G. D. E. represents the whole of the 2d Battalion after I was wounded & finding it impracticable on account of logs & the thickness of the woods to break through the Indian line & form in their rear, I ordered the men to dismount & fight the Indians in their own way, part of the time the Indians contended for the ground at the 2d Swamp. ACCOMPANYING COL. R. M. JOHNSON’S LETTER OF NOV. 21st 1813, DETAILING THE AFFAIR OF THE 5th AT THE RIVER THAMES, ETC.--WAR DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES, MSS.] Harrison came upon the British line soon after two o’clock in the afternoon, and at once formed his army in regular order of battle. As the order was disregarded, and the battle was fought, as he reported, in a manner “not sanctioned by anything that I had seen or heard of,”[143] the intended arrangement mattered little. In truth, the battle was planned as well as fought by Richard M. Johnson, whose energy impressed on the army a new character from the moment he joined it. While Harrison drew up his infantry in order of battle, Johnson, whose mounted regiment was close to the British line, asked leave to charge,[144] and Harrison gave him the order, although he knew no rule of war that sanctioned it. Johnson’s tactics were hazardous, though effective. Giving to his brother, James Johnson, half the regiment to lead up the road against the six-pound gun and the British Forty-first regiment, R. M. Johnson with the other half of his regiment wheeled to the left, at an angle with the road, and crossed the swamp to attack twice his number of Indians posted in a thick wood. James Johnson, with his five hundred men, galloped directly through the British first line,[145] receiving a confused fire, and passing immediately to the rear of the British second line, so rapidly as almost to capture Proctor himself, who fled at full speed.[146] As the British soldiers straggled in bands or singly toward the rear, they found themselves among the American mounted riflemen, and had no choice but to surrender. About fifty men, with a single lieutenant, contrived to escape through the woods; all the rest became prisoners. R. M. Johnson was less fortunate. Crossing the swamp to his left, he was received by the Indians in underbrush which the horses could not penetrate. Under a sharp fire his men were obliged to dismount and fight at close quarters. At an early moment of the battle, Johnson was wounded by the rifle of an Indian warrior who sprang forward to despatch him, but was killed by a ball from Johnson’s pistol. The fighting at that point was severe, but Johnson’s men broke or turned the Indian line, which was uncovered after the British defeat, and driving the Indians toward the American left, brought them under fire of Shelby’s infantry, when they fled. In this contest Johnson maintained that his regiment was alone engaged. In a letter to Secretary Armstrong, dated six weeks after the battle, he said:[147]--