USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Valley of the upper Maumee River, with historical account of Allen County and the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Volume I > Part 11
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Many women had followed the army of St. Clair in its march to- ward the Miami village, preferring to be with their husbands rather than remain behind. Most of them were destroyed or captured, and after the flight of the remnant of the army, the Indians began to avenge their own real and imaginary wrongs by perpetrating the most horrible acts of cruelty and brutality upon the bodies of the living and dead Americans who fell into their hands. Believing the whites made war merely to acquire land, the Indians crammed clay and sand into the eyes and down the throats of the dying and the dead. The unfortunate women who fell behind in the panic-stricken retreat, were subjected to the most indecent cruelty which the ingenuity of their lustful and merci- less captors could devise, and the bodies of some of them were found with stakes as large as a man's arm driven through them.
B. Van Cleve, who was in the quartermaster-general's department, of the army of St. Clair, gave the following narrative of the affair: "On the fourth [of November ] at daybreak, I began to prepare for re- turning [to Fort Washington], and had got about half my luggage on my horse, when the firing commenced. We were encamped just within the lines, on the right. The attack was made on the Kentucky militia. Almost instantaneously, the small remnant of them that escaped broke through the line near us, and this line gave away. Followed by a tre- mendous fire from the enemy, they passed me. I threw my bridle over a stump, from which a tent pole had been cut, and followed a short dis- tance, when finding the troops had halted, I returned and brought my horse a little further. I was now between the fires, and finding the troops giving away again, was obliged to leave him a second time. As I quitted him he was shot down, and I felt rather glad of it, as I con- cluded that now I should be at liberty to share in the engagement. My inexperience prompted me to calculate on our forces being far superior to any that the savages could assemble, and that we should soon have the pleasure of driving them. Not more than five minutes
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had yet elapsed, when a soldier near me had his arm swinging with a wound. I requested his arms and accoutrements, as he was unable to use them, promising to return them to him, and commenced firing. The smoke was settled down to within about three feet of the ground, but I generally put one knee to the ground and with a rest from behind a tree, waited the appearance of an Indian's head from behind his cover, or for one to run and change his position. Before I was convinced of my mistaken calculation, the battle was half over and I had become familiarized to the scene. Hearing the firing at one time unusually brisk near the rear of the left wing, I crossed the encampment. Two levy officers were just ordering a charge. I had fired away my ammunition and some of the bands of my musket had flown off. I picked up an- other, and a cartridge box nearly full, and pushed forward with about thirty others. The Indians ran to the right, where there was a small ravine filled with logs. I bent my course after them, and on looking round, found I was with only seven or eight men, the others having kept straight forward and halted about thirty yards off. We halted also, and being so near to where the savages lay concealed, the second fire from them left me standing alone. My cover was a small sugar tree or beech, scarcely large enough to hide me. I fired away all my ammunition; I am uncertain whether with any effect or not. I then looked for the party near me, and saw them retreating and half way back to the lines. I followed them, running my best, and was soon in. By this time our artillery had been taken, I do not know whether the first or second time, and our troops had just retaken it, and were charg- ing the enemy across the creek in front; and some person told me to look at an Indian running with one of our kegs of powder, but I did not see him. There were about thirty of our men and officers lying scalped around the pieces of artillery. It appeared that the Indians had not been in a hurry, for their hair was all skinned off.
