142 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
mounted volunteers from Illinois and Missouri assembled at Lower 
Hill near St. Louis and ascended the Illinois to Peoria Lake, the infantry 
being transported in flat boats protected by bullet-proof wooden shields. 
A large band of the Sac Nation was compelled to remove to the Missouri 
under the supervision of Nicholas Boilvin, an able and zealous agent 
of the American government, who had been instrumental in persuading 
a deputation of chiefs from the western nations to visit Washington 
during the summer. The French Canadian village at Peoria was burnt 
and its inhabitants removed to St. Louis under the pretext that they 
had supplied and assisted the hostile Indians. As usual all cornfields 
in the vicinity were remorselessly laid waste." 
About the middle of October, Harrison established his headquarters 
at Franklinton as a central position from which he could supervise and 
direct the simultaneous advance of all his columns. His experience in 
Wayne’s campaign twenty years before, determined him to employ a 
train of one hundred ox-teams for the transport of the artillery with his 
right division as they would thrive on forage found in the forest on which 
horses would inevitably starve. He now considered these guns as in- 
dispensable to his future success. If the fall should be very dry he 
still hoped to re-occupy Detroit before winter set in, but if there was 
much rain, he must delay his movement until the Anis River and Lake 
Erie were Wee frozen to provide a passage for his troops. Mean- 
while, a position at the rapids would enable him to wage a desultory 
warfare against the Indians near the southern end of Lake Michigan. 
Learning that General Van Rensselaer was being strongly reinforced 
by militia from New York and Pennsylvania, he wrote to that officer 
strongly urging him to make a diversion in his favour.’ 
But a heavy fall of rain, combined with the information that most 
of the farms at the River Raisin had been broken up and in consequence 
little food for his animals could be obtained in that part of Michigan, 
made him far less sanguine as two loads of forage must accompany each 
load of provisions. Already the contractors had been dilatory in the 
delivery of supplies. It was believed that one of them would certainly 
clear a hundred thousand dollars from a single contract with the State 
of Ohio, and Harrison vehemently asserted that this man would rather 
see his army starve than permit his profits to be diminished by five 
hundred dollars, and he denounced one of the sub-contractors as being 
“as great a scoundrel as the world can produce.” * In consequence of 
their delinquency two regiments near Fort Jennings were already sub- 
sisting on the commissary’s stores. 


1 Howard to Eustis, Oct. 13, 1812. Dickson to Freer, March 16 and 22, 1813. 
2 Harrison to Eustis, Oct. 23, 1812. 
3 Harrison to Eustis, Oct. 23, 1812. 
