[CRUIKSHANK] HARRISON AND PROCTER 155 
intention of going forward in person to maintain this advanced position. 
After instructing Colonel Wells to follow with six companies, number- 
ing about 330 of all ranks, and leaving General Payne in charge of the 
camp with about three hundred of the least effective men, Winchester 
rode forward with his staff and arrived at the River Raisin on the night 
of January 20. 
Harrison at Upper Sandusky had not received Winchester’s letter 
of December 30th until January 11th, when he ordered a forward large 
drove of hogs and held his train of artillery in readiness to march. 
On the 16th he received a letter from General Perkins, written the 
day before, enclosing Winchester’s letter to him asking a reinforcement 
of a battalion. The artillery was at once ordered forward by way of 
the Portage River, with an escort of three hundred infantry, as this 
road was sixteen miles shorter than that leading through Lower San- 
dusky. Supply trains were directed to follow by the same route. 
Harrison himself went next day to Lower Sandusky, riding so hard 
that the horse of his aide fell dead on their arrival there at nightfall. 
He learned that Cotgrove’s battalion, with a field gun, was under orders 
to march next morning. The distance to Winchester’s camp on the 
Miami was only thirty-six miles, but the roads were much blocked by 
snow-drifts. At four o’clock on the morning of the 19th Harrison re- 
ceived Winchester’s letter of the 17th. There were still three battalions 
of Ohio Militia at Sandusky. Two of these were at once ordered to 
advance by forced marches to the Miami. Harrison and Perkins 
drove off in a sleigh to overtake Cotgrove. Finding that their progress 
was very slow, Harrison mounted his servant’s horse and rode on alone. 
Darkness coming on, his horse became nearly mired in a swamp, where 
the ice gave way under him and he was obliged to dismount and make 
his way onward on foot. Cotgrove was then ordered to march directly 
on the River Raisin by crossing Miami Bay on the ice. After a few 
hours’ sleep, Harrison pushed on to the Miami Rapids, where he arrived 
early on the morning of the 20th. Captain Hart, Inspector General 
of the district, was sent forward to inform General Winchester of the 
movement of troops in his rear and instruct him to hold his position 
at all hazards. Next day he received a letter from Winchester in 
which that officer said: ‘‘Advices from Brownstown and Malden all 
agree that the enemy is preparing to retake this place. If he effects 
his purpose he will pay dearly for it.” A small reinforcement would 
make him perfectly secure, he added. The two Ohio battalions from 
Lower Sandusky arrived that night, and General Payne was directed 
to march at daybreak with the remainder of the Kentuckians to join 
Winchester. In no respect could Harrison be justly suspected of any 
slackness in his efforts to support his lieutenant, whom he had con- 
stantly treated more as an associate than as an inferior. 
