Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 05.djvu/449

 HULL

HULL

camp at Sandwich, proposing to attack Maiden. Colonels Cass, Mc Arthur and Fin lay discouraged an attack, and being supported only by Colonel Miller with 200 regulars, he decided to await siege guns from Detroit. Meanwhile the British troops were reinforced, and on July 17 Fort Mackinac was captured and the post of Chicago had been destroyed by the Indians and most of the garrison massacred. General Dearborn made an armistice with Sir George Provost that did not include Hull's army and General Brock concentrated all his forces against Detroit. On Aug. 4, 1812, Hull learned the condition of affairs and the impossibility of receiving support from Dearborn, the commander-in-chief, and on August 7 he recrossed the river to Detroit in order to open communications with Ohio. As Detroit was commanded by the British fleet and the batteries at Sandwich, Hull proposed to retire to the Raisin river, and there await reinforce- ments, but Colonel Cass assured him that the Ohio troops would desert if this course was pur- sued. He sent Colonel Miller with 600 men to open communications with his dejjot of supplies at Raisin river. Miller's progress was opposed by a body of British troops and Indians, and after driving them from their intrenchments, he returned to Detroit. Colonels Cass and McArthur then led 500 men to effect a communication with the depot of supplies. While so occupied, Gen- eral Brock appeared on August 15, opposite the city, and demanded its surrender, and when this was refused he opened a heavy bombardment. The next day lie advanced with 1700 whites and between 1500 and 2000 Indians and crossed the river under the i^rotection of the fleet, and to save the 900 men left to protect the city Hull surrendered the place, securing protection for the persons and property of tiie inhabitants, and a parole of the militia and volunteers. With the regular troops Hull was carried to Montreal, a prisoner of war. Afterward, when exchanged, he was placed under arrest. Gen. Wade Hamp- ton was president of the court martial at Phila- delphia, Pa., when Hull appeared ready for trial, but the court was dissolved by President Madi- son and a new court was summoned at Albany, N.Y., of which Gen. Henry Dearborn was presi- dent and several of his military family were members of the court. Hull was to be defended by Horace Binney, but he was denied the aid of counsel, while Dallas and Van Buren were em- ployed to assist in the prosecution. Col. Lewis Cass, who had written his celebrated letter of Sept. 12, 1812, constituting the source of the charges against Hull, was the chief witness for the government. The charges were treason, cowardice and neglect of duty. The treason was in sending a vessel with invalids, supplies and

baggage to Detroit after the declaration of war, but even Van Buren, the prosecuting officer of the court, pronounced the charge not only unsup- ported, but unsupportable. Hull was, however, convicted of cowardice and neglect of duty, and sentenced to be shot. Before the assembling of the court-martial Colonel Cass had been promoted to the rank of brigadier-general and made governor of the territory of Michigan, and various of the other militia officers, who had opposed the reason- able suggestions of their commanding general, were advanced in rank. This course influenced the witnesses called before the court to favor the officers in power, with the honorable exception of Colonels Miller and Watson, Major Munson, Captains Maxwell and D^-sen and Lieutenant Bacon, all experienced and tried officers of the army, who, after testifying in Hull's favor, were denied promotion and the last-named actually dropped from the army list. From copies of his private papers reluctantly furnished by the secretary of war in 1824, after repeated appli- cations to each successive previous administra- tion, his original papers having been burned with the vessel that carried his family to Buf- falo, N.Y., after landing the passengers, he pre- pared " Memoirs of the Campaign of the North Western Army of the United States, A.D., 1812" (1824), which turned public opinion in his favor. His only son, Capt. Abraham Fuller Hull, of the 9th U.S. infantry, fell at the battle of Lundy's Lane, July 25, 1814, while leading liis company in a bayonet chai'ge, and this loss was a great blow to a devoted father. President Madison, while approving the sentence of the court-martial, in view of tlie honorable service of Colonel Hull in the American Revolution, suspended the execution of its sentence and directed the dishonored officer to repair to his home in Newton, Mass. He there engaged in the cultivation of his farm for the maiuteuiance of his family. After the publication of his vin- dication in 1824, he was given a public dinner by the citizens of Boston, May 30, 1825 ; and when Lafayette made his last visit to America he was the guest of General Hull in Boston. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from Yale in 1779 and from Harvard in 1787. He died in Newton, Mass., Nov. 29, 1825.

HULL, Williani Isaac, educator, was born in Baltimore, Md., Nov. 19, 1868; a son of Thomas Burling and Mary (Dixon) Hull, and grandson of Abel Adams and Almira Ann (Haviland) Hull, and of Isaac Fairbanks and Elizabeth (Spencer) Dixon. His ancestor, the Rev. Joseph Hull, emigrated from Somersetshire, England, and settled in the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1635. William attended the Friends' Elementary and High school at Baltimore, Md. ; was graduated