The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources, Part 36

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897. cn
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston ; New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
Number of Pages: 622


USA > Mississippi > The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources > Part 36


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The most favorable season for these river passages was be- tween February and May, when the Ohio and Mississippi ran with full channel. The flatboats then sped along from Pitts- burg to the Louisville rapids in eight or nine days. If they passed on to the Mississippi, they were sure to find it a headlong stream, even well into the summer, but during July it began to decrease in volume of water. It did not, however, at any time, rise to that height which it would have attained had all of its sixty considerable affluents poured their spring tides into its bed at once. A devastating overflow was, in fact, prevented by these incoming rivers being affected by their local freshets at varying intervals. Recent calculations have shown that in high-water season the Mississippi might, by the simultaneous swelling of its branches, pour into the Gulf three million cubic feet of water a second, whereas, in fact, the outpour, because of this sequence of floods, is only about one million eight hundred thousand cubic feet. The velocity of the current from the mouth of the Ohio to Baton Rouge is from four and a half to five and a half feet per second, with full banks, and much swifter thence on to New Orleans. In such a current as this, the river boats made the run from the Ohio rapids to New Orleans in about twenty days. The usual practice of the pilots, to insure safety, was to cross from one concave shore to the other (reversing in going upstream), and to trust to the current when there was doubt about the channel.


414


THE CONDITIONS OF 1790.


At New Orleans, the trader usually sold his produce and the boat which had brought it. Going to Havana with his gains, he returned by sea to Philadelphia or Baltimore. There he put his money into fine fabrics, and returned home over the moun- tains and joined his family, from which he had been absent from four to six months.


The smaller boats sometimes made the return trip by the river. There were often south winds to help them stem the current, and experienced boatmen knew how to take advantage of the eddying up-currents at the river bends. Such boats were sometimes back in Louisville in forty days. It was estimated that the coarse lading of ten boats of sixty tons each would purchase for the return a bulk of finer commodities which might be carried upstream in three boats of five tons each. Ascending the river was, however, too costly as yet to make it the rule, but it was beginning to be believed that from New Orleans to Louisville " by mechanical boats," the cost could be reduced to one tenth. Fitch's steamboat on the Delaware was, however, hauled up to rot this very summer, and the poor, dis- appointed inventor hardly dreamed of the time when a more perfeet vessel, with river obstructions removed, should go in a single trip from Pittsburg to Fort Benton, in Montana, a dis- tance of four thousand three hundred and thirty-three miles, crossing very nearly the entire Mississippi drainage system, with its area of one million two hundred and sixty thousand square miles. But in August of the next year (1791) new improve- ments in steam-engines were patented by Fitch, Rumsey, and Stevens of Hoboken, and decided steps were registered in the solution of the great river problem.


CHAPTER XIX.


HARMAR'S AND ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGNS.


1790-1791.


THE continued retention of the posts and the hostility of the Indians, closely connected as both the Americans and the In- dians felt, and as the British generally denied, was for the federal government the perplexing question in the northwest in the beginning of 1791. Jay, as Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the confederation, had, as we have seen, contended that the American breaches of the treaty of 1782 were at least equal to those of the British, and that there was no good ground for amicable settlement as long as either contestant failed to purge his record. Jay was now Chief Justice of the Republic. It was possible that some test case might come before him, and the prospect was not a pleasant one to the ardent republicans. Jefferson was satisfied that the English ministry had no inten- tion of surrendering the posts, and was content to let the matter rest till the United States were strong enough to force an evacuation. Gouverneur Morris and the Duke of Leeds had been corresponding in London without result. That American representative had also intimated to Pitt that the real reason of the delay was the fur trade, and that the depriving American merchants of that trade had prevented the profits which might have liquidated the British debts. It was true that some of the States were unconverted to Jay's views. In Georgia, British debts were still confiscated. In Virginia, there were strong legal and social combinations against the creditors, and Mar- shall and Henry were active in the debtors' behalf.


