Flashman and Madison's War

by Robert Brightwell

  “It is Captain Flashman, is it not?” I turned and saw Barclay walking towards me with another gentleman I did not recognise. Barclay held out his remaining hand in greeting. “It is good to see you again, Captain. May I introduce John Christie, my friend and ship’s surgeon.” He turned to his companion. “Captain Flashman is a friend of that big Indian who was asking you about sea battles yesterday.”

  “Ah,” replied Christie grinning. “He was most disappointed to learn that despite being in a fair few battles, I have seen very little action from my station in the bowels of the ship.”

  “I am sorry if he has been a nuisance,” I said. “He does seem to have developed a passion for all things nautical just recently.”

  “Oh he is most welcome,” Barclay assured me. “In fact I hope you will not mind but I gave him one of our recruitment handbills. But don’t worry we will not be looking for a crew for at least a month.”

  “Yes he has shown it to me and I have to say it is a creative portrayal of a ship yet to taste the water.”

  Barclay laughed. “Yes it is a powerful description. I borrowed it from a recruitment notice for the Tartarus I saw in Halifax earlier this year. It seemed to work for that ship, so I thought I would try it for the Detroit.”

  “Do you think she will be finished on time?” I asked.

  “Oh the American ships will almost certainly be ready first, but she should be completed in time to see action.”

  “It is a shame that Tecumseh will not agree to attack the American fleet in port to at least even the odds.”

  Barclay lowered his voice so that no one else working nearby could hear. “Even if he did it would be no easy contest. I estimate that there are some two thousand American militia guarding the anchorage and so unless we had the advantage of surprise, it would be a bloody business. I would have been willing to sacrifice one of the smaller schooners as a fire ship to burn them out, but there is a sandbank that would stop such an attack. However,” he brightened, “we still have a good chance, particularly if we have the wind and can catch them at some disadvantage.”

  “Well I wish you good luck when you eventually put to sea, or should I say ‘to lake’?”

  Christie looked at me curiously, “That warrior of yours tells me that you have served in the Navy, is that right?”

  “I was with Cochrane when he captured the Gamo,” I admitted, mentioning a well-known prize-taking in the Mediterranean. “But that was a long time ago.”

  “Were you, by God!” exclaimed Barclay “That must have been a capital action. Look while I have some skilled gunners, I have precious few proper seamen. Your experience as one of my officers would be invaluable.”

  “No, no,” I replied, alarmed at the direction this conversation was going. “I was a diplomatic courier then. I sailed with Cochrane for a year, but I was never more than an honorary midshipman. I have no idea of sailing or navigation.”

  I swiftly made my escape after that. Barclay was not getting me on that tub in some death or glory charge against a larger fleet – or at least so I thought then. Which did leave the thought: what was I going to do? I had been in North America for nearly a year and was still no closer to going home than when I had been pushed into the Boston gaol. No British soldier was going to be allowed to sail home unless they were seriously wounded. To the east the battle for the Niagara peninsula was in full swing with little quarter given by either side. If I went back with Black Eagle I could find myself attached to the Iroquois again and facing instant death if captured. At least here in the west, while plans for the assault on Fort Meigs looked hopeless, the Americans were on the defensive and not likely to launch an invasion of Canada. At worst if we lost control of the lake and supplies dried up, well Black Eagle and Morag were more than capable of living off the land. I knew Black Eagle would not abandon me and we could survive together in the wilderness while we worked our way to safety.

  A few weeks after the council meeting, the guns of the fort at Amherstburg rang out to announce the arrival of some fifty large bark canoes carrying flags and hundreds of war-painted warriors. This was the advance party of those brought by Dickson the Redhead. If I had thought that the Iroquois were a colourful lot they were nothing to this gathering. Black Eagle told me that they represented at least eight different Indian nations. As Tecumseh welcomed them he must have felt that this combined army was the beginning of his larger Native American state.

