The Second War with England, Vol. 1 of 2Headley, Joel Tyler
History
The Second War with England, Vol. 1 of 2
Headley, Joel Tyler
United States -- History -- War of 1812
great stretch of kindness, he allowed two American surgeons to remain
and take care of them. He had promised to send sleds the next day, to
convey them to Malden. These never arrived; but, instead, there came a
party of his Indian allies, who tomahawked a portion of the wounded,
and then set fire to the houses, consuming the dead and dying
together, and responding to the shrieks of the suffering victims with
yells and savage laughter. Captain Hart, a relative of Henry Clay, was
among the number, as was also a member of Congress. Hart, and indeed a
large majority of them, belonged to the most respectable families of
Kentucky. One officer was scalped in presence of his friends, and with
the blood streaming down his pallid features, rose on his knees, and
silently and most piteously gazed on their faces. While in this
position, an Indian boy was told by his father to tomahawk him. The
unskilful stripling struck again and again, only producing faint
groans from the sufferer, till at length the father, in showing how a
blow should be planted, ended the tragedy. The secretary of General
Winchester was shot while on horseback, and scalped, and his body
stripped and cast into the road. The dead, to the number of two
hundred, were left unburied; and, for a long time after, hogs and dogs
were seen devouring the bodies, and running about crunching human
skulls and arms in their teeth. Most of these facts were sworn to
before a justice of the peace, and forwarded by Judge Woodward, of the
supreme court of Michigan, to Colonel Proctor, with the remark, "The
truth will undoubtedly eventually appear, and that unfortunate day
must meet the steady and impartial eye of history." General Harrison
was at the Rapids, hurrying on the reinforcements, when he heard of
the catastrophe. A few days after, he dispatched Dr. M'Kechen with a
flag of truce to the river Raisin, to pass thence, if possible, to
Malden. Seized by the Indians and stript, he was at length taken to
Captain Elliot, who kindly forwarded him to Colonel Proctor. The
latter denied his mission, declaring he was a spy, and would not
recognize him, in his official character, till the fifth of February.
Three weeks after, he was accused of carrying on a secret
correspondence with the Americans, and without the form of a trial
thrown into a filthy dungeon below the surface of the ground, where he
lay for a whole month, and was finally liberated, only to carry the
seeds of disease, implanted by this brutal treatment, to his grave.
[Footnote 35: Vide Armstrong's Notices of the War of 1812.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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