On the British side there was the strong support of the Ca- nadian fur traders, who lost no opportunity of pressing their interests upon the government. One of these, who described himself as an " Indian interpreter and trader," Long by name, had just published (1791) his Voyages and Travels, and in it he said : " It is an undoubted fact that, in case of a dispute


416


HARMAR'S AND ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGNS.


with the Americans, the posts would make but a feeble resist- anee " without the aid of the Six Nations, " and, deprived of the posts, the fur trade would surely be lost to this country," and he contended for " the propriety of keeping" them. At times these traders feared that the course of diplomacy might restore the posts. They were always ready under such apprehensions to press for an interval of five years in which to collect and withdraw their property. The offense to the Americans was not only that the posts on the territory which had been won by treaty were used in this lucrative traffic, but that the British traders, as St. Clair represented to his government, presumed to traverse territory not within the influence of these posts in pursuit of this same trade. The Great Northern Company of Canada had, through Todd & Company, secured from Caron- delet permission to trade on the western bank.of the Mississippi in its upper parts, though it seems probable that the Spanish governor had no conception with whom he was dealing in con- ferring this privilege. The result was that British traders passed to and fro, preferably by the Wisconsin as the shorter route, but also by the Chicago portage, and in both cases across American soil in reaching these trans-Mississippi regions to which the post at Prairie du Chien was the usual portal. It was pointed out at the time how Vigo, the old abettor of George Rogers Clark, in making his trips between St. Louis and Pitts- burg, had shown that the river route was much cheaper than the lake route was by way of these portages. It was indicated ,how profitable the Americans might make the business if they could get possession of it. They were at present forced to con- duet a faint rivalry from Vincennes.


There is no question that an Indian war was detrimental to the British trading interests by diminishing the supply of skins. There was, accordingly, little to be gained in bankrupting the merchants of Detroit and Mackinac by an official incitement to war. Yet it was, on the other hand, conceived to be for the advantage of the British government to divert American at- tention from any attempt to assail the posts by keeping it occupied with movements of the savages, and so to threaten a war, if not actually provoking an outbreak. It was a dangerous policy and likely to get beyond control.


It had been very apparent towards the end of 1789 that war


417


ALARMS.


was coming, and Washington had instructed St. Clair to be prepared by summoning a thousand militia from Virginia and five hundred from Pennsylvania. There were at this time a few fortified posts in the northwest, - Fort Knox at Vincennes, Fort Washington at Cincinnati, Fort Steuben, twenty-two miles above Wheeling, and Fort Harmar. Not one of them had more than a few score defenders.


Early in the year (1790), while St. Clair was on the lower Ohio, he had instructed Hamtramck, commanding at Vin- cennes, to try to propitiate the Indians neighboring to that post ; but the effort failed there, as it did elsewhere along the Ohio valley. During the spring of 1790, there were alarms all the way from Pittsburg to the Mississippi. Boats were con- stantly intercepted on the Ohio, and mostly near the mouth of the Scioto. There was here on the Kentucky side a high rock, which served the Indians as a lookout, whence they could scan the river up and down. Harmar, in April, 1790, had sent a force to strike the Scioto some distance up, and swoop down upon this nest of marauders, but it had little effect. The stories of this wild foraging carried dismay far and wide. Zeisberger, at the Moravian station of New Salem, -then on the traveled route between Pittsburg and Detroit, - heard of the ravages in April, and ascribed this murderous activity to the Cherokees. The stories reached St. Clair at Cahokia on the 1st of May, 1790, when he wrote to the secretary of war that hostilities seemed inevitable. He charged the British author- ities with instigating the trouble, and thought it not possible to stop the river depredations by patrol boats, inasmuch as the trade with New Orleans had drained Kentucky of the provi- sions which a patrolling force would require.


