A War of 1812 Double Horse Burial at Fort Meigs
The following is from an article written by William (Bill) Pickard of the Ohio Historical Connection. Bill is Assistant Curator of Archaeology for the Ohio History Connection (Ohio Historical Society). is a 1995 graduate of The Ohio State University with degrees in anthropology and art history. He has worked in the Collections Division of tile Ohio History Connection since 1999. He has extensive experience on a variety of prehistoric and historic archaeological sites throughout Ohio, including Flint Ridge. U.S. Grant Boyhood Home, Fort Laurens. Pickawillany,and Fort Meigs, as well as five other states. He has also served as a member of the adjunct faculty at Hocking Technical College ill Nelsonville."I'Il Never Be Noticed on a Galloping Horse":
A Warof 1812 Double Horse Burial at Fort Meigs
WILLIAM H. PICKARD
The site of Fort Meigs is located on the south bank of the Maumee River opposite the town of Maumee, Ohio, about 15 miles upstream from where the river empties into Maumee Bay and Lake Erie. It was built in the late winter and early spring of 1813 in response to increased British military actions in the lower Great Lakes, most notably the fall of Fort Detroit in the summer of 1812.
Through the winter of 1812-1813 General Harrison began to assemble me and material at the foot of the Maumee Rapids in anticipation of a campaign against British to retake Detroit. The fort was built on a prominent point of a
high bluff that extends for several miles in either direction aJong that side of the river. Construction began in February 1813 and completed with no small amount of difficulty by the end of April and named for then Ohio Governor Return Jonathan Meigs. When finished it was a large, irregular "D" shaped palisaded bastion enclosing about ten acres with a 2500 yard perimeter, made up of fifteen-foot log pickets set about three feet into the ground. Additionally, there were several cannon batteries, a number of two-story blockhouses that could also serve as additional gun platforms, underground bomb proofs for ammunition storage and at least one well to supply water. The entire structure was surrounded by rammed earth embankments designed to deflect an
anticipated British artillery barrage 
Sebree Map of Ft. Meigs
Ft. Meigs today
Setting the Stage
By the spring of 1813 the British had amassed nearly 2,000 British regulars,Canadian militia and Native Americans at Fort Malden opposite Detroit to move against Fort Meigs. The combined force was under the command of Henry Procter and the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, two individuals that rarely saw things in the same light. Procter promised those involved a quick campaign that would more than pay for itself in plunder and prisoners and destroy, once and for all, American influence in the Northwest.In early April 1813 the British force set sail from Fort Malden and landed a few days later at Fort Miamis, a dilapidated British trading post a couple miles downstream from Fort Meigs. The British and their Canadian and Native allies deployed from there using the old fort as their center of operations and by the end of the month British engineers had erected a series of gun batteries opposite Fort Meigs in what is now downtown Maumee, Ohio.
Both the British and Americans were operating in a sort of cat and mouse fashion and dealing with narrow windows of time. Procter had promised the Canadian militia a short but effective campaign. The militia was made up of mostly farmers and only had a brief period available to them before it would be necessary to return home for spring planting. Procter would also have to find a way to keep the Indians engaged during what might become a drawn out siege, not exactly the type of warfare the Native Americans found attractive. The Americans were themselves saddled with the continuous expiration of short-term enlistments. The British knew the Americans were troubled to keep adequate forces on hand and were in a hurry to mount a successful campaign before the Americans could be adequately reinforced. Harrison was aware thata sizable body of Kentucky militia was on the way to relieve his situation but had no idea of when they would actually arrive. Somehow he would have to manage to hold out until reinforcements were on site and somehow the British would have to figure out a way to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak.Shelling Begins
The anticipated artillery duel across the Maumee between the Americans and British began in earnest on the first day of May, 1813. As Deputy Quarter master James Taylor Eubank recorded in his diary: At 8 o'clock this day the
enemy hoisted the red flag at their lower battery and commenced firing with their 24 and 12 lb guns and 6 and 8 inch mortars. They fired at us this day 240 shot and bomb shells,' This situation would continue for most of the next several days until the British, unable to take Fort Meigs, broke off the siege and withdrew. 