" Daniel Bonham, a young man raised by my uncle and brought up with me, and whom I regarded as a brother, had by this time received a shot through his hips and was unable to walk. I procured a horse and got him on. My uncle had received a ball near his wrist that lodged near his elbow. The ground was literally covered with dead and dying men. Happening to see my uncle, he told me a retreat was ordered, and that I must do the best I could and take care of myself. Bonham insisted that he had a better chance of escaping than I had, and urged me to look to my own safety alone. I found the troops pressing like a drove of bullocks to the right. I saw an officer whom I took to be Lieut. Morgan, an aid to Gen. Butler, with six or eight men, start on a run a little to the left of where I was. I immediately ran and fell in with them. In a short distance we were so suddenly among the Indians, who were not apprised of our object, that they opened to us and ran to the right and left without firing. I think about 200 of our men passed through them before they fired, except a chance shot. When we had proceeded about two miles most of those mounted had passed me. A
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boy had been thrown or fell off a horse and begged my assistance. I ran, pulling him along about two miles further, until I had become nearly exhausted. Of the last two horses in the rear, one carried two men and the other three. I made an exertion and threw him on behind the two men. The Indians followed us but about half a mile further. The boy was thrown off some time afterwards, but escaped and got in safely. My friend Bonham I did not see on the retreat, but understood he was thrown off about this place, and lay on the left of the trace, where he was found in the winter and was buried. I took the cramp violently in my thighs and could scarcely walk, until I got within a hundred yards of the rear, where the Indians were tomahawking the old and wounded men; and I stopped here to tie iny pocket handkerchief around a man's wounded knee. I saw the Indians close in pursuit at this time, and for a moment my spirits sunk and I felt in despair for my safety. I consid- ered whether I should leave the road, or whether I was capable of any further exertion. If I left the road the Indians were in plain sight and could easily overtake me. I threw the shoes off my feet and the cool- ness of the ground seemed to revive me. I again began a trot, and recollect that, when a bend in the road offered, and I got before half a dozen persons, I thought it would occupy some time for the enemy to massacre them before my turn would come. By the time I had got to Stillwater, about eleven miles, I had gained the center of the flying troops, and, like them, came to a walk. I fell in with Lieut. Shaumburg, who, I think, was the only officer of artillery that got away unhurt, with Corp. Mott, and a woman who was called red-headed Nance. The lat- ter two were both crying. Mott was lamenting the loss of his wife, and Nance that of an infant child. Shaumburg was nearly exhausted, and hung on Mott's arm. I carried his fusee and accoutrements and led Nance: and in this sociable way we arrived at Fort Jefferson a little after sunset.
" The commander-in-chief had ordered Col. Darke to press forward to the convoys of provisions, and hurry them on to the army. Major Truman, Captain Sedan and my uncle were setting forward with him. A number of 'soldiers, and packhorsemen on foot, and myself among them, joined them. We came on a few miles, when all, overcome with fatigue, agreed to a halt. Darius Curtus Orcutt, a packhorse master, had stolen at Jefferson, one pocket full of flour and the other full of beef. One of the men had a kettle, and one Jacob Fowler and myself groped about in the dark until we found some water where a tree had been blown out of root. We made a kettle of soup, of which I got a small portion among the many. It was then concluded, as there was a bend in the road a few miles further on, that the Indians might under- take to intercept us there, and we decamped and traveled about four or five miles further. I had got a rifle and ammunition at Jefferson from a wounded militiaman, an old acquaintance, to bring in. A sentinel was set, and we laid down and slept until the governor came up a few hours afterward. I think I never slept so profoundly. I could hardly get
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awake after I was on my feet. On the day before the defeat, the ground was covered with snow. The flats were now filled with water frozen over, the ice as thick as a knife-blade. I was worn out with fatigue, with my feet knocked to pieces against the roots in the night, and splash- ing through the ice without shoes. In the morning we got to a camp of packhorsemen, and amongst them I got a doughboy or water-dumpling, and proceeded. We got within seven miles of Hamilton on this day, and arrived there soon on the morning of the sixth."
On the 26th of December following, notwithstanding the ill-fortune which seemed to follow all movements against the Miamis, Gen. Knox, secretary of war, again urged the establishment of a strong mili- tary post at the head of the Maumee. In 1792, Rev. Samuel Kirkland was sent on a mission to the western Indians, one point of his journey to be the Miami village, to urge the Indians to make peace, and to learn what number was engaged against St. Clair, but he accomplished little by his mission. The 12th of May of the same year, Capt. Truman was sent from the Ohio river to the Maumee, on a similar errand, but was killed by an Indian on his way.
CAMPAIGN OF ANTHONY WAYNE.
