Ohio History Journal

The Siege of Fort Meigs               35

The members of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical

Society and of the Maumee Valley Pioneer and Historical Asso-

ciation were early interested in the plan for a proper historical

celebration on the centennial anniversary of the two important

land battles on Ohio soil, as well as of Perry's gallant victory in

the Battle of Lake Erie. They were greatly encouraged on

hearing the remarks of Governor Harris, delivered on the site

of Fort Stephenson, August 2d, 1906, during the ceremonies

incident to the reburial of Major Croghan on the fort he had so

heroically defended; and by the Governor's subsequent request

for information as to suitable members for the commission to

have charge of the celebration of the events connected with the

centenary of Perry's Victory and Harrison's Northwestern Cam-

paign. It was therefore with considerable regret that the mem-

bers of these societies learned that he had failed to follow the

example of his predecessor, Governor Allen, in appointing as

the Ohio commissioners to the Centennial Exposition of 1876

five of the then leading citizens of Ohio, men of national repu-

tation and representative of every section of the State, and had

apparently considered this as of local interest only. The cen-

tennial celebration of Perry's Victory, however, was of such

national interest, that the remaining seven States bordering on

the Great Lakes, together with Kentucky and Rhode Island, and

the President of the United States, under authority of Congress,

appointed commissions fitly representative of the nation and of

the several States. Following the action of Congress in appro-

priating $250,000, each of the States interested made liberal

appropriations, thus insuring the success of the Centennial. The

President of the United States interested himself to the extent

of calling the attention of his National commissioners to a recent

act of Congress which had authorized the appointment of a

National Fine Arts Commission, composed of the leading artists

of the country, and directed that the plans for the contemplated

Perry Memorial should be approved by the National Fine Arts

Commission; with the result that after public competition of

fifty-eight architects, the beautiful design prepared by Freedlander

and Seymour, associate architects, of New York was selected,

the Memorial to be constructed of New England granite. Com-

36        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

mittees were appointed by the Maumee Valley Pioneer and His-

torical Association and the Mayor of Toledo for the centennial

of the siege of Fort Meigs; and by the Mayor and citizens of

Fremont for the centennial celebration of Croghan's defense of

Fort Stephenson; in addition to the celebration of the naval bat-

tle at Put-in-Bay and the lake cities. The centennial commissions

of Toledo and Fremont prepared a rather elaborate scheme for

the celebration of the military events in Harrison's Northwestern

Campaign at Fort Meigs and Fort Stephenson, which was favor-

ably considered by Brig. Gen. A. L. Mills, U. S. A, chief of the

militia division of the War Department, and by the Adjutant Gen-

eral of Ohio. The military and naval program submitted, repro-

duced here as a unique resume of the stirring events of a century

ago, was as follows:

"The Scheme for the Centennial Celebration of the First

and Second Sieges of Fort Meigs, Ball's Battle with the Indians,

and the Defense of Fort Stephenson, with the aid of infantry,

artillery and cavalry of the Regular Army, and light draught

gunboats, with sailors and marines of the U. S. Navy, and the

entire National Guard of Ohio and Michigan, to cover the period

from the arrival of General Proctor's British army, on Captain

Barclay's British fleet from Detroit, and their entrance into the

Maumee river on July 22, preparatory to the second siege of

Fort Meigs, which the British abandoned on July 27th, and

sailed around to Sandusky Bay and up the Sandusky River,

arriving off Fort Stephenson on July 31, where they conducted

a siege of Fort Stephenson, ending in their final assault on the

evening of August 2d, after which the British retreated, aban-

doning some of their boats and returned to Detroit.

ANNIVERSARY DATES.

First Siege of Fort Meigs, April 27 to May 9.

Second Siege of Fort Meigs, July 20 to July 28.

Battle of Ballville, July 30.

Defence of Fort Stephenson, August 1st and 2d.

