with twelve Indians, and killed eleven out of the twelve. Captain James Ryan, now of Chillicothe, then a subaltern officer of the Pittsburgh volunteers, killed one of these savages, by one blow of his heavy broadsword. The savage had his tomahawk upraised and was just about to throw it at Ryan, when himself was laid low, never to rise again.

Colonel Wells assumed the command for a very short time, inasmuch as Croghan, on his reaching head quarters, instantly removed every shade of suspicion that he had intended to disobey the General. Tarrying, therefore, all night with Harrison, who treated him with the greatest kindness; next morning he was escorted back in safety, and placed in command as before.

CROGHAN'S DEFENCE OF FORT STEPHENSON.

On the 31st of July a reconoitering party from the lake, twenty miles distant, saw the enemy enter Sandusky bay. August 1st, at noon, this party passed Croghan, on its way to Seneca, and informed him that the enemy had entered Sandusky bay, and was then ascending it with his gun boats.

Within three hours after the reception of this intelligence, Croghan and his troops saw the enemy with his gun boats, cannon, and all his means of annoyance, on the spot, ready to commence the storming of their little stockade. The enemy had come to invest this post, with one thousand British and as many Indians. The former were commanded by general Proctor himself; the latter by Dixon. Out of the most pure regard for our troops in Fort Stevenson, (if Proctor could be believed) he sent on his arrival, major Chambers of the regulars, and Dixon of the Indian department, to summons the garrison to surrender. Croghan sent ensign Ship, with a flag to meet these gentlemen. Chambers and Dixon, "besought Ship, to spare the effusion of blood-what a pity, said they, that you and Croghan, such fine young men, should be butchered by savages." Ship replied, that "when they took the garrison, none would be left to be butchered by an enemy." At

that moment, an Indian came forward in his most hostile array, pretending to wish to tomahawk Ship, when Dixon shaking with pretended terrors, urged the ensign "to get into his garrison as soon as possible, unless he would consent to a surrender, and thereby save the lives of the troops in the garrison.”

The enemy now opened his fire upon the fort, from his guns in the boats and his mortar on the shore. He continued to fire all night, with little intermission and with still less effect. His guns were sixpounders. Croghan had one sixpounder and that was all the artillery he had in the fort. He contrived to move his gun from one part of his works to another, so as to induce a belief that he had many guns. So the night passed off. Tecumseh with two thousand warriors lay beside the road leading to Seneca, and Upper Sandusky, expecting a reinforcement from that quarter to save the garrison. To intercept such a force, and destroy it, was his grand object. In this, he was sorely disappointed, as no such force was sent. During this first night, the enemy had landed from his boats, three sixpounders and a mortar, and had placed them within two hundred and forty yards of the fort, in a grove of woods. During this same night, Croghan discovered that the enemy seemed to aim most of his shots at the northwest corner of the stockade, and he supposed that when the British attempted to storm his fort, the place of attack would be at that angle. So he ordered captain Hunter to place their only gun in a position so that it would rake the ditch, in case the enemy attempted to scale the works at that angle. In secrecy, and with uncommon industry and personal exertions, captain Hunter obeyed the order. The morning of the 2d of August dawned on our heroic band of young patriots. The enemy fired all day, but at four in the afternoon, he concentrated all the fire of all his guns at the northwestern angle of the fort. Seeing this, Croghan ordered sergeant Weaver and six privates of the Pittsburgh volunteers, to place there, with all possible expedition, bags of sand and flour. This was done in a manner so effectually that, that angle received no material injury, from the enemy's guns. The sixpounder was entrusted to the management of the

same sergeant, and his six men. Late in the evening when all was enveloped in smoke, the enemy proceeded to make the assault. Two feints were made on Hunter's lines, but in the meantime three hundred and fifty men of the enemy, advanced in the smoke, to within sixty feet of the northwestern angle. A severe fire of musketry from the fort, put them in confusion for a moment, when lieutenant colonel Short, who headed this column of the enemy, urged forward his men to the edge of the ditch, calling on them to follow him, and "to give no quarters" he leaped into the ditch. The masked port hole was now opened, and the sixpounder within thirty feet of the assailants, was fired on them. The lieutenant colonel Short, and fifty others, were instantly killed or wounded. Death and desolation filled the ditch. Captain Hunter repelled Warburton and Chambers with a constant stream of lead from his rifles. They were assailing his line, but now ceased to do so, and drew off. During the assault which lasted thirty minutes, the enemy constantly fired his mortar and five of his sixpounders. Immediately after this assault the enemy drew off out of the reach of our guns. It was now dark. The wounded in the ditch were in a desperate condition. They called for "water, water, water." The enemy dare not undertake to relieve them-so Croghan, and his brave men handed over water to them, in buckets, to relieve their thirst. Our men dug a hole through, and under the pickets, and encouraged as many as were able to crawl, to creep into the fort. Compare this treatment, reader, with Proctor's SLEDS at the river Raisin, on Washington's birth day, in this same year!

