Visits To River Raisin and Fallen Timbers National Battlefields!
Most of my visits over the years to battlefields have been focused on the Civil War / American War Between The States, but I’ve also been to sites associated with most of the other conflicts that have occurred on U.S. soil, and there are two situated not far from where I live in Metro Detroit - The Battle of Fallen Timbers which was a part of the post-revolutionary push to expand westward which concluded the Northwest Indian War, and The River Raisin at Frenchtown/Monroe, Michigan which was a War of 1812 clash.
Neither of them are particularly large but they are both units of the National Park Service so they are both well maintained and interpreted, both situated a minute from a highway and are only 40 miles apart - both close to Toledo. So while I visited them recently on two different trips they can easily be done on the same day in just a few hours really.
“Remember The Raisin”
The War of 1812 for lack of a better term was a….strange war. It just kinda happened and then it just kinda ended. That’s not to say it didn’t include anything significant or any suffering - it was a war, so of course there was plenty of that. But it was almost like England said after the revolution “Okay I guess we can’t be bothered trying to keep these American states as a British colony and they don’t seem to be standing for it anymore, so we’ll say we recognize them and then we’ll just keep harassing them anyway - like for example if we find any of their ships at sea we’ll just take those men and impress them into the British Navy” The situation got to the point where America got mad enough to say “alright so I guess we’re going to fight now and maybe we’ll grab Canada if it’s practicable while we’re at it.” Diplomacy that may have avoided the war didn’t make it across the ocean in time to avert it and similarly The Battle of New Orleans was fought after a treaty was already signed to end the war but word hadn’t traveled back across the Atlantic in time. We also got our national anthem out of the deal which Francis Scott Key was inspired to write by the defense of Fort McHenry in September of 1814. But almost two years before Fort McHenry was River Raisin - the biggest defeat and subsequent rallying cry for the Americans of the war and it happened less than an hour from where I live. My visit below to the River Raisin was on 8/7/21.
The markers tell much of the story below… Combined British and Native forces (commanded by Tecumseh even though he was not there for the battle) from a handful of tribes hit the Americans (many from Kentucky) with a surprise attack on 1/22/1813. Outnumbered, the Americans fought valiantly but were forced to surrender. They were offered British protection as the large monument states below but the prisoners were left unguarded and were killed by the Natives. This massacre became a significant rallying cry for the rest of the war much like “Remember The Alamo” would be 23 years later in the Texas Revolution.
As a footnote Hull’s Trace is a separate unit of the River Raisin Battlefield park about 18 miles NE where the Huron River meets the Detroit River. A section of the 200 mile log road that was built from Dayton to Detroit in preparation for the war is supposed to be visible nearby but I couldn’t find it…
Fallen Timbers
Fallen Timbers is a weird one. They thought the battle happened in a spot that…….wasn’t the spot. For many years. They designated a park and put up monuments only to discover through archeological surveys in 1995 that the battle happened a couple miles away - on a tract of land that except for a railroad going through a corner of it was totally undeveloped and undisturbed, and they’ve since put a visitors center there along with trails and interpretive wayside markers. They did a good job with it - it’s a pleasant and educational loop trail that places the battlefield in the larger context of the conflict. In the past I had looked it up online and couldn’t make sense of why there were multiple sites. There are actually three - one of which is Fort Miamis which I didn’t visit (yet). Our visit there was on 3/7/23.
What IS significant about Fallen Timbers is the fallout and domino effect it had on the frontier. You can click on that Fallen Timbers link for more information but the summary is General ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne was sent by President Washington to fight against the Native Americans of the Northwest Territory (basically what is now Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin) in the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795). There had been plenty of violence in the conflict and frankly the Wikipedia entry is the best summary I can find on the Internet if you want a solid overview…feel free to add another resource in the comments below. Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers against a confederation of tribes led by the great Miami Chief Little Turtle was the final engagement that effectively ended the conflict and led to the Treaty of Greenville (which had the Indian confederation ceding strategic areas including Detroit to the United States), which was followed shortly by the Jay Treaty (which had the British withdrawing from all the forts in the area). Native Americans would be without any sovereignty on their homelands in the region and largely without their British allies going forward…
So there you go - as I said I hope you get to visit these if you are in the area of the eastern Michigan/Ohio border. Maybe not worth going too far out of your way for, but still worthwhile, especially if you have interest in the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can follow Doug’s band Vintage Playboy at their Facebook page here.
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