George Washington, as early as 1750, had become as deeply inter- ested in the great west as any enthusiast of the past few decades. His brothers were officers of the Ohio company, organized in 1749, and Washington, surveying in the Shenandoah valley, and dreaming of the future, obtained such broadened views of the destiny of the colonies, that the grand idea of a vast nation which should bind together all these regions, possessed his mind. He held fast to the conception of western development, even during the darkest hours of the revolution, and when some one coming to him with a rumor that Russia had made an alliance with England to crush the colonies, asked the heroic leader if that were true, what was to be done, Washington replied: "We will retire to the valley of the Ohio, and there be free." After the war he made a trip over the Alleghanies, and returned with a stronger national inspiration than ever, so that he wrote to La Fayette: " The honor, power and true interests of this country must be measured on a continental scale." Sub- sequently he made another western trip of seven hundred miles on horseback through the Indian country, and it was after that excursion that he wrote the letter to Benjamin Harrison, governor of Virginia, and great-grandfather of the president of the United States, which has been mentioned on a previous page.
Washington wished to encourage settlements in the Ohio region and beyond, and had a strong antipathy for the land-jobbers, speculators and monopolizers, a " parcel of banditti" he called them, who might " skim the cream of the country at the expense of the suffering officers and soldiers who fought and bled to obtain it." Throughout all the efforts to subdue and colonize the west, the majestic will of Washington
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was the ruling force. Strange as it may appear to a citizen of the com- monwealth of Indiana, in the closing decade of the nineteenth century, his policy of opening the western lands was one of the pretexts for abuse and invective which has not been surpassed in the politics of later days. A strong party which opposed him would have preferred the military force of the government, if any were used, to be directed southward to open the Mississippi. The nation, in the year 1889, knows Washington better than he was ever known, even by his contemporaries. But
among all that has been said and written of the father of his country, nothing causes a more inspiring realization of his profound wisdom and marvelous political insight than the words he addressed to those who advocated the policy of southern aggression. "The problem of the Mississippi will settle itself," he said, "if we simply let it alone and think only of multiplying communications between the west and the Atlantic." Less than a century later, the west, to which Washington threw his influence, was strong enough to again settle " the problem of the Mississippi," and establish the foundation principles of the northwest territory from the lakes to the gulf.
As has been indicated, the issue of the campaign of St. Clair had political bearings as well as military. If it failed the enemies of Wash- ington could declaim with greater reason against the " waste " of money upon the " wild west." Furthermore, it was emphatically a campaign by Washington, in all but personal leadership. He had thrown himself heart and soul into the preparation for the campaign, and planned the movement to Kekionga with a knowledge of details made possible by his experience as an Indian fighter.
The courier reached the president's house at Philadelphia, on a Decem- ber day, and Washington was called from the side of his wife at a reception to receive the news of a tragedy rivalling that of the defeat of Braddock at Fort DuQuesne. He read the dispatch, and quietly returned to the re- ception and calmly and courteously met every guest until all at a late hour had departed. Then in grim silence he walked up and down the room, his secretary alone being with him. Suddenly he broke the si- lence with a thunderous outburst: "It's all over; St. Clair defeated, routed, the officers nearly all killed, the men by wholesale; the rout complete; shocking to think of, and a surprise into the bargain. Here at the very spot I took leave of him, I wished him success and honor. You have your instructions, I said to him, from the secretary of war. I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word: beware of a sur- prise. I repeat it, beware of a surprise. You know how the Indian fights us. He went off with that as my last solemn warning thrown into his ears. And yet, to suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a surprise, the very thing I guarded him against. O God! O God! he is worse than a murderer. How can he answer to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him, the curse of widows and orphans, the curse of heaven." He walked long in silence, and then said, "This must not go beyond this room." Then
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again, "Gen. St. Clair shall have justice. I will hear him without pre- judice. He shall have full justice."