"Owing to the close proximity of the battle field of Wayne's suc-

cessful battle of Fallen Timbers, on the 5th of August, 1794, to the site

of the Dudley massacre in the first siege of Fort Meigs on the 4th of

The Siege of Fort Meigs                    37

May, 1813, it has been thought proper to include in the celebration a

reproduction of the battle of Fallen Timbers:

"First: Infantry, artillery and cavalry of the regular army to be

detrained at the crossing of the Wabash with the Clover Leaf Railway

on the morning of the 22d day of July, to be prepared to attack the

Indians. Little Turtle to be represented in this case by Brig. Gen. W.

V. McMaken and his First Brigade of the Ohio National Guard, on the

battlefield of Fallen Timbers near Waterford, Lucas County, some two

miles from the railway crossing. McMaken's brigade to represent the

Indians in the four battles to be depicted.

"Second: The American gunboats which represent the British fleet

shall leave Detroit in time to ascend the Maumee River on July 22, pro-

ceeding as far as the ruins of old Fort Miami, from which point the

war ships will bombard Fort Meigs. In the meantime, troops of the

regular army, after defeating Little Turtle and his Indians (McMaken's

First Brigade) at the battle of Fallen Timbers, will thenceforth imper-

sonate Proctor's British Army which was landed from the British ships

at Fort Miami. Field batteries will be placed as in the siege of Fort

Meigs and the siege regularly conducted as it was in May, 1813.

"At the close of the second day's bombardment by the British bat-

teries, the Second Brigade, Ohio National Guard, commanded by Brig.

Gen. J. T. Speaks, will come down the Maumee River on flat boats, im-

personating General Clay's Kentucky brigade of May, 1813. One regi-

ment of this brigade will disembark and capture one of the British bat-

teries, and then continue their attack on Tecumseh's Indians, and be

drawn into ambush and massacred on the scene of Dudley's massacre,

so-called.

"After continuing the siege for another day with firing between the

Americans in Fort Meigs and the British and Indians, the British will

draw off and depart on board their ships to Sandusky Bay and proceed

up the river to Fort Stephenson at Fremont, arriving on July 31st. Mc-

Maken and his brigade, as Indians, will march overland toward Fort

Stephenson along the lake shore and up the Sandusky river. The suc-

cessful American troops in Fort Meigs will march overland direct from

Fort Meigs to General Harrison's headquarters at Fort Seneca, on the

Sandusky river, some 30 miles. Fort Stephenson will be garrisoned by

160 men of the 17th U. S. Infantry, under a Major, the exact garrison

during the siege.

"The First Squadron Cavalry, Ohio National Guard, representing

Major Ball's Squadron will be sent on July 30th from Fort Seneca to

Fort Stephenson to place Major Croghan in arrest for disobedience of

orders in refusing to evacuate the fort, and while on their march from

Fort Seneca to Fort Stephenson, they will be ambushed by Indians on

the site of Ball's battlefield, where Major Ball's command killed 17

Indians with a saber charge.

38        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

"On August 1st and 2d, the British, (Regulars of the Army and

Navy) will bombard Fort Stephenson from the war ships and from field

batteries which have been landed, charging down on the northwest block-

house, from the direction of the Sandusky county jail; while another

column will attack the southwest blockhouse from the direction of the

Presbyterian church, and the Indians will continue their fire during the

two days of the siege. The larger portion of the Ohio National Guard

which will not be engaged will be encamped in the Sandusky County

Fair Grounds and the entire division of the Ohio National Guard and

the troops of the regular army will on August 3d start on their march

northwest on the old Harrison Trail to old Fort Sandoski at Port Clinton,

and thence to the Camp Perry Rifle Range on the bank of Lake Erie,

where they will come into camp for target practice.

"The British fleet will return down the Sandusky river during the

night of August 2d, and return to Detroit."