When St. Clair started up the river in June, 1790, he was satisfied that the intrigues of Brant had succeeded among the Wabash tribes, and that they would conspire with the Miamis for a general war. In this frame of mind the governor reached Fort Washington on July 13, 1790. Two days later, he made a demand on Kentucky for troops, with the determination to take the offensive. Judge Innes at the same time wrote to Knox that unless something of that kind was done, the Kentuckians were " determined to avenge themselves," and the discontent was for a while farther increased by a rumor that the govern-


418


HIARMAR'S AND ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGNS.


ment had determined to abandon the Ohio country. St. Clair's activity soon satisfied the distrustful that an effort would at least be made to protect the settlements. The governor now authorized Richard Butler, commanding in Alleghany County, to summon the militia of the nearest counties in Pennsylvania and Virginia to protect that region, and distract the Indians thereabonts, while Harmar was advancing up the Miami in a campaign which had been decided upon. On August 23, 1790, St. Clair reported his plans to Knox, and told him that Ham- tramek had at the same time been instructed to advance on the side of the Wabash. Harmar's force was ordered to assemble at Fort Washington on September 15. As this day approached, it was evident that delays would occur, for Governor Mifflin of Pennsylvania was sluggish in sending forward his quota. Knox, meanwhile, was suggesting to St. Clair to keep in mind the founding of a fort on the upper Miami with a garrison of seven hundred and fifty men, and to support it by auxiliary posts on the Scioto and Maumee. The difficulty which confronted Knox was that eighteen hundred men would be necessary to carry the plan fully out and maintain communications, while the government had no more than four hundred regulars to spare for the object. He anxiously asked St. Clair if his militia could be depended upon to supply the rest.


There was, at the same time, a division among Washington's advisers on the question of assuring the English commander at Detroit that Harmar's movements were not directed against ,that post. Jefferson feared that if Dorchester's anxiety in that respect was quieted, he would be freer to prepare to attack the Spaniards on the Mississippi, in the impending war with Spain, though it was possible without such a notice he might suspect the sudden armament was intended to contest his passage across American territory to reach the Mississippi. The final result of weighing opinions was that St. Clair was instructed to com- mmmieate with the British at Detroit, and on September 19 he sent such a letter from Marietta, in which he expressed a hope that the English traders might be restrained from giving aid to the Indians.


The English had already been making up their minds, as Dorchester had written in March to Grenville, that the posts were really the object of the American campaign, no matter


419


HARMAR'S CAMPAIGN.


what their profession. The Canadian governor thought, as his letters show, that it was the American plan to advance by the Potomac to the Ohio, and then proceed against Erie and Detroit. "The possession, also," he added, "of the great ap- proaches to Canada by the Mohawk and Oswego and up the Sorel would make them masters of the country." He urged the sending to Canada of four thousand more soldiers, for though he could repair and strengthen the upper posts against an Indian attack, Niagara was the only one which could repel


the Americans. As the summer came on and brought the danger of a Spanish war, there was a disposition in London to think Dorchester's prognostieations reasonable, particularly when the minister learned from him that Congress had voted to raise five thousand foot and sixteen companies of artillery to reinforce the western army, though the Senate had indeed reduced the number to three thousand infantry. This made matters look serious to the British ministry, -the game was becoming hazardous, - and in August Dorchester was advised to prevent the Indians ravaging the American settlements, for " if the United States send an army against the Indians, embar- rassments will follow." Dorchester, in further advices, repre- sented St. Clair as a man of firmness and experience, but of no great ability, while Harmar was frequently intoxicated.


So under this drunken leader, as British rumor had it, the little army was gathering at Fort Washington. The militia did not promise well, with their bad equipments, and there were also signs of insubordination. By October 1, Harmar sent for- ward an advance guard to open the road. Three days later, the general followed with his main body. His whole foree consisted of three hundred and twenty regulars and one thou- sand one hundred and thirty-three militia. The rumor that had gone north gave him a much larger army, and MeKee had notified Sir John Johnson that the Indians could not stand before it. It was reported to Zeisberger that the numbers were eight thousand, and the smallest reckoning they had at Detroit gave him two thousand. The result was that the Indians no- where made a stand, and Harmar, in sixteen days, reached the Miami and Delaware villages, near where the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers unite to form the Maumee. Here he found their three hundred huts deserted, and the storehouses of the


420


HARMAR'S AND ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGNS.