Mankind knows Washington better, and loves him more, because the revelation alike of his passionate, warmly human nature, and the supreme self-control that inspired the closing declaration, did get " beyond that room." St. Clair received just and considerate treatment, and the presi- dent at once set about the formation of an army to renew the advance toward Kekionga. The army of the republic was re-organized on the basis of five thousand soldiers, and was styled the Legion of the United States. As major-general commanding this army, Washington consid- ered Gen. Lee; but there were objections, and he selected Gen. Anthony Wayne, although there were grumblings thereat in Virginia. Wayne had won the admiration of the people by his daring and desperate valor and uniform success in the revolution. Whenever recklessness led him into danger, genius enabled him to alight on his feet where others would have been irretrievably ruined. He was selected because a rapid cam- paign was contemplated, but even the energy of both he and his chief could not hasten the march of events. Wayne was given two brigadiers, James Wilkinson and Thomas Posey, who had served honorably in the war of the revolution. Pittsburg was appointed as the rendezvous of the forces, and here Gen. Wayne arrived in June, 1792, to find a per- plexing task before him. Many of the officers experienced in Indian warfare had fallen in the disastrous campaigns of Harmar and St. Clair, others had resigned, and nearly all the forces were without any knowl- edge of tactics and innocent of the meaning and importance of discipline. He began a daily drill of these raw levies to prepare for the impending campaign.
But some time was destined to elapse before his movement was effectively under way against the stronghold on the Maumee. The opposition to western development compelled the government to exhaust every peaceful resource before waging another costly war, while a strong party was opposed to any efforts tending toward conciliation, especially with the British who had been for five years inspiring the northwestern Indians to bloodshed, as well as committing depredations themselves at sea. The embassies that were sent out to treat with the Indians protested against any movements on the part of Gen. Wayne, on the ground that they tended to embarrass their diplomatic efforts, while Gen. Wayne no doubt felt the settlement of the trouble lay alto- gether in his hands. Furthermore, before he was ready to advance in force, the effect of European complications was felt, and it happened that the war which the republic of France waged against combined Europe delayed the establishment of Fort Wayne for many months. The government at Washington was embarrassed by the extraordinary conduct of Genet, minister of France, who, among other schemes, sent four agents to Kentucky to raise an army to invade Louisiana, then under Spanish dominion; and even the brave and discreet Gen. George Rogers Clark accepted a commission from the agents of Genet as
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" major-general of the armies of France." The enlistment of the army for the gigantic fillibustering scheme of clearing the Mississippi of Spanish forts was actively under way in Kentucky. Not only there, but throughout the union, a large and active party, in fact nearly all " pop- ular sentiment," was in favor of an open alliance with the French, and an attack on Louisiana. This would have involved another immediate war with Great Britain on the part of a young, experimental govern- ment, with a bankrupt treasury; and all the actions of the English ap- peared to indicate that such a conflict was courted. Against this seemingly popular movement, though he was incensed at the British, and none more desired to chastise them, Washington stood firm as a rock, unmoved by a storm of abuse and misrepresentation and carica- ture. Throughout this most critical period his wonderful self-control was often nigh to exhaustion, but he finally triumphed. He maintained the national idea, that America must not allow her destinies to be associated with those of any other land, nor go to war as a subordinate of a for- eign power, but should hold herself aloof as the equal of any nation, looking first of all to her own interests and self-development.
The negotiations for peace with the Indians made subsequently to St. Clair's defeat should be briefly noticed, as they throw much light upon the reason why Wayne was compelled to advance to the place which now bears his name. While Gen. Wayne was making his army ready, the government from early in 1792 until August, 1793, was constantly employing messengers with speeches, commissioners to make treaties, and spies with secret instructions. The Indians were as- sured that the United States made no claim to any land not already ceded by treaties. Major Hamtramck, stationed at Vincennes, con- cluded treaties of peace with some of the Weas and Eel river Indians, and subsequently Gen. Rufus Putnam at the same place made a treaty with some of the Wabash and Illinois tribes, on the basis that the land they occupied was theirs, and that the United States should not attempt to take it without purchase. But these were exceptions, and the proud Miamis and their allies still stood aloof. To them, Gen. Wilkinson sent two messengers, Freeman and Gerrard, April 7, 1792. They were captured by a party of Indians, who, on learning that they were embas- sadors, started with them for the Maumee. But the messengers were too inquisitive about the country and the strength of the savages, and their escort, concluding that the pale-faces were spies, killed them when within one day's march of the Indian camp. Undeterred by their fate, Maj. Alexander Truman, of the First regiment, and Col. John Hardin, of Kentucky, started on the same mission of peace from Fort Washington in May. They carried an eloquent letter, inviting the Indians to send a deputation to Philadelphia to talk with the president, and assuring them that they would not be despoiled of their lands. The embassadors were never seen again; but William May - who was with Freeman's party, and had deserted it according to orders, so that he might safely work his way back to the army with news, was captured afterward and sold to
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traders at the rapids - saw and recognized the scalps of the unfortunate peacemakers.