The immediate vicinity of Toledo, Fort Meigs and Fort

Miami, is the scene of the final defeat of the federated Indian

tribes, by Gen. Anthony Wayne on the 5th of August, 1794, and

the repulse of the combined British and Indians in their two

sieges of Fort Meigs in May and July, 1813, and the final defeat

of the British at Fort Stephenson on August 1st and 2d, 1813,

by Major George Croghan-"the necessary precursor," as Gen-

eral Sherman wrote, "of Perry's Victory on Lake Erie and

Harrison's triumphant victory in the Battle on the Thames."

The Ohio floods of the spring of 1913, with the appalling

loss of life and property, put an end to the elaborate and ex-

pensive scheme of pageant detailed above.

The Toledo Perry Centennial Committee arranged for a

week of festivities, beginning Sunday, July 2₇th, with the arrival

of Perry's old flagship the Niagara. Thursday, the 30th, was

set apart for the crowning historical event of the region, the

celebration of the centennial of the Defense of Fort Meigs, at

Perrysburg, with its allied points of historic interest in and

about Fort Miami, near the present village of Maumee. A

committee of Perrysburg and Maumee citizens appointed by the

Maumee Valley Historical Association conjointly arranged the

celebration at Fort Meigs, and independently carried out the

individual celebration of the two villages. This committee of

arrangements was as follows: D. K. Hollenbeck, D. R. Can-

field, George J. Munger, Wm. H. Rheinfrank of Perrysburg;

40        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

burg on her splendid appearance and evidence of local pride as

manifested by the interest in the centennial of the great defence

of the Northwest Territory by the heroes of Fort Meigs. After

a chorus of school children had sung "America," the visiting

party was conducted through the gateway erected in honor of

the occasion and taken in automobiles over the principal streets

of the beautiful village and across the river to Maumee where

brief exercises were held on the lawn of the St. Joseph parson-

age. After an address by the Rev. Father Thomas Redding of

Maumee and a response by Mr. Hogan, the party reviewed the

site of the old British Fort Miami, in the enclosure of which a

part of Dudley's massacre took place, and returned for brief

exercises under the old Indian elm at Maumee. A procession

was then formed under the escort of Mayor John Smith of

Maumee, which proceeded to Fort Meigs, where the noon hour

was devoted to a basket lunch. In this line of march were the

Newsboys' Band and Cadets; Drill Camp Veteran Ladies of

America of Toledo; Battery B, Ohio National Guard; the chorus

of school children; and the visiting and reception committees.

The afternoon exercises were held in the deep ravine on

the Pioneer Association property immediately to the east of the

old breastworks. From the large platform in the hollow the

grass-grown, tree-shaded banks slope back, forming a beautiful

and impressive natural auditorium where the great assembly, a

notable outpouring of the people of the whole region, listened

in comfort and with profound interest to the following pro-

gram:

1. Invocation-Rev. Fr. Michaelis of Cleveland, formerly of Maumee.

2. Introduction of Judge John H. Doyle of Toledo as Chairman of the

meeting, by Hon. D. K. Hollenbeck, president of the Maumee

Valley Pioneer and Historical Association.

3. Address by Hon. Timothy Hogan, Attorney General of Ohio.

4. Address by Judge Doyle of Toledo, who took the place of Gen. I.

R. Sherwood who was detained by illness.

5. Recitation-Poem, "Fort Meigs" by Mrs. J. C. Gentry of Maumee.

6. Address by Judge Frank W. Baldwin of Bowling Green.

7. Music-Male Quartette.

The Siege of Fort Meigs                     41

In introducing Mrs. Gentry, the chairman referred to her

distinguished ancestry. She is a great grand-daughter of Judge

James Wolcott of Maumee and Mary Wells. The latter was the

daughter of Capt. William Wells, a scout on the staff of Wayne,

and of a full-blooded Miami Indian woman, daughter of Chief

Little Turtle.  At the Battle of Fallen Timbers, August 20th,

1794, Mrs. Gentry's ancestry fought on both sides: her great

great great grandfather, Little Turtle, leading the Miamis; and

her great great grandfather, Captain Wells, in Wayne's army.

