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 16
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THE SIEGE OF FORT WAYNE.
The success of the Indians at Chicago gave them courage for still greater efforts for the overthrow of the whites, and the old dream was revived of driving them beyond the Ohio. With few exceptions, the tribes were now determined in their course, and devoted to the British interests. The few tribes continuing friendly to the United States were
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threatened with extermination by Tecumseh, who imagined he was fast bringing his great scheme to an issue by the aid of the English. Pos- sessing an excellent memory, and being well acquainted with every important position in the northwest, he was able to point out to the British many important advantages. Before crossing at Detroit, at the time of Hull's surrender, General Brock took occasion to inquire of Tecumseh what sort of a country he should have to pass over, should he conclude to go beyond. Taking a roll of elm bark, and extending it on the ground by means of four stones, Tecumseh drew his scalping- knife, and began to etch upon the bark the position of the coun- try, embracing its hills, roads, rivers, morasses, and woods, which being a demonstration of talent quite unexpected in Tecumseh, greatly delighted the Briton. His position and influence-strengthened by the British, and joined by a numerous army of his own blood-were now formidable, and he was determined to render them as potent as his strength and advantages would permit.
His great plan was now the siege and massacre of Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison (near Terre Haute). The Pottawatomies and Ottawas, aided by the British under Major Muir, were to lead in the movement upon Fort Wayne, while the Winnebagoes, and a portion of the Miamis who had been persuaded to join the Tecumseh party, were to surprise and capture Fort Harrison. The first of September was appointed as the earliest period of attack.
The government, in the meantime, had begun most active measures for the renewal and prosecution of the war. Talk of invasion of Canada, by Niagara, was soon upon the breeze and the British commander, Gen. Brock, early heard the rumor. Ohio and Kentucky, upon receipt of the news from Detroit, were aroused to patriotic determination. The gov- ernor of Ohio ordered the remaining portion of the detached militia of his state, numbering some 1,200 men, to be formed and marched to Ur- bana, under command of Brig .- Gen. Tupper; while the secretary of war had previously called on Gov. Scott, of Kentucky, for a body of 1,500 men, embracing the regulars enlisted in that state. In the early part of May, the governor of Kentucky had organized ten regiments, some 5,500 men, as the quota of that state. Among the many patriots of Kentucky who so eagerly enlisted under the standard of their country, was Col. John Allen, who took command of the rifle regiment. He was a lawyer of much distinction and a man in great favor with his fellow- citizens. From him Allen county derived its name.
After the massacre at Chicago, those Pottawatomies engaged in it spent several weeks about Fort Dearborn, and divided the spoils which had been given them. They then retired to their villages on the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan, where they were assembled in council by British emissaries, who instigated them to lay siege to Forts Wayne and Harrison. The British agents promised that in case the Indians would besiege those forts, and prevent their evacuation by the garrisons, they should be joined in one moon by a large British force from Malden and
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Detroit, with artillery, who would be able to demolish the stockades, and would give up to the savages the garrisons for massacre and spoils. The siege was to be commenced in twenty days after the council adjourned.
At this time there was a trader residing near Fort Wayne, of French extraction, Antoine Bondie. He was about fifty years of age, and had lived among the Indians from the time he was twelve years old. He was an extraordinary character. At one time he would appear to be brave and generous, at another meanly selfish. He was recognized by the Miamis as one of their tribe-married one of their squaws, and con- formed to their habits and mode of life. The hostile Pottawatomies, desirous of saving him from the destruction which they contemplated for the garrison, sent Metea, chief of their tribe, and a famous orator, to inform him of their intentions and his danger. Metea went to his cabin in the night, and under an injunction of great secrecy, informed him of all that was contemplated. He offered to come for Bondie and his family before the siege was commenced, with a sufficient number of pack horses to remove them and their moveable property to a place of safety. Bondie did not decline the offer.
