battle of detroit - the surrender of 1812

[WaCoTS]

wow, leave it to THIS forum to start flaming over a war that ended 200yrs ago....wow, lol


anyway, yeah. it is all too common to just blame Hull and call him a coward. taht is what we were taught in our public school textbooks, where those illustrations likely came from. but if you read the actual documents of the day and look into what actually went down, you'll see that Hull really had no other choice. there was no army, no equipment, no supplies for him to conduct a siege. idk who illustrated that 2nd one, but there was no huge long line of crying american soldiers laying down their arms without a fight because Hull was a pussy.

the War Dept in Washington DC failed us here in MI at every turn. communications were poor or nonexistent. let's not forget Mackinac was surrendered the same way as Detroit, because it was almost completely unmanned at the time war was declared, and its "acting commander" was not aware that war had been declare until the british commander knocked on the gates and informed him that they had him check-mated. General Hull was sentenced to hang as a coward, but he did not. he was pardoned. why? because he took the fall for the blunders in Washington. over and over again he tried to rectify Detroit's vulnerabilities, and over and over again Washington failed to supply what was needed. rather than bumbling dumbassery be exposed at the higher levels of US military command, they decided some lowly guy from Michigan can take one for the team.

pick up a book out on Wayne State Press called "The Fall and Recapture of Detroit in the War of 1812: In Defense of William Hull" by Richard Yanik