Both sides were armed with solid shot, exploding aerial bombs and other devices although the British had some larger guns and were better supplied with ammunition. To counteract the British advantage in firepower, the Americans erected a series of earthen walls or traverses inside the fort to provide the garrison protection from incoming cannonballs. The earthen walls were approximately 14 feet high and 20 feet across at the base and ran nearly the length of the fort. Their construction had been obscured from the British by rows of tents. When the tents were struck and moved behind the traverses the British artillery engineers were more than a little annoyed to realize that their labors had come to little end. Instead of the exposed camp from which Procter has boasted he would "smoke the Yankees out" with hot shot and incendiaries, they saw that the Americans would in effect be invisible. Rather than destroying the fort with an all-out bombardment and allowing the Native Americans to deal with the fleeing soldiers as they saw fit they knew they were facing an enemy garrison that was well entrenched and strongly protected.' With the traverses in place, the first two days bombardments were much less effective than the British had anticipated .. To remedy this situation the British erected a second battery east of the fort in what is now Perrysburg Union Cemetery to create artillery enfilade within the fort or raking fire along the back sides of the traverses to deny the Americans any place to hide. Again this situation was remedied by the rapid erection of additional traverses.
"Just enough booze to make them brave but not stupid"
To further motivate the American troops, as if additional motivation was really needed under these conditions, the soldiers were supplied with extra rations of whiskey - enough to make them brave but not stupid - to make sure the traverses were completed with all due alacrity. According to some accounts, soldiers later made "dugouts" onto the base of the traverse walls for additional shelter from the weather. However these soon began to fill with water from incessant rain storms and abandoned; the soldiers apparently decided that they would rather take their chances with British artillery than drown in their sleep.
With news that a 1,200 man relief column under the Command of General Green Clay of Kentucky was at that moment descending the Maumee River to relieve Fort Meigs, Harrison devised a three prong plan to defeat the British and force them from the field. Upon approaching the fort Clay was to divide his forces into two bodies with 800 men under Col. Dudley attacking and destroying the batteries opposite Fort Meigs before beating a hasty retreat back across the river to join the garrison at Fort Meigs. The rest of Clay's reinforcements were to land opposite where Dudley landed to make their way into the fort and create a safe zone for Dudley's retreating forces to land. To act as a diversion for Dudley's attack on the British batteries across the river, a second American force led by Col. John Miller would simultaneously emerge from the fort to attack and destroy the newly erected gun battery on the American right. It seemed like a solid strategic plan, perhaps too solid and in practice very little of it went right. Dudley's men failed to follow orders and were lured into an ambuscade by the Indians and his bold venture on the opposite side of the river quickly turned into an unmitigated disaster.
Of the 800 men under Dudley's command, barely 100 ever reached Fort Meigs and it was only with great difficulty that General Clay and his 400 men made it into the fort. On the American right Col. Miller's force of 350 succeeded in destroying the British battery but were nearly drawn into an ambush themselves. They were only rescued by additional forces sent out from the fort by General Harrison. With their inability to successfully prosecute their attack on Fort Meigs any further, the British broke off the siege and after arranging a prisoner exchange, returned to Canada. The Native American forces were absolutely disillusioned by European style siege warfare. It was not the fight they wanted or had been promised. Tecumseh is said to have remarked mockingly that Procter acted like a little animal that tucked its tail and ran at the first sign of danger. A second siege of Fort Meigs at the end of July, that included a sham battle designed to bait the Americans out into the open from the safety of the fort, was no more successful than the first and it seemed to deepen the rift between the British and Indians even further. Within two weeks the British and Indians were once again turned back, this time at Fort Stephenson at present day Fremont and forced to withdraw into Canada for good. American victories on Lake Erie in September and in the Battle of the Thames in October finally destroyed both
British designs on the Great Lakes and Native American resistance to American expansion into the Northwest. Because of American successes in the field, an installation as large as Ft Meigs was no longer necessary to maintain control of the Maumee Rapids.
