[cRuIKSHANK] GENERAL HULL’S INVASION OF CANADA IN 1812 245 
that he might be surrounded and cut off, Denny ordered a retreat and 
was pursued as far as Turkey Creek, losing five men killed and ten or 
twelve wounded, and leaving behind him thirty-rifles, besides knapsacks 
and other accoutrements thrown away by the fugitives. Here he met 
a rifle company advancing to his support. In this affair Captain 
McCullough killed an Indian whom he promptly scalped, and 
another Indian was wounded. McCullough was very proud of his 
trophy, which he carried through the streets of Sandwich dangling from 
his naked arm, and afterwards exhibited in the camp! 
The Menomonees conveyed the body of their dead comrade to 
‘Amherstburg, and carrying it to Elliott’s quarters clamorously retracted 
their promise to abstain from scalping in future.” 
Denny’s mishap coming close upon the heels of so many fruitless 
reconnaissances, caused considerable depression in the American camp 
and a corresponding feeling of elation at Amherstburg, where the impor- 
tance of these affairs was not unnaturally magnified. 
On Sunday, 26th July, a vessel flying British colours was seen 
coming down the river, which was brought to anchor by a shot from 
the battery at Sandwich. She proved to be the schooner Salina from 
Mackinac, having on board Lieut. Hanks and his detachment of the 
1st United States Artillery, lately forming the garrison of that place, 
which had been taken ten days previously by a British force from St. 
Joseph’s. Nothing could be more unexpected or disconcerting than 
this intelligence, and its effects must necessarily be far-reaching when 
it became known to the Indians. General Hull had little doubt that 
the whole of the “great northern hive” would immediately become 
hostile. 
The rocky islet of Mackinac, or Michilimackinac, lies like a huge 
natural fortress in the entrance of the strait leading from Lake Huron 
to Lake Michigan. It is about nine miles in circumference and its 
cliffs rise precipitously in many places almost two hundred feet anove 
the level of the surrounding water. Here a small fort had been built 
in 1780 by Lieut.-Governor Patrick Sinclair, which had been trans- 
ferred to the United States sixteen years later when its small British 
garrison was removed to a post on the island of St. Joseph in Lake 
Huron, forty-five miles distant. 
Since its occupation by the Americans, a number of British fur 
traders had continued their dealings with the Indians within the terri- 
1Lucas Journal, pp. 391-2; Procter to Brock, 26th July; Quebec Mer- 
cury, Letter from Fort George, 7th August, 1812; Letter in Boston Messenger, 
dated Detroit, 28th July, 1812; Foster, The Capitulation. 
2 Coffin, The War and its Moral, p. 198; Walker, pp. 56-7. 