Detroit traders bared of their goods, which the Indians had assisted in carrying away. He however found twenty thousand bushels of corn, which, with the hnts, he burned.


Thus far, Harmar had accomplished what in Indian warfare was often thought to count for something, and this mere de- struction was the ground of St. Clair's claim that the expedition was successful in delivering a "terrible stroke " to the enemy. Ilamtramek, who had the same sort of success in his movement farther west, knew better the significance of such easy warfare. " The Indians can never be subdued by burning their houses and corn," he said, " for they make themselves perfectly com- fortable on meat alone, and they can build houses with as much facility as a bird does his nest."


If his devastations did not count for all he wished, Harmar's later blunders really negatived his doubtful achievements. His troops were, on the whole, but unpromising soldiers, many too old for campaigning and more too young, and he heedlessly committed them to work which only the best disciplined men could do. He sent out, beyond support, three several detach- ments, and gave Little Turtle, with better knowledge of the numbers he now had to deal with, a chance to overwhelm them in detail, and a loss of one hundred and eighty was speedily inflicted. The main body saw no foe, but after November 4, when they began their disorderly retreat, it might have suf- fered as much as the flanking parties, had the Ottawas not withdrawn from the savage horde. As it was, Harmar took back a larger part of his force than could have been expected, to winter them in scattered posts along the river, so as to pre- vent the ravages of famine.


McKee, on the British side, professed to look upon the fight- ing which had taken place as a victory, and as a trial of arms it undoubtedly was ; but such partial suecess did not quiet his apprehensions, and he promptly appealed to Sir John Johnson for aid, if the tribes were to be held together east of the Missis- sippi. This indicates a considerable extremity on the enemy's side. Hlad Knox's advice been followed, and a stockade built on the Miami, Ilarmar might have saved the men which he heedlessly exposed, and have gained a vantage-ground for a treaty. The obstacles to the permanence of a reconcilement with the Indians were, however, as yet great, and Hamtramek


421


INDIAN MARAUDING.


did not exaggerate the risks when he said to St. Clair, in December, 1790: "The people of our frontiers will certainly be the first to break any treaty. The people of Kentucky will carry on private expeditions and kill Indians wherever they meet them, and I do not believe there is a jury in all Kentucky who would punish a man for it," - an opinion that Washing- ton himself certainly shared, when he affirmed that the "fron- tier settlers entertain the opinion that there is not the same crime (or indeed no crime at all) in killing an Indian as in killing a white man."


The Indians, when they counted losses and gains in the late campaign, showed no signs of distrust of their ability to press their adversaries still harder. They apparently got encourage- ment from their allied whites, and McKee, whom St. Clair charged with furnishing ammunition to the bands which at- tacked Harmar's detached parties, was, with Simon Girty's sup- port, hot for further fighting. So it was decided to renew marauding in December, 1790.


The first attack came on the evening of January 2, 1791, when a body of Delawares and Wyandots dashed upon a small settlement at Big Bottom, dependent upon Marietta, but forty miles up the Muskingum. Here they killed twelve persons, and leaving their mangled bodies on the ground they suddenly withdrew, carrying off four prisoners. The sad tidings reached Marietta the next morning, and Putnam began to call in the settlers and make ready for warm work. There were twenty regulars in Fort Harmar, and the settlements within reach could muster about three hundred men. Belpre, twelve miles down the Ohio, had not yet been alarmed, but hovering parties of Indians were seen the same day about Waterford, at Wolf Creek.


The next warning came on the 10th, at Dunlap Station, on the east bank of the Miami, when Girty appeared with three hundred warriors. The inhabitants had been advised of their approach, and summoned aid from Cincinnati. Just as it arrived, the enemy withdrew. During February, 1791, the settlements along the Alleghany suffered severely, and by March fleets of Indian canoes were assailing flatboats along the Ohio. It was just at this time that Nathaniel Massie,


422


HARMAR'S AND ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGNS.


who, as a surveyor of bounty lands, had picked out a site on the north bank of the river, twelve miles above Limestone, was laying in stockade and blockhouse the foundations of the later Manchester, the pioneer Virginia settlement on that side of the river.