The morning after Metea had made this revelation, Bondie, accom- panied by Charles Peltier, a French interpreter, went to the agent very early, and with many injunctions of secrecy, informed him of it all. The agent was thankful for the information, but was doubtful whether to credit or reject it, as a mistake in a matter of so much importance, either way, would prove ruinous to his character and cause his disgrace- ful ejection from the important office which he held. He had been but three months in office or in the country and was acquainted with but few persons. The character of Bondie was not known to him, and the nature of his communication was such as to require great secrecy, and if true, immediate preparation for the defense of the fort. Stickney sent a note to Capt. Rhea, the commanding officer of the garrison, de- siring a meeting with him in the open esplanade of the fort, where there could be no one to overhear what might be said. This officer having been long in the country had every opportunity of knowing Bondie. He met the agent, heard his communication and dismissed it by observ- ing that Bondie was a trifling fellow and no reliance could be placed upon what he said. This increased the perplexity of the agent. He sent for Bondie and his interpreter, to have a cross-examination. This being completed, it remained for the agent either to pass the mat- ter without notice and incur the chances of the siege by the Indians of the two posts, to be followed by a regular force of British troops with artillery, without any preparation for defense or relief from abroad, or to report the information, without attaching to it his official belief in its correctness, in which case it would have no effect. In weighing and comparing chances and consequences, he determined that it was better that he should be ruined in his reputation, and the government suffer all sacrifices consequent upon the falsity of the report, than that they should both suffer if it proved true. He, therefore, sent a second time to Capt.
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Rhea, and declared his intention to make the report and give it his sanction. He informed him that he had just received a dispatch from Gov. Harrison, from Vincennes, saying that he was going to Cincinnati, where he must be addressed, if necessary, and that he should send an express to him, directed to that city, and another to Captain Taylor, at Fort Harrison. When nearly ready to dispatch his messenger, Capt. Rhea sent a note to him requesting that he would delay his express to Cin- cinnati, until he could write a letter to the governor of Ohio, inform- ing him of the report. Stickney complied with this request, and the express was sent with letters to Gov. Harrison and Gov. Meigs. Active preparations were now begun by the little garrison of 100 for defense. Such men as could be spared with teams were employed to send off ladies who were there, with children, to the frontier; and it was subsequently ascertained that within a few hours after the messengers had started, the Indians drew their lines around the fort.
On the 5th of August, Major Stickney was prostrated by severe ill-' ness, from which he did not become convalescent for twelve days. He was then conveyed from the agency house to the fort for safety. It was now very plain that the statement of Bondie was no fiction. He, with his In- dian family, moved into the fort. The Indian warriors, to the number of some 500, as then supposed, assembled in the neighborhood of the fort; and it was evident that they had hopes of getting possession of it by stratagem. They would lie in wait near the fort, day after day, a few near, but the majority of them as much out of sight as possible. Those near were watching an opportunity to force the sentries, but these were so faithful to their duty, that no chance was presented. Stephen Johnston, who was a clerk in the United States factory store, feeling very solicitous about the safety of his wife (who had been sent to the frontier in a delicate situation), accompanied by Peter Oliver and a dis- charged militiaman, attempted to elude the vigilance of the Indians, and visit the place of her abode. They left at 10 o'clock at night. When a short distance south of what is now known as the Hanna homestead, Johnson was fired upon by six Indians and killed instantly. Before the Indians could reload their pieces, the remaining two men made good their retreat to the fort; and for a reward of $20, an Indian was induced to bring in the body of Mr. Johnston. The Indians disclosed their pur- poses by other violent acts. One one occasion two soldiers were sent out on horseback, three or four miles, to drive in some cattle. One of them was taken prisoner, the other made his escape. The Indians ob- tained possession of both horses. They killed cattle and hogs near the fort, stole horses, and committed many other minor depredations.
