Note 10 — Front matter

(page page 11).—British and Indian forces under Captain Charles Roberts, from the garrison at St. Joseph, captured the American fort on Mackinac Island, commanded by Lieutenant Porter Hanks, upon July 17, 1812. The ease with which this capture was made, induced the British to throw up a strong earthwork on the high hill commanding the fort, about a half-mile in its rear. This fortification was called Fort George; August 4, 1814, an attempt was made by the Americans to retake the island, which has great strategic importance, as guarding the gateways to Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior. There were seven war-vessels under Commodore Sinclair, and a land force of 750 under Colonel Croghan. The vessels could effect only a blockade; the military disembarked at “British Landing,” where Roberts’s forces had beached two years before. In the consequent attack, which proved fruitless, Major Andrew Hunter Holmes, second in command, and an officer of great promise, was killed. When the island was surrendered to the United States by the treaty of Ghent (February, 1815), Fort George was rechristened Fort Holmes, a name which the abandoned ruins still bear.