Video
Guns Across The Lakes S2: Col. Alexander Bourne
Transcript
Welcome in and back to Guns Across the Lakes a series exploring the War of 1812 on and around the Great Lakes. Perhaps the theater for military operations in this tremendous conflict.
As you are no doubt or hopefully already aware in the second season we will be exploring some of the lesser-known characters or unsung heroes from this great chapter of history.
And here at Fort Meigs Historic Site in Northwest Ohio that trend continues as we examine the Ohio Militia and one of their noteworthy commanders.
I'm standing outside mighty block house number six on the south wall of Fort Meigs with the soldiers in 1813 referred to as the rear line of their position on the Maumee River. This black house was under the command of one Alexander Bourne of the Ohio Militia. Bourne was a man who never intended to be a soldier. Yet seemed to be the type that excelled at whatever life delivered him. He even said in his own words quote "it appeared to me that I was the sport of anomaly and irregularities and that military government is necessarily despotic." This twisted fate will be a theme that we return to again and again in his story. Bourne was drafted into the Ohio Militia and forced into the war effort. It's actually one of the very few first-person accounts we have at Fort Meigs of a draftee. We each state was required to fill a certain quota of soldiers for the war effort and if the state couldn't produce those numbers through volunteerism it fell to a draft. And a new brigade of Ohio militia was called out in February of 1813 for a six-month term and Bourne was selected. Those around him really objected claiming they could get him a commission as an officer in the regular army or that he should simply hire a substitute, but Bourne accepted his lot and simply soldiered on. Having ancestors who had fought in the American Revolution he had a certain sense of duty about what had been cast. But this twisted fate again visits him on the day of mustering in in Chillicothe the first sergeant was drunk and did not appear for duty and Bourne was simply picked out of the ranks and thrust into that role. And three days later on February 16th he was suddenly appointed adjutant for the entire regiment of infantry. This necessary despotism these irregularities well this was certainly the case for the newly appointed adjutant as he was often sent on detached duties in command of troops despite the unusualness of these assignments being given to staff officers. He was even in command of Fort Findlay in Ohio for several days when that post was found abandoned later that winter. It was in this role as adjutant that Bourne was assigned duties as officer of the day on the night of April 30th 1813. The same night that the opening shots were fired for the invasion of Ohio and Fort Meigs for the first time was in an active state of combat. And it was Bourne who received the very first orders from General Harrison in the midst of battle to douse the garrison lights kill the campfires and get the men up and to their posts.
Bourne's block house six was designed to rake this ravine on the south east side of the fort in case of an infantry assault from this direction. As such the block house was loaded exclusively with canister shot for close-range anti-personnel fire and Borne drilled his men to his own boasts that they could fire four shots a minute from their lone iron six pounder. That infantry assault never materialized. But the neighboring blockhouse, blockhouse five managed to raise their gun to the upper story in order to target these British batteries, newly established in the east woods.
Before they could get the range the British in these trenches had done such damage to Blockhouse 5 as to unlimber that raised cannon. It was Bourne who suddenly took command of Five quickly remounted that gun and opened fire. The first shot bounced harmlessly in the mud behind me. The second whizzed into the woods behind you. But the third silenced this battery for the rest of the afternoon. And it's interesting to note the British and Canadian soldiers serving in these woods remarked those same deadly shots. Bourne was involved in other adventures during the first siege his men were ordered to dig this traverse just outside of their block house. But the firing here was so intense that they refused to work. He was given an unlimited order of whiskey from the quartermaster in order to make his men insensible to the danger. The digging was completed in short order without the loss of a single man.
On June 1st 1813 Bourne reported himself on the sick list during a time when the fort saw its highest numbers of sick wounded and dying in the exhaustive aftermath of the first siege. And he was still very very ill in July when Tecumseh and the British returned for the second siege. Yet he refused to shirk his duty demanding a posting and he was given command of this, Blockhouse number Seven in the southwest portion of the fort, now converted to museum space. And he was upgraded to a 12-pound gun for this operation. Thereafter the medical department ordered him on a leave of absence stating that he would not survive without intense rest. And he accompanied General Duncan McArthur's wife and debutant daughter to the healing springs at Blue Lick in Kentucky. And he was still there in August when his brigade mustered out and he rushed back to Ohio for that final meeting. But missed it and the pay master by several days. And so after all that Alexander Bourne never even got paid.
The maps of Fort Meigs Bourne had produced during his service here drew the attention of his superiors and his newfound military buddies now in high places rewarded his surveying abilities by making him a kind of czar for the canal projects that were undertaken in Ohio in the aftermath of the war. In 1816 the national government asked him to establish a new port on the Maumee River and Alexander Bourne founded the city of Perrysburg, Ohio where we stand now.
And so this city, this fortress, and this nation is happy to have known Colonel Alexander Bourne.
Description
The episode is in regards to Alexander Bourne, an adjutant in the Ohio Militia, who was seemingly everywhere during the first siege and then later did the survey work for the founding of Perrysburg, Ohio.
Duration
8 minutes, 56 seconds
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