Also Known As The Battle Of The Oak Woods

Source

The second British victory was the surrender of Hull at Detroit. Before it, however, and after Brownstown, was the battle of the Oak Woods. In this battle the Indians were more than one half the British forces. According to official reports, the British regulars and the Canadians broke and fled in confusion, leaving Tecumseh and his...[fighting force] to bear the brunt of the battle. They fought well, but this battle was a victory for our forces. The first of our soldiers killed in this battle was shot from ambush by an Indian, and scalped. [Source]

When McCullough Was Killed

Map From The Lucas Journal

See Firsts blog:

The first United States soldier to be killed in the War of 1812 was Captain McCullough, killed in this battle of Brownstown, and he was scalped by an Indian before he was dead.[Source]

A short period previous to the battle [of Brownstown] one McCullough had sought and obtained the assent of the commander-in-chief that Lucas, himself, Fowler, and Stockton should accompany Major Vanhorn in the expedition upon the enemy.

The march was commenced on the following morning. Lucas and McCullough proceeded together. Near the big apple tree McCullough alighted from his horse. Capt. Barrier accompanying Lucas, they moved immediately forward. The road here forked, one leading to the right of an Indian cornfield, a little in advance, and the other to the left of it.

They took the right hand path. McCullough, on coming up, fortunately took the left hand road, in company with a servant of Major Vanhorn. They were fired upon by a party of a dozen ambushed Indians, and McCullough and another of the detachment were killed, scalped and tomahawked before relief could reach them.

This was in the rear of the main engagement. Lucas paid the last sad duties to the unfortunate travelling companion, by conveying it a short distance, placing it upon a plank, and covering it with bark all the funeral rites which the darkness and dangers of the hour would permit... . [Source]

This account characterized the group as "spies."

The Third Great Blunder

[General] Hull directed Captain Van Horn to cross to Detroit with two hundred men and go to Brush's relief.  This was the third great blunder of the campaign; the loss of the Cuyahoga being the first and the failure to capture Malden the second.

 If Brush's two hundred men were in peril would not Van Horn's two hundred men be in equal peril in going to their relief? [Source - links added]

Firsts

In the first battle of the War of 1812 on American soil — at Brownstown, August 5, 1812 — the only British troops in actual combat were Indians, under Tecumseh. The first United States soldier to be killed in the War of 1812 was Captain McCullough, killed in this battle of Brownstown, and he was scalped by an Indian before he was dead. The first victory of the British in the War of 1812 was the capture of Mackinac, and it is well to remember that the government of the United States took -especial pains to inform the British commanders of the declaration of war a week or ten days 

before it informed the commanders of our own forts and troops, and as a result the commander of the fort at Mackinac did not know of the declaration of war until he was summoned to surrender although that was more than a week after that declaration was known to the British forces that summoned him to surrender. [Source]

Hull's Ill-Judged Actions

The War of 1812 was written by Secretary of War John Armstrong and published in 1836.  Here's Armstrong's critique of General Hull's actions in the Detroit area:

Nothing can be more ill-judged and ruinous, than to send out small parties on services which necessarily expose them to the attacks of large ones; and hence the maxim, that "the strength of a detachment should be proportioned, 1st, to the importance of the object to be obtained in sending it; and 2d, to the disposable means possessed by the enemy of embarrassing or defeating the attainment of that object."

In none of the detachments made by General Hull, were these conditions fulfilled; and in that of Major Van Horne, both were directly and grossly violated. What object could have been more important to the American army situated as it then was than the re-establishment of its communications with the State of Ohio; from which alone were to be expected reinforcements of men and supplies of provision?  And again, what fact was better ascertained than the facility with which the whole British force concentrated at Malden, and amounting to seven hundred combatants, could be brought to act upon any American detachment marching by the route of Maguago and Brownstown? Yet was Van Horne sent to fulfil that object and by this route with only two hundred militia riflemen.

Blocking A Convoy

The situation at Brownstown from the Canadian/British point of view (taken from the Richardson War of 1812 book):

On the 6th of August [should be 5th August], information having been conveyed to Colonel Procter, that a body of the enemy were then on their march to convoy a quantity of provisions for the use of the garrison of Detroit, Brevet-Major Muir, with a detachment of about a hundred men of the forty-first regiment, and a few militia, received orders to cross the river and occupy Brownstown, a small village on the American shore, through which they were expected to pass; and thither we repaired accordingly.

Major Larrabee

General Harrison At Tippecanoe 

"Major Charles Larrabee commanded a company under General Harrison at Tippecanoe, receiving his commander's special notice for his good service in that notable engagement with the Indians...

Bullets Embedded At Brownstown 

...and at the battle of Brownstown, in August, 1812, he lost an arm while managing the artillery." [Source]

Description of a letter written by Major Larrabee's wife in the inventory at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Lyon's Creek

Josiah Snelling, Jr. ....early developed a military taste and became a distinguished officer in the United States Army taking a prominent part in the battles of Tippecanoe, Brownstown, and Lyon's Creek.

This snippet from the Historical Society of Wisconsin [Draper] gave us the name of Captain Snelling's commanding officer:
"Captain [Snelling]...distinguished in the affair at Lyon's Creek under Gen Bissell... ." 

The Great River Road website [St. Louis area] featured an article on the General Daniel Bissell house that included the following:

"With the onset of the War of 1812...Bissell was...given command of the 5th Infantry and in 1814 he given a brevet promotion to brigadier-general and assigned a brigade in Izard's Right Division at Plattsburgh. He commanded this brigade throughout 1814 and won a tactical draw at the small action fought at Lyon's Creek or Cooks' Mills, Canada, on October 19, 1814."

Source

A Canadian perspective:

"That the enemy does not intend to leave the frontier is evident from the events of this day 18th when a large force was reported to be moving up Black Creek in the direction of Cook's Mills on Lyon's Creek. Sent the Glengarry Light Infantry and seven companies of the 82nd and on being informed that the enemy had passed Cook's Mills, sent the remaining three companies of the 82nd and the 100th regiment with orders to Myers to feel the enemy closely which he shall attack if not too strong."

Drummond to Prevost 20th October. Report of the retreat of the force from Cook's Mills without destroying the mills which might have been done on public grounds. The commanding officer (Bissell) has been very cautious about burning or plundering, probably admonished by the retaliation at Washington and on the coast.