Memorial Day Weekend

I had several adventures this Memorial Day weekend, most of them involving or touching on Ohio history.

On Saturday, I went to a wedding reception at the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus, Ohio. The Center is housed in the old 1861 Arsenal in downtown Columbus, an imposing citadel-like structure with four turrets. At the corner of 2nd and Main Streets the exterior wall sports the original figurehead of the old battleship USS Ohio.

On Sunday afternoon, I visited Ohio Village in Columbus for a Civil War encampment. It's pretty rare that I have the time to give a blow-by-blow report of a reenactment, since I'm normally in the firing line.

The rebels had captured the village on Saturday and placed pickets on the outskirts of town.

The rebs' two-man pickets were under orders to fire and run at the approach of Federal troops.

Outside town, the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry prepared to attack.

All was quiet, except for a Rebel detail guarding a group of Union POWs.

Finally, the Ohio regiment appeared on the outskirts of town, sending the picket line running back to their companies.

A Union company, marching by files at the quickstep, deployed behind a building.

After a few earsplitting volleys (it's hard to tell if the men were double-charging their muskets or if I was not used to being down range) the Union troops began to fire by file, cutting down the Rebels in the town square.

The rebs were game for a fight but found the village green too hot and decamped.

I got a good action shot of the Federals pressing the Confederate Infantry. The skirmish continued through the town and into the meadows beyond.

The color party of the 76th Ohio marched triumphantly through town. Prisoners were rounded up and wounded seen to.

Casualties of the street fighting lay everywhere. These men died near a monument to the late war with Mexico. In the background the Union staff officers survey the carnage. In the War of the Rebellion, this skirmish was one of a thousand small actions that will be forgotten, while only the bloodiest battles make it into schoolbooks.

On Monday, I made it up to Fort Meigs for a Memorial Day commemoration. Memorial Day was organized as a remembrance for the fallen soldiers of the American Civil War. Later on, it became a general day of remembrance for the dead of all US conflicts. Civil War veterans were instrumental in preserving Fort Meigs, as during the 1870s and 1880s the War of 1812 was passing from living memory. The monument raised in 1908 was dedicated by the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans organization.

Despite cold and rainy weather, we were able to hold memorial services at the three major monuments at the Fort, including the newly erected Kentucky Monument. We also braved the wet weather to perform our usual musket and artillery demonstrations.

Wreath laying at the Pennsylvania Monument, on a sunnier Memorial Day.

Ads from 200 years ago in the Kentucky Gazette

This week I've been digging through old issues of the Kentucky Gazette, the first newspaper published in Lexington, Kentucky. The issues from 1813 offer an interesting look into life on the home front during the war for the northwest. The newspaper has been archived and is available to peruse at the Kentucky Digital Library.

 Newspaper publisher, Irish republican, and sometime Colonel of the Rifle Regiment William Duane won War Department recognition of his manuals for infantry and riflemen in 1813, and booksellers were quick to offer his books to Army officers.

 The Juvenile Library offered members a collection of 475 volumes, for a fee of 5 dollars up front and dues of 50 cents a year.

R Megowan & Co offered swords, epaulets, buttons and plumes for officers, who were expected to purchase their own uniforms. They also sold trimmings for ladies' hats.

Instructors were available for lessons on the use of the broadsword, as well as dancing, manner, and deportment.

Daniel Bradford advertised to purchase raw materials such as tobacco, wool, linen, sugar and saltpeter and in turn offered lots of imported goods, such as tea, sherry, rum, cigars, snuff, and mustard.

Estimating Combat Strength at Fort Meigs, May 1813

 Colonel John Miller's detachment forms up for a charge under the cover of Fort Meigs' south wall. These 350 men were formed up in a single line of two battalions and one company.

Trying to estimate exactly how many troops General William Henry Harrison had available at Fort Meigs is like herding cats. Even the officers on the scene had a difficult time tabulating their combat strength. Secretary of War General John Armstrong was a micro manager, and expected detailed reports of how many men were present in the field. I have even seen documents where his Adjutant, General Cushing, ordered copies of company-level rolls to be sent to the War Department, monthly. From his office in Washington City, with a handful of clerks and staff officers, Secretary Armstrong was trying to coordinate several field armies and 9 military districts. 