Meanwhile, both at Quebec and Philadelphia, the authorities were intent on military preparations. Dorchester, fearing that Harmar's advance was but preliminary to an attack on Detroit, issued orders in January, 1791, to the western commanders to be alert and promptly confront the Americans if they ap- proached. At the same time, Washington notified Congress, in December, 1790, that he intended another expedition at the west, and laid before Congress a plan for raising three thousand troops, to be placed under St. Clair for active work. When Congress had approved, Knox asked Pickering to accept the position of quartermaster of a western department, and push the details, but he declined. In doing so, however, he expressed his conviction that the tribes could be taught to respect the reserved power of the Republic. Washington, buoyed in his hopes by the restoration of the publie eredit, and depending on the increasing resources of the country, felt equally sure that the Indians could be made to understand that the "enmity of the United States is as much to be dreaded as their friendship is to be desired." Jefferson had seant sympathy with any mili- tary measures, and wrote to Monroe : "I hope we shall drub · the Indians well this summer, and then change our plan from war to bribery," for the expenses of a summer's campaign will buy " presents for half a century."


While the government was thus over-confident, Knox, on March 9, 1791, issued orders to General Charles Scott of Ken- tucky to move suddenly against the Kickapoos and other Wabash tribes, to prevent their joining the Miamis, against whom the main attaek was to be made. It was equally desira- ble that similar or other methods should at the east distraet the Indians of New York, and keep them at least neutral. To this end, Pickering was asked to put himself in communication with Brant, while Governor Clinton was urged to win over that


NOTRE - The map on the opposite page, showing by the black dots Moravian settlements, is from G. H. Loskiel's Mission of the United Brethren, London, 1794.


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424


HARMAR'S AND ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGNS.


Mohawk chief by a gift, for he was known to have informed Kirkland, the missionary among his people, that he had deter- mined to head a western confederacy in forcing the Americans south and east of the Ohio. These measures were at once seized upon by the British to prove to the Indians that the professions of peace on the part of the Americans were insin- vere. Brant was known, in May, 1791, to have gone west with a following, but with what intent was not known. On June 4, 1791, however, he wrote back to Sir John Johnson that he had decided to join in the coming fight. He had probably heard by this time that Scott had, on May 19, crossed the Ohio with eight hundred mounted Kentuckians, and was advancing on the Wabash towns. Scott's coming had been heralded, and when he reached their towns, one hundred and fifty miles away, he found them deserted, and so encountered no serious opposition in burning them. He killed a score or two of Indians, and cap- tured a somewhat larger number. When, retreating, he reached the rapids at Louisville, he had been absent about thirty days. There could be no peace after this. In June, 1791, while Knox, in Philadelphia, was confident that war was begun, the Indians were gathering in large numbers. Zeisberger, then at the mouth of the Detroit River, was informed that four thou- 'sand had assembled, and he was made anxious lest his peaceful Moravian converts would be forced to join them.


It is not easy to determine how to apportion the responsi- bility of the savage war to which the Americans now seemed to be committed. The tribes had a standing grievance against the Americans in the treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1784, and yet Washington pointed out to Cornplanter, who with other Seneca chiefs had come to Philadelphia in December, 1790, that the very release of lands, of which they complained, had been confirmed by them in the treaty of Fort Harmar in 1789. " Therefore the lines must remain established," said the Presi- dent. Cornplanter had, during this conference, urged that eer- tain lands should be restored ; but Washington, taught by the claims which the Indians presented that the treaty of 1784 had been made by irresponsible chiefs, readily suspected that any yielding now to the Senecas would encourage similar de- mands from other factions of the tribes. There was indeed just now a new grievance, in that Robert Morris had bought


425


COUNTER RAIDS.




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