settlers. Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh formed a confederation of numerous tribes to block American expansion. The British saw the Native American nations as valuable allies and a buffer to its Canadian colonies and provided them arms. Attacks on American settlers in the Northwest further aggravated tensions between Britain and the United States. The Confederation's raids hindered American access to potentially valuable farmlands, mineral deposits and fur trade areas. In 1810, as a result of a long running feud, Captain Whistler and other senior officers at Fort Dearborn were removed. Whistler was replaced by Captain Nathan Heald, who had been stationed at Fort Wayne, Indiana. Heald was dissatisfied with his new posting and immediately applied for and received a leave of absence to spend the winter in Massachusetts. On his return journey to Fort Dearborn, he visited Kentucky, where he married Rebekah Wells, the daughter of Samuel Wells, and they traveled together to the fort in June 1811. As the United States and Britain moved towards war, antipathy between the settlers and Native Americans in the Fort Dearborn area increased. In the summer of 1811, British emissaries tried to enlist the support of Native Americans in the region, telling them that the British would help them to resist the encroaching American settlement. On April 6, 1812, a band of Winnebago Indians murdered Liberty White, an American, and John B. Cardin, a French Canadian, at a farm called Hardscrabble that was located on the south branch of the Chicago River, in the area now called Bridgeport. News of the murder was carried to Fort Dearborn by a soldier of the garrison named John Kelso and a small boy who had managed to escape from the farm. Following the murder, some nearby settlers moved into the fort while the rest fortified themselves in a house that had belonged to Charles Jouett, a Native American agent. Fifteen men from the civilian population were organized into a militia by Captain Heald, and armed with guns and ammunition from the fort. Battle On June 18, 1812, the United States declared war on the British Empire, and on July 17, British forces captured Fort Mackinac. On July 29, General William Hull received news of the fall of Fort Mackinac and immediately sent orders to Heald to evacuate Fort Dearborn, fearing that it could no longer be adequately supplied with provisions. In his letter to Heald, which arrived at