During the late spring of 1813, Secretary Armstrong authorized a total of 7 infantry regiments (each with 10 companies and approx. 1000 men) to join the Northwest Army in the 8th Military District led by General Harrison. Two of these regiments, the 17th and 19th, were already present, but at minimal strength. At Fort Meigs in May, they formed a weak battalion. Another, the 24th Regiment of Infantry, was marching north from Tennessee with about 400 men. The 26th, 27th, and 28th Regiments were being recruited with one-year enlistments in Kentucky and Ohio, while the 17th and 19th sent parties to replenish their ranks from the same region. The seventh regular regiment seems to have been a Rifle unit. As the recruiting drive was going on, Armstrong discouraged Harrison from raising shorter-term militia regiments. 

Not only were the militia regiments seen as a waste of material and pay, but they would be mustered out of service before they could be used for the invasion of Canada. However, Harrison was forced to appeal to Ohio and Kentucky governors Meigs and Shelby to raise troops for the defense of Fort Meigs. As troops were continually moving into and back out of the fort, and small detachments and sick men were scattered everywhere, it was very difficult for the commanders to see how many troops they actually had at the front at any one time. Harrison ordered General Green Clay, in command at Meigs, to give him a report of how many troops were there at the end of the month. This document survives in microfilm at least, although it is very hard to read.

I have gone through and extracted the total strengths of the units posted at Fort Meigs, in order to give a better idea of how many men where stationed there after the siege. Colonel John Miller commanded the combined 17th and 19th US Infantry, while the illegible militia regiment may have been the survivors of Clay's Brigade:

Regiment	Officers Present	Enlisted Present	Officers Sick	Enlisted Sick	Total
Field and Staff	4				4 officers
Col. Miller's	12	162 (32 NCOs)	6	209 (38 NCOs)	21 officers 441 enlisted
Col. ???'s	25	335 (61)	9	192 (23)	34 officers 611 enlisted
Col. Mills	8	77 (22)	6	78 (23)	14 officers 200 enlisted
Maj. Peter's	8	64 (20)	2	36 (8)	10 officers 128 enlisted
Maj. Alexander's	5	49 (11)	4	41 (11)	9 officers 112 enlisted
Capt. Cushing's	1	32 (10)	0	20 (3)	1 officer 65 enlisted
Total	59	719 (156)	27	576 (106)	93 officers 1557 enlisted
Total from muster					1751 enlisted 2148 enlisted (absent or accounted for)

For practical purposes, I have also attempted to determine how many line companies (the basic combat unit) were present by counting Captains and Sergeants. Each company was authorized 4 Sergeants, and since these men were simply promoted from the rank and file by their company officers, they are probably the best barometer of how many distinct fighting companies were available at the Fort. I've also provided an aggregate of fighting men for each regiment, though companies did vary considerably in strength.

Counting Heads:

Unit	Captains	Sergeants	Est. Companies/ strength
Regulars (17th and 19th)	5	29	7 (441 muskets)
X militia	9	38	9 (611 muskets)
Col. Mills' Ohio Regiment	3 (7 absent)	20 (24 absent)	3 present (200 muskets) 7 absent
Maj. Peters Ohio Regiment	3	14	3 present (128 muskets)
Maj. Alexander's Blues	2 (1 acting Major)	12	3 present (112 muskets)
Cushing's Company	1	4	1 present (65 muskets)
Total	23 Captains	117	33 companies 1557 muskets or rifles (minus music)

The above figures leave the question, what combat troops were part of the garrison of Fort Meigs during the Siege? Thanks to an analysis of primary sources done by Dr. Eugene Watson during his time as site staff of Fort Meigs Historic Site, as well as my own analysis of primary documents, we can make a rough estimate of the Order of Battle for the American garrison during the siege. I'll arrange the OOB by seniority of service branch, then regiment and include approximate overall strength and number of companies present.

For wargamers, companies should be regarded as the equivalent of a platoon in modern warfare. At Fort Meigs, they were understrength and organized into provisional battalions.