Both parties wished to delay the final conflict -Major Stickney, to give time for Gen. Harrison to send the fort the necessary relief; and the Indians, from daily expectation of the arrival of the British force which had been promised them. The Indians, however, did not cease to employ many devices and stratagems, to accomplish their object
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before the arrival of the British. An Indian would occasionally come near the fort, and hold conversation with an interpreter, who would be sent out for that purpose. The interpreter would be informed that the depre- dations had been committed by the young men, contrary to the wishes of the chiefs - that the chiefs wished for peace. At length the Indians expressed a desire to be admitted to see. the commandant of the post, that they might agree upon some terms for a cessation of hostilities; and asked for a signal by which they might approach the fort and be per- mitted to talk with their white father. A white cloth was accordingly sent to them to be used as a flag of truce. For several days they de- layed making use of the flag, and continued their depredations. The agent finally sent a message to them, by an Indian, that they had dirtied his flag, and he could not suffer them to retain it any longer; that they must return it immediately. The next day, the whole body of Indians moved up to the fort, bearing the white flag in front, evidently hoping to obtain the admission of a large number of their warriors. But the agent was too well acquainted with Indian character to be deceived. Having with difficulty, being yet ill, walked to the gate, he designated by name the chiefs to be admitted, who, upon their entrance one by one, were disarmed by the guard, and examined very closely. Thirteen only were admitted, who followed the agent to his sleeping apartment. The officers in the garrison remained in their quarters. The agent now addressed a note to Capt. Rhea, desiring that the guard should be paraded and kept under arms during the continuance of the council. In accordance with the customs of such occasions, tobacco was presented to the chiefs that they might smoke.
When the pipes began to go out, Winneinac; the Pottawatomie, rose and addressed the agent, declaring that the Pottawatomies had no hand in killing Johnston, and that the chiefs could not control their young men. The soldiers and horses had been taken without the knowledge or consent of the chiefs, in opposition to whose wishes the young men had committed all their depredations. " But," continued Winnemac, " if my father wishes for war, I am a man." At this ex- pression the chief struck his hand upon his knife, which he had con- cealed under his blanket. Bondie, who was present, and understood fully what was said, jumped quickly to his feet, and striking his knife sharply, shouted in Pottawatomie, " I am a man too." The interpreter turned pale, and the faces of the chiefs present bore a look of disap- pointment, as they saw the guard parading under arms. The confer- ence was closed, and, although Major Stickney was convinced of the treachery, as the chiefs had been admitted under a flag of truce, they were permitted to go out unmolested. The plan of the Indians on this occasion was subsequently divulged. They were to obtain an entrance into the fort, for as many as possible. Winnemac was to be the speaker. When he should come to the expression "I am a man," he was to dis- patch the agent. Other chiefs were to rush to each of the officers' quar-
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ters, to massacre them, and others were to open the gates of the fort, to the force without. The work was then to be finished, by butchering every soul in the fort.
The commandant, Captain Rhea, who was unfortunately addicted to his cups, invited Winnemac to his quarters and held a long consultation with him there. The agent learned from the interpreter that the captain had made great professions of friendship to the chief, and had invited him to breakfast with him in the morning. . Going to attempt to dissuade from so rash a proceeding, he found the captain in such a state of intox- ication that it was useless to attempt to reason with him, so he sought the two lieutenants, Ostrander and Curtis, and informed them of what had taken place, and giving it as his opinion that an attack would be made the next morning, urged upon them the necessity of all possible preparation. The next morning, aroused by the firing of rifles, the agent stepped out upon a gallery that projected from the second story of his quarters, and saw two soldiers fall, mortally wounded, about fifty yards from the fort. He then ascertained that no preparations had been made in anticipation of an attack. All was confusion in the garrison. The two men were taken into the fort, and died about one o'clock that day.
About the 3d of September, a most interesting occurrence took place. A white man and three Indians arrived at the fort, on horseback, "in full yell." It was the Indian yell of triumph. The white man proved to be William Oliver. He was accompanied by Capt. Logan and his two Shawnee companions. The garrison had long been in weary suspense, not knowing whether the express to Gov. Harrison had got through or not, and every day in expectation that the British force would arrive. All were on tiptoe to hear the news- William Oli- ver had arrived in defiance of 500 Indians - had broken through their lines and reached the fort in safety. He reported that about 2,000 vol- unteers had assembled in Kentucky, and had marched to Cincinnati. Harrison having received the dispatch from the agent at Fort Wayne, had determined to march to its relief. Ohio was raising volunteers. Eight hundred were then assembled at St. Mary's, sixty miles south of Fort Wayne. They intended to march to the relief of the fort in three or four days.
