In August 1813, Captain Barclay's British fleet transported General Proctor's British army up the Sandusky River to assault Fort Stephenson on August 1st and 2nd. General Sherman wrote that the defense of Fort Stephenson by Croghan and his small force was the necessary precursor to Perry's victory on the lake and General Harrison's victory at the Battle of the Thames, victories that assured the nation's immediate ancestors mastery of the Great West and made the West the bulwark of the nation. General Harrison sent expert riflemen from his army to help serve the guns on Commodore Perry's ships in the naval battle with the British fleet off this landing, from which Perry sent his September 10, 1813 note, "we have met the enemy and they are ours, two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and a sloop." Harrison then marched his troops over the Old Sandusky-Scioto Trail to this landing, while stores were transported down the Sandusky River and boats were dragged across the De Lery Portage. From Sandusky Bay to Lake Erie, the troops built a strong fence of brush and fallen timber across from Portage River to Sandusky River, and within this enclosure their horses were turned loose. Harrison's army embarked on Perry's ships on September 20, stopped on Put-In-Bay and Middle Sisters Islands, and landed in Canada on September 27, where Proctor and his British regulars were defeated and Tecumseh was killed with many of his Indians at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. Returning Ohio and Kentucky volunteers marched home with British prisoners and reclaimed their horses here, following the old Sandusky-Scioto Trail, which afterward became known as the Harrison Trail of the War of 1812.