Unit	Role and Arms	Strength	Companies
Staff
Major James V. Ball's squadron, United States Light Dragoons (2nd US LD and volunteers)	Light Cavalry: sabres, pistols, carbines and muskets.	220	5
Captain Daniel Cushing's Company, 2nd US Artillery	Foot Artillery: heavy and light cannon, muskets.	80-90 (including attached troops)	1
Colonel John Miller's battalion, US Regular Infantry	Infantry: muskets.	200-300	6 (one light infantry)
Major John Alexander's battalion, US 12-months volunteers	Light Infantry: 2 cos muskets, 1 co rifles.	200	3
Captain Peter's Scouts and Spies	Scouts: rifles.	30	1
Indian Guides	Scouts: rifles.	30	1
Col. James Mills' 1st Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Militia	Infantry: rifles and muskets.	100-200	3 (two rifle)
Col. Mills Stephenson's 2nd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Militia	Infantry: rifles and muskets.	80-90	3
Major Johnson's Battalion, 10th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Militia	Infantry: muskets.	300	3
Approx. totals		1240	26 companies, viz: 5 cavalry 1 artillery 4 rifles 6 light infantry 10 line infantry

Another Account of the Battle of the Rapids

I was looking through digitized versions of the Kentucky Gazette, printed in Lexington Kentucky 200 years ago, and came upon this account of Dudley's Massacre by an anonymous participant. It is an extract of a letter written by a Kentucky militia officer on May 9, and printed in the Gazette on May 18, 1813:

Of the several battles fought on the 5th, you have been informed. Although made to retreat by the thousands of Indians they had around us, we compelled them to raise the siege; and the Indians, we are induced to believe, are leaving them rapidly. The British permitted them to murder not only our wounded, whose cries were heard all night by our centinals at their posts, but even many of the prisoners. This information, at least the latter part, we have from a couple of Canadians, who left the British and swam over to us in the night: finding other information they gave us correct, we have no doubt of that. We had several interviews before they left us, with a flag. I accompanied it in hops to meet Shelby, even in presence of his honor Gen. Procter, who is the most savage looking rascal I ever saw. Carr and Underwood are with him. I escaped, after having the pleasure of breaking 3 bayonets in their cannon, and should have succeeded in blowing up their magazine, had I not been prevented by Col. Dudley, who was under the impression, we ought to retain the place. The intention of Gen. Harrison war for us to retreat, as soon as we had spiked the cannon, which we succeeded in doing; but Col. Dudley permitted a few Indians to lead him into the woods, and keep him employed until a reinforcement was sent from the old British garrison, two miles below--two attacks were made at the same time on this side. The plan was an excellent one, had it been executed.

The enemy had, in regulars, Canadians, and Indians about 3000 men; we could spare from the fort about 16 or 1700--eight hundred were ordered to land above the fort, to surprise and spike the cannon before a reinforcement could get up from the garrison, and then retreat to the boats, which command was given to Col. Dudley, who thought because we drove them from their batteries they were of course whipped; he followed them into the woods, and permitted his troops to get scattered, adn was completely cut off, myself and lieut. Sanders excepted, with about 160 who are all that have returned--we have some hopes a few may have gone up the river-- They have about 350 prisoners--their names they promised to give us, but never did. The prisoners will reach you in a few days by the river Huron, to which place we furnished boats for their transportation and provision. The work that has been done since the sige (sic) commenced would surprise you--we all live under ground, or did, till this morning, when after formally demanding a surrender, the enemy retired in disgust.

Order of Battle for General Green Clay's Kentucky Militia

I recently received a copy of the 1891 Adjutant General's report of Soldiers of the War of 1812 (reprinted for genealogists under the title Kentucky Soldiers of the War of 1812 in 1969). One of the quirks of War of 1812 research is that neither the federal or state governments have complete records of who enlisted and fought for the United States during the war. Late in the 19th Century many state governments released compilations of what records they had, but this makes for a very incomplete picture. However, balancing out the mass of old muster rolls with other historical sources can provide us with a better picture of the organizations that marched to war in the Old Northwest. 

