[CRUIKSHANK] GENERAL HULL’S INVASION OF CANADA IN 1812 289 
to Ohio, leaving behind the cattle and stores. Elliott was accordingly 
released, and twenty-six men who were either too sick or unwilling to 
face the hardships of the return march, were placed in his charge and 
accompanied him as prisoners to Amherstburg. Leaving their encamp- 
ment at midnight, the remainder made a forced march of more than 
thirty miles without halting. At the rapids of the Miami they separ- 
ated into several parties and quietly returned to their respective homes. 
Some months later they were duly recognized by their government as 
prisoners of war under parole until exchanged.t 
Upon Elliott’s return to Amherstburg, Captain Chambers, with a 
detachment of the 41st Regiment, was embarked in three small gun boats 
and a considerable force of Indians, under Colonel Elliott and Major 
MeKee, began its march by land toward the River Raisin. On their 
arrival at that place they found the blockhouse deserted by its garrison, 
and took possession of the cattle and stores abandoned by Brush. Two 
days later Chambers proceeded with the gun boats to Miami River, 
which he ascended as far as the rapids. The blockhouse at that place, 
sometimes known as Fort Miami, had been recently evacuated and set 
en fire. A small depot of provisions was taken, and the inhabitants 
who seemed to be much in fear of the Indians, were advised to remove 
at once to some place of greater security, which they readily agreed 
to do, most of them going to Cleveland, which was the nearest settle- 
ment of any importance in Ohio.? 
The American frontier was thus thrown back a long way towards 
the Ohio River, which the Indians sought to re-establish as their 
boundary. Two forts at Upper and Lower Sandusky, Fort McArthur 
on the Scioto, Fort Wayne on the Great Miami, Fort Harrison (Terre 
Haute) on the Wabash, and Fort Madison, near DesMoines, on the 
Mississippi, became the most advanced posts still held by the United 
States, as Fort Dearborn at Chicago had already been evacuated by 
General Hull’s instructions, and its garrison destroyed or captured in 
the attempt to retire to Fort Wayne. The grand council of the Indians 
of Ohio and Indiana, convened by Governor Meigs at Piqua, was mea- 
grely attended and nothing of any consequence was accomplished. The 
surrender of Detroit became the signal for a general rising of all the 
Indians of Illinois and Indiana, and early in September, Forts Wayne, 
Madison and Harrison were all closely invested by these fierce but 
wretchedly armed and undisciplined bands.* Brock’s audacious coun- 

1S. Williams, Two Campaigns in 1812, in Historical Collections of Ohio; 
Major E. Reynolds to ——, January 17th, 1815. 
*Federal Republican, October 7th, 1812; Letter from Joseph Meacham. 
8 Hildreth History of the United States, VI, p. 342. 
Sec. II., 1907. 19. 