Wells was killed in the Fort Dearborn (Chicago) massacre in

1813. Judge Wolcott built the first house in the Maumee Valley

in 1825, of black walnut logs, long ago sided over, in which house

Mrs. Gentry still lives. The poem which Mrs. Gentry read is as

follows:

FORT MEIGS.

As we sit on the emerald carpet, under the whispering trees,

And gaze down the beautiful river, kissed by the lightsome breeze,

Over the grassy meadows, the wheat fields yellow and ripe,

Mellowing in the distance to a green and golden stripe,

The scene is a summer picture, and I open my history book

And the friend beside me answers, as adown the page I look:

"Yes, this is the place where Harrison, with his little band of men,

Stood firm from belching British guns and hurled it back again.

And Proctor had his redcoats there, drawn up in fierce array,

And bold Tecumseh's savages were allies in the fray;

Red-handed from the vine-hung banks of Raisin's bloody tide,

They thirsted for more massacre, and watched on every side

From thicket bush, from tops of trees, to turn the murderous shot;

But still the stubborn fortress stood, the Patriots faltered not.

"'Surrender!' came the haughty word; swift flew the answer back,

'If you capture us, Sir Briton, the victory shall not lack

The honor of a meeting, face to face and hilt to hilt,

With your men upon the ramparts and many a heart's blood spilt.'

"Three days without cessation the sweet May air was rife

With thunder of the cannon and moans of parting life.

Then floating down the river came the staunch Kentucky men,

Twelve hundred strong, on flat boats, and hope revived again.

And where the bees were humming in clover white and sweet,

There gallant Clay made landing with his welcome southern fleet.

42         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

But oh! what fire raked them from the mad Miami guns!

But oh! with what defiance marched up those fearless ones.

And there swept Colonel Dudley with his dauntless fighting band,

Keen eyed and lion hearted to answer the command,

'Charge Bayonets!' O river, murmuring to the flowery shore,

Can you tell us just how many smote the earth to rise no more?

But the foemen fled in terror, and the patriots on their track

Thus were led into an ambush, whence there was no turning back.

"Fatal error! quick surrounded, there they yielded up their lives,

Cleft by savage battle-axes and the whetted scalping knives.

'Stay the slaughter!' cried Tecumseh, rushing on the dreadful scene;

(For that order lay one laurel on his dust and keep it green.)

Down the southern bank Clay's soldiers charged the worsted foe again,

Spiked their guns and took their batteries, and made captives of their

men.

Nine long days e'er stubborn Proctor owned the whipping he had got

Moved his soldier camp and marched his soldiers to a safe and shel-

tered spot."

"What was gained?" "Forever after that decisive victory,

Fear of the revengeful savage faded from the old Maumee.

They had turned the name to terror all along the wooded shore;

Day and night the vigil ceased not, loaded rifle guarded door;

Day and night the wild cry sounded, homes fell to a mouldering heap,

Wives were widowed, men were tortured, children murdered in their

sleep.

Now the heavy cloud was lifted, and the wary savage foe,

Shrank away from English friendship that but added to their woe.

Then there dawned for fair Miami first rays of the coming morn,

And the poor man's stumpy acres blossomed into fields of corn."

Thus my history lesson ended, and my every pulse was stirred,

By the lovely scene before me and what I had read and heard,

And on the grassy blood-rich soil, by the storied river's flow,

You have reared a memory token for that time of long ago,

A monument of meaning from base to crowning dome,

That shall bring to the minds of the future

The days that are past and gone.

A distinctive note of the several speakers of the afternoon,

standing so near to the old battleground, was the expression of

approval of the use of arbitration rather than arms in settling

disputes between the United States and England during the past

44        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

The two villages vied with each other in their decorations.

