214 HISTORY OF OHIO, 



artillery on them to Fort Meigs, through a swamp, in fact of 

 one hundred and forty miles in width. They had been aided 

 in the winter, by some few volunteers from Pennsylvania, 

 Kentucky and Virginia. 



These troops left the rapids on the 20th February. Before 

 this time the General saw the impossibility of reaching De- 

 troit that winter, and abandoned the idea of so doing. Leav- 

 ing the troops, in the garrison, he hastily departed into the in- 

 terior, by way of the Sanduskeys, Delawq,re, Franklintoa and 

 Chillicothe to Cincinnati. He everywhere as he moved along, 

 urged forward to Fort Meigs, troops, provisions, and all the 

 munition of war. At Chillicothe, he found Colonel John Mil- 

 ler, and one hundred and twenty regulars under him, of the 

 19th regiment. These, the General ordered to Fort Meigs by 

 way of the Anglaize route. He found but one company of 

 Kentuckians at Newport, but two or three other companies 

 soon reaching that place, he mounted the whole of them on 

 pack horses, and ordered them to Fort Meigs. Going forward 

 himself, he ordejcd Major Ball, and his dragoons who had beon 

 cantoned at Lebanon ever since their return from the Missisin- 

 eway expedition, to march to the same point. Harrison him- 

 self, marched to Amanda on the Anglaize. Here he found colo- 

 nel Miller and his regulars, just arrived from Chillicothe, and 

 colonel Mills of the militia, with one hundred and fifty men who 

 had been building and had completed a fleet of boats. Into 

 these boats the General and these troops and boat builders en- 

 tered, and in this way, reached Fort Meigs on the 11th of 

 April, 1813. The waters were high, out of their banks, and 

 the navigation difficult and dangerous. Our General arrived, 

 however, in safety. Tarrying near the fort in the boats, over 

 night, and ascertaining that the fort was not invested by the 

 enemy, he and his detachment entered the fort early in the 

 morning of the 12th of April. Ball's dragoons and the moun- 

 ted Kentuckians, had reached the fort before the General. 

 Colonel Leftwich and his Virginians had entirely gone oQ] 

 and only two hundred and fifty of the Pennsylvanians. remain- 

 ed until the General should return. Leftwich, under whose 



