<P> After Hull's surrender of Detroit, General William Henry Harrison was given command of the U.S. Army of the Northwest . He set out to retake the city, which was now defended by Colonel Henry Procter in conjunction with Tecumseh . A detachment of Harrison's army was defeated at Frenchtown along the River Raisin on January 22, 1813 . Procter left the prisoners with an inadequate guard, who could not prevent some of his North American aboriginal allies from attacking and killing perhaps as many as sixty Americans, many of whom were Kentucky militiamen . The incident became known as the River Raisin Massacre . The defeat ended Harrison's campaign against Detroit, and the phrase "Remember the River Raisin!" became a rallying cry for the Americans . </P> <P> In May 1813, Procter and Tecumseh set siege to Fort Meigs in northwestern Ohio . American reinforcements arriving during the siege were defeated by the natives, but the fort held out . The Indians eventually began to disperse, forcing Procter and Tecumseh to return north to Canada . A second offensive against Fort Meigs also failed in July . In an attempt to improve Indian morale, Procter and Tecumseh attempted to storm Fort Stephenson, a small American post on the Sandusky River, only to be repulsed with serious losses, marking the end of the Ohio campaign . </P> <P> On Lake Erie, American commander Captain Oliver Hazard Perry fought the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813 . His decisive victory at "Put - In - Bay" ensured American military control of the lake, improved American morale after a series of defeats, and compelled the British to fall back from Detroit . This paved the way for General Harrison to launch another invasion of Upper Canada, which culminated in the U.S. victory at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, in which Tecumseh was killed . </P> <P> Because of the difficulties of land communications, control of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River corridor was crucial . When the war began, the British already had a small squadron of warships on Lake Ontario and had the initial advantage . To redress the situation, the Americans established a Navy yard at Sackett's Harbor in northwestern New York . Commodore Isaac Chauncey took charge of the large number of sailors and shipwrights sent there from New York; they completed the second warship built there in a mere 45 days . Ultimately, almost 3,000 men worked at the naval shipyard, building eleven warships and many smaller boats and transports . Having regained the advantage by their rapid building program, Chauncey and Dearborn attacked York, on the northern shore of the lake, the capital of Upper Canada, on April 27, 1813 . The Battle of York was a "pyrrhic" American victory, marred by looting and the burning of the small Provincial Parliament buildings and a library (resulting in a spirit of revenge by the British / Canadians led by Gov. George Prévost, who later demanded satisfaction encouraging the British Admiralty to issue orders to their officers later operating in the Chesapeake Bay region to exact similar devastation on the American Federal capital village of Washington the following year). However, Kingston was strategically much more valuable to British supply and communications routes along the St. Lawrence corridor . Without control of Kingston, the U.S. Navy could not effectively control Lake Ontario or sever the British supply line from Lower Canada . </P>

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