By this combination of skill and accident, Harrison reached the object of his ambition,--the conduct of war on a scale equal to his faith in his own powers; but the torrent of Western enthusiasm swept him forward faster than his secret judgment approved. Appointed by caucus the general of volunteers, he could keep his position only by keeping his popularity. Without deciding precisely where to march, or what military object to pursue, he talked and acted on the idea that he should recover Detroit by a _coup-de-main_.[47] He knew that the idea was baseless as a practical plan, and futile as a military measure; but nothing less would satisfy the enthusiasm of his Kentucky volunteers, and the national government almost compelled him to pretend what he did not at heart believe possible. The confusion thus created was troublesome. First, Harrison insisted on commanding the troops marching to relieve Fort Wayne, and obliged the good-natured General Winchester, who outranked him, to yield the point.[48] Then after a forced march with the Kentuckians down the St. Mary’s River, having relieved Fort Wayne, Harrison was obliged, September 19, to surrender the command to Winchester, who arrived with orders from the Secretary of War to take general charge of the northwestern army. Harrison then left Fort Wayne for Piqua. Meanwhile the President and Eustis, learning what had been done in Kentucky, September 17, after much debate decided to give to Harrison the commission of brigadier-general, with the command of the northwestern army, to consist of ten thousand men, with unlimited means and no orders except to retake Detroit.[49] Brigadier-General Winchester, who was already at Fort Wayne, was given the option of serving under Harrison, or of joining the army at Niagara. These new orders reached Harrison September 25 at Piqua. Harrison then resumed command, and two days afterward, September 27, wrote to the secretary, announcing his plan for the autumn campaign. Three columns of troops, from widely distant quarters, were to move to the Maumee Rapids,--the right column, consisting of Virginia and Pennsylvania troops, by way of the Sandusky River; the centre column, of twelve hundred Ohio militia, by Hull’s road; the left column, consisting of four Kentucky regiments and the Seventeenth U. S. Infantry, was to descend the Auglaize River to Fort Defiance on the Maumee, and thence to fall down that river to the point of junction with the two other columns.