William Hull

At the outbreak of fighting in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), Hull joined a local militia and was quickly promoted to captain, then through the ranks to lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army. He fought in the battles of White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Stillwater, Saratoga, Fort Stanwix, Monmouth, and Stony Point.[1] He was recognized by commanding General George Washington and the Second Continental Congress for his service.

Hull was a friend of Nathan Hale and tried to dissuade him from the dangerous spy mission that ultimately cost him his life. Hull was largely responsible for publicizing the last words attributed to Hale, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."[2][3] At the conclusion of the war, Hull was admitted as an original member of The Society of the Cincinnati in the state of Massachusetts when it was established in 1783.[4][5][6] After the war, he moved to his wife's family estate in Newton, Massachusetts and served as a judge and state senator. He was elected captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts in 1789.[7]

On March 22, 1805, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Hull as Governor of the recently created Michigan Territory and as its Indian Agent. All of the territory was in the hands of the Indians except for two enclaves around Detroit and Fort Mackinac, so Hull worked to gradually purchase Indian land for occupation by American settlers. He negotiated the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 with the Odawa, Chippewa, Wyandot, and Potawatomi tribes, which ceded most of Southeast Michigan and northwestern Ohio to the United States, to the mouth of the Maumee River where Toledo developed.[8] These efforts to expand American settlement began to generate opposition, particularly from Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, who urged resistance to American culture and to further land cessions.[9]

By February 1812, Congress was making plans for war with Great Britain, including an invasion of Canada, while the British were busy recruiting Indian tribes in the Michigan and Canada area.[10] Hull was in Washington, D.C., when Secretary of War William Eustis informed him that President James Madison wished to appoint him a Brigadier General in command of the new Army of the Northwest. Hull was nearly 60 years old and had little interest in a new military commission, so Colonel Jacob Kingsbury was selected to lead the force instead. Kingsbury fell ill before taking command, however, and the offer was repeated to Hull, who accepted. His orders were to go to Ohio, whose governor had been charged by Madison with raising a 1,200-man militia that would be augmented by the 4th Infantry Regiment from Vincennes, Indiana to form the core of the army. From there, he was to march the army to Detroit where he was also to continue managing as Territorial Governor.[11]

Hull in a portrait by Rembrandt Peale

Hull arrived in Cincinnati on May 10, 1812, and took command of the militia at Dayton on May 25. The militia comprised three regiments who elected Duncan McArthur, Lewis Cass, and James Findlay as their commanding Colonels. They marched to Staunton and then to Urbana, Ohio, where they were joined by the 300-man 4th Infantry Regiment. The men of the militia were ill-equipped and little trained, averse to strong military discipline. Hull relied on the infantry regiment to quell several instances of insubordination on the remainder of the march. By the end of June, the army had reached the rapids of the Maumee River, where he committed the first of the errors that reflected poorly on him later.[12]

The United States declared war on Britain on June 18, 1812, and that same day Secretary Eustis sent two letters to General Hull. He sent one of them by special messenger which arrived on June 24—but it did not mention the declaration of war. The second one did announce the declaration of war, but Eustis sent it via the postal service and it did not arrive until July 2.[13] As a result, Hull was still unaware that his army was at war when he reached the rapids of the Maumee. Taking advantage of the waterway, he sent the schooner Cuyahoga Packet ahead of the army to Detroit with a number of invalids, supplies, and official documents; but the British commander at Fort Amherstburg had received the declaration of war two days earlier, and he captured the ship as it sailed past. Thus, he gained all of Hull's military papers and plans for an attack on Fort Amherstburg.[14]

Hull was partly the victim of his government's poor preparation for war and poor communication. He had repeatedly urged his superiors while he was governor to build a naval fleet on Lake Erie in order to defend Detroit, Fort Mackinac, and Fort Dearborn, but his requests were ignored by General Henry Dearborn, the commander of the northeast.

Hull began an invasion of Canada on July 12, 1812, crossing the Detroit River east of Sandwich (the area around Windsor, Ontario).[15] He issued a proclamation to the "inhabitants of Canada" indicating that he wanted to free them from the "tyranny" of Great Britain and to give them the liberty, security, and wealth which his own country was experiencing—unless they preferred "war, slavery and destruction".[16] It soon became apparent that he would encounter great resistance, however, and he withdrew to the American side of the river on August 7 after receiving news of a Shawnee ambush on Major Thomas Van Horne's 200 men who had been sent to support the American supply convoy; half of the troops were killed. Hull had also faced a lack of support from his officers and fear among the troops of a possible massacre by Indian forces. A group of 600 troops led by Lieutenant Colonel James Miller remained in Canada, attempting to supply the American position in the Sandwich area, with little success.[17]

William Hull personally surrendering Fort Detroit to Isaac Brock.

Hull surrendered Fort Detroit to General Isaac Brock on August 16, 1812, because Brock had tricked him into thinking that he was vastly outnumbered by his foes. The force included 600 Indian warriors and 1,300 soldiers, as well as two warships, according to Brock's report.[18] Hull had 2,500 soldiers under his command.[19] The number of troops under Hull's command was estimated at between 750 and 1060 by his grandson.[20]

Brock sent Hull a demand for surrender:

The force at my disposal authorizes me to require of you the immediate surrender of Fort Detroit. It is far from my intention to join in a war of extermination, but you must be aware, that the numerous body of Indians who have attached themselves to my troops, will be beyond control the moment the contest commences.[21]

Hull believed that the surrender was a valid step because he was lacking adequate gunpowder and cannon balls to withstand a long siege.[22] The move also saved his 2,500 soldiers and 700 civilians from "the horrors of an Indian massacre", as he later wrote.[18][23]

In 1814, Hull was court martialed at a trial presided over by General Henry Dearborn, with future president Martin Van Buren as the special judge advocate in charge of the prosecution.[24] Robert Lucas, the future governor of Ohio and territorial governor of Iowa, gave evidence against him. Hull was convicted of cowardice and neglect of duty and was sentenced to be shot. However, President James Madison commuted the sentence to merely dismissing him from the Army in recognition of his heroic service during the Revolutionary War.[25]

• Campbell, Maria; Clarke, James F. (1848), Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull, New York: D. Appleton, ISBN 978-0608432687, OCLC 2510566
• Colonial Society of Massachusetts (1907), Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. X, The Society, pp. 364–369
• Garcia, Bob (1999), Fort Amherstburg in the War of 1812
• Hannings, Bud (2012), The War of 1812: A Complete Chronology with Biographies of 63 General Officers, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., ISBN 978-0-7864-6385-5
• Hull, William (1824), Memoirs of the Campaign of the North Western Army of the United States, A.D. 1812, Boston: True & Greene, OCLC 11571681
• Laxer, James (June 2, 2012). Tecumseh and Brock: The War of 1812. House of Anansi Press. ISBN 978-0887842610.
• Ortner, Mary J. (2001), Captain Nathan Hale, The Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, archived from the original on 2007-01-24{{citation}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
• Seymour, George D. (2006), Documentary Life of Nathan Hale: Comprising All Available Official and Private Documents Bearing on the Life of the Patriot, Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4286-0043-0, retrieved 2018-10-05
• Whitman, Zachariah G (1842), The history of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company [rev. and enl.] from its formation in 1637 and charter in 1638, to the present time; comprising the biographies of the distinguished civil, literary, religious, and military men of the colony, province, and commonwealth., Boston: J.H. Eastburn, pp. 348–349
• Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1898), Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Grinnell-Lockwood, vol. 3, New York: D. Appleton, pp. 308–309, OCLC 2325844