William Oliver, about twenty-three years of age, was a sutler with the garrison at Fort Wayne, but had made a visit to Cincinnati, and did not until he had returned as far as Piqua, learn of the siege. He imme- diately joined a rifle company, expecting to advance at once to the relief; but becoming impatient determined to go to Cincinnati and induce Col. Wells to advance with the Seventeenth regiment, or else try to reach the fort alone and encourage his friends to hold out. He found Har- rison at Cincinnati, who assured him the troops would march at once. Oliver declared his intention of going through the Indian lines to carry the news to the fort, but the general warned him of the danger, and as he shook hands with him, observed " that he should not see him again." In four days he overtook the militia at the St. Mary's and learned that
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scouts reported the Indians in great force on the route to the fort. But he had taken his life in his hand and would not abandon the enterprise. On the next day, Gen. Thomas Worthington, then an Indian commis- sioner, joined him, and they secured an escort of sixty-eight militia and Logan and fifteen other Shawnees. On the second day, thirty-six of the party became frightened and returned; the remainder in the evening camped twenty-four miles from Fort Wayne. Here Worthington and the rest were persuaded to remain, while Oliver, Logan, Captain John and Bright-Horn pushed on.
Well armed and mounted, they started at daybreak of September 3d, and cautiously advanced. When within five miles of the fort, Logan discovered that the Indians had dug holes on either side of the trace, alternately, at such distances as to protect themselves from their own fire, and were ready to meet all attempts at communication. The party consequently struck across the country to the Maumee, which they reached a mile and a half below the fort. Tying their horses in a thicket, they crept forward until they discovered , that the garrison was still in possession. They then returned to their horses, remounted, and riding at the greatest speed reached the gate of the esplanade. Finding this locked they rode down the river bank, and ascended to the northern gate. Fortune had favored them, for just at this time, the Indian hos- tiles were engaged in concocting another plan to capture the fort by stratagem, and at the gate the apparition of Oliver and his men sur- prised Winnemac and Five Medals, who were about to ask admittance with treacherous designs. Said one of the lieutenants of the fort: " The safe arrival of Oliver at this particular juncture may be considered miraculous. One hour sooner or one hour later, would no doubt have been inevitable destruction both to himself and his escort. It is gener- ally believed by those acquainted with the circumstances, that not one hour, for eight days and nights preceding or following the hour which Mr. Oliver arrived, would have afforded an opportunity of any safety."
Oliver prepared a hasty letter to Washington, and Logan and his companions, supplied with new rifles, were cautiously let out of the gate, whence they started at the utmost speed of their horses. The hostiles made a desperate effort to intercept them, but the anxious gar- rison soon heard the couriers' yells of triumph far beyond the besieg- ers' lines.
From the 5th the siege was active. An incessant firing was kept up day and night; several times the buildings were set on fire by burning arrows which were shot within the stockade, but the vigilance of the garrison prevented a conflagration. A few days after Oliver's arrival, the Indians, in the evening, gained possession of a trading house near the fort, and from this point demanded a surrender. Protection was promised in that case, but extermination if the fort was carried by storm. To emphasize their demand, they claimed to have received large reinforcements, some pieces of British cannon, and artillerists; the demand wås refused, and then with hideous yells, the savages swarmed
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in upon the fort, opening a heavy fire, in which two cannon joined. Every man in the garrison capable of duty stood at his post with sev- eral stands of loaded rifles at hand. Curtis, the acting lieutenant, gave orders not to fire until the enemy had approached within twenty-five paces. This order was executed and such a destructive fire opened that in twenty minutes the Indians retreated with a loss of eighteen men. It was afterward discovered that the cannon used were made of logs by some British traders. Only three loads were fired from them before they burst.
