The year 1813 began with another disaster for the United States. After the surrender of Detroit, Governor William Henry Harrison, of the Indiana Territory, placed himself at the head of a popular movement to retrieve the defeat at any cost and to recover Detroit. It was winter before he succeeded in getting an army within reach of the lake coast. For months the three divisions of his force of ten thousand men struggled through the swampy lands of Ohio, where the movement of troops and of necessary provisions was rendered well-nigh impossible by the heavy rains. On the 15th of January two Frenchmen had entered the camp of the advance division of the army, which under command of General Winchester was establishing itself at a point on the Maumee River twenty miles inland from Lake Erie. They urged the troops to occupy Frenchtown, a village on the American shore of Lake Erie but within British lines. This town on the River Raisin was held by Canadians and Indians, and its loss, if taken by the Americans, would be a serious blow to the British. Six hundred and fifty men, the flower of the Kentucky regiments, started under the command of Colonel Lewis for the attack. After considerable losses the Americans seized the town. General Winchester hastened to their support with three hundred more men, making a total American force at the River Raisin of eight or nine hundred men. General Proctor, Brock’s successor at Fort Malden, had under his command over two thousand soldiers. On the morning of January 22, 1813, he crossed the lake on the ice with a force of six hundred men and from six to eight hundred Indians and attacked the Americans in the ill-fortified village. When the hard-fought engagement was ended four hundred Americans were missing, either killed during the battle by the British or scalped by the Indians in the horrible massacre that followed the defeat. Only after the ammunition had given out and retreat had been proved impossible because of the deep snow and the position of the enemy, did the last of the gallant Kentuckians surrender. “Remember the River Raisin” became the watchword of a desperate people, and operations on the Great Lakes were suspended until Commodore Perry was ready with his navy to retrieve these defeats and turn the tide of American fortune.