The first move of the invaders in the West was designed
to recover Detroit and cut off Mackinaw. Harrison,
victorious over the Indians at Tippecanoe in 1811, was
now expected to strike terror into them once more, both
by his reputation and by the size of his forces. In
midwinter he had one wing of his army on the Sandusky,
under his own command, and the other on the Maumee, under
Winchester, a rather commonplace general. At Frenchtown
stood a little British post defended by fifty Canadians
and a hundred Indians. Winchester moved north to drive
these men away from American soil. But Procter crossed
the Detroit from Amherstburg on the ice, and defeated
Winchester's thousand whites with his own five hundred
whites and five hundred Indians at dawn on January 22,
making Winchester a prisoner. Procter was unable to
control the Indians, who ran wild. They hated the Westerners
who made up Winchester's force, as the men who had deprived
them of their lands, and they now wreaked their vengeance
on them for some time before they could be again brought
within the bounds of civilized warfare. After the battle
Procter retired to Amherstburg; Harrison began to build
Fort Meigs on the Maumee; and a pause of three months
followed all over the western scene.

But winter warfare was also going on elsewhere. A month
after Procter's success, Prevost, when passing through
Prescott, on the upper St Lawrence, reluctantly gave
Colonel Macdonell of Glengarry provisional leave to attack
Ogdensburg, from which the Americans were forwarding
supplies to Sackett's Harbour, sending out raiding parties,