His army literally melted away, "about four thousand men without order or restraint discharging their muskets in every direction," writes an eyewitness.

They riddled the general's tent with bullets by way of expressing their opinion of him, and he left the camp not more than two leaps ahead of his earnest troops.

He requested permission to visit his family, after the newspapers had branded him as a coward, and the visit became permanent.

His name was dropped from the army rolls without the formality of an inquiry.

It seemed rather too much for the country to bear that, in the first year of the war, its armies should have suffered from the failures of Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth.
It had been hoped that General Dearborn might carry out his own idea of an operation against Montreal at the same time as the Niagara campaign was in progress.