Monroe Review

First Battle of the River Raisin _ January 18, 1813Five months after the August 1812 American surrender of Detroit to the Native and British alliance, the American Army of the Northwest started to gather forces along the Maumee River (modern-day Toledo, Ohio). Their goal: retake Detroit. Before the entire Army of the Northwest gathered, residents of the River Raisin Settlement pleaded with commanding Brigadier General James Winchester to free their settlement from Canadian militia and Native occupation. 

On January 18, 1813, Winchester dispatched his Kentucky militia and alongside the River Raisin settlers, advanced to a position south of the River Raisin. The Canadian militia took the north side of the river, with Natives on the east and west flanks. The Canadian militia and Natives opened fire, and the Americans responded with a charge across the frozen river. The British and Natives slowly retreated in a bloody, running battle that lasted until nightfall. The brutality of war was demonstrated when Kentuckians mutilated the corpse of a fallen native warrior. In an 1815 letter from Canadian clergyman, John Strachan, to Thomas Jefferson, Rector Strachan explains that “The American troops under General Winchester killed an Indian in a skirmish near the river Au Raisin, on the 18th January 1813, and tore him litera[l]ly into pieces, which so exasperated the Indians that they refused burial to the Americans killed on the 22d.” The ferocity of this action was a precursor to similar events in the next coming days. 

The victorious Kentucky Volunteers setup camp within the protection of the puncheon fence and French habitant homes. Upon word from his forces that Frenchtown was liberated, General Winchester assembled four additional companies and proceeded to the River Raisin on January 20, 1813, bringing the number of American troops close to 1,000. Upon arriving, the 17th Infantry set up camp 300-400 yards outside the puncheon fence line on the Reaume farm in the bitter cold and deep snow.

Meanwhile, the British and Native Warriors prepared a counterattack across the frozen Lake Erie at Fort Malden in Canada. British Colonel Henry Procter assembled 595 soldiers at Fort Malden and proceeded to the Big Rock (Brownstown) to join the Native Confederation. At the Big Rock, around 800 Wyandot, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Odawa, Ojibwe, Delaware, Miami, Winnebago, Creek, Kickapoo, Sac, Fox and other Native Nations’ Warriors assembled.

Original source can be found here.