Gov. Harrison was so popular, that the governor of Kentucky disre- garded the state law, and made him brigadier-general of the Kentucky militia, whom he led as rapidly as possible to the relief of Fort Wayne. The faithful Shawnees met the advancing army at Piqua, Ohio, where the message of Oliver was delivered to Gen. Harrison, who drew his men together, and made them a speech. Said he: " If there is a man under my command who lacks the patriotism to rush to the rescue, he, by paying back the money received from the government, shall receive a discharge, as I do not wish to command such." But one man re- sponded to the proposition. His name was Miller, of the Kentucky militia; and having obtained his discharge, on the morning of the 6th, his comrades, not willing to let him return without some special mani- festation of appreciation, put him on a rail, carried him around the lines to the music of the Rogue's March, and down to the Miami, where they took him off the rail, let him into the water and baptized him in the name of "King George, Aaron Burr, and the Devil." As he emerged, the men stood on the bank and threw handsful of mud at him, then, forming into two lines in an adjacent lane, made him run the gauntlet, each one contributing a handful of dirt. Harrison learned at this time that Gen. Winchester was to command, but that officer being yet in the rear, the hero of Tippecanoe resolved to push on and save Fort Wayne.
On the morning of the 6th the army began its march for Fort Wayne, encamping that evening in the woods some twelve miles from Piqua. Early on the morning of the 7th [Monday ], the army resumed its march, made fifteen miles, and encamped on a branch three and a half miles from the St. Mary's. September 8th, they marched to St. Mary's where they lay till next day. There they were joined by 200 mounted volunteers under Col. Richard M. Johnson, who had volun- teered for thirty days, on hearing that Fort Wayne was besieged. Wednes- day, September 9th, they marched eighteen miles to Shane's Crossing, where they overtook a regiment of 800 men from Ohio, under Colonels Adams and Hawkins, who had started on to the relief of Fort Wayne. From this point Logan and four Shawnee companions acted as scouts for the army. Cols. Adams and Hawkins joined the army and all marched together, numbering about 3,500 men. They marched ten miles and encamped. A strong detachment of spies under Capt. James Sugget of Scott county, marched considerably ahead of the army, and Sugget came upon the trail of a large party which he immediately pur-
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sued. After following the trail some distance he was fired on by an In- dian, who had secreted himself in a clump of bushes so near to Sugget that the powder burnt his clothes, but the ball missed him. The Indian jumped from his covert and attempted to escape, but Andrew Johnson, of Scott's, shot him. At the crack of the gun, the Indian's gun and blanket fell. Supposing that he had killed him, and being eager in pur- suit of the trail, they made no halt; but before they could overtake the Indians they had to give up the pursuit on account of the lateness of the hour and the distance they were ahead of the army. On returning to where the Indian was shot they found the gun and blanket, but he had escaped. They followed the blood for some distance and found pieces of his handkerchief, which he had cut into plugs to stop the blood, but he- had bled so profusely that it had forced them out of the wound. On re- turning to camp Logan held up the bloody blanket and exhibited it as he rode along the line. Orders were immediately issued for the troops to turn out and make a breastwork around the encampment, and before dark the same was fortified by a breastwork made by cutting down trees and piling them on each other. A strong picket guard was de- tailed and posted at a considerable distance from the line. Orders were given that in case two shots were heard in quick succession, the men were quickly to repair to the breastwork, and several alarms brought them to their post, but they proved to be false, arising from the fears of the militia, unused to war, although it was ascertained afterward that the Indians were prepared to attack had they not found the pickets so watchful.
On Saturday, September 10, after an early and scant breakfast, the army resumed its march toward Fort Wayne. From St. Mary's it moved in two lines, one on the right, and the other on the left of the trace, at a distance of about 100 yards therefrom, while the wagons kept the trace. Sugget's spies went ahead, and on coming to where they had left the trail of the wounded Indian, they again took it, and after following it a short distance, found his dead body. When he found he could not survive, he broke bushes and covered himself with them in order to hide his body.
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