On the third day after the battle, the family of Mr. Kinzie, with the clerks of the establishment, were put into a boat, under the care of Francois, a half-breed interpreter, and conveyed to St. Joseph’s, where they remained until the following November, under the protection of To-pee-nee-bee’s band.  They were then conducted to Detroit, under the escort of Chandonnai and their trusty Indian friend, Kee-po-tah, and delivered up, as prisoners of war, to Colonel McKee, the British Indian Agent.

Mr. Kinzie was not allowed to leave St. Joseph’s with his family, his Indian friends insisting on his remaining and endeavoring to secure some remnant of his scattered property.  During his excursions with them for that purpose, he wore the costume and paint of the tribe, in order to escape capture and perhaps death at the hands of those who were still thirsting for blood.  In time, however, his anxiety for his family induced him to follow them to Detroit, where, in the month of January, he was received and paroled by General Proctor.

Captain and Mrs. Heald were sent across the lake to St. Joseph the day after the battle.  The former had received two wounds, the latter seven, in the engagement.

Lieutenant Helm, who was likewise wounded, was carried by some friendly Indians to their village on the Au Sable, and thence to Peoria, where he was liberated by the intervention of Mr. Thomas Forsyth, the half-brother of Mr. Kinzie.  Mrs. Helm accompanied her parents to St. Joseph, where they resided in the family of Alexander Robinson,[40] receiving from them all possible kindness and hospitality for several months.

After their arrival in Detroit, Mrs. Helm was joined by her husband, when they were both arrested by order of the British commander, and sent on horseback, in the dead of winter, through Canada to Fort George, on the Niagara frontier.  When they arrived at that post, there had been no official appointed to receive them, and, notwithstanding their long and fatiguing journey in weather the most cold and inclement, Mrs. Helm, a delicate woman of seventeen years, was permitted to sit waiting in her saddle, outside the gate, for more than an hour, before the refreshment of fire or food, or even the shelter of a roof, was offered them.  When Colonel Sheaffe, who had been absent at the time, was informed of this brutal inhospitality, he expressed the greatest indignation.  He waited on Mrs. Helm immediately, apologized in the most courteous manner, and treated both her and Lieutenant Helm with the most considerate kindness, until, by an exchange of prisoners, they were liberated, and found means to reach their friends in Steuben County, N.Y.

Captain Heald had been taken prisoner by an Indian from the Kankakee, who had a strong personal regard for him, and who, when he saw the wounded and enfeebled state of Mrs. Heald, released her husband that he might accompany his wife to St. Joseph.  To the latter place they were accordingly carried, as has been related, by Chandonnai and his party.  In the mean time, the Indian who had so nobly released his prisoner returned to his village on the Kankakee, where he had the mortification of finding that his conduct had excited great dissatisfaction among his band.  So great was the displeasure manifested, that he resolved to make a journey to St. Joseph and reclaim his prisoner.