Chapter IV. The Conquest Completed

Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton had many faults, but sloth was not
one of them; and when he heard what had happened he promptly
decided to regain the posts and take the upstart Kentucky
conqueror captive. Emissaries were sent to the Wabash country to
stir up the Indians, and for weeks the Detroit settlement
resounded with preparations for the expedition. Boats were built
or repaired, guns were cleaned, ammunition was collected in
boxes, provisions were put up in kegs or bags, baubles for the
Indians were made or purchased. Cattle and wheels, together with
a six-pounder, were sent ahead to be in readiness for use at
various stages of the journey.

Further weeks were consumed in awaiting reenforcements which
never came; and in early October, when the wild geese were
scudding southward before the first snow flurries of the coming
winter, the commandant started for the reconquest with a motley
force of thirty-six British regulars, forty-five local
volunteers, seventy-nine local militia, and sixty Indians.
Reenforcements were gathered on the road, so that when Vincennes
was reached the little army numbered about five hundred. From
Detroit the party dropped easily down the river to Lake Erie,
where it narrowly escaped destruction in a blinding snowstorm. By
good management, however, it was brought safely to the Maumee, up
whose sluggish waters the bateaux were laboriously poled. A
portage of nine miles gave access to the Wabash. Here the water