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In a letter to the [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]], Harrison called Winchester’s defeat a “national calamity.”<ref name=”SALZANO”/> Harrison had arrived at the Maumee Rapids with reinforcements on January 20 and had ordered Winchester’s rear guard to proceed to the River Raisin. A body of 200 Ohio militia had earlier been dispatched from Lower Sandusky. On the morning of the battle, both reinforcements were within {{convert|15|miles|km}} of Frenchtown when they encountered some of the habitants who had fled when the fighting started. Word was sent to Harrison who hurried forward. Soon, some of the soldiers who had escaped the battlefield arrived. One soldier claimed to have seen Winchester scalped and disembowelled. After conferring with his staff, Harrison ordered the reinforcements to turn back, briefly leaving a detachment behind in case more of Winchester’s men appeared.<ref name=”GILPIN”>{{cite book |last=Gilpin |first=Alec Richard |date=1958 |title=The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest |location=East Lansing, Michigan |publisher=Michigan State University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/warof1812inol00gilp | url-access=registration}}</ref>

In a letter to the [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]], Harrison called Winchester’s defeat a “national calamity.”<ref name=”SALZANO”/> Harrison had arrived at the Maumee Rapids with reinforcements on January 20 and had ordered Winchester’s rear guard to proceed to the River Raisin. A body of 200 Ohio militia had earlier been dispatched from Lower Sandusky. On the morning of the battle, both reinforcements were within {{convert|15|miles|km}} of Frenchtown when they encountered some of the habitants who had fled when the fighting started. Word was sent to Harrison who hurried forward. Soon, some of the soldiers who had escaped the battlefield arrived. One soldier claimed to have seen Winchester scalped and disembowelled. After conferring with his staff, Harrison ordered the reinforcements to turn back, briefly leaving a detachment behind in case more of Winchester’s men appeared.<ref name=”GILPIN”>{{cite book |last=Gilpin |first=Alec Richard |date=1958 |title=The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest |location=East Lansing, Michigan |publisher=Michigan State University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/warof1812inol00gilp | url-access=registration}}</ref>

Harrison ordered Winchester’s stores at the rapids burned, then pulled his forces back to the [[Portage River (Ohio)|Portage River]], eighteen miles to the east.<ref name=”ANTAL”/> A month later he returned to the Maumee River and began construction of a substantial fortification which he named [[Fort Meigs]]. He received orders to suspend offensive operations until the warships being constructed at [[Black Rock, Buffalo|Black Rock]] and [[Erie, Pennsylvania|Erie]] were ready to sail and provide support for another attempt to retake Detroit.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hitsman|first=J. Mackay|last2=Graves |first2=Donald E.|title=The Incredible War of 1812|location=Toronto|publisher=Robin Brass Studio|year=1999|isbn=1896941133}}</ref>

Harrison ordered Winchester’s stores at the rapids burned, pulled his forces back to the [[Portage River (Ohio)|Portage River]], eighteen miles to the east.<ref name=”ANTAL”/> A month later he returned to the Maumee River and began construction of a substantial fortification which he named [[Fort Meigs]]. He received orders to suspend offensive operations until the warships being constructed at [[Black Rock, Buffalo|Black Rock]] and [[Erie, Pennsylvania|Erie]] were ready to sail and provide support for another attempt to retake Detroit.<ref =/>

Winchester was held prisoner at [[Quebec]] in [[Lower Canada]] for more than a year. He was released in a exchange in April 1814 and later assigned to command the District of [[Mobile, Alabama|Mobile]].<ref name=”McHenry“>{{cite book |last=McHenry |first=Robert |title=Webster’s American Military Biographies |location=Springfield, Massachusetts|publisher=Merriam-Webster |date=1978 |url=https://archive.org/details/webstersamerican0000unse_q6g1 |url-access=registration |pp=484-485}}</ref>

Winchester was held prisoner at [[Quebec]] in [[Lower Canada]] for more than a year. He was released in a exchange in April 1814 and later assigned to command the District of [[Mobile, Alabama|Mobile]].<ref name=””>{{cite book |last=McHenry |first=Robert |title=Webster’s American Military Biographies |location=Springfield, Massachusetts|publisher=Merriam-Webster |date=1978 |url=https://archive.org/details/webstersamerican0000unse_q6g1 |url-access=registration |pp=484-485}}</ref>

