USA > Ohio > A history of the state of Ohio, natural and civil > Part 12
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On reaching Fort Jefferson, General St. Clair, met Hamtra- mack, with the first regiment, whom we have mentioned, as having been ordered to bring back the deserters, and protect the provisions, and heavy baggage-wagons which had been left slowly making their way along, in the rear of the army.
A council of war decided that they would not return to the battle ground, so leaving the wounded in Fort Jefferson, St. Clair, with a mere remnant of his army, returned to Fort Washington.
While congress was in session at Philadelphia, early in De- cember, President Washington received the official account of this most calamitous battle of the 4th of November, which information was forthwith communicated by him to the national legislature. Nothing could have been more unexpected, than this disaster. The public mind was exasperated, in a high degree against St. Clair, but for want of officers of a rank high enough to try him, no court martial could be, or was called upon his conduct. Late in the session of 1792, con- gress appointed a committee to inquire into it, but, that civil committee, acquitted him.
The Indian war now assumed a serious aspect, and the reputation of the nation required to be retrieved from the dis- grace it had sustained. The whole western frontier, lay exposed to fresh inroads of the enemy, now flushed with so dreadful a victory.
General Washington wished to have congress give him
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authority to raise three additional regiments of foot, and a squadron of horse, for three years, unless peace should be sooner made with the Indians. A bill containing these provi- sions, was introduced into the house of representatives, but it met with great opposition there. It was objected that the na- tion had not the money to carry on the war, upon such a scale; that while the British held the western posts, we were not able to protect so large a frontier; that, by withdrawing from the North Western Territory, and by making the Ohio river the boundary ; and, by treating with the Indians, a peace might be restored to this frontier.
Such were some of the reasons, assigned by the opposition to General Washington, in congress. They strove with all their might, to defeat the bill, for the defence of the North Wes- tern Territory.
Those who supported the measure, urged the necessity of self defence and self preservation; they presented to congress, a picture of the bleeding frontier-and they proved, that not less than fifteen hundred Kentuckians, men, women and chil- dren, who were peaceably, pursuing their avocations, had been, either slain or carried into captivity by the enemy, within the, then, last seven years; and it was not doubted, that the fron- tier settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, had suffered quite as much, within the same period of time. The measures of General Washington they said, had always been conciliato- ry, towards the savages. It was shown, that Harmar offered to treat with the savages in the villages of the Maumee river, but the Indians, at first, refused to treat, and then, asked for thirty days, to consider, on the subject, which was granted; This was in the summer of 1790, and at the end of the thirty days, the savages refused to give any answer, to the proposals to treat. In that same thirty days, however, while Harmar, forbore all hostilities, by the express orders of General Wash- ington, to that effect, the Indians, in the meantime, had either killed or captured one hundred and twenty persons on our fron- tiers. Many of the prisoners had been roasted alive by a slow fire.
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The bill was passed and became a law. St. Clair resign- ed his military command, and General ANTHONY WAYNE Was appointed commander-in-chief. This was in the spring of 1793.
WAYNE'S WAR.
Among the several considerations which now operated on the mind of General Washington at this trying period of our national history, which we are compelled to consider for a moment, was the poverty of the nation, loaded with debt, with- out much commerce, and the general poverty of the people. The people of the east, looked upon this western war, as a bur- den, which the western people ought to bear. Hence the duty on distilleries, owned mostly in the west, which grew out of the expenses of this Indian war. This tax, led directly to the whis- ky insurrection, in Western Pennsylvania. And, it need not be disguised, that the opposition to the present constitution, laid hold of every thing within their reach, to render General Washington unpopular. They pretended to fear, so large a standing army, of five thousand four hundred men! they saw too, with alarm, Mrs. Washington's levees, and the pomp of Colonel Pickering, General Knox, and other heads of Depart- ments, with salaries of three thousand dollars a year! though the compensation was so small, that they, and their families could not live decently on it. The French revolution too, was raging, and Genet was busily engaged, in his endeavors to draw us, into the vortex of European politics. General Washington was beset on all sides; French agents and partis- ans, on the Atlantic border, were fomenting discontent; the British and their Indians, were desolating our western frontier, with fire and the tomahawk, and the war whoop waked the sleep of the cradle.
