied and leaped into the ditch. It was then that they
were smitten with such a fire of grape and musketry as no men could
long withstand. The assailants retreated, leaving Colonel Short, three
officers, and fifty-two men dead in the ditch, and having forty-one of
their number wounded.

General Proctor, finding his force inadequate to carry the fort by
assault, raised the siege and retired to Amherstburgh.

Although it was all important to have and maintain the command of the
lakes, very little was done by the British with that view. It was
especially necessary to obtain the command of Lakes Erie, Ontario and
Champlain. No great aggressive movement could have been easily effected
while the British had the command of the lakes. But on Lake Ontario the
British fleet was inferior to that of the American, the American
Captain Perry had almost established himself on Lake Erie, and on Lake
Champlain the British had not a single vessel larger than a gun-boat,
and very few of them. The excuse was that every vessel cost a thousand
pounds a ton; that timber, nor iron, nor anything required for
shipbuilding was obtainable in a province which was even then
compensating for the check in the Baltic timber trade, in a province
which abounds