Defeat under such conditions was disgraceful enough; but defeat by Colonel Proctor was one of the worst misfortunes that happened to an American general. The Prince Regent took occasion, at the close of the war, to express his official opinion of this officer, then Major-General Proctor, in language of unusual severity.[77] Yet Proctor’s first movements at the Raisin River showed no apparent sign of his being “so extremely wanting in professional knowledge, and deficient in those active, energetic qualities which must be required of every officer,” as his later career, in the Prince Regent’s opinion, proved him to be. He had opposed Brock’s bold movement on Detroit; but he did not hesitate to make a somewhat similar movement himself. January 21 he marched with artillery across the river on the ice, to Brownstown opposite Malden, in full view of any American patrol in the neighborhood. His force consisted of six hundred whites, all told,[78] besides either four hundred and fifty, six hundred or eight hundred Indians, under the chief Round Head, Tecumthe being absent collecting reinforcements on the Wabash.[79] This large body of more than a thousand men, without an attempt at concealment, crossed to Brownstown and marched twelve miles, January 21, camping at night within five miles of Frenchtown.[80] If the British historian James was correct, they numbered eleven hundred and eighty men, of whom five hundred and thirty were white, and the rest Indians;[81] but the official return reported the whites, including every person present, at five hundred and ninety-seven men. Two hours before dawn, January 22, they again advanced, and before daybreak approached within musket-shot of the picket-fence, and half-formed their line, before an alarm was given.