  Many of the new arrivals were not familiar with living among white communities and did not seem to distinguish greatly between the British and the American enemy. More farms had their livestock raided and in town anything of value was being stolen. A number had glared covetously at my gold-hilted sword, which looked incongruous with my Indian buckskin clothes. It was only a matter of time before some of the villains waylaid me to steal it. So I deposited my sword, watch and some papers I wanted to keep at a village store which had a strong room.

  If the first siege of Fort Meigs had been a failure, the second one was a complete farce. Only some four hundred and fifty British regulars and a handful of small cannon crossed the lake from Amherstburg but Tecumseh gathered together two and a half thousand warriors, by far the largest force he commanded. Black Eagle and I found ourselves again on the Queen Charlotte bound for the mouth of the Maumee River, along with a lot of demoralised soldiers. No one thought that the second siege would succeed when the first had failed and there was near mutiny as the small cannon were dragged and floated up the river to take up position in the old batteries.

  We reached the old campground near Fort Miami and settled on virtually the same spot as we had before. Morag had not come this time but in the warm summer evenings we could sleep out in the open and so we did not need her shelter building expertise. It was obvious from a cursory look across the river that the fort’s ramparts were even stronger than they had been before. Our puny guns would never be able to smash their way in. Americans looked curiously over their walls wondering what we would do next and many of us on our side of the river were wondering the same. Procter retired to his tent and left things to Tecumseh – he had insisted on coming here and so he could work out how the fort could be taken.

  After several days of inactivity it was rumoured that General Harrison was not inside the fort but coming to relieve the siege with eight hundred men. A huge war dance greeted this news and a large party of warriors set off the next day to intercept Harrison, only to return two days later having discovered the news was false. Harrison, it turned out, was many miles away at Sandusky and showing no signs of moving. He knew as well as we did that as long as his men stayed in the fort they were completely safe.

  Tecumseh’s next plan was to stage a mock battle on the Sandusky road just out of sight of the fort. He wanted to give the garrison the impression that a relief force was marching towards them so that they would sally out as they had in the first siege to join up with the new arrivals. A huge amount of increasingly scarce ammunition was then blazed away by hundreds of Indians running around in circles emitting whooping war cries. I did not even bother to view this fiasco but stood watching the fort. One rampart was crowded with curious spectators gazing in the direction of the noise but they showed not the slightest inclination to venture forth. They must have known that no relief force was coming as well as we did.

  As Tecumseh ran out of ideas Procter suggested that they lift the siege and move a hundred miles west to attack Sandusky. If Harrison retreated then at least they could raid more livestock to alleviate the supply problem. Tecumseh, of course disagreed; by now their relationship had almost completely broken down. He insisted that he needed to keep his part of the army close to his villages but he agreed to occupy the marshy land between the Maumee and Sandusky rivers to ambush any force that might try to cross it.

  A few days later and we were back aboard the Queen Charlotte as we sailed along the lake shore towards Sandusky. The low morale of the British force had slumped even further during the shambles at
Fort Meigs and now we had been abandoned by all but around two hundred of our Indian allies. They had only stayed for the prospect of loot rather than any confidence in our commander’s plan. Little was seen of Procter; he largely shut himself away in his cabin and chose to dine alone. When, occasionally, he did emerge on deck, beyond the brief salute of the officer of the watch, he barely communicated with anyone.

  Sandusky, at the mouth of the river of the same name, had already been abandoned. We went ashore and rummaged about but everything of use or value, including cattle, had been taken further inland. But the following day Indian scouts reported that twenty miles upstream Fort Stephenson was still occupied by a small force of Americans. They assured Procter that here was a fort that could be taken. It was small, isolated and with two thousand Indians in the vicinity looking for an American army, it was unlikely to be relieved. The general seemed immediately to cheer up; here at last was an enemy he could beat. He needed some success to restore his prestige with the Indians and he was all too aware of the low morale of his men. A victory, albeit a small one, would start to restore his fortunes.

