number of good
men can be procured, and should they be allowed to serve on
horseback, Kentucky would furnish some regiments that would not be
inferior to those that fought at the river Raisin; and these were,
in my opinion, superior to any militia that ever took the field in
modern times.

There was to be no immediate renewal of action between Procter and
Harrison. Each seemed to have conceived so much respect for the forces
of the other that they proceeded to increase the distance between them
as rapidly as possible. Fearing to be overtaken and greatly outnumbered,
the British leader retreated to Canada while the American leader was in
a state of mind no less uneasy. Harrison promptly set fire to his
storehouses and supplies at the Maumee Rapids, his advanced base near
Lake Erie. Thus all this labor and exertion and expense vanished in
smoke while, in the set diction of war, he retired some fifteen miles.
In such a vast hurry were the adversaries to be quit of each other that
a day and a half after the fight at Frenchtown they were sixty miles
apart. Harrison remained a fortnight on this back trail and collected
two thousand of his troops, with whom he returned to the ruins of his
foremost post and undertook the task all over again.

The defensive works which he now built were called Fort Meigs. For the
time there was no more talk of invading Canada. The service of the
Kentucky and Ohio militia was expiring, and these seasoned regiments
were melting away like snow. Presently Fort Meigs was left with no more
than five hundred war-worn men to hold out against British operations
afloat and ashore. Luckily Procter had expended his energies at
Frenchtown and seemed inclined to repose, for he made no effort to
attack the few weak garrisons which guarded the American territory near
at hand. From January until April he neglected his opportunities while
more American militia marched homeward, while Harrison was absent, while
Fort Meigs was unfinished.

At length the British offensive was organized, and a thousand white
soldiers and as many Indians, led by Tecumseh, sallied out of
Amherstburg with a naval force of two gunboats. Heavy guns were dragged
from Detroit to batter down the log walls, for it was the intention to
surround and besiege Fort Meigs in the manner taught by the military
science of Europe. Meanwhile Harrison had come back from a recruiting
mission; and a new brigade of Kentucky mili