260 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Muir was a veteran of thirty years’ service and tried courage who had 
risen from the ranks to be sergeant-major and eventually adjutant of 
his regiment. 
Upon landing he was joined by Tecumseh and Walk-in-the-Water 
at the head of 130 Hurons and Shawnees, and Colonel Caldwell with 
70 Western Indians, chiefly Ottawas and Pottawatomies. Instead of 
awaiting the attack at the creek near Brownstown, where Van Horne 
had been so successfully ambushed, they moved forward into the com- 
paratively open ground in the oak woods near Maguaga. Here they 
selected a position behind a slight ridge which intersected the road 
nearly at right angles and began to form a hasty intrenchment of fallen 
timber. While so engaged they were reinforced by Lieutenant Richard 
Bullock with sixty picked men of the 41st, who had arrived that 
morning from Fort Erie in the Hunter, and were at once sent for- 
ward to support Muir. The centre of the position on either side 
of the road was occupied by the 41st with a detachment of the 
Essex militia on its flanks, an open space in front affording them a 
clear field of fire of sixty or eighty yards. Caldwell’s Indians on the 
right were extended across a hollow into a cornfield. Between this field 
and the river there was a strip of woodland which was entirely unoc- 
cupied for the want of a sufficient force. The Indians commanded by 
Tecumseh and Walk-in-the-Water were extended on the left, sending 
forward a small party to occupy a tract of woods in front and gain 
information of the enemy’s approach.t Near the deserted Indian village 
of Maguaga some of these scouts fired upon the American advance guard, 
killing a man of the Michigan Legion and wounding another. The entire 
column instantly deployed into line and advanced a considerable dis- 
tance without encountering any opposition, when the column of march 
was again formed. An hour later the action was begun by Tecumseh’s 
advanced party firing upon the horsemen which headed the column from 
both sides of the road with such effect that a general deployment took 
place and the guns were ordered to clear the woods. The howitzer 
was almost immediately disabled by the horses running away and dash- 
ing a wheel of its carriage to pieces against the trunk of a tree. The 
field piece opened fire and musketry became general along their line. 
At the first discharge of this gun Lieutenant-Colonel Miller was thrown 
from his horse and badly bruised.? After the lapse of some minutes 
he remounted, and ordered a general advance with fixed bayonets, by 
which the Indians engaged were driven back upon the main position, 


Richardson, War of 1812, pp. 34-8; Dalliba, Narrative. 
? Lucas, Journal, pp. 401-2; Walker’s Journal, pp. 59-61. 