It was early in this year, we believe, that General Wash- ington after appointing General Wayne and other officers to command the western army, and doing all that he had the power to do, made a tour to the Indians of Western New.
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York, in company with Colonel Pickering. Colonel Pickering, tarried one night at the writer's father's, while General Wash- ington put up at a near neighbor's, a Mr. Bloom. This was in Western New York. General Washington and Colonel Pick- ering visited all the New York Indians, held councils with them, and delivered talks and speeches to them; some of which, we saw, among these Indians in 1828, while we were on a visit to our old friends still living in the Indian villages.
This visit was made by General Washington, to conciliate those savages, and to prevent their joining in the war, with the British Indians, as they had done all along before this period. Many New York Indians were present at St. Clair's defeat, and some of them, still went off, and fought against General Wayne, in 1794, when they were defeated, and mostly killed, on the Maumee river. In the summer of 1793, Wayne tried to treat with the Indians. Fort Massac was built, under him, to prevent an expedition against New Orleans, which GENET was planning. General Wayne sent out, in succession, Colo- nel Hardin, and Major Trueman with a flag of truce, medals, talks and presents to the Indians in order to make a peace with them.
These messengers of peace were killed in succession, as soon as they arrived among the savages. Their medals, and speeches, sent by them, and all they had with them, were taken by the Indians who slew the bearers of them. We saw these medals and speeches in the possession of the elder Caray Mau- nec, principal chief of the Winnebagoes at Prairie du Chien, in July 1829.
The medal was a large one, of copper, six inches in diameter, and purported, no doubt truly, to have been made, at the expense of a gentleman of Philadelphia, and by him, sent as a token of General Washington's friendship, to the Indians. Every other effort was made by General Wayne, that summer, to bring about a peace with the savages, but all in vain, and worse than in vain. But notwithstanding all the efforts to make a peace, yet, nothing was omitted that could be done, to
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prepare for a vigorous war against them. Although General Wayne promptly accepted his appointment, and entered on its arduous duties, yet, it was found no easy matter to fill up the minor appointments, even the very next in grade to the Comman- der-in-chief, of this army. Several were appointed to these offi- ces who refused to accept them. It was found difficult too, to enlist soldiers for this hazardous service. Every thing moved along slowly, and the season was spent in doing very little, to any good effect. The British commander of the fort at Detroit, had erected a fort at the head of the Maumee Bay, for the pur- pose, it would seem, of protecting the Indians, in alliance with them. Here the Indians resorted for protection ; here they sold their furs, peltries and skins, received their annuities, and, we doubt not, that they received here, also, the price paid for the scalps of our murdered countrymen.
General Wayne was not idle, but urged forward all his measures, vigorously, prudently, and in the end, effectually.
On the 5th of November 1793, congress met at Philadel- phia, to whom the President said in his speech at the com- mencement of that session, "That the reiterated attempts which had been made to effect a pacification with the Indians, had issued only in new and outrageous proofs of persevering hostility, on the part of the tribes, with whom we were at war." He alluded to the destruction of Hardin and Trueman, while on peaceful missions, under the sanction of flags of truce; and their families were recommended to the attention of con- gress. Notwithstanding all these efforts of GENERAL WASH- INGTON, in favor of this bleeding frontier, congress and the nation, were too much engaged with other objects to bestow much attention on this distant war.
The French revolution had turned the heads of many mem- bers of congress towards that dazzling object. They were of the opinion that mankind were all to be regenerated by it; that by some secret magic it would make mankind new beings; and that the whole world would soon become something more than its Author ever designed it to be.
The spring and summer of 1793, having been employed, by
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General Wayne, in endeavoring to make peace, and in pre- paring for war, so that it was September, before he was ready to move forward into the heart of the Indian country. Gen- eral Wayne collected his army and marched six miles north of Fort Jefferson, where he established a camp, and fortified it, and called it GREENVILLE. The town of Greenville is not far from where this camp was. General Wayne, having made this encampment and wintered in it, early the next spring he marched forward to the ground where St. Clair had been defeated, on the 4th of November 1791, where he erect- ed a fortification, and called it FORT RECOVERY.
