Before the march to join the northwestern army, he was elected a corporal. In this grade he marched to the relief of Fort Wayne, which was invested by hostile Indians. These were driven before the Kentucky volunteers to their towns on the Wabash, which were destroyed, and the troops then returned to the Miami of the lakes, where they made a winter encampment. Here an ensign's commission in the second regiment of United States infantry was tendered to the volunteer corporal, which he declined, unless permitted to remain with the northwestern army, which he had entered to share in the effort of the Kentucky militia to wipe out the disgrace of Hull's surrender by the recapture of Detroit. His proposition was assented to, and he received an ensign's appointment in the seventeenth infantry, then a part of the northwestern army, under the command of Gen. Winchester. After enduring every privation in a winter encampment, in the wildernesses and frozen marshes of the lake country, awaiting in vain the expected support of additional forces, the Kentucky volunteers, led by Lewis, Allen, and Madison, with Well's regiment, (17th U. S.) advanced to encounter the force of British and Indians which defended Detroit. On leaving Kentucky the volunteers had pledged themselves to drive the British invaders from our soil. These men and their leaders were held in such estimation at home, that the expectation formed of them exceeded their promises; and these volunteers, though disappointed in every succor which they had reason to anticipate--wanting in provision, clothes, cannon, in every thing--resolved, rather than lose reputation, to press on to the enterprise, and to endeavor to draw on to them, by entering into action, the troops behind. It is not proper here to enter into explanations of the causes of the disaster at the River Raisin, the consequence of this movement, nor to give the particulars of the battle. The incidents which signalized the character of the subject of this memoir alone are proper here.