  Everyone seemed to sense the change in mood and there was even some singing as the five six-pounder cannon were loaded on the shallow draught gunboats with the howitzer to be towed up river. It was a twenty mile journey against the current, which took two days, but the Indians advised that the garrison remained in place and that no relieving force was on the way. I had not seen a British victory since Queenston and even I thought that our luck was about to change. That feeling was only enhanced as we rounded a bend in the river and got our first glimpse of Fort Stephenson. It seemed a small, squat and miserable affair. We did not know it then, but its commanding officer was a 21-year-old called Groghan. He had been ordered to abandon the fort by Harrison when the American general learned of our approach. Groghan had chosen to disregard the order and hold his ground – a decision for which he was to be dismissed by Harrison.

  What the young garrison commander lacked in experience he made up for in pluck. We soon discovered that Groghan was in no mood to surrender when a six-pounder cannon from inside the fort banged out as our gunboats rounded the river bend. It was a poorly aimed shot and the fire soon ceased. It seemed that they were low on ammunition, which made things all the better for us. We had arrived in late afternoon and soon disembarked the guns while reconnoitring a good place to set up a battery to knock down the walls. The fort consisted of three blockhouses joined by a surrounding log wall of fifteen feet in height, with a ditch of some eight feet in front of the walls. With such relatively short walls and the small garrison, several of the Indians proposed attacking at night, with grapnels or climbing poles. They thought that they could slip silently over the walls and cut some throats before the Americans knew they were there.

  Black Eagle was convinced it was the only way to attack the fort. “If you can get enough over the wall to kill the sentries without raising the alarm then you could open the gate and storm the fort. If not, you could slip away in the darkness after killing just a few. Several sleepless nights sitting scared in the dark and they would soon surrender.”

  Stealth and ambush was always the Indian’s preferred means of attack and it might well have worked but Procter would not hear of it. “Such murderous practices would dishonour a victory,” he insisted to a gathering of his senior officer officers. As well as myself a major and two other captains, Procter had gathered his second in Command Colonel Warburton and another colonel called Short. We stood on a small hill overlooking the fort, watching as our men started to dig out a battery on higher ground some two hundred and fifty yards from the fort. “Well what do you make of it, gentlemen?” Procter asked.

  “How many men do they have inside?” Colonel Short enquired.

  “The Indians report around a hundred and fifty, all regular soldiers,” replied Procter. “And with two thousand warriors between here and Fort Meigs they are confident that no more reinforcements will get through.”

  “There is some two hundred yards of clear ground we will have to cross to get to the walls,” mused Short.

  “Perhaps we should attack at night,” proposed the other Colonel, Warburton. “We would keep the element of surprise and it would suit our Indian allies better.” He could not have said anything more calculated to get Procter to disagree.

  “No gentlemen, we will attack during the day. Our guns will weaken their walls and then we will assault the fort, but simultaneously in two directions to divide their fire.” The two colonels exchanged a glance; they would clearly be expected to lead an attack each and it looked like neither relished the prospect. All of a sudden this easy victory did not seem quite so easy after all.

  Chapter 16

  Overnight a gun battery was built and most of the cannon dragged into it. At dawn the Americans found four of our cannon covering the north-west corner of the fort, where there was no blockhouse, and the remaining cannon and howitzer covering the north-east corner. Then Procter had his British and Indian force show its numbers, beyond musket range, to prove to the Americans that they were outnumbered and outgunned by approximately six to one. It must have been an intimidating sight to those inside the fort, a ring of enemies leaving no opportunity for escape, with many of the Indians yelling war cries and waving their weapons in the air.

  “Are we going to give them the opportunity to surrender before we start the attack, sir?” I asked Procter.

  “Of course, Captain,” replied Procter staring at the fort through his glass. “Although I imagine that if they were minded to give up the fort they would have abandoned it before we arrived.” He looked at me. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to do the honours.”