Leaving this post he moved forward to the ground where Harmar had been defeated in 1790, and erected a work of de- fence and called it FORT WAYNE, which name the town now there, bears. It is situated at the head of the Maumee river, at the confluence of the St. Joseph's and the St. Mary's riv- ers.
On the 8th of August 1794, General Anthony Wayne with his army reached the mouth of the Auglaize, a tributary of the Maumee, forty five miles, or more below Fort Wayne, and the same distance, by his computation, above the British post, on the Maumee. Here, in the forks of these rivers, General Wayne erected a strong military work, and called it by a very appropriate name, (as he did all his posts) FORT DEFIANCE. The General fully informed himself of the strength of the en- emy, and that the British and Indians, numbered only about two thousand, whereas his own regulars, were about as nu- merous as the enemy, besides eleven hundred mounted men, whom he had with him, from Kentucky, under the command of General Scott. This gave General Wayne a decided ad- vantage over the enemy, as he thought, and as it proved to be. But notwithstanding his superiority, in numbers; notwith- standing the high discipline of his troops, and their patriotic ardor, for a battle; yet he offered terms of peace to the ene- my and waited for the answer. The enemy wanted war, not peace; so on the 15th day of August, 1794, General Wayne left FORT DEFIANCE, and marched down the Maumee,
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his right being covered by the river. On the 18th he arrived at the head of the rapids. Here he lay on the 19th erecting some temporary works to protect his baggage, and to reconnoi- tre the enemy. He found the Indians advantageously posted in front of the British fort. On the 20th, at 8 o'clock in the morning of that day, the army advanced in columns; the le- gion along the bank of the Maumee. General Todd's brigade of mounted volunteers formed the left flank. General Bar- bee's mounted brigade of volunteers, marched in the rear of the army. Major Price's select band moved in front of the whole army, so as to give timely notice of an attack. Thus marching forward, five miles where Major Price received a heavy fire from the Indians.
The enemy had formed in three lines, within supporting dis- tance of each other, in a windfall, extending from the west bank of the Maumee, westwardly about two miles, in front, resting on the Maumee and protected by the British garrison. This prostrated forest extended five miles west of the river, in which fallen forest the Indians lay in three lines, two miles in length resting on the Maumee. They could not have been better protected from such a mounted force as Wayne's, than they were by their extended position, of fallen timber. The first effort of the enemy, thus extended two miles, in length, was to turn the left flank of our army. At the very first dis- charge of a rifle, the legion was formed in two lines, and the front was ordered to advance with trailed arms, and rouse the enemy from his thicket at the point of the bayonet; then, but not till then, deliver the first fire, and press the enemy so close- ly as not to give him time to reload his guns. Seeing the strength of the enemy, and that he was endeavoring to turn our left flank, General Wayne ordered the second line, to support the first, already engaged with the enemy. The le- gionary cavalry was ordered to press forward upon the enemy who lay on the river's bank, and where there was no timber in their way. General Scott was ordered to make a circuit, so far, as to outflank and turn their right flank. All these orders were promptly obeyed, but such was the fury of our first
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line that the second line, could scarcely find any thing to do. The enemy was broken, routed and slain, or driven two miles, in one hour, through this windfall and thicket, until they were within pistol shot of the British garrison. Here the battle ended, and here General Wayne remained in front of the field of battle, destroying the Indian houses, their corn, and every thing else, which he found there belonging to them. He burnt their houses within pistol shot of the British garrison. There was a correspondence between General Wayne, and Major Campbell, the British commandant of the fort in which, the latter very wisely acquiesced in the destruction of the Indi- ans, and their property, within the range of Major Camp- bell's guns. On the 28th of August, General Wayne return- ed by easy marches to DEFIANCE, from whence he came on the 15th of the same month. He destroyed all the Indian vil- lages, corn and property, within fifty miles of the Maumee river.
In this most decisive battle, General Wayne lost, in killed, wounded and missing, only one hundred and seven men, officers included. Among the dead, were Captain Campbell, of the cavalry, and Lieutenant Towls of the Infantry. They fell in the first charge. General Wayne bestowed great praise on the courage and alacrity, displayed by the whole army. Of his aids, H. De Butts, T. Lewis and William H. Harrison, General Wayne spoke in the highest terms of ap- probation. The Indian hostility still continuing, their whole country was laid waste and desolated. All the fortifications were soon erected in it, that were needed, to protect it, from Indian warfare. This great, and decisive victory, saved the nation from one general war, with all the Indians, who lived, any where near our frontier lines, between us and Canada, and between us and Spain. The Indians were just on the point, of making one general war, when this timely vietory saved all.