The first accounts of the massacre appeared in American newspapers shortly after the prisoners were paroled back to the United States. In an account published in the [[Weekly Register]], Isaac Baker described seeing the “dead bodies of my fellow-comrades, scalped, tomahawked and stripped on the road to Detroit” and suggested that “some of the wounded had been scalped alive and burnt in the houses.”<ref name=”NILES”/>

The first accounts of the massacre appeared in American newspapers shortly after the prisoners were paroled back to the United States. In an account published in the [[Weekly Register]], Isaac Baker described seeing the “dead bodies of my fellow-comrades, scalped, tomahawked and stripped on the road to Detroit” and suggested that “some of the wounded had been scalped alive and burnt in the houses.”<ref name=”NILES”/>

Shortly after the surrender, Procter received a credible but false report that Harrison was less than 8 miles (13 km) away. He ordered an immediate retreat but, due to a shortage of sleighs, was forced to leave the severely wounded prisoners behind. The wounded were quartered in two of the village’s homes. Tending them were American surgeon Doctor John Todd, surgeon’s mate Gustavus Bower, and a number of able-bodied volunteers. The only British personnel left behind were two officers from the Essex militia and three interpreters from the Indian Department, all of whom left the village before dawn. The number of wounded prisoners left behind is not known, with contemporary accounts reporting as few as 48 or as many as 80.^[1]

Procter arrived back at Amherstburg at midnight. No shelter was provided for the American prisoners that had accompanied the British until the following morning. A few days after the battle, most of the prisoners were marched off under guard to Fort George at the mouth of the Niagara River. Once they arrived, the militia were paroled and sent across the river to Fort Niagara. Winchester and his senior officers were sent to Quebec.^[2]

On the morning of January 23, 100 to 200 Indigenous warriors returned to Frenchtown. They entered the makeshift hospitals and robbed the wounded of their clothing and blankets. They then killed those unable to walk, forced the remainder outside, and burned the two buildings. The survivors were taken away but those who struggled to keep up with their captors were killed. Most were brought to Amherstburg or Detroit and ransomed. Others escaped or were ransomed weeks or even months later. A few may have been tortured to death while some of the younger prisoners were adopted into Indigenous families and never returned.^[3]

Elias Darnell, whose brother Allen was among the wounded, wrote:

The road was, for miles, strewed with the mangled bodies, and all of them were left like those slain in battle, on the 22d, for birds and beasts to tear in pieces and devour. In traveling about one quarter of a mile, two of the wounded lagged behind about twenty yards. The Indians, turning round, shot one and scalped him. They shot the other and missed him, he, running up to them, begged they would not shoot him. He said he would keep up, and give them money. But these murderers were not moved with his doleful cries. They shot him down; and, rushing on him in a crowd, scalped him. In like manner my brother Allen perished.^[4]

Many accounts refer to “drunken Indians” having committed the murders, however, this is disputed. According to Todd: “Whiskey was not the cause of the massacre. Their deliberate pilfering, and their orderly conduct throughout was not such as would be expected from drunken Indians.”^[5] More likely, the warriors were seeking retribution for depredations committed by the Kentucky “Long Knives” during attacks on Potowatomi and Miami villages a few months earlier, and the desecration of Indigenous corpses following the battle on the 19th.^[6]

There is considerable uncertainty about the extent of the massacre due to discrepancies in the accounts provided by survivors and habitants. One account claimed that wounded prisoners were burned alive when the two houses were set on fire, and that those who attempted to escape the flames were tomahawked and scalped. Another claimed that some of those who had been sent outside were scalped alive and thrown into the flames.^[5]

Procter later ordered an American prisoner, Ensign Isaac Baker, to determine the extent of the massacre. Baker initially identified nine victims and estimated that an additional 15 to 18 had been killed. He would later add the names of four officers known to have died.^[3][7] In an account written after he was exchanged, Baker inflated the number of the dead to 60, and further claimed that multiple murders occurred in the three days following the 23rd.^[8]

The Battle of Frenchtown is widely known as the “Raisin River Massacre.” Reports of the slaughter on the morning of the 23rd were quickly exaggerated in wartime propaganda, with political cartoons and recruitment broadsides depicting a drunken massacre and scalping by “savages” abetted by the British. The slogan “Remember the Raisin!” was used to encourage enlistment, and was adopted as a battle cry, notably at the Battle of the Thames.^[9][10]