Of particular interest are the two Regiments of Kentucky Volunteer Militia commanded by General Green Clay. These 1500 men marched to the relief of Fort Meigs in April 1813, and over 700 of them met capture or death in the process. However, up until now no one has reconciled the units as mustered with their combat organization. Doing this allowed me to note that:

• The establishment strengths of companies could vary widely, from 178 men to 40.
• The Regiments were numbered: Boswell's was the 10th and Dudley's was the (lucky) 13th. The number of Dudley's Regiment was thought to be lost until I discovered it in a finding aid for the University of Michigan Library's Green Clay Papers.
• Two companies, Thomas' and Arthur's, are listed in both regiments. The rolls show the same officers, but Arthur's company is listed at two  different strengths. In Thomas' case, it's just because he landed on the wrong side of the river and fought with Dudley's men.
• The established strength of both regiments is far in excess of the authorized strength of 1500 men. Two other regiments of KY militia were called up at the same time in March, which would have presumably given Gov. Shelby a 3,000 man KY Division of 2 Brigades, 4 Regiments, and 8 5-company battalions if he was following French 0rganization.
• The rolls include completely seperate lists of men from prisoner of war returns from the War Department, which may account for the strength inflation.
• Boswell's Regiment had 11 or 12 companies, and Dudley's had 9 or 10. 10 companies and 1000 men was the established strength for United States regiments during the War, and the War Department encouraged state militias to raise regiments according to these guidelines.
• Descending the Maumee River, General Clay's 1200 men were loaded onto 18 flatboats, which gives us an average of 67 men per flat. This is borne out by accounts that state Clay himself got stranded with 50 men of Peter Dudley's Company.
• McAfee's history states that the first three companies to rendezvous were given pack horses and sent express to relieve Fort Meigs. These were approx. 300 men under Major Johnson of Boswell's Regiment, including the 87 officers and men of Sebree's Company.
• Letters reveal that all or nearly all the men were equipped with US muskets. The two spy companies were issued 1803 Harpers Ferry rifles from Federal stores.
• Despite the Volunteer terminology, most of these men were draftees, although William Johnson (a substitute in Boswell's Regiment) states that morale was extremely high.Many of the survivors volunteered to stay past their enlistments and march into Canada with Harrison.

This list should be pretty interesting to wargamers setting up scenarios for the Battle of May 5th, as well as genealogists wondering what their ancestor's units got mixed up in. I'll probably follow up with a post concerning the other American units of the Northwest army. I'll include an overview of the 17th/19th/26th/27th/28th Regiment of Infantry, which was a smelting down of two brigades' worth of regular infantry outfits to make one small battalion, which in turn was absorbed into the 3rd Infantry Regiment after the war!

Brigadier General Green Clay's Brigade, Kentucky Volunteer Militia
Staff:

10th Regiment, Kentucky Volunteer Light Infantry
Lt. Colonel William E. Boswell
Field and Staff: unknown, about 12 officers and NCOs.
Strength on paper: 37 company officers, 903 rank and file
Est. Strength on May 5:
Johnson's Battalion (detached, at Fort Meigs): 300 men.
Boswell's Regiment: 400 men.
minus:
--Dudley's Company (separated with General Clay): 50 men
--Thomas' Company (landed with Col. Dudley): 68 men
--Galbraith's Company (ditto): about 12

Company of Spies (about 12 picked men)
Captain John Galbraith 

1st Company  (4 officers, 114 men)
Captain Peter Dudley

2nd Company (3 officers, 77 men)
Captain Ambrose Arthur* [also listed in Dudley's Regt]

3rd Company (3 officers, 61 men)
Captain John Philips

4th Company (3 officers, 93 men)
Captain Thomas Metcalfe

5th Company (3 officers, 85 men)
Captain John Baker

6th Company (3 officers, 71 men)
Captain John Duvall

7th Company (3 officers, 72 men)
Captain Thomas Evans

8th Company (3 officers, 83 men)
Captain William Sebree

9th Company (3 officers, 65 men)
Captain John Thomas

10th Company (3 officers, 82 men)
Captain Manson Seamonds

11th Company (3 officers, 60 men)
Captain Isaac Gray

12th Company (3 officers, 40 men)
Captain Edmond Bacon

13th Regiment, Kentucky Volunteer Militia
Lt. Colonel William Dudley
Field and Staff: 2 Majors, 1 Adjutant, 1 Quartermaster, 1 Paymaster, 2 Surgeons, 1 Quartermaster Sergeant, 1 Sergeant Major, 2 Private Servants.
Total Staff: 12.
Strength on paper: 30 company officers, 1192 men.
Est. Strength May 5: 800 men,
plus Allied Indian Scouts (7 warriors)
Captain Samuel Price's Company, 1st US Light Artillery (30 men)

