James L. Emch

During the siege of Fort Meigs in the War of 1812, American forces under the command of Colonel William Dudley were defeated by Native American allies of the British along the Maumee River in Ohio. Dudley’s men were supposed to disable the British cannons and return to Fort Meigs. Instead, after driving the British away from the cannons, the Kentucky militiamen pursued the Native Americans deeper and deeper into the wooded swamp. This was a fatal error. Only about a quarter of the men made it back to Fort Meigs. The rest were killed or captured, including Colonel Dudley.

According to my 4th-great-grandfather’s War of 1812 pension file, he was inside Fort Meigs on the day of Dudley’s Defeat. After the battle, my ancestor and several others “buried Dudley in the swamp where he fell.” I wanted to learn more about this battle, and my search for information led me to this book. Other than primary sources written by participants in the battle, this is the only book I found on this topic. I learned what I hoped to learn from it. The bibliography and footnotes include references to multiple primary sources and archival records. The illustrations are clear and well selected. The book was self-published, and it would have benefited from the additional polish of a professional editor. The writing isn’t bad, but a professional editor probably would have caught most of the grammatical errors, missing words, and usage errors that I spotted as I read the book.… (mais)