There's an account of the war that was researched and written during and in the years following the civil war. It's referenced in the journal of a Detroiter held prisoner in 1812 that parkguy provided a link to in post 13. It includes hints of speculation that some southerners in official positions might have acted to undermine success of the war for fear of adding free territories to the union. The chapters that cover the war in the Detroit area are 13 through the beginning of 15.

It was a beautiful, clear, breezy morning, early in October, 1860, when the writer left Chicago, with his family, to visit the theatre of events described in the two preceding chapters. We took the Michigan Central train for Detroit...
The Pictorial Field-book of the War of 1812; Or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the Last War for American Independence
Harper & Brothers, 1869 - 1084 pages

Read it online in html format here:
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.an.../Contents.html

Staring at Chapter 13 on googlebooks:
http://books.google.com/books?id=itN...bs_toc_r&cad=4

Download in various formats from a number of different libraries from links here:
http://archive.org/search.php?query=...20of%201812%29

Detroit at that time stretched along the river at a convenient distance back, and the present Jefferson Avenue was the principal street. It contained one hundred and sixty houses, and about eight hundred souls. The inhabitants were chiefly of French descent. Only seven years before, every building but one in the village was destroyed by fire. On the hill, in the rear, about two hundred and fifty yards from the river, stood Fort Detroit, built by the English after the conquest of Canada a hundred years ago. It was quadrangular in form, with bastions and barracks, and covered about two acres of ground. The embankments were nearly twenty feet in height, with a deep dry ditch, and were surrounded by a double row of pickets. The outside row was in the centre of the ditch, and the other row projected from the bank, forming what is technically called a fraise. There was a work, called the Citadel Fort, that stood on the site of the present Arsenal, or Temperance Hotel, in Jefferson Avenue. The fort was garrisoned when Hull arrived by ninety-four men. Its position was one of considerable strength, but, unfortunately, it did not command the river, and could not damage the armed vessels which the British at that time employed in those waters. The town was surrounded by strong pickets, fourteen feet high, with loop-holes to shoot through. The pickets commenced at the river, on the line of the Brush farm, and followed it to about Congress Street; thence westerly, along or near Michigan Avenue, back of the old fort, to the east line of the Cass farm, and followed that line to the river. On Jefferson Avenue, at the Cass line, and on Atwater Street, on the Brush farm, massive gates were placed. These pickets, which had been erected as defenses against Indian incursions, were yet well preserved in 1812.



George Armstrong Custer, his father Emmanuel and eighteen veterans of the Battle of the River Raisin of the War of 1812 - Monroe June 15, 1871