The last effort for peace was made by Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and Timothy Pickering, who were appointed commissioners, and given private instructions which bound them to insist that the United States would give up none of the territory between Lake Erie and the Ohio, which had been ceded at the treaty of Fort Harmar, in 1789, but that if it clearly appeared that the Miamis and other tribes had a right to any of that land, and had not taken part in the treaty, they should be reimbursed for their interest in the territory. They were met at Ni- agara by Capt. Brant and other Indians representing, they said, the Five Nations, Wyandots, Shawnees, Delawares, Muncies, Miamis, Chip- pewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Mingoes, Cherokees and Nantokokis, assembled on the Maumee. The commissioners were cheered by the talk of these diplomates and sent back a petition to Secretary Knox, to restrain the activity of Gen. Wayne until they could have an opportunity to again meet the red embassadors with their white belts and wampum. They proceeded to the Detroit river, where they were met by Buckon- gahelas and others who, adopting the plan of letter writing, had a paper ready, in which the United States was offered this ultimatum - the Ohio must be the boundary line, and all the whites must be removed beyond it. The commissioners objected that large numbers of whites had set- tled in this territory and the United States had given them lands which they could not now be dispossessed of without injustice. To this, the Indians, after returning to the council, where were the British agents, ingeniously rejoined that the large amount of money proposed to be paid them for their land had better be divided among these settlers, to extinguish their claims. They emphatically declared that the English had no right to convey any of the northwest to the United States, and that they re- fused to recognize the exclusive right of America to purchase their lands. The position of the Indians was in fact that they had a right to dispose of their lands to the English or any other nation they chose. This issue was an important one, in the then critical condition of the government, menaced by French intrigue, and with the British holding posts in the territory and thereby practically supporting the Indian policy. The commissioners could not settle it, and retired. It remained for Anthony Wayne to decide by his famous campaign against Kekionga, the question of the ownership of the northwest terri- tory, now the seat of magnificent commonwealths which, as the most energetic members of an indissoluble Union, exert a dominant influence over the affairs of the western hemisphere.
During the period of negotiation the savages had continued to skir- mish along the frontier, committing many atrocities, while the little forts which were established a short distance from Cincinnati, toward Keki- onga, were held by a few patient soldiers, shirtless, shoeless and with several months' pay overdue. Major-General Wayne was near Fort Washington in October,. 1793, and on the 7th marched for Fort
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Jefferson with 2,600 regulars and about 400 auxiliaries. With unerring sagacity he wrote to Washington that the great tranquility just then pre- vailing proved to him that the Indians were massing for a battle, and in his plans he indicated a policy of taking advantage of the inability of the Indians to remain long massed without exhausting their provisions. Advancing to a point between Fort Jefferson and the field of St. Clair's battle, Gen. Wayne built a fort which he named Greenville for his friend Gen. Greene, and halted for the winter, sending home the militia. Two days before Christmas he sent Major Henry Burbeck with eight companies of infantry and a detachment of artillery, to take possession of the fatal field of 1791, and there on the site of St. Clair's rout, was erected Fort Recovery, aptly named. This midwinter approach appears to have startled the Indians for the time, and they sent a message expressing a desire to make peace, which was evidently in- tended to secure delay. But the activity of the French party gave the Indians enough time to collect their bands.
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