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