At three o'clock this night, the enemy made a most disorderly and shameful retreat, down the bay. In their hurry, terror and confusion, they left a sail boat full of the most valuable property. They left strewed around our fort, seventy stands of arms and several valuable braces of pistols. They anticipated a visit from general Harrison with his artillery early next morning; so they were off in a hurry.

Our loss in this brilliant affair, was one killed, and seven were very slightly wounded.

The total loss of the enemy could not have been less than one hundred and fifty killed and wounded.

One British officer, major Muir, was wounded in the head, knocked down for dead in the ditch, lay there awhile, come to himself, and finally crawled off to his friends. For us it was well enough that he escaped at that time, inasmuch as he was never sane afterwards.

He got the command of two hundred troops, and was passing down lake Ontario, next year, 1814, in two vessels. Chased by our squadron of ships, towards the lower end of the lake, he ordered the two vessels to be run on an island, and he and his men hid in the bushes, but had forgotten their arms! So they were all captured, major Muir and his two hundred men. Not a drop of blood was shed on either side.

It remains for us to say, that for so brilliant an action, congress with their characteristic alacrity on such occasions, have at the end of twenty three years, voted swords to the officers, Croghan, Hunter, Ship, &c., &c., &c. It is true that before the swords were given, all but Croghan and Hunter, were dead. Hunter, one of the bravest and most efficient captains ever in the regular army to which he belonged, was disbanded at the close of the war.

The ladies of Chillicothe, as soon as they heard of Croghan's gallant defence, voted him a sword. In Niles' Register of that time, the reader will find their address to Croghan, and his answer.

The enemy had now returned to Malden; our troops from the interior were pouring into Upper Sandusky. From Piekaway county Colonel James Renick with two hundred and fifty mounted volunteers, an advanced detachment came; seven hundred following them, from the same county. Harrison had called on governor Meigs for six months men, but hearing of the invasion of Ohio, a second time this year, Meigs called out the entire mass of militia for forty days. On the 4th of August, early in the morning, colonel Henry Brush of Chillico

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the, delivered a letter from governor Meigs to general Harrison at Seneca, informing him of the arrival at Upper Sandusky, of the entire mass of militia, in the Scioto valley, and of vast numbers from all parts of the state; and that they now expected to be employed in active service or they would not be likely to obey another call. The General went to Upper Sandusky to confer with Meigs, and inform him of the orders of the war department, not to employ militia at all, if regulars could be procured, but if not, then only militia enough to make up the deficiency of seven thousand regulars. Two thousand men for six months, was all that Harrison felt authorised to employ from Ohio. These Meigs selected, but for forty days only. That being done, Harrison was compelled to dismiss them as of no use, except to consume the provisions. Many of the militia officers thus necessarily dismissed, assembled and passed inflammatory resolutions against the General, for obeying his orders. The officers of the regular army answered them in the same way, by resolutions.

From the land, we now turn our attention awhile, to our own sea, lake Erie. Lieutenants Perry and Elliot, had been ordered to lake Erie with several hundred sailors, early in the summer of 1812, and they were not idle. They had seized and captured at different times, several British vessels, and they had destroyed such vessels as they could not carry into our harbors. Ship carpenters had been busily engaged, in building vessels of war, at Erie in Pennsylvania. Several ships were fitted up, which had been employed, as merchant vessels, and severals others were built, expressly for warlike purposes. Finally, nine vessels were gotten ready for service, carrying, in all, fifty-four guns. General McArthur, had sent twentyfive active seamen, from fort Meigs, to join Perry's fleet. The war, on the ocean had driven these sailors from the Atlantic frontier; they had joined our army and now volunteered their services to Perry, and materially contributed to his success, as their naval commander cheerfully acknowledged. McArther had taken possession of fort Meigs, general Clay being sick, had resigned the command temporarily to McArthur.