By easy marches the British proceeded to Chatham, fifty miles from Sandwich on the River Thames. Here Proctor halted the army while he himself went on to the Moravian town twenty-six miles beyond. The American army appeared, and the British tried to follow their commander to Chatham. The organization of the whole army was by this time completely demoralized. They had, however, no choice but to turn and fight, as the younger officers and soldiers had long desired. The British were so stationed as to give the advantage of position to their opponents; and the American force was strengthened by a mounted regiment commanded by Richard Johnson, who had won a great reputation for himself and his men in previous battles on the frontier. The Americans lost only fifteen men in the engagement, with thirty wounded. The British list of dead and wounded was also short, but nearly five hundred were taken prisoners, and their supply of provisions and ammunition fell into the hands of the Americans. Only two hundred of this whole division of the British army returned to report at headquarters a month later. The Indian warrior, Tecumseh, was killed in this battle, and with his death the remote prospect of an Indian confederacy was gone. After these two victories the western Indians fell away from their alliance with the British and took no active part in the war. The last year of the war, the year 1814, was marked by constant and active operations on Lake Ontario and about Niagara. The naval movements were not particularly effective on the American side, nor did they win great results. The possession of the Niagara River was sharply contested, and the American troops distinguished themselves by their bravery at the battles of Chippewa Creek and Lundy’s Lane. Cut off from any other lake position, the British could concentrate their forces at this point and throw the Americans on the defensive. These battles concerned, nevertheless, only a small portion of the Great Lakes, which were again the northern boundary of the United States. By Perry’s victory on Lake Erie, the subsequent recovery of the Detroit River, and the defeat of the British army at the Thames, Lake Erie and the whole Northwest were saved to the United States. The close of the war by the treaty of Ghent in the winter of 1814 brought to the lake frontier a well-earned and a lasting peace. CHAPTER XV GENERAL LEWIS CASS AND REORGANIZATION