All this time Hull was in extreme distress. The cannon-shot from the enemy’s batteries across the river were falling in the fort. Uncertain what to do, the General sat on an old tent on the ground with his back against the rampart. “He apparently unconsciously filled his mouth with tobacco, putting in quid after quid more than he generally did; the spittle colored with tobacco-juice ran from his mouth on his neckcloth, beard, cravat, and vest.”[282] He seemed preoccupied, his voice trembled, he was greatly agitated, anxious, and fatigued. Knowing that sooner or later the fort must fall, and dreading massacre for the women and children; anxious for the safety of McArthur and Cass, and treated with undisguised contempt by the militia officers,--he hesitated, took no measure to impede the enemy’s advance, and at last sent a flag across the river to negotiate. A cannon-ball from the enemy’s batteries killed four men in the fort; two companies of the Michigan militia deserted,--their behavior threatening to leave the town exposed to the Indians,--and from that moment Hull determined to surrender on the best terms he could get. As Brock, after placing his troops under cover, ascended the brow of the rising ground to reconnoitre the fort, a white flag advanced from the battery before him, and within an hour the British troops, to their own undisguised astonishment, found themselves in possession of the fortress. The capitulation included McArthur’s detachment and the small force covering the supplies at the river Raisin. The army, already mutinous, submitted with what philosophy it could command to the necessity it could not escape. On the same day at the same hour Fort Dearborn at Chicago was in flames. The Government provided neither for the defence nor for the safe withdrawal of the little garrison, but Hull had sent an order to evacuate the fort if practicable. In the process of evacuation, August 15, the garrison was attacked and massacred by an overwhelming body of Indians. The next morning the fort was burned, and with it the last vestige of American authority on the western lakes disappeared. Thenceforward the line of the Wabash and the Maumee became the military boundary of the United States in the Northwest, and the country felt painful doubt whether even that line could be defended. CHAPTER XVI.