or to see them observed. Proctor and the army under him, at noon, marched off to Malden, leaving only. Reynolds, and two or three other officers, as a guard to protect the sick and the wounded!

Next morning about daylight, instead of sleds, two hundred Indians arrived from Malden. They soon determined to murder all the wounded. Raising their frantic yells, painted black, they began to plunder the houses of the inhabitants. They next broke into the houses where the wounded were, plundered, tomahawked and scalped them without mercy. Soon afterwards, the houses of Jean B. Jerome and Gabriel Godfroy, which contained nearly all the wounded, were set on fire. In these houses were consumed most of the wounded prisoners. Several who were able to crawl, endeavored to escapé at the windows, but they were tomahawked and pushed back into the houses and consumed in the flames. Others were killed in the streets and thrown into the burning houses and there consumed in the fire. Many were killed in the streets, horridly mangled and there left by the savages. We might fill several pages with these horrid details, all going to prove, beyond all doubt, that Proctor, Elliot and the British officers ordered these horrid murders of the wounded prisoners. But what is more sickening still to the human heart, is the fact, that the British government, as soon as well informed of these butcheries in cold blood, of our countrymen, promoted colonel Proctor, on their account, to be a major general, in their regular army. What shall we say of such a government? Language cannot express our horror, our scorn, and indignation, on this occasion.

In this action we lost in killed, massacred and missing, two hundred and ninety men. The British captured five hundred and forty-seven prisoners; the Indians, forty-five, and thirtythree escaped to the rapids. When the action commenced, we had eight hundred and fifty effective men, the enemy had two thousand. He lost, as near as we could learn, between three and four hundred men.

These Kentuckians thus slaughtered, belonged to the best families in Kentucky, and the news of their untimely fate clothed all the people of that state, in mourning. Mrs. Henry Clay, lost a brother, who was taken prisoner, wounded, killed, tomahawked and scalped by the savages-Nathaniel G. S. Hart, inspector general of the army.

For a disaster so dreadful, who is to be blamed? Not general Harrison, because he never ordered such a rash movement of Winchester's force, nor even authorized, or countenanced it. Indeed, Harrison had no knowledge of the movement until Winchester's express informed him of Lewis' movement at Lower Sandusky, sixty or seventy miles distant from the rapids. Harrison despatched three hundred men, however, and a piece of artillery, to the rapids. The roads were so bad that the cannon did not reach the rapids until after the fatal disaster. On the morning of the 19th, at four o'clock, another express arrived from the rapids and confirmed the former report that Lewis had marched to the River Raisin. A regiment and a battalion lay at Lower Sandusky, and this regiment was instantly marched off to the rapids. The General immediately marched himself, thither across the Black Swamp. He traveled forty miles in a day, leading his horse frequently and jumping from bog to bog. He traveled thus all night, and reached the rapids on the morning of the twelfth. General Winchester with all his disposeable force, had left there in the night preceding Harrison's arrival. Nothing now could be done but wait for the arrival of the regiment, which was on its march from Lower Sandusky. Harrison now clearly foresaw Winchester's inevitable fate. He had thrown himself into the very jaws of the enemy, beyond the reach of succor; but all that Harrison could do, was done by him.

On the evening of the 22nd, Perkins's regiment and a battalion of other militia arrived at the rapids. The news of Winchester's defeat, also reached the rapids, late on the same evening. Harrison now called a council of his officers, to take into consideration what steps should then be taken? The unanimous opinion of this council was in favor of falling back eigh

teen miles to Portage river. This advise was instantly carried into effect.

Being fully informed of the extent of Winchester's disaster, General Harrison immediately thereafter, despatched Doctor McKeehan, with medicines and gold, to Malden, to administer relief to the wounded and sick prisoners, now confined, with the other captives, in an open, muddy, wood yard; without fire, at Malden. Harrison gave the Doctor an open letter, addressed to any British officer, with whom he should fall in with, on his route. Doctor McKeehan was accompanied, in his cariole, by a Frenchman, as his guide. Bearing about him, his commission of surgeon of our army, a quantity of medicines, a considerable sum of money, in gold, his open letter and a flag of truce, as an emblem, of the holy errand, upon which he was sent; he and his guide, proceeded on their way towards Malden. As he journeyed onwards, he was attacked by the enemy, his companion slain, and himself woun'ded, and made prisoner. In this condition he reached Malden. Proctor took from him, his gold, medicines, horse, cariole, and flag of truce! Loading his prisoner, with heavy irons, Proctor confined the doctor, in a dungeon. From Malden, Proctor sent him in irons to Niagara; from thence he was transported in irons, from dungeon to dungeon, all the way to Quebec!! Are we describing the conduct of the savages on the Niger? of the Upper Nile? or of some barbarous nation in the heart of central Africa? No reader, we are stating, without coloring, the treatment of Doctor McKeehan, sent on the holiest errand that any man could be sent, to a British army, belonging to a nation, who professes to be, "the bulwark of our religion!" A nation, professing more humanity and religion, than any other, in the world! But at the same time, a nation, who for its numbers has shed more human blood than, any other; a nation more cruel, more wicked; and who has done less good in the world, than almost any other nation; who has enslaved more men, and now holds them in bondage, than any other nation, now or ever in existence.