Late in 1813 the fort was dismantled and replaced by a small I acre stockade. After this time the lands in northwest Ohio were finally opened to large scale settlement and the memory of the events surrounding Fort Meigs began to fade. By the 1840's the site of Fort Meigs was part of a larger tract owned by the Hayes family and would later be bisected by the Perrysburg Road that would become old Rt,65. The south half remained under cultivation until the 1960's while the northern half was set aside from farming by the Hayes family as a memorial in remembrance of what happened there in 1813. An 82' tall Fort Meigs Memorial obelisk was dedicated there in 1908 and by the 1930's the set-aside portion would become a roadside park of sorts with a stone shelter house and other smaller picnic pavilions. Among those remnants of the fort still visible at that time were the earthen embankments of the second Fort. Meigs and the 300 yard long Grand Traverse through the center of the fort. Aerial photographs of the site, taken as late as the 1990's, showed these features too still exist although by then the embankments of the second or "little" fort were reduced to traces.
From its opening as a reconstructed historic site in the 1970's Fort Meigs proved to be at times a large and confusing location to site visitors not familiar with the layout. Exhibits were arranged in individual blockhouses that were poorly lit and neither heated nor air conditioned. The script and arrangement of the blockhouse exhibits flowed well enough but at times could be problematic. Because of the maze of original and reconstructed traverse walls inside the fort, a visual sight line across the fort's interior was not possible. This could be of paramount importance if attempting to locate the block house with the rest rooms. To redress this overall situation it was proposed in the late 1990's to build a totally new visitor's center adjacent to the fort containing a museum, a gift shop, public meeting space and modern restroom facilities all under one roof. It was planned that the new visitor's center would be constructed southwest of the fort to take advantage of the large parking area in that location.BIG HORSE AND LITTLE HORSE
Fort Meigs is the focal point to what's referred to as an archaeological landscape. It's not just the fort and its immediate surroundings that are important, but also the local environment encompassing the fort; just as much likely happened outside the fort as happened inside it, if not more. It is important to preserve or at least document these locations if at all possible to more fully understand and better interpret what actually happened there. To attempt to address this issue prior to construction an earth mover was used to strip the footprint of the new visitor's center to a level just below the old plow zone. This would reveal any hidden features possibly located below that depth. What is known from general orders of the day posted several times at Fort Meigs in 1813 is that large pits or sinks were dug outside the fort for the disposal of waste material. In his orders for May 17, 1813 Col. John Miller of the 19'" Ohio Infantry posted that ... sinks must also be dug on the outside, about one hundred yards from the pickets, ten feet long, four feet wide and six feet deep for the use of the troops during the day.' Most of this would have been to dispose of so-called "night soil" but in those days immediately following the May 18I3 siege especially the sinks could contain all manner of broken weapons and tools collected in the general clean-up after the siege as well as butchered bone, food remains and other materials that are of particular interest to archaeologists. During the earth moving phase no sinks were discovered but several artillery bomb fragments and solid cannon shot rounds were recovered. This included an exploded 8 inch artillery bomb that had become deeply buried in the mud surrounding the fort before detonating. The bomb fragments were all recovered and the reassembled bomb is now on display at the Visitor Center Museum and as far as can be told, it is a singularly unique find for battlefields of this period.
without managing to find a trash sink most of the crew was packed up and ready to head home. However, what was thought to be another iron bomb fragment in the corner of the work area just off the southwestern-most blockhouse was actually a pair of horse shoes. Interestingly enough they were still attached to the horse that had worn them in life.
