Thursday, February 26, 2015

Enlarging the Fort Size - Dealing with Deserters

Enlarging Ft. Amanda

Deserters

Mar. 6, 1813 - Saturday           Cold and cloudy
The first order of business that morning was to find the deserters from Capt. Seton’s company.  Before the search party left, Schillinger gave the sergeant leading the group a letter to “take to my wife. 

Authors note:
Schillinger asking the sergeant to “take,” not mail a letter to his wife implies that the search party would be going south toward Cincinnati, rather than north toward Ft. Winchester.  Because the deserters already had a 2 or 3 day head start, the expectation was that the men would reach their home in Clermont County before the search party could intercept them, therefore there was no real sense of urgency as the search party would simply arrest them at their homes.  As it turns out, they did.

The men drew their rations, collected mail from some of the other soldiers and left Amanda shortly after breakfast.


Ft. Amanda Construction – Phase II

The Plan



When the Ohio troops arrived at Ft. Amanda they found a post 198 feet x 198 feet (3 chains x 3 chains) with (4) 2 story blockhouses, one in each corner, cabins lining the wall running parallel to the Auglaize and along the northwest wall sheds and storage buildings and 2 gates, one in the northwest wall and the other in the southeast wall leading to the ramp.



Cabins
Open Shed





Shed
Blockhouse
Note gun ports cut into walls


Forts Amanda, Jennings and Logan were all boat building sites at the time and because of its location as the primary debarkation point to the navigable waters of the Auglaize, the decision was made to modify the site from merely a boat building site, to a major supply depot.  To do that, the fort needed to be enlarged.


 This would be done by extending the existing southwest wall and northeast walls 132 feet (two chains) to the northwest.   A new northwest wall would then be built to join the two extended walls. 

The first order of business was to dismantle and move the gate in the northwest wall and fasten its hangings to the side of the westdblockhouse in the southwest wall.  Instead of opening to the northwest, it would now open to the southwest.  To accomplish this, they needed to dismantle it, move it and

This would be the starting point for the extension of the southwest wall.  Next cabins and the northwest wall would also need to be dismantled so the logs could be used for the new stockade walls.  Before any of this could happen, repairs needed to be done to the west blockhouse before the gate could be attached.   

 Before the gate could be fastened to the blockhouse wall the some repairs needed to be made.  The west blockhouse normally would have served as a picket or lookout post but because it was being used to store flour, the windows and portholes had not yet been cut in the walls.  The men spent most of the day Saturday removing the flour from the upper and lower rooms of and placing it in sheds and in some of the vacant cabins.   

Chef Schillinger

In 1813, soldiers ate in “messes,” usually a group of six with someone either dedicated as the cook for his group or the men took turns preparing the meal. The meals were often communal meaning the soldiers shared ingredients and cooked their meat, soups, etc together in a common pot.  Officers typically had their own mess groups so Schillinger probably took his meals with Hosbrook and Davis while the sergeants and corporals ate together as did the privates in separate mess groups. 

On a number of occasions, Schillinger referred to “the cook,” or “our cook,” implying that one particular individual was assigned to cook all the meals for his mess group.  Because the cook for Schillinger’s group was ill that day, he being the low man on the proverbial totem pole, (lowest ranking officer) the task fell to him to cook for his mess group.   In his journal, he wrote, “I had to cook supper” rather than “I cooked supper,” which makes one wonder if he wasn’t very happy with this temporary assignment. 

Not As Easy As It Sounds

Starting a fire cooking fire outdoors in 1813 required only a small amount of skill but a great deal of patience, especially on wet or windy days.  The common stick match as we know it today hadn’t been invented yet and wouldn’t be for another 14 years, (1827) so Schillinger had to rely on the old tried and true method called, “flint and steel.” 

Each soldier carried his own fire starter kit containing a small piece of steel, a chunk of flint and some dry tinder, usually a piece of charred linen, silk or even dried fungus. To create the spark, the individual held the piece of flint in one hand and with a downward stroke, struck it with the piece of metal causing a spark to fall down onto the dry tinder.  Once the tinder caught fire, twigs or small pieces of wood were placed on it and increasingly larger pieces added until the fire was large enough to cook on.  


Mar. 7, 1813 Sunday                                      Cold and cloudy
Sunday was normally a day of rest for soldiers but this Sunday was going to be a busy day and because so much needed to be done, Hosbrook had the men hold their parade at sunrise.[1]  After breakfast, they were lectured on how to perform guard duty and the consequences of falling asleep on guard duty and the punishments for deserting.  Hosbrook reminded the men that the British were still in full force to the north and that some of the Indians, particularly the younger ones in the village of Wapukanati[2] eight miles to the south were sympathetic with the British and its ally, the famous warrior, Tecumseh.  Apparently the warning fell on deaf ears.  Before their tour of duty was over, there would be cases of guards sleeping on duty and desertions from all the forts along the Auglaize, including Ft. Amanda.

