bones. now that the children had that big club, the bear decided he would stay at a safe distance. and that is the end of the story. ♪ >> you can watch archival films on public affairs in their entirety on our weekly series "reel america" saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern, here on american history tv. american history tv is on social media. although since he spent history. -- follow us at c-span history. >> the c-span cities tour

travels the country. we bring to 200 communities across the nation. like many americans, our staff is staying close to home. next, a look at one of our visits. >> today we are here in fort meigs historic site in ohio. fort meigs was constructed in the winter and early spring of 1813. the forest encloses 10 acres. even today, it is the largest wooden wall fort in america. the purpose of this fort and for its size specifically was that detroit has fallen to the british and the entire army of the northwest had been surrendered. everything north of the river just over here is under british control. a new man named general william

henry harrison was put in charge and his idea was to build a large fortification right at the rapids of the river, so the most shallow crossing point, and his plan was to get as many troops and supplies together as possible. he was going to get back up to detroit, retake that for the united states and then invade canada. the war of 1812 tends to be quite a bit forgotten in our american history. what was going on at the time was the united states was a young nation and we had just gotten over the revolution. we were our own country, and we were really just trying to make a go of it. at this point in time, great britain was fighting with the french empire, and the united states decided it was going to make money off of that war. they were trading to both the french and british. as you can imagine, neither side was too happy the united states was supplying goods and supplies, so the british actually were pulling up alongside merchant ships in the

atlantic and stealing cargo and impressing sailors. free-trade and sailors rights is one of the reasons the united states decided to declare war. another reason is the land right out here. this territory part of ohio was given to the native american tribes here. the promise was they would be no settlers, no military action in this area. of course that did not happen. settlers were coming in, building their farms. there were forts all the way through this area. supply bases, things like that. as you can imagine, a lot of the american indian tribes in this area were not very happy about it. the great shawnee war chief to -- tecumseh decided to band together with a bunch of different tribes and ally himself with british to help fight that encroachment into their territory. construction of fort meigs began in february of 1813. as you can imagine, it's winter

in northwest ohio at that time, so it was a really hard thing to do, but during the construction, there were over 3500 men here who just worked night and day to build this fort, and they got it finished, as you see it today, by the end of april of that same year. the cold here at the fort was bad, as you can imagine, winter. they were all sleeping in tents. this was never supposed to be a long-term fortification. they really put up the things that were going to be used for defense. the stockade wall, the gates, the traverses you see here. it was a really rough place to be out in this territory, and there's all kinds of threat. you have some of the hostile native american tribes, and on top of that, there were 3500 men here, so you have disease and injury on top of everything else they are dealing with. this is actually a different

design than most of the forts of this time period. you tend to see the forts of this time period being geometrical in shape, but if you look at an overview of the fort, it really follows the lay of the land. it is on a 40-foot bluff that overlooks the floodplain of the river and harrison wanted to use that as a defense mechanism. it was going to be extremely difficult for the british, should they decide to storm the fort, to get up that hill, and he wanted to use that as a defense mechanism. with the fort construction ending around the end of april, it ended specifically because the british showed up. the americans knew the british were going to be on the move as winter faded into spring, so they were ready for it. the british arrived just across the river near the end of april and started besieging the fort at the beginning of may 1813. the beginning of the war did not go well for the united states. mackinaw had fallen. fort dearborn had fallen, detroit had fallen.

everything north of the river was british territory. the whole idea was basically just to keep the fort standing and not let it be occupied. the british attacked the fort for nine days at the beginning of may. the majority was artillery bombardment. a bunch of cannonballs coming in from across the river. that's why you see these earthworks inside of the fort here. across the river where the british were bombing the fort from is actually nine feet higher, so they could look into fort meigs and see everything that was going on. general harrison overnight had the men construct these earthworks. they were originally 15 feet wide and about 15 feet high as well. this was to protect them from any of the cannon fire coming in. the cannonballs would bounce and skip and roll and then hit these earthworks. from there, american soldiers could pick them back up and fire them back across the river. there were about 1200 men here at the time. most of them were ill. general harrison really needed reinforcements.

he had about 1200 men coming up from the kentucky militia and knew they were on their way. on the evening of may 4, he had gotten word that these kentucky troops were actually just two miles downriver. so harrison sent a runner out to colonel dudley, who was in charge of the militia and told him he needed to take 800 men across the river. they were to spike the british canon, basically make them inoperable, and then they were supposed to come back to the fort. that was very important. and then come straight back to the fort. the colonel takes 800 kentucky militia across the river and manages to take some of the british cannons, but the british run back to fort miami, which is their headquarters during the battle of fallen timbers. just located a few miles down the river. the british ran back there for reinforcements. now as the kentuckians are , hanging around after they have taken their cannons, some of the american indians that were

allied with the british started firing at them, and all 800 kentuckians took off into the woods after them. the native americans got the kentucky soldiers all scared and confused, which was the plan, and then attacked. unfortunately, it was a complete and utter massacre. out of the 800 men that went over there, 650 were killed or captured. the entire plan was for the british to just take the fort over. that's what they wanted to do. they wanted to move farther south into ohio, but they were not able to take fort meigs over. in september 1813, the battle of lake erie takes place. oliver hazard perry defeats the british navy. this was a big moment because the lake had been controlled by the british up to that point, and that was under american control, so after the americans gained control of lake erie, the british moved out of the area and there really was not a

threat here anymore. because there was not such a huge threat, they decided to downgrade fort meigs to a one square acre fort, so they used this quarter here and just abandoned it. the city of harrisburg was founded a year later. in 1816. we know a family by the name of hayes had a farm on this land. they knew what the earthworks were and what fort meigs was, so they only graze cattle in this area. instead of telling it up. -- tilling it up. we like to say they were the first to preserve fort meigs because without them, this would not be here. in the 1970's, the ohio history connection was able to reconstruct fort to look as it would have in the spring and summer of 1813. we really hope that when visitors come to fort meigs, they take a minute to pause and think about what happened here at the fort. we tend to forget about the war of 1812, but i think it is

important for us to remember that, you know, men fought and died for this war, american, british, native american, canadian, so we really want to honor and remember all of those people. we want people to come away with a sense of reverence, a sense of respect for what took place here. >> you can watch this and other programs on the history of communities across the country at c-span.org. this is american history tv. only on c-span3. >> on american history tv, you can watch lectures and college classrooms, tours of historic sites, archival films, and our series on the presidency and civil war.

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