As a result, that portion of Canada fronting Michigan could have been easily defensible. However, the shortage of British regulars and the inadequacy of the Canadian militia meant that little had been done to prepare the area facing Michigan for war. A number of gun emplacements had been dug, but few contained cannon. Fort Maiden, just south of Detroit at Amherstberg, contained a handful, but they were obsolete. Farther north, fortifications had been dug directly across from Detroit in Windsor and fronting the U.S. batteries at Fort Wayne. An additional fort had been built in Windsor directly across from Belle Isle. There were no cannon in the Windsor fort.

Belle Isle is a good-sized island almost directly in the center of the Detroit River and only about a mile upstream from downtown Detroit. Lushly forested, Belle Isle was used for recreation by many local people. It was a very large park that they felt compared favorably to New York's Central Park. The Canadian battery had been built as a response to an American one constructed on the island.

General Ulysses Grant had made no real attempt to hide his army, at least not at first. In a nation with free speech, a free press, and a propensity to gossip, he knew he could not keep his move to Cleveland a secret. He had more than forty thousand men on the march and they did not hide very well at all.

At Cleveland, however, he sent cavalry north to Detroit to seize all telegraph and rail communications. As a result, a section of the country that was rarely heard from in the first place went silent, and no one noticed.

When Canadian observers in Windsor, the pleasant and prosperous farming and fishing town across from Detroit, caught the hubbub of trainloads of soldiers and their equipment arriving, it was too late. They frantically telegraphed Cardigan in Toronto that the enemy was at their doorstep and were told that nothing could be done to help them. The few hundred Canadian militia in the area were all that was on hand to protect Sarnia, Windsor, Amherstberg, and the scores of small villages in and around the vicinity. Even the handful of small British fighting ships were being husbanded at the other end of Lake Erie. They would not be risked against American batteries at Fort Wayne and elsewhere.

Two days after the beginning of Grant's arrival at Detroit, concerned and frightened Canadians awoke to realize that the artillery battery on Belle Isle had been enlarged overnight. Instead of a half-dozen guns, more than twenty were aimed at the Canadian emplacements.

While this message was being relayed to Cardigan, the cannon began to roar. Their shells chewed up the Canadian fortifications and damaged many of the civilian homes and businesses in the area. Fires burned and civilians fled. It was New York in miniature and in reverse.

As the bombardment raged, three steamers pulled into view from where they had been hidden behind Belle Isle. The flat-bottomed stern-wheelers were jammed with blue-coated Union soldiers, and each ship trailed at least one barge filled with infantry.

From Belle Isle to Windsor is only about half a mile, and the distance was covered quickly. The steamships nudged against the shore and disgorged their human cargo, which scampered up the gentle slope from the river. The embankment was quickly churned into mud_: but it was no deterrent. Those soldiers were followed by the men in the barges. Within minutes_: a full regiment had been landed and a perimeter established. Observers on the U.S. side clearly saw Union skirmishers moving unopposed through Windsor and beyond. The Canadian militia, outnumbered and totally outgunned, had prudently departed.

As the steamships returned for more human cargo, scores of smaller boats moved from Detroit to Canada, again loaded with soldiers. Within an hour a brigade was ashore and. within two, a division.

From the fire watchtower on the east side of Detroit. Nathan Hunter watched through his telescope. He was well away from General Grant, who, like McClellan at Culpeper, had far more important things to do than speak to a civilian observer.

Nathan laughed when he thought about it. He was no longer quite the civilian he had started out as. Grant had been adamant that no civilians would accompany his staff. “It^’s bad enough that I have to have reporters tagging along, but I will not have other civilians cluttering up the place. I don't care what you did with McClellan, you will go as an officer or not at all.”

As a result, Nathan wore the uniform of a full colonel in the Union army and was attached to Grant's staff. This made him one grade senior to Rawlins. who was surprised at first, but soon got over it. Nathan carried papers supporting his appointment, and Grant had assured him of a prompt discharge, should he want one, when he wished to return to Washington. Nathan was no longer so certain that he wished such a discharge.

When he had mentioned it, Grant had laughed. “Hell, it might not matter. I don't know if it's legal for me to make you a brevet colonel in the first place, much less discharge you.”

By nightfall, construction was well apace on the first of a couple of pontoon bridges. They would be completed the next day. after which the steamers would depart for Cleveland. Grant had future plans for them.

All in all it had been a breathtaking lesson on military efficiency. Grant had utilized the extensive American rail system to transport his army and its equipment quickly, far too quickly for the British to react and respond. Then his move across the Detroit River had been as well choreographed as any dance could be.

Nathan clambered down from the tower and found Colonel John Rawlins, who yelled at him. “Damn it, Hunter, you ready to go or not? We're not going to wait for you to get your ass over here.” Irascible and profane, Rawlins was excited and in fine form. Nathan happily ignored the outburst and followed him.

Both he and Nathan clambered aboard a ship with Grant and the rest of his staff. It was time to change the army's headquarters.

It was dark when they finally crossed, and the only light came from the stars and the moon, along with a little help from hundreds of campfires, pipes, and cigarettes. The fires in Windsor had either gone out or been put out. Grant's ever-present cigar was a dim glow in the bow of the steamship.

There was a slight jarring as the steamship grounded. A long board was dropped from the steamer to the muddy riverbank. Grant ignored it and jumped in. The water was up to his knees, and the rest of his staff followed, laughing and swearing.

“You need help?” Rawlins asked in reference to Nathan's bad leg. Grant had made a point of asking about it and Nathan was surprised that Rawlins had remembered it.

“Nope.”

Like Grant's drinking, constructive activity and doing something useful seemed to drive away the pain in his leg. It had been disappearing for a long while, and now it seemed totally gone.

Nathan slipped once in the mud, but climbed the few feet up the damp and slippery embankment, where he clearly saw the destruction wrought by the bombardment. It was extensive, although he saw no sign of any casualties. Perhaps they'd been removed. Perhaps, he hoped, there hadn't been that much in the way of human suffering. He hoped not.

All around him, ships were unloading while still more units moved inland. There was no resistance, and no one could recall whether the Canadians had even fired at the invaders. A few handfuls of Canadian civilians watched stoically. Their expressions did not betray the anger they must have been feeling.

Messengers raced up to Grant, and Nathan quietly moved as close as he could to hear their reports. Fort Maiden had fallen without resistance. To the north, a small Union detachment had crossed the St. Clair River south of the American city of Port Huron and had taken the Canadian city of Sarnia.