A Horseshoe With the Horse Still In It
A cursory inspection of the shoes indicated they were old, but how old. It should be remembered that from around the middle of the 19'" century forward that part of the site had been an active farm and much of that time cultivated by horse and plow. Was this horse fort related or was it just another plow horse that had gone on to greener pastures? This question was answered when a War of 1812 "U.S." general service button was unearthed from a context that could only be the result of the horse and the button going into the ground at the same time. Further excavation over the next several days revealed that in fact the feature contained two horses buried together. They were arranged in an almost heraldic pose facing each other in opposition with their necks crossed and legs intermingled. A site visitor even quipped that it looked more like a funeral than a burial.
It was almost immediately apparent that one of the horses was noticeably larger than the other so they became referred to as "Big Horse" and "Little Horse" for lack of better names. The three shoes still on Big Horse were heavily calked with aggressive cleats indicting that it was likely a draft or work horse.
Calks are blunt projections at the heel and toe of the horseshoe that provides extra traction a horse might need on slippery ground. Additionally, the large round head used to attach the shoe to the hoof would likely also provide extra traction especially in the near quagmire conditions that existed at the site during the late stages of fort construction and during the first siege. On the other hand, the single shoe still on Little Horse was almost smooth with relatively smaller calks, more like a combination caulk/wedge shoe, a traditional hunting type shoe used to provide the horse with a sure-footed grip when working or running at a fast pace over uneven ground. Using a metal detector to closely examine the feature revealed iron nail fragments in the hoof areas that might suggest that at least one shoe on each animal had been remover prior to burial, possibly as some sort of souvenir. It seems doubtful that the missing shoes were salvaged for the iron or all of them would have been removed. How is it that the horses ended up where they were found and what caused their demise?
A close examination of the remains of Big Horse indicated that the horse had sustained a severe injury to the right front leg. There was a major break at the distal end of the radius that allowed the lower leg to rotate almost a full 90 degrees to the inside. There was also a hairline fracture across the third metacarpal or cannon bone and another at the midpoint of the radius bone. A horse with these types of bone breaks would necessarily have to be put down if it had not already succumbed to its injuries. Severe injuries like these seem typical of those expected as a result of a tremendous fall or tumble sustained at full gallop or in a state of total panic. It should be further noted that the neck and skull seem rotated out of position as if the neck had possibly been broken. In a normal recumbent position a horse's head is on its side and not looking forward with it eyes in a horizontal position. There is still some question as to whether the horse died directly from its injuries or was found injured but alive and had to be put down.
"LITTLE HORSE"
Little Horse was a somewhat different case as it showed no overt injuries. However it was soon discovered that it had been shot. Nine pieces of poorly cast .30 caliber +/- lead buckshot were eventually recovered from the front
of the horse's ribcage area and a single .50 caliber round ball from below the skull. It isn't clear what part the .50 caliber ball played in its demise but the tightly grouped load of lead shot in the chest area strongly suggests that Little Horse received a blast from a musket at close range. To confuse things even further a boars head was found wedged under its right shoulder or withers area, no other bones, just the skull. In general, certain idiosyncratic aspects of the burial feature, including the fact that the tails of both horses were missing, shoes apparently removed prior to burial, the inclusion of the boars head in the feature and what appears to be the staged positioning of the horses themselves might seem to indicate some sort of arcane form of soldierly ritualism who's true meaning is lost to time. Living in what is for all intents and purposes a non-horse society we really don't know what those who did could have been thinking. Then again, it may just be a case of curious circumstances and
nothing more.