Company of Spies (Captain Leslie Combs and 12 picked men)

1st Company (3 officers, 108 men)
Captain Armstrong Kier

2nd Company (3 officers, 132 men)
Captain James Dyametto

3rd Company (3 officers, 120 men)
Captain John Yantis

4th Company (3 officers, 178 men)
Captain Archibald Morrison

5th Company (3 officers, 122 men)
Captain Joseph Clark

6th Company (3 officers, 127 men)
Captain Dudley Farris

7th Company (3 officers, 113 men)
Captain Ambrose Arthur* [also listed in Boswell's Regt]

8th Company (3 officers, 74 men)
Captain Joel Henry

9th Company (3 officers, 128 men)
Captain Thomas Lewis

10th Company (3 officers, 90 men)
Captain John C. Morrison

From the above strengths, compiled from muster rolls contained within the 1891 Kentucky State Adjutant General's Report and "Kentucky Troops in the War of 1812" by A.C. Quisenberry we get a very interesting view  of the two regiments which marched to the aid of General William Henry Harrison. Robert B. McAfee and most other sources state that the brigade set out with only 1500 men, and that Green Clay had only 1200 present before the battle. One possible explanation may be that the muster rolls in the Adjutant General's office were different from prisoner returns submitted by the war department. There's some haunting things listed on these returns ("killed in the slaughter-pen, May 5 1813" and "Never heard of after the battle", for instance), but the names from War Department archives are different from those in the Kentucky records.

The answer may lie in how militia units were recruited. The sedentary militia during the 1812 period was a list of all the able bodied men in the county. The muster rolls for the sedentary militia companies were similar, but different, than rolls for the companies that actually mustered into Federal service. Many men who were unwilling to go hired substitutes, like William Johnson of Delaware, Ohio who joined Thomas' Company of Boswell's Regiment. General Clay was in a hurry to reach and relieve the garrison of Fort Meigs, which at the beginning of April was reduced to about 500 effectives.

Progress on Columbus' Oldest House

This weekend I got bored, and drove down to Franklinton to see what was doing around the old Deardurff House, the oldest standing log structure in Columbus (it dates from perhaps 1807 or so). Log post office is a bit of a stretch: postmasters before the 1840s were simply local citizens who got an appointment from the government, and then received letters at a store or tavern.

It looks as if the owners have taken off much of the siding (the house was occupied until the 1960s!), so at this point you can see the wood siding, the logs underneath, and a bit of the interior lathing between the window and door on the first floor. Hopefully gutting is the first step to a speedy reconstruction!

Paperwork can be fun!--adding documents to a living history impression

It was Sunday and I had some time to kill, so I decided to create a tableau to represent the kinds of paperwork that would have followed a War of 1812 General Staff on the march. These are the kind of things that you can leave around a 1812 campsite or building, or hand around to people as props.

A Crowded Desk:
 Artifacts and ephemera include spectacles, a traveling inkstand, blotter, receipts, letters, bank notes, enlistment papers, and a wallet.

Letters:
Written on 81/2 x 11 or 11x17 " paper (ivory rag laid paper if you can get it: the paper they used was made of cotton rags and hasn't faded too much even after 200 years). Postage was metered by the page, and paid by recipient. Some officers complained that they could not afford the postage of the letters from home and asked their loved ones to prepay.

No envelopes were used: instead sealing wax was melted and dripped onto the folded letter and pressed with a seal-- or, more often, a gelatin wafer seal was used. Beeswax discs about the size of a quarter may answer for this purpose. Seals were invariably red.

Gelatin wafers were also commonly used where modern paperclips and staples are used today, to hold papers together. I've even seen "post it" note-sized slips attached to larger documents or notebooks this way.

The address was written on the outside of the sealed letter. For the most part, the towns were not large enough to merit a street address. At top right you can see the postage due written by the postmaster.