Perrysburg never looked prettier, Mr. N. L. Henson in charge

of the street decoration showing commendable judgment. In

addition to the columns erected on the hill at the head of Main

Street, the entire lengths of Front, Second and Main Streets

were decorated with streamers of one design. Public buildings,

business houses and private residences were elaborately dec-

orated, scarcely a building on the whole line of march that did

not have at least the American flag in evidence. Another indi-

cation of the general enthusiasm throughout the village was the

fact that double the amount of funds needed to carry out the

plans of the committee was easily raised. Maumee everywhere

showed the deep interest and pride its people took in decorating

its streets and homes in honor of the occasion. The American

flag waved over both Forts Meigs and Miami. Around the

stage of the speakers' stand tricolored streamers and flags were

lavishly draped.

A word as to the ownership of the historic land about Fort

Meigs. Some nine acres of the site is owned by the Maumee

Valley Pioneer and Historical Association and thirty-five acres

by the State of Ohio. The State's property is in the hands of a

commission composed of five members one of whom is appointed

each year for a term of five years. The Association was the

pioneer in the purchase of the Fort property, its members were

instrumental in inducing the State to purchase its land and to

erect the granite shaft that marks the spot, and its members

have thus far been the appointees on the State commission. The

Association is incorporated.

Old Fort Miami, on the northerly side of the Maumee river,

near the village of Maumee was elaborately decorated and par-

tially restored so that the section of Battery B, Ohio National

Guard, was enabled to present a very fair reproduction of the

fort as it was when occupied by the British army under Proctor

during the first siege of Fort Meigs, April 27-May 1O, 1813.

This Fort Miami is often confused with the earlier Fort Miami

erected and fought over at the headwaters of the Maumee

River at what is now Fort Wayne, Indiana, the name of the

older fort having been changed to Fort Wayne. Maumee is

The Siege of Fort Meigs                45

doubtless but a phonetic spelling of the Indian pronunciation of

Mi-a-mi. Our Fort Miami was an old French trading place

and like all such in the earlier days was strongly built for the

protection of its occupants, but was never utilized as a military

post until 1786, three years after the close of the Revolutionary

War, evidence that notwithstanding the treaty of peace the

British did not consider the Revolutionary War closed, nor that

a new nation had been born. For Miami continued to be occu-

pied as a British post, its officers encouraging the Indians to

war on the new nation, until nearly two years after Wayne's

great victory over the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers

on the 20th of August, 1794. An interesting and peppery ex-

change of notes occurred immediately after the battle between

General Wayne and the British commandant in command at Fort

Miami, in which it must be acknowledged that the young British

officer made answer in a soldierly way. The British excuse for

retaining possession of Detroit and its contiguous subposts on

the Maumee and on the Sandusky was that the Americans had

not lived up to that section of the treaty guaranteeing protection

to persons and property of the Tory Americans whom they

termed loyalists. As a result of Wayne's victory and of further

negotiations, the British evacuated Detroit and Fort Miami in

1796,* and Fort Miami was not reoccupied by them until during

the first siege of Fort Meigs when General Proctor sailed up the

Maumee to attack General Harrison at Fort Meigs, accompanied

by an immense hoard of Indians under Tecumseh, probably the

largest body of Indians ever engaged against the Americans.

General Proctor reoccupied and reconstructed Fort Miami and

used it as the British headquarters during the entire siege.

Colonel Dudley's Kentucky militiamen, carried away by the

prospects of an easy victory and by their desire to avenge the

loss of so many gallant Kentuckians in Winchester's expedition

and the massacre of the River Raisin, made a gallant charge

* It was Wayne's happy privilege to take peaceful possession, by

authority of President Washington, of this fort, early in 1796, when the

British government surrendered the northern posts. Wayne's reception

of Ft. Miami was one of his last official acts, occurring only a few

months before his death.