In a letter to the Secretary of War, Harrison called Winchester’s defeat a “national calamity.”^[9] Harrison had arrived at the Maumee Rapids with reinforcements on January 20 and had ordered Winchester’s rear guard to proceed to the River Raisin. A body of 200 Ohio militia had earlier been dispatched from Lower Sandusky. On the morning of the battle, both reinforcements were within 15 miles (24 km) of Frenchtown when they encountered some of the habitants who had fled when the fighting started. Word was sent to Harrison who hurried forward. Soon, some of the soldiers who had escaped the battlefield arrived. One soldier claimed to have seen Winchester scalped and disembowelled. After conferring with his staff, Harrison ordered the reinforcements to turn back, briefly leaving a detachment behind in case more of Winchester’s men appeared.^[11]

Harrison ordered Winchester’s stores at the rapids burned, and immediately pulled his forces back to the Portage River, eighteen miles to the east.^[1] A month later he returned to the Maumee River and began construction of a substantial fortification which he named Fort Meigs. He received orders to suspend offensive operations until the warships being constructed at Black Rock and Erie were ready to sail and provide support for another attempt to retake Detroit.^[11]

Winchester was held prisoner at Quebec in Lower Canada for more than a year. He was released in a exchange in April 1814 and later assigned to command the District of Mobile.^[12]

The first accounts of the massacre appeared in American newspapers shortly after the prisoners were paroled back to the United States. In an account published in the Weekly Register, Isaac Baker described seeing the “dead bodies of my fellow-comrades, scalped, tomahawked and stripped on the road to Detroit” and suggested that “some of the wounded had been scalped alive and burnt in the houses.”^[13]

In May 1813, the United States Congress formed a committee to document and expose alleged atrocities committed by British forces and their Indigenous allies. The result, a report titled Barbarities of the Enemy, was published in serial form in newspapers as well as in book form. The report contained more than a dozen first and second-hand accounts of the Raisin River Massacre and was used by American politicians as a propaganda tool to galvanize public opinion and generate support for a war that had become increasingly unpopular.^[3]

Sandy Antal, author of A Wampum Denied: Procter’s War of 1812, notes that American writers have “persistently demonized” the British commander.^[3] Benson Lossing’s 1868 Pictorial History of the War of 1812, for example, vilified Procter as a “inhuman officer” who directed or permitted the murder of American prisoners.^[14] In his Second War with England, Joel Headley claimed that Procter “gave unbridled license” to his allies, who “were allowed to scalp and mutilate the dead and wounded, whose bleeding corpses crimsoned the snow on every side.”^[15] These claims reflect the false belief that Britain’s Indigenous allies were under the control of British officers who were more than willing to encourage or at least accept barbarity.^[3]

Meanwhile, Canadian historians have focussed on Procter’s shortcomings as a military commander. Procter was held culpable in the murders primarily because he failed in his responsibility to protect prisoners of war after they had surrendered.^[3] Writing in 1899, Ernest Cruikshank declared Procter guilty of “indecision and unpardonable negligence.” A century later, military historian J. Mackay Hitsman wrote that of all the British generals “only Procter managed to blunder consistently.”

At the time, however, British authorities lauded Procter for his victory over the Americans. Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost, the Governor General of the Canadas, praised Procter’s “singular judgment and decisive conduct.” The legislative assemblies of both Upper and Lower Canada gave Procter an unanimous vote of thanks. Procter was appointed a brigadier general, and a few months later was promoted to major general.^[1]

In a letter to Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe, Proctor acknowledged that his Indigenous allies had murdered wounded prisoners: “There have been some instances I am sorry to say of Indian barbarity, but the example was set by the Enemy… I know we shall be vilified for the truth is not in them.”^[18]

In September 1813, the American victory at the Battle of Lake Erie severed the British supply line and forced Procter to abandon Amherstburg and Detroit. He retreated east along the Thames River, pursued by American forces, roughly 3,500 strong, commanded by Harrison. Procter made a stand a few miles west of Moraviantown but was defeated after Harrison’s mounted infantry overran the British lines. At his court martial, Procter was found to have been “erroneous in judgement and deficient in energy” during the retreat. The conviction ended Procter’s military career.^[19]