When Clay's troops reached the fort, they were joined by another sallying party, and the combined force moved against the Indians, whom Tecumseh commanded in person, and drove them through the woods at the point of the bayonet. Tecumseh attempted to move a force of British and Indians upon their left flank and rear, to cut off their return to the fort, but this movement was frustrated by Harrison, who understood Indian warfare quite as well as the great chief himself. Proctor's savage allies, disgusted at his want of success, now began to desert him, and he was obliged to raise the siege and retreat. This he did {093}not do, however, without keeping up his reputation for treachery and cold-blooded cruelty. His prisoners were taken to old Fort Miami, a short distance down stream, where the savages were allowed to murder more than twenty of them. Captain Wood, an eye-witness, says: "The Indians were permitted to garnish the surrounding rampart, and to amuse themselves by loading and firing at the crowd, or at any particular individual. Those who preferred to inflict a still more cruel and savage death selected their victims, led them to the gateway, and there, under the eye of General Proctor, and in the presence of the whole British army, tomahawked and scalped them." It is said that the horrible work was stopped by Tecumseh, who, coming up when it was at its height, buried his hatchet in the head of a chief engaged in the massacre, crying: "For shame!--it is a disgrace to kill a defenceless prisoner!" "In this single act," says the witness who narrates it," Tecumseh displayed more humanity, magnanimity, and civilization than Proctor, with all his British associates in command, displayed through the whole war on the northwestern frontiers." The total loss to the Americans in these actions was eighty-one men killed, two hundred and sixty-nine wounded, and four hundred and sixty-seven made prisoners. It is uncertain what the British {094}loss was, but it was probably somewhat smaller than that of the Americans. In July, Proctor and Tecumseh, with a combined English and savage force of about five thousand, returned to Fort Meigs and attempted to draw out the garrison by strategy; but Harrison was, as usual, too shrewd for them, and they turned their attention to Fort Stephenson. This was an oblong stockade fort, about a hundred yards long and fifty yards wide, with high pickets, surrounded by a deep ditch or moat. There was a strong block-house at each corner. It was on the Sandusky, where the town of Fremont, Ohio, now stands. The garrison consisted of one hundred and sixty men, commanded by Major George Croghan.