The Christianity of the British government is shown, by

supporting episcopacy in England, presbyterianism in Scotland; the Roman catholics in Canada; and idolatry in India! The British government boasts of their efforts to send missionaries to the heathen! For every sixpence which they have thus expended a thousand pounds have been spent by them, in shedding human blood, and in enslaving mankind. And, this nation, thus steeped in human gore, dyed deep in infamy of all sorts, now employs itself in reading moral lectures to us, on the impropriety of our holding slaves. [See the Appendix—III.]

Doctor McKeehan, was finally released from his imprisonment in the succeeding May, but, his bodily constitution was entirely destroyed, by the treatment which he had received. He returned to his own country, but death, has long since released, the sufferer from his pains.

The sufferings of this Northwestern army at this time, may be fairly estimated, from the contents of a letter of a Pittsburgh volunteer to his friend: "On the 2nd day of our march, a courier arrived from General Harrison, ordering the artillery to' advance with all possible speed. This was impossible from the snow, it being a perfect swamp, all the way. On the same evening a messenger informed us, that the General had retreated eighteen miles in rear of the rapids, to Portage river., As many men as could be spared determined forthwith to reinforce him there.

And I fear that

"Our company determined to advance. Early next morning at 2 o'clock A, M. our tents were struck, and in half an hour, we were on our way advancing. I will candidly confess that on that day, I regreted being a soldier. On that day, we marched thirty miles, in an incessant rain. you will doubt my veracity, when I tell you, that for eight miles of that thirty, it took us over the knees, and often up to the middle. The black swamp, four miles from Portage river, and four miles in extent, would have been considered impassable, by any men, not determined to surmount every obstacle. The water on the ice, was about six inches deep-the ice was very rotten, often breaking through four or five feet. That night we encamped, on the best ground we could find, but it

was very wet. It was next to impossible, to raise fires. We had no tents, no axes, our clothes perfectly wetted through, and we had little to eat. From a brigade of packhorses, near us, we got some flour; we killed a hog, from a drove; our bread we baked in the ashes, and our meat was broiled on the coals. This was the sweetest meal, I ever ate. Two logs rolled close together, to keep us out of the water, was my bed."

From the Ohio river, to lake Erie, and from the Sandusky, the Maumee river, inclusive (the ice excepted) the Pittsburgh volunteer's description, is not a bad one of the roads, where troops, pack horses, wagons and artillery were in motion, that winter, except some few days, before and after new year's day.

Still determined on regaining Detroit, that winter if possible; after urging forward to join him at the mouth of Portage river, all the troops at Upper and Lower Sandusky, and their baggage; about the first of February, 1813, Harrison was with all his force, again at the Maumee rapids. As it was the General's intention to make the ground at the rapids, his grand depot of troops, stores, artillery, &c., he ordered captain Wood, of the Engineers to fortify that position. The county whose seat of justice is near these rapids now bears his name-Wood. The fort was afterwards named MEIGS, in honor of governor Meigs.. About the 20th of February, the term for which two brigades of Ohio militia had enlisted expired. They had behaved very well, and their officers addressed a parting letter to general Harrison highly complimentary. Their names follow: EDWARD W. TUPPER, brigadier general; SIMON PERKINS, brigadier general; CHARLES MILLER, colonel; JOHN ANDREWS, lieutenant colonel; WILLIAM RAYEN, colonel; ROBERT SAFFORD, lieutenant colonel; N. BEASLY, major; JAMES GALLOWAY, major; SOLOMON BENTLEY major; GEORGE DARROW, major: W. W. COTGREAVE, major; JACOB FREDERICK, major.

These officers and their troops, had guarded the northeastern frontier, from early in the summer of 1812, after Hull's defeat. They had cut all the roads, and transported all the