While the enemy waited for reinforcements, he might have captured Amherstburg.

He had the superior force, and yet he delayed and lost heart while his regiments dwindled because of sickness and desertion and jeered at his leadership.

The watchful Indians, led by the renowned Tecumseh, learned to despise the Americans instead of fearing them, and were eager to take the warpath against so easy a prey.

Already other bands of braves were hastening from Lake Huron and from Mackinac, whose American garrison had been wiped out.
Brooding and shaken, like an old man utterly undone, Hull abandoned his pretentious invasion of Canada and retreated across the river to shelter his troops behind the log barricades of Detroit.

He sent six hundred men to try to open a line to Ohio, but, after a sharp encounter with a British force, Hull was obliged to admit that they "could only open communication as far as the points of their bayonets extended." His only thought was to extricate himself, not to stand and fight a winning battle without counting the cost.