r Malden, when winter had
hardened the face of the ground.[474]

The purpose of the Americans being to recover Detroit, and then to
renew Hull's invasion, their immediate aim was to establish their line
as far to the front as it could for the moment be successfully
maintained. The Maumee was such a line, and the one naturally
indicated as the advanced base of supplies upon which any forward
movement by land must rest. The obstacle to its tenure, when summer
was past and autumn rains had begun, was a great swamp, known locally
as the Black Swamp, some forty miles wide, stretching from the
Sandusky River on the east to the Indiana line on the west, and
therefore impeding the direct approach from the south to the Maumee.
Through this Hull had forced his way in June, building a road as he
went; but by the time troops had assembled in the autumn progress here
proved wholly impossible.

On account of the difficulties of transportation, Harrison divided his
force into three columns, the supplies of each of which in a new
country could be more readily sustained than those of the whole body,
if united; in fact, the exigencies of supply in the case of large
armies, even in well-settled countries, enforce "dissemination in
order to live," as Napoleon expressed it. It is of the essence of such
dissemination that the several divisions shall be near enough to
support each other if there be danger of attack; but in the case of
Harrison, although his dispositions have been severely censured on
this score, south of the Maumee no such danger existed to a degree
which could not be safely disregarded. The centre column, therefore,
was to advance over the road opened by Hull; the right by the east of
the Sandusky River to its mouth on Lake Erie, east of the swamp,
whence it could move to the Maumee; while the left, and the one most
exposed, from its nearness to the Indian country, was to proceed by
the Auglaize River, a tributary of the Maumee navigable for boats of
light draught, to Fort Defiance, at the junction of the two streams.
Had this plan been carried out, the army would have held a line from
Fort Defiance to the Rapids of the Maumee, a distance of about forty
miles, on which fortified depots could be established prior to further
operations; and there would have been to it three chains of supply,
corresponding to the roads used by the divisions in their march. Fort
Defiance, with a work at the Rapids, afterward built and called F