Money:
Common people bartered or used coins, most commonly Spanish silver dollars and 1/8 fragments thereof. Notes were issued by individual banks and private businessmen who would redeem the note for cash... If they had enough on hand! The Federal government did not issue paper currency in large amounts until the Civil War. Right now I don't have any coins but hoping to get some soon.

 Receipts:
 Receipts were made out in duplicate (the forms were locally printed for the Quartermaster) and represented documentation of where all the war bucks were going. Quartermasters could and did get into trouble for spending too much or not keeping good accounts. The quartermaster himself would have kept a large ledgerbook, but loose receipts were also made up. This particular one was for $4.50 paid to John Anderson for "riding express from Lower Sandusky to Franklinton and bringing dispatches from the Secretary of War addressed to G Harrison." Local citizens of good repute were hired to run dispatches, at least in the 8th Military District commanded by Major General William Henry Harrison. When the payee was illiterate, his signature was made by scrawling an X between the first and last name, with a "his mark" written above and below the name.

Stub receipts were also torn from full sheets of paper. This one is a payment to Black Duck, a Chippewa Indian to compensate him for a canoe commandeered and destroyed by the US Army. Was this the same canoe used by the French scouts on the Maumee in April 1813 and shot full of holes by Indians?

 

Enlistment Papers:

Enlistment papers were prototyped in the Acts of Congress or Articles of War, in books usually printed by private booksellers and sold to individual company officers or shipped out through the Army Quartermaster.   I think a lot of local print shops got orders from the recruiting officers to make up enlistment papers, which were basically contracts between officers and their men. The documents were witnessed by local officials and approved by a surgeon, and 8 of 16 dollars was given to the recruit for his bounty. A similar paper would certify the man's discharge from the Army, and accounted for any pay and accoutrements he received while in the service of the United States. This particular enlistment form came from the 19th US website: http://19thus.com/

Civil War Encampment at the Ohio Statehouse

Yesterday I happened upon one of the encampments that the 1st Ohio Light Artillery does at the Ohio Statehouse downtown. It was really neat to see cannons being fired and hearing the reverb off the downtown skyscrapers. The unit will be hosting a full scale reenactment at Ohio Village (next to the Crew Stadium) on Memorial Day weekend.

Evaluating the Siege of Fort Meigs

From a Kentucky officer's account published in the Analytical Magazine, 1819:

From the first to the fifth of May, there were between 5 and 600 cannon balls and bombs fired from the British batteries each day. The number killed in the fort, was ten with cannon balls and bombs, and that number with small arms. During the siege, there were three or four men posted on top of the traverses--these men, as soon as they saw the smoke gushing from the mouth of the enemies cannon, would cry out shot!! or bomb!! as the case might be. This arrangement was a wise one, for it saved the lives of many; by it, the garrison were enabled to fall in the trenches, before the shot reached the fort. So frequent did we hear the word shot!! that the motion of the men might be very well said to resemble that of a sawyer, bobbing up and down by the force of the current. We were very much annoyed by the falling of bomb shells, which made it necessary to burrow; but these were very damp and unwholesome; indeed, we were kept out of the water, while in many of them, by laying our blankets on a floor of poles and bark.

The number killed in the two sorties on the south side of the river and in the fort, has been estimated at 81, and 189 wounded; this number, I am induced to believe, is too small by at least 40 or 50 killed, and an equal proportion in wounded. How many of the enemy were killed on the south side, it is impossible to say, as the enemy kept the ground; but our men were first rate shooters, and fought in open order, behind trees and stumps, logs, &c. and frequently within 60 or 80 steps of the enemy, and for a short time within about 30. And as they had been subject to the roar of cannon and small arms for eight days, with the sight of many killed and wounded; the first fright must have been over, if this latter is at all to be applied them--it is reasonable then to suppose that the enemy suffered much.* 

The account given of the killed on the north, is believed to be too small. The detachment consisted of 880**, of which number, 500 , or thereabouts, were paroled and sent to Kentucky; 192 made their escape to Fort Meigs, 15 to Defiance, and 30 were taken off by the Indians, which leaves the number of killed about 143.

S.

