were killed or mutilated by one ball passing through the very heart
of their private apartments, into which it had, as if searchingly
and insidiously, found its way. To the left, moreover, was another
floating battery of large ships of war, preparing to vomit forth
their thunder, and distract the garrison and divide their fire,
which could be returned only from their immediate front bearing
on the river, that it soon became evident to the besiegers that
their enemy had no power to arrest or effectually check the fury
of their attack. But not this alone. Thousands of Indians had
occupied the ground in the rear, and only waited the advance of
the British columns, furnished also with artillery for an assault
in another quarter, to rush with the immolating tomahawk upon the
defenceless inhabitants of the town, and complete a slaughter to
which there would have been no parallel in warfare. They could not
have been restrained; their savage appetite for blood must have
been appeased, and of this fact General Hull had been apprised.
Moreover, five hundred of his force who had been detached under
Colonel Cass, were at no great distance, and had an effectual
resistance been made at Detroit--had blood been, as they would have
conceived, wantonly spilt, the exasperation of the Indians would
have been such that, in all probability, Colonel Cass would not at
the present day be a candidate for presidential honors, nor would
any of his force have shared a better fate. All these things we
state impartially and without fear of contradiction, because they
occurred under our own eyes, and because we believe that the people
of the United States do not understand the true difficulties by
which General Hull was beset. It may be very well, and is correct
enough in the abstract, to say that an officer commanding a post,
armed and garrisoned as Detroit was, ought to have annihilated
their assailants, but where, in the return of prisoners, is mention
made of artillerymen sufficient to serve even half the guns by
which the fortress was defended? The Fourth Regiment of the line
was there, but not the gallant Fourth Artillery, and every soldier
knows that that arm is often more injurious to friends than to foes
in the hands of men not duly trained to it. With the exception only
of the regiment first named, the army of General Hull consisted
wholly of raw levies chiefly from Ohio, expert enough at the rifle,
but utterly incompetent to serve artillery