The Battle of Frenchtown: The River Raisin Massacre

The Battle of Frenchtown: The River Raisin Massacre After the fall of Detroit, President James Madison reorganized the Army of the Northwest under William Henry Harrison. In January of 1813, Harrison began his attempt to recapture Michigan by dividing his army in two. He personally led one column to Upper Sandusky while the other, under Colonel James Winchester, pushed farther west. Harrison’s orders had been to stay within supporting distance, but Winchester moved ahead to the settlement of Frenchtown, on the River Raisin, where he quickly dispersed a small British force. The overconfident Winchester then spread his men throughout the town and chose an isolated house, well outside the settlement, as his own quarters. As soon as he learned of this, Colonel Henry Procter, who commanded the British forces in the region, quickly gathered all available troops - approximately 500 regulars and a roughly equal number of First Nations warriors under the Wyandot chief Roundhead - and made for Frenchtown across the frozen river. The British and native troops surprised the Americans at dawn on January 22. They quickly crushed the American right flank, but the left flank, which was barricaded inside the fort, continued to fight. Winchester had meanwhile awakened to the sound of artillery and gunfire, but when he attempted to rejoin his command, he was captured by Chief Roundhead. Winchester promptly surrendered his entire army. Fearing a counterattack by Harrison, Colonel Procter and his regulars retreated back to Brownstown with their American prisoners and their own wounded on sleighs. But there were not enough sleighs to take the American wounded who were been left behind under First Nations guard. Procter would later claim that he’d planned to go back for them the following day, but by then the warriors had executed somewhere between 30 and 60 of their charges, many of whom were Kentucky volunteers. The incident soon became known in American newspapers as “The River Raisin Massacre.” The defeat at Frenchtown forced Harrison to cancel his projected winter campaign. He decided to build Fort Meigs at the Maumee Rapids instead. For the rest of the war “Remember the River Raisin” was a rallying cry for Kentucky militiamen.