When the British siege finally ended, the Americans were left in control of the field but by no means did they merely walk out of Fort Meigs to move on with their lives. As Col. Alexander Bourne later wrote" ... The cannonade and bombardment continued with but little intermission till the 51h oj May, throwing at us about 2000 large balls and shells and a quantity of large grape shot and hand grenades fired from canon, also some carcasses and other combustibles" It was said that the din raised by the cannonading was so tremendous that it could be clearly heard 60 miles up the Maumee Valley at Camp Winchester, present day Defiance, Ohio. Fort Meigs had received far worse than it delivered but it managed to survive. Harrison's fort had withstood a heavy week long artillery barrage but it was in shambles. The walls were nearly collapsed and the roofs of a number of the front blockhouses were blown off. In some circumstances the soldiers literally had to dig themselves out. It had also rained continuously throughout the siege and the men were cold, wet and hungry. Besides the task of caring for the sick and wounded, the dead and the dying there were also great losses among the horses and other livestock to deal with as Harrison indicated in a May 18. 1813 letter to Secretary of War John Armstrong from Franklinton" ... Maj. (James v.) Ball's squadron is now here; the horses suffered considerably during the siege, many were killed and the whole so reduced that it was with difficulty that they were gotten in."5 If the horse burial dates to the first siege it seems the soldiers would have had more important things to contend with and would have put them underground as quickly as possible and without much pomp and circumstance or simply dragged them down the hill and thrown them in the river. Only for great cause would they create what seems to be an elaborate mortuary feature.
Cave paintings, such as those at Chauvet Cave in France, dating to the Upper Paleolithic Period in Europe, demonstrate that humans have had an affinity with horses for tens of thousands of years. Ceremonial horse burials have occurred throughout recorded history from Imperial China to Bronze Age Greece to the time of the Roman Empire. At Maastricht in the Netherlands a recently discovered 17th century mass burial feature containing the remains of 69 horses indicates how the retreating Spanish cavalry might have carefully disposed of their dead and dying mounts or possibly even preferred to systematically slaughter their horses rather than let them roam uncared for or fall into the hands of the Dutch. In the United States the "Old Trooper" monument at Fort Riley, Kansas celebrates the passing of the last mount officially on the roles of the U.S. Army horse cavalry. Black Jack, the horse made famous in JFK's funeral procession, was buried with full military honors in Arlington Cemetery. Man-O War, considered by many to be the greatest race horse of all time, is buried in a memorial garden setting befitting of his celebrity status at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington Kentucky.
The visitor's center was completed in 2002 and is a welcomed addition to the site. A number of military themes were incorporated into its structure and it is certainly a vast improvement over the old blockhouse arrangement. Additionally, it just so happens that the building seems to have been designed with the horses in mind or perhaps it just turned out that way. The double horse burial site is immediately adjacent to the visitors' center's back door and seems most worthy of a monument of its own.
As noted in Harrison's letter to Armstrong, casualties among horses was widespread although among these only very few specific occurrences of horses killed there are cited in the literature. Captain Thomas Porter of McClelland's Volunteer Light Dragoons, Fayette County Pennsylvania had the unfortunate circumstance of having his horse killed at Mississinewa in Indiana in the fall on 1812 and after receiving another horse at Fort Meigs it too was killed, this time by a cannon ball as he was attempting to mount Up. A John Haine of the cavalry, possibly Sgt. John Haines of Hamilton's 3,d Detachment of Ohio Militia, also had his mount killed by a cannon ball, a fate suffered soon thereafter by the sergeant himself.' Additionally, Captain James Abraham also of McClelland's Volunteer Light Dragoons, Fayette County Pennsylvania had his horse shot from under him, most likely in support of Clay's landing on the south bank of the Maumee River," Just prior to the second siege, while carrying communications from General Harrison at Lower Sandusky to General Clay at Fort Meigs. Captain John McCune and James Doolan are said to have ridden their horses into the ground after being pursued by Indians to the gates of the fort itself.' In a letter to Kentucky Militia General James Taylor written several years later, Harrison recounted how his adjutant quartermaster, Maj. James Taylor Eubank, was repeatedly exposed to point-blank fire by Indians hiding in the woods while carrying orders to Col. Ball to retreat. warning Ball who was covering Clay's landing, he was in imminent danger of being flanked and attacked from the rear.!" Apparently just delivering orders during the heat of battle could be no less dangerous than actually being involved in combat. The only other known instance of a known rider's horse being shot and killed is that of Harrison's volunteer aid John Telemachus Johnson.
John T. Johnson
(Aide to Geneal Harrison)
1788 - 1856
More on John T. Johnson can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Telemachus_Johnson
