tia, twelve hundred strong,
under Brigadier General Green Clay, was to follow in boats down the
Auglaize and Maumee rivers. Procter's guns were already pounding the
walls of Fort Meigs on the 5th of May when eight hundred troops of this
fresh American force arrived within striking distance. They dashed upon
the British batteries and took them with the bayonet in a wild,
impetuous charge. It was then their business promptly to reform and
protect themselves, but through lack of training they failed to obey
orders and were off hunting the enemy, every man for himself. In the
meantime three companies of British regulars and some volunteers took
advantage of the confusion, summoned the Indians, and let loose a
vicious counter-attack.

Within sight of General Harrison and the garrison of Fort Meigs, these
bold Kentuckians were presently driven from the captured guns,
scattered, and shot down or taken prisoner. Only a hundred and seventy
of them got away, and they lost even their boats and supplies. The
British loss was no more than fifty in killed and wounded. Again Procter
inflamed the hatred and contempt of his American foes because forty of
his prisoners were tomahawked while guarded by British soldiers. He made
no effort to save them and it was the intervention of Tecumseh, the
Indian leader, which averted the massacre of the whole body of five
hundred prisoners.

Across the river, Colonel John Miller, of the American regular
infantry, had attempted a gallant sortie from the fort and had taken a
battery but this sally had no great effect on the issue of the
engagement. Harrison had lost almost a thousand men, half his fighting
force, and was again shut up within the barricades and blockhouses of
Fort Meigs. Procter continued the siege only four days longer, for his
Indian allies then grew tired of it and faded into the forest. He was
not reluctant to accept this excuse for withdrawing. His own militia
were drifting away, his regulars were suffering from illness and
exposure, and Fort Meigs itself was a harder nut to crack than he had
anticipated. Procter therefore withdrew to Amherstburg and made no more
trouble until June, when he sent raiding parties into Ohio and created
panic among the isolated settlements.

Harrison had become convinced that his campaign must be a defensive one
only, until a strong American naval force could be mustered on Lake
Erie. He moved his headquarters to Upper Sandusky and Cleveland and
c