artillery. He doubled his pickets and sent Col. Wells back to the Maumee with a request for reinforcements.

Gen. Brock had returned to Niagara, leaving Fort Malden in charge of Col. Procter. The night of January 23, 1813, was terribly cold, and the pickets, seeing no sign of an enemy, commonly left their posts to gather about the fires and to sleep.

Men were sent to make an occasional round, but it was dark and cold and they did not realize that they were in a position of peril.

About 5 o'clock in the morning the Americans were startled by the discovery that a large force of British and Indians was deploying for attack on the north side of the fort, and that batteries had been planted within 300 yards of them. The first information was given by the opening of battery fire with shells and grapeshot. A force of British regulars was charging from the front, and the militia and the Indians were closing in on both the American flanks. Lieut. Garrett broke away with 16 men, but they were soon overtaken and slaughtered.

The American soldiers were thrown into great confusion, but they rallied in squads and began firing in defense.

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messenger aroused Gen. Winchester from his bed in the Navarre house. He hurried to the front half, dressed, and a moment later he and Col. Lewis were prisoners in the hands of the Indians, who immediately tore off their coats and vests. On the American left were two experienced Kentucky Indianfighters, Majors Graves and Madison, who held their men together, and drove back their assailants by their expert marksmanship.

Graves and Madison found shelter for their men in a garden surrounded by a strong picket fence, and their marksmen maintained so deadly a fire that their assailants fell back. Two pieces of artillery were brought up, but the Americans shot down the gunners so fast that the pieces could not be fired. The captors of Winchester and Lewis and part of the American force told their prisoners that unless Graves and Madison would surrender the Indians would kill and scalp all the prisoners. Already the Indians were waving, bloody scalps before their faces and eager for permission to make a general massacre. One party of 30 Americans had been pursued nearly three miles and then were overtaken and killed.

Gen. Winchester sent one of his captured officers, Maj. Overton, to the garden where the Kentuckians were holding their ground, informing them that the entire command had been surrendered, and that they must lay down their arms.

"What," shouted Madison, "surrender to a pack of Indians? I might as well hand them my scalp. They'll butcher every man of us. I prefer to die fighting.'

Col. Procter, who had gone forward with Overton under the flag of trúce, flew into a passion. "Sir! do you pretend to dictate terms to me?" he roared.

"I mean to dictate for myself at least," said Madison. "Rather than submit to a massacre in cold blood I prefer to fight to the last."

Procter then assured him that there would be no massacre or violence; that the white troops would restrain the Indians and furnish complete protection. Upon this assurance the Kentuckians laid down their arms and the Indians gathered about

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them eagerly to seize the guns and to help themselves to the coats of some of the men. Procter announced that the unwounded prisoners or all who were able to walk would be taken to Malden as prisoners of war. The wounded would be given shelter in the town. Several of the residents opened their houses to the wounded, but the bulk of them were housed in the fur warehouses of Gabriel Godfroy and Jean B. Jerome, who had been the first settlers and traders of Frenchtown.

Those who looked fit for the long journey on foot were lined up for the march of 20 miles to Fort Malden and were led away following the shore as far as Stony Creek and from there over the ice of Lake Erie. Capt. Hart of the Kentuckians, although badly wounded, wanted to go with the others. Col. Elliott ordered him to remain at Frenchtown where he would be perfectly safe, but he persisted in going. Capt. Hart was a brotherin-law of Henry Clay.

The promise of protection was not respected. On the contrary the wounded Americans left at Monroe were virtually delivered over to massacre, for when the return march had reached Stony Creek, Procter kept his pledge to the Indians by opening a barrel of rum. Leaving 200 of them to indulge in a drunken orgy he conducted his prisoners over the ice to Malden and there turned them into a stockade which was open to the terrible winter weather.

Tecumseh, seeing that the prisoners could not be protected from the Indians by three or four guards who would probably desert their posts as soon as possible, lighted his tomahawk pipe and spent most of the night patrolling about the stockade. Repeatedly he sternly ordered away lurking Indians who attempted to scale the stockade to indulge their longing for American scalps, for Procter had revived the old scalp bounty of earlier days.

The Indians left at Stony Creek drank up their rum and then took the trail back to Frenchtown, which they entered with savage yells early on the morning of January 23. A few of the wounded Americans had left their shelter and these were immediately struck down and scalped. Then Godfroy's fur

house was set on fire and its dry timbers were soon crackling with flames. The wounded inmates saw that they were confronted with the hard choice between being roasted alive if they remained inside or being tomahawked and scalped if they left their shelter. As fast as a desperate inmate would crawl to the door he would be dragged out and a moment later his bleeding body minus the scalp and with a round hole in the middle of the forehead would be thrown back into the burning building.

The fur house of Jean B. Jerome had been utilized in the same way and the inmates met the same fate. Indians broke into the houses of French residents to drag out the wounded Americans but 60 of them saved their scalps because they were helpless and were roasted alive in the burned buildings. Over 100 men, mostly Kentuckians, were killed in the warehouses. The total of Americans killed numbered 397. The little force of Madison and Graves had laid low 182 of their assailants. before they surrendered by order of Gen. Winchester.

That march to Malden was by no means a safe or comfortable experience, for now and then a weary prisoner would lag and immediately the Indians would set upon him and the tomahawk and scalping knives would do their bloody work. Captains Hart, McCracken and Woolfolk and Ensign Wells were thus killed on the road and several privates met the same fate.

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CHAPTER XXXII

VICTIMS OF BARBAROUS WARFARE

EWS of the disaster at River Raisin was brought to Detroit by messengers, and, hearing that a number of American prisoners were at Malden, a delegation of American residents of Detroit hurried down the shore and crossed the river to do what they could to save the prisoners. Col. Procter had a reputation for ruthlessness and it was feared that he would deliver the prisoners over to the Indians. This would mean torture and massacre for some if not all of them, for the Indian blood was up and there were many old scores to settle besides their lost battle at Tippecanoe and the destruction of their towns and crops in Indiana and Ohio.

There were kind-hearted and sympathetic British subjects also who went on the same errand. Colonels François Baby and Elliott, Captains Aikens, Curtish and Barrow; Rev. Richard Pollard, the Episcopal clergyman of Malden, and Maj. Muir, who was as considerate toward a conquered opponent as he was brave in battle, all used their influence, and they saved the lives of several prisoners who broke away from the Indians. Judge Augustus B. Woodward, Col. Elijah Brush, Henry J. Hunt, Richard Jones, James May, Maj. Stephen Mack, Gabriel Godfroy, Robert Smart, Dr. William Brown, Oliver W. Miller, Antoine Dequindre, Peter J. Desnoyers, John McDonnell, Peter Audrian, Duncan Reid, Alexander Macomb and a number of ladies from Detroit were Americans who went to ransom prisoners.

A group of 30 prisoners were brought forward by the Indians, who immediately slaughtered four of them before the spectators to stimulate the bidding of ransom money. The others were saved by use of money and presents to the Indians. Majors Graves and Madison, who had successfully maintained their stand in the garden at Frenchtown, were forced to run the