so that he could advance on Montreal by the line of the
Hudson, Lake Champlain, and the Richelieu. The intended
advance, however, did not take place this year. Greenbush
was rather a recruiting depot and camp of instruction
than the base of an army in the field; and the actual
campaign had hardly begun before the troops went into
winter quarters. The commander of the north-western army
was General William Hull. And his headquarters were to
be Detroit, from which Upper Canada was to be quickly
overrun without troubling about the co-operation of the
Navy. Like Dearborn, Hull had served in the War of
Independence. But he had been a civilian ever since; he
was now fifty-nine; and his only apparent qualification
was his having been governor of Michigan for seven years.
Not until September, after two defeats on land, was
Commodore Chauncey ordered 'to assume command of the
naval force on Lakes Erie and Ontario, and use every
exertion to obtain control of them this fall.' Even then
Lake Champlain, an essential link both in the frontier
system and on Dearborn's proposed line of march, was
totally forgotten.

To complete the dispersion of force, Eustis forgot all
about the military detachments at the western forts. Fort
Dearborn (now Chicago) and Michilimackinac, important as
points of connection with the western tribes, were left
to the devices of their own inadequate garrisons. In 1801
Dearborn himself, Eustis's predecessor as Secretary of
War, had recommended a peace strength of two hundred men
at Michilimackinac, usually known as 'Mackinaw.' In 1812