46        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

but were drawn into an ambuscade; and of some eight hundred

men nearly six hundred and fifty were killed or captured. Many

of the prisoners were brought within the pickets enclosing Fort

Miami and then ensued the merciless slaughter of defenseless

prisoners by their Indian captors, under the very eye of Proctor,

the commanding general, whose indifference to the scene brought

down on his head the savage denunciation of the great Tecumseh:

"Begone, you are unfit to command, go and put on petticoats."

On the withdrawal of General Proctor's forces after his repulse

in the first siege of Fort Meigs, the British flag over it was

drawn down for probably the last time, as the British did not

land any considerable force during the second siege of Fort

Meigs, July 20-28, 1813.

After the disgraceful surrender of Detroit by General Hull,

August 16, 1812, General Harrison, in order to protect Ohio

from an invasion of British and Indians made a careful inspec-

tion of the territory contiguous to the mouth of the Maumee

and selected the site for a large garrison force, near the fording

place at the foot of the rapids, on the opposite side of the river

from the old British Fort Miami and slightly further up stream.

The fort he christened Fort Meigs in honor of the Governor

of Ohio, Return Jonathan Meigs. He wrote in February, 1813:

"I am erecting here a pretty strong fort, capable of resisting

field artillery at least. The troops will be placed in a fortified

camp, covered on one flank by the fort. This is the best position

that can be taken to cover the frontier and the small posts in

the rear of it, and those above it on the Maumee and its tribu-

taries." The fort was planned by Major Gratiot, whose illness,

however, prevented his presence, and by Major Eleazer D.

Wood, the actual constructor. Both these distinguished engi-

neers were among the earliest graduates of the U. S. Military

Academy, established at West Point in 1802. General Clay

arriving with reinforcements, divided his forces, as directed

by Harrison, sending out the greater part under Dudley to

silence the batteries on the west bank; his remaining force

fighting its way through the Indians into Fort Meigs.     A

sallying party from the fort then captured the British batteries

on the east side of the river and the great siege was over. Pres-

The Siege of Fort Meigs                 47

ident Madison, through the Secretary of War and General Har-

rison, sent his "thanks to the troops composing the garrison of

Fort Meigs for their valor and patriotism." *

"The value of this defense of Fort Meigs," says Mr. Saliers,

"cannot be easily overestimated. Had Harrison been defeated

and his army captured, the road to Upper Sandusky would have

been open to Proctor and his Indian allies. Here large stores

of provisions would have fallen into his hands. The final in-

vasion and recapture of Michigan would have been materially

delayed, if not entirely prevented, and the frontier would have

been ravaged again by the savages. So little notice has been

taken of this event, that it was an extremely welcome act of the

General Assembly of Ohio that authorized the purchase of the

site of Fort Meigs and converted it into a public park where a

splendid monument has been erected to the memory of the Gen-

eral and the men who defended it." The above writer should

have added that the gallant check to the British at Fort Meigs, on

the Maumee, was consummated on land by the victorious battle

at Fort Stephenson, on the sister river of the Maumee, the

Sandusky, at Lower Sandusky, now Fremont, Ohio, which en-

gagement is detailed in earlier pages.

In the interest of historic accuracy we wish to insert here

a note to the effect that Peter Navarre, the famous and suc-

cessful scout for General Harrison, did not, as is often stated,

carry any message from General Harrison at Fort Meigs to

Major Croghan at Fort Stephenson on the evening of August

1st; for the simple reason that Harrison was not at Fort Meigs

on that date, but was in command of his army, with headquarters

at Fort Seneca on the Sandusky river, nine miles south of Fort

* For details of the whole siege, rather of the two sieges of Fort

Meigs and of the events leading up to them we refer to an excellent

article in Vol. XVIII of this Quarterly, by E. A. Saliers, of the Ohio

State University. A much fuller account is in Knapp's "History of the

Maumee Valley." Knapp is most praiseworthy for his historical methods

in giving in full general orders, dispatches, reports and letters, rather

than the too-frequent plan of many writers in making excerpts of mere

items bearing on the subject, often twisting them unconsciously out of

their literal bearing.-L. E. K.