Enlarging Ft. Amanda
Deserters
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.
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| Cabins |
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| Open Shed |
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| Shed |
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| 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.
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.
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.
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.
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| Gate Structure |
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| 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.
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| Typical Frontier Smokehouse |
Too Dangerous or Too Lazy?
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.