 Mar. 8, 1813  Monday                       Cold and cloudy in the morning
  It was cold and overcast that day.  All the flour had been removed from the west blockhouse and the men had begun repairing or replacing the missing chinking between the logs. The hinges for the new entrance gate had been removed and the carpenters were busy installing them on the side on the west blockhouse while another dug holes for the support structure of the gate frame.   

Authors Note:  Because the trees used for construction were not always perfectly straight, when laid one on top of the other there could be gaps between them.  And since most were “green” they gap grew even larger once the wood began to dry out.  To compensate, mud mixed with horsehair could be stuffed between the logs acting as a sort of plaster.  As it dried out, it needed to be replaced.
  
 Early that afternoon, twenty year old Lt. William Ogden[3] and twelve privates arrived at Amanda on their way to join Seton’s company at Ft. Winchester. They originally planned to go by boat but because the river had frozen over, they decided to move on by foot.  Two members of the group remained behind; one who was very ill and another was too lame to walk.  

General Harrison’s personal courier Major William Oliver[4] came to the fort and brought news that their Shawnees allies at Wapakoneta had spotted five Pottawattami lurking in the woods between their village and Ft. Amanda.    

 Mar. 9, 1813  Tuesday                       Clear and pleasant at sunrise                
The clouds had cleared and despite the cold chill in the air, the weather was quite pleasant for the season.  Schllinger, being officer of police that day, supervised the removal of large quantities of meat from the south blockhouse. Like the west blockhouse, the chinking needed repairs and the port holes hadn’t yet been cut so that became the next order of business. 

With the holes dug and the support structure for the gate in place, the gate was lifted into position.  This marked the starting point for the 132 feet of new stockade wall soon to be put into place.  With the new gate in place, another group of men began tearing down the old northwest wall and dismantling some of the cabins that lined it.  Those not involved with the renovations at the fort were sent across the river to help build boats.

 
Gate Structure
Gate Opening to the Southwest




Mar. 10, 1813  Wednesday                 This morning cloudy with light rain in the night”   
The weather turned warmer during the night and a light rain began to fall early in the morning and continued on most of the day and into the night.  Major Oliver and Sgt. Broadwell left Amanda early that morning to hand carry a letter to General Harrison who at time was camped near the rapids[5]

Moses Crist[6] a private in Hosbrook’s company was a successful businessman with a young family.  Apparently he obtained the services of a substitute.  Sometime during the day, a man named Robert Gaston came to the fort to release Crist from duty.  A man named Robert Gaston arrived at the fort that day to serve as a substitute for Crist.  There was a William Gaston in Hosbrook’s company so it is possible he and Robert Gaston were relatives, perhaps even brothers.  Gaston was shown to a cabin where he unpacked his belongings and sat down with Schillinger to go over the necessary paperwork for the payroll muster.  He was later assigned to a work crew.

The Smokehouse
The next order of business was the construction of a building in which to preserve meat.  In 1813 the only way to preserve meat was to smoke or cure it.  For that they needed a smokehouse.  A smokehouse was a small building in which meat was hung from hooks or placed on racks above a smoldering fire.  The smoke from the fire circulated around the meat helping “cure” or preserve it.   

 
Typical Frontier Smokehouse


Too Dangerous or Too Lazy?

 Mar. 1, 1813  Thursday                       Heavy rain with thunder and lightning in the evening
While one group of men was at work on the new smokehouse, another started work removing the oats and corn that had been stored in the south blockhouse.  Like the other blockhouses, the chinking between the logs needed repaired and the port holes had yet to be cut.

Early in the afternoon two men from Ft. Findlay[7] a man named Mr. Rock and a companion came to Amanda to borrow some axes and other tools to take back to their fort.  They loaded the tools into a boat and started downriver mid-afternoon.  The warming temperatures had caused some of the ice on the Auglaize to break up and melt and as a result, the water was very high with a fast current. 

Around 4 o’clock the men returned to the fort saying they thought it too dangerous to continue on.  A short time later, a man from Ft. Jennings, came to Amanda to pick up some of Capt. McHenry’s and Capt. Seton’s personal belongings.  He reported that the ice on the river had broken.  The two men from Ft. Findlay, feeling it was still too dangerous to use the river decided to spend the night there and leave the next morning.   As it turned out, they made a good decision.  Later that afternoon a heavy rain with thunder and lightning came into the area and had they decided to start back their trip would have been a long cold wet and illuminated one.






[1] Sunrise was at 7:02 AM  on March 7, 1813
[2] Wapakoneta, Oh.
[3] See biography
[4] See biography
[5] Grand Rapids,Ohio
[6] See biography
[7] Findlay, Ohio.

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