of duty, drawn towards each other with feelings of almost
fraternal affection; and the fates of those who fell were
lamented with sincerity of soul, and avenged, when
opportunity offered, with a determination prompted equally
by indignation and despair. This sentiment of union,
existing even between men and officers of different corps,
was, with occasional exceptions, of course doubly
strengthened among those who fought under the same colours,
and acknowledged the same head; and, as it often happened
in Canada, during this interesting period, that a single
regiment was distributed into two or three fortresses,
each so far removed from the other that communication
could with the utmost facility be cut off, the anxiety
and uncertainty of these detachments became proportioned
to the danger with which they knew themselves to be more
immediately beset. The garrison of Detroit, at the date
above named, consisted of a third of the ---- regiment,
the remainder of which occupied the forts of
Michilimackinac and Niagara, and to each division of
this regiment was attached an officer's command of
artillery. It is true that no immediate overt act of
hostility had for some time been perpetrated by the
Indians, who were assembled in force around the former
garrison; but the experienced officer to whom the command
had been intrusted was too sensible of the craftiness of
the surrounding hordes to be deceived, by any outward
semblance of amity, into neglect of those measures of
precaution which were so indispensable to the surety of
his trust.