A Spy Captured

While in Piqua he [Joseph Paxton] was chosen as a volunteer spy in Captain Leslie Combs's company of spies.

Commemorating A Revolutionary War Era Battle At Piqua in Ohio

May of 1813 Captain Combs, who was then at old Fort Defiance at the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee rivers, was ordered to take a part of his company and proceed to Fort Meigs.  Paxton was the first to volunteer for a very dangerous expedition....in company with Captain Combs three other volunteer spies and an Indian named Blackfish... .

The memorialist was...struck by a ball near the right shoulder blade ....and was conducted to the British camp.

He was taken before General Proctor who asked him under whose command he came to (General Green Clay of Kentucky). [Was asked] how many men General Clay had with him (two thousand Kentuckians and seven hundred Indians).  Major Chambers of the British army repeated the last question; the major pronounced him a liar and said that Kentucky could not raise half that number of fighting men.... .

Source: Congressional edition (Google eBook) (1841)