*Official British reports stated that 14 men were killed in action, 47 WIA, and 41 captured. However, the casualty lists were for the British regulars and militia, and do not account for the Indians, who bore the brunt of the fighting on May 5 1813 and kept close to the fort when skirmishing.

** Colonel Dudley commanded his entire regiment, plus Thomas' company and Gilbraith's scouts who accidentally landed on his side of the river, plus Captain Samuel Price's company of the US Light Artillery, fighting as infantry and half a dozen Shawnee scouts.

The next article in the magazine concerned a newfangled invention known as a "velocipede". Would they ever catch on?

Fort Meigs-- 1 May 1813

On this day, the bombardment of Fort Meigs by the British army commenced.

From the notebook of Major Chambers, 41st Regt.:

1st May 10 o'clock A.M. On a signal fired from the Myers the Batteries opened, consisted of one Battery of 2-24 Pounders and one 8 Inch Howitzer--- One Mortar D [ditto] of 2--51/2 inch, one Battery of two 12 Pounders and a Battery called the Sailors of one 12 Pounder--We expected great effect from our Guns, we were much disappointed the Enemy had  thrown up an Empailment [emplacement] which in a great measure sheltered them from our fire, and there were a great number of Traverses within their Fort. The Enemy fired occasionally at us without doing any injury.

 Captain Wood recorded that the traverses were finished just in time:

This particular peice of work was completed early on the morning of the first of May, just as it was discovered that  the enemy had finished three of his principal batteries had got his guns in, was then loading and bringing them to battery; when orders were directly given for all the tents in front [of the traverse] to be instantly struck and carried into the rear... and that beautiful prospect of beating up our quarters, which but an instant before presented itself to the view of the eager and skilful artillerists, had now entirely fled, and in its place suddenly appeared an immense shield of earth, obscuring from his sight every tent, every horse (of which there were 200) and every creature belonging to the camp.

 Captain Cushing's diary:

Saturday, May 1st-- At 2 o'clock in the morning the British opened their artillery upon our garrison from their gun-boats, which lay one and one-half miles below us, but it was without effect. At 8 o'clock they hoisted the red flag at their lower battery and commenced firing with 24, 12 and 6 pounders, and eight inch mortars. They fired at us this day 240 shot and shells; did very little damage. They continued firing shells through the night but not often, just enough to keep our camp from rest. We keep up a heavy fire on them all day from different parts of our camp, the Indians are very thick on our flank and in our rear. We have not more than two killed and four wounded today.

  From the memoirs of Adjutant Alexander Bourne, Ohio Militia:

Just before night [on April 30], the Adjutant Genl. informed, that I was appointed Adjutant of the day for the next 24 hours, & Major [John] Alexander of the Volunteers, field Officer of the day--& requested me to inform him of it-- I found him in the Marque of Col. [John] Miller [19th US Infantry], drinking brandy--He said he was unfit for duty, & I ought to have told him sooner--I told him I had just been informed of it myself--& as it was nearly dark, nobody would perceive his inebriety--& that I would attend to his duties, as far as it was admissible & taking him by the arm, we went to his marque & sat down--he lamenting his situation, & I cheering him up--

It  had become very dark, & we heard the report of a large cannon--I told him that it was from the enemy, & that we must go to head quarters immediately for special orders--he was afraid his situation would be discovered. I told him there was no alternative, if he did not go, he would be sent for, & we then went--The General was standing in his marque, surrounded by his staff--He asked me if I was on duty? I told him I was--He then said, "put out every light in the camp," "that the enemy may lose his aim"--

 ...I executed the order & returned to head quarters--when the General & staff, & all the Officers on duty, set out on the grand rounds, to see that all the guards were wide awake--It was extremely dark, wet, & muddy--we often fell down in the ditches--sometimes one or two upon the top of another-- the British firing slowly, without the least effect--for all their balls struck the bluff below us...

...The next morning the enemy opened all his batteries, & poured in a constant stream of 24 pound balls & 10 [8] inch bomb shells--his balls generally going through the front pickets above our heads & lodging in the traverse bank-- the shells falling & bursting, part of them inside of the fort, & the others outside-- We soon had a few men killed & wounded, & some mangled in a shocking manner, which was very revolting to my feelings at first--but I soon become accustomed to it...