were several critical points of connection along this line.  St Joseph’s Island, commanding the straits between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, was a vital point of contact with all the Indians to the west.  It was the British counterpoise to the American post at Michilimackinac, which commanded the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.  Detroit commanded the waterway between Lake Huron and Lake Erie; while the command of the Niagara peninsula ensured the connection between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.  At the head of the St Lawrence, guarding the entrance to Lake Ontario, stood Kingston.  Montreal was an important station midway between Kingston and Quebec, besides being an excellent base for an army thrown forward against the American frontier.  Quebec was the general base from which all the British forces were directed and supplied.

Quick work, by water and land together, was essential for American success before the winter, even if the Canadians were really so anxious to change their own flag for the Stars and Stripes.  But the American government put the cart before the horse—­the Army before the Navy—­and weakened the military forces of invasion by dividing them into two independent commands.  General Henry Dearborn was appointed commander-in-chief, but only with control over the north-eastern country, that is, New England and New York.  Thirty years earlier Dearborn had served in the War of Independence as a junior officer; and he had been Jefferson’s Secretary of War.  Yet he was not much better trained as a leader than his raw men were as followers, and he was now sixty-one.  He established his headquarters at Greenbush, nearly opposite Albany, so that he could advance on Montreal by the line of the Hudson, Lake Champlain, and the Richelieu.  The intended advance, however, did not take place this year.  Greenbush was rather a recruiting depot and camp of instruction than the base of an army in the field; and the actual campaign had hardly begun before the troops went into winter quarters.  The commander of the north-western army was General William Hull.  And his headquarters were to be Detroit, from which Upper Canada was to be quickly overrun without troubling about the co-operation of the Navy.  Like Dearborn, Hull had served in the War of Independence.  But he had been a civilian ever since; he was now fifty-nine; and his only apparent qualification was his having been governor of Michigan for seven years.  Not until September, after two defeats on land, was Commodore Chauncey ordered ’to assume command of the naval force on Lakes Erie and Ontario, and use every exertion to obtain control of them this fall.’  Even then Lake Champlain, an essential link both in the frontier system and on Dearborn’s proposed line of march, was totally forgotten.

To complete the dispersion of force, Eustis forgot all about the military detachments at the western forts.  Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) and Michilimackinac, important as points of connection with the western tribes, were left to the devices of their own inadequate garrisons.  In 1801 Dearborn himself, Eustis’s predecessor as Secretary of War, had recommended a peace strength of two hundred men at Michilimackinac, usually known as ‘Mackinaw.’  In 1812 there were not so many at Mackinaw and Chicago put together.