Harrison on his side made no extreme haste to pursue. His army marched into Malden at four o’clock on the afternoon of September 27,[131] and he wrote to Secretary Armstrong that evening: “I will pursue the enemy to-morrow, although there is no probability of my overtaking him, as he has upwards of a thousand horses, and we have not one in the army.”[132] The pursuit was not rapid. Sandwich, opposite Detroit, was only thirteen miles above Malden, but Harrison required two days to reach it, arriving at two o’clock on the afternoon of September 29. From there, September 30, he wrote again to Secretary Armstrong that he was preparing to pursue the enemy on the following day;[133] but he waited for R. M. Johnson’s mounted regiment, which arrived at Detroit September 30, and was obliged to consume a day in crossing the river. Then the pursuit began with energy, but on the morning of October 2 Proctor had already a week’s advance and should have been safe. Proctor seemed to imagine that the Americans would not venture to pursue him. Moving, according to his own report,[134] “by easy marches,” neither obstructing the road in his rear nor leaving detachments to delay the enemy, he reached Dolson’s October 1, and there halted his army, fifty miles from Sandwich, while he went to the Moravian town some twenty-six miles beyond. He then intended to make a stand at Chatham, three miles behind Dolson’s. “I had assured the Indians,” said Proctor’s report of October 23, “that we would not desert them, and it was my full determination to have made a stand at the Forks (Chatham), by which our vessels and stores would be protected; but after my arrival at Dover [Dolson’s] three miles lower down the river, I was induced to take post there first, where ovens had been constructed, and where there was some shelter for the troops, and had accordingly directed that it should be put into the best possible state of defence that time and circumstances would admit of; indeed it had been my intention to have opposed the enemy nearer the mouth of the river, had not the troops contrary to my intention been moved, during my absence of a few hours for the purpose of acquiring some knowledge of the country in my rear.” The British army, left at Dolson’s October 1, without a general or orders,[135] saw the American army arrive in its front, October 3, and retired three miles to Chatham, where the Indians insisted upon fighting; but when, the next morning, October 4, the Americans advanced in order of battle,[136] the Indians after a skirmish changed their minds and retreated. The British were compelled to sacrifice the supplies they had brought by water to Chatham for establishing their new base, and their retreat precipitated on the Moravian town the confusion of flight already resembling rout.