12 Preface to Third Edition 



and with this trifling success the military operations 

 of the year came to an end. 



Early in 1813, Ogdensburg was again attacked, 

 this time by between 500 and 600 British, who took 

 it after a brisk resistance from some 300 militia ; the 

 British lost 60 and the Americans 20, in killed and 

 wounded. General Harrison, meanwhile, had be 

 gun the campaign in the Northwest. At French- 

 town, on the river Raisin, Winchester's command 

 of about 900 Western troops was surprised by a 

 force of i, 100 men, half of them Indians, under the 

 British Colonel Proctor. The right division, taken 

 by surprise, gave up at once ; the left division, mainly 

 Kentucky riflemen, and strongly posted in houses 

 and stockaded inclosures, made a stout resistance, 

 and only surrendered after a bloody fight, in which 

 180 British and about half as many Indians were 

 killed or wounded. Over 300 Americans were slain, 

 some in the battle, but most in the bloody massacre 

 that followed. After this, General Harrison went 

 into camp at Fort Meigs, where, with about 1,100 

 men, he was besieged by 1,000 British and Cana 

 dians under Proctor and 1,200 Indians under Te- 

 cumseh. A force of 1,200 Kentucky militia ad 

 vanced to his relief and tried to cut its way into the 

 fort while the garrison made a sortie. The sortie 

 was fairly successful, but the Kentuckians were scat 

 tered like chaff by the British regulars in the open, 

 and when broken were cut to pieces by the Indians in 

 the woods. Nearly two-thirds of the relieving troops 

 were killed or captured ; about 400 got into the fort. 