  A few minutes later and I was strolling towards the fort accompanied by one soldier with a large white kerchief tied to a long stick to show we came under a truce. We stopped halfway between our lines and the fort, waiting for someone to come out and meet us. We were then within musket range from the fort but I was not concerned. It would have been madness to kill an emissary under a white flag when surrounded by overwhelming numbers. After waiting a minute the fort’s main gate opened a yard or so. From it emerged two soldiers, a young officer and a private with a white flag tied to the end of the barrel of his musket. As he got closer I saw that the officer was only an ensign, a boy of little more than sixteen or seventeen from the look of him. He did not seem afraid, more excited at being the centre of attention for two armies. He was staring about him at those watching his approach.

  “Ensign Shipp,” the boy introduced himself. He had started to salute and then thought better of it and converted the movement to brush some non-existent lint off his sleeve.

  I grinned at the clumsy motion. “Captain Flashman, I’ve come to give your garrison the chance to surrender the fort. You can retire with honour and your weapons.” I gestured at the men surrounding the fort. “There is no need for any bloodshed, you can see how outnumbered you are.”

  “Did you say your name was Flashman?” asked the ensign frowning as though the name meant something to him.

  “Yes but I am not known around here.”

  “Damn you, sir, but you are!” At this the little pipsqueak took a step towards me with his fists clenched at his sides.

  “What the devil are you talking about? I have never been here before.”

  “Well we know about you, sir, and your murdering ways.” The boy seemed to be working himself into quite a passion. “There will be no Indian massacre here, sir, because this fort will not be surrendered while a single man of the garrison is able to resist you.” With that he turned on his heel and started to march back to the fort.

  “You fool,” I called after him. “You have got me confused with someone else.” He did not respond and I turned to see the private staring ahead with a stony face. “Well I don’t know what the deuce he was talking about,” I muttered. “Come on, we had better go back.” We marched towards the British lines with me trying to look unconcerned
, but the ensign’s outburst had unsettled me somewhat. Who the hell was I supposed to have murdered? To the best of my knowledge I had not killed anyone since I had been in North America. Quite the reverse; I had saved a boy his age at Queenston. Yet he reacted as though I had been slaughtering innocents all over the place. It made no sense but there was nothing that I could do about it and so I just continued on my way to our lines. I thought that perhaps there would be an explanation when we took the fort.

  Procter had clearly expected a refusal and the first salvo from the new British battery was fired the moment the ensign was back inside the fort’s walls. The barrage continued for much of the day but while the logs that made the palisade and block houses were splintered and cracked by some of the cannons, nowhere along the line was there a viable breach to allow an assault. A larger cannon would have smashed the walls down in no time, as there were no banks of mud to protect them, but the six-pounder fired balls the size of small apples and even at such short range they did not have the weight to tear a large log in two. Procter paced up and down with increasing impatience. He stood to one side of the battery so that he could see around the large cloud of gun smoke that partly obscured the fort for the gunners. After two balls missed the fort entirely he called a halt to the barrage. He told the gunners to wait for the smoke to clear and then to concentrate on the north-west corner. It would signal clearly where the attack was coming but it was the only way that he would have a sufficient gap for his men to enter the fort.

  Over the next couple of hours ball after ball was carefully aimed at the corner of the squat fort. The trunks that made up the palisade at that point were slowly cracked and then broken, while the howitzer dropped shells just inside the corner to deter Americans from making any running repairs. Slowly the sturdy wall was transformed into a tangled mess of logs and splinters, but there was enough of a gap for men to get through. The Indians had watched the preparations for the attack with curiosity, many expressing the view that to charge so far over open ground against soldiers in broad daylight was foolhardy in the extreme. They had a point: as the guns continued to fire the cloud of gun smoke never covered more than half of the distance we had to cross and was quite thin as the wind gradually dispersed it. But Procter was thinking along similar lines, as I discovered when he summoned me to join him on the rise from which he was observing the bombardment.