This campaign tranquilized the whole Indian frontier from Florida to the northern lakes.
On the opening of the next session of congress, General M*
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Washington in his speech, before congress, mentioned Wayne's operations with well merited applause, but congress in their reply, refused even to allude to them. Mr. Madison then led the opposition in the house, and though he offered something in lieu of it, yet, it was couched in such offensive terms, that the President's friends would not vote for the amendment. The whiskey insurrection, which grew out of the expenditures to carry on this war, had soured the minds of some members; and the wonderful French revolution, which was to make all hon- est men happy, by shedding their blood, had poisoned the minds, of still more. No mention was made of Wayne, nor of his meritorious services, by congress.
Next summer Wayne held a council with all the Indians living in this territory, and on the third day of August 1795, at Greenville, he purchased all the territory, not before ceded, within certain limits, comprchending in all, about four fifths of the present state of Ohio. The line is called to this day, " the Greenville treaty line." The Indians were left with about one fifth part of the territory which is now Ohio, lying in its north- west corner. Thus ended all the Indian warfare, in Ohio, worth naming, which we here put together, for the sake of unity.
After all these great, splendid and meritorious services of General Wayne, congress took no notice of him, not so much as to allow, even his name to be mentioned on their journal! On his way home, in Pennsylvania, he died, almost unattend- ed, at a wretched hovel of an inn, in the then paltry village of Presque Isle. He was there interred, without a stone to tell where he was buried. Years afterwards, his son Isaac Wayne accompanied by a few of his old friends and neighbors, transferred his bones, to the place of his nativity where they now rest in peace.
That General Anthony Wayne was a man, of most splendid talents, both natural and acquired, no one can doubt for a moment, who reads his history. Every action of his life, from youth to age, shows this fact; and no panegyric of ours can render it more plain or make his character shine brighter.
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Political demagogues, might treat him with contumely and base ingratitude, but they cannot obliterate a single syllable, which records his brilliant actions. His fame will never fade, but grow more fresh and green to the end of time. Every son and daughter of Ohio, Kentucky, and of all the West, will for- ever cherish, in their hearts, the ever dear memory of ANTHO- NY WAYNE. Forty two years have passed away since his decease and this is the first full account that the writer has seen of his services on this theatre of his feats, in arms. Ohio has paid the debt which we owe him, in part with others, so far as calling a large county after him goes; and we have twenty-three towns or townships named after him.
He lives in the recollection of his countrymen to lead fu- ture patriot warriors to glorious victory. Death has purified his fame, and placed it beyond the reach of calumny. Party politicians, those meteors may rise and fall, flash and expire, in a moment; but the sun of Wayne's glory will never set in our western horizon, of Mississippi's wide valley, until the archangel's trump shall call his body from the grave to life everlasting.
Having, for the sake of unity, related the most important events of the old Indian war, on this frontier, we now go back to the infant colony, on the Ohio company's lands, and inform the reader what had been passing there during this period. During the whole Indian war, the settlers kept constantly on the alert, from four to six rangers, who were called "spies," whose duty it was, to scour the woods, and if any Indians were discovered in the vicinity, togive the alarm; that being done, the alarm gun was fired at the fort, and every person hastened into the garrison. The gate was closed and every preperation was instantly made to receive their enemies. The settlement at Belpre lost several individuals who ventur- ed too far into the woods, when no Indian signs had been recent- ly discovered in the neighborhood.
In 1793, Major NATHAN GOODALE, a native of Massachu- setts, and an officer of the old continental army, went out into the forest to haul some timber with an ox team. He was
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taken prisoner by the Indians, and carried off into captivity. The supper was long kept waiting for him on the table by his anxious wife and children, but he never returned to eat it. His team returned home, but of him nothing certain was ever heard for a long time. From an examination of the ground where Major Goodale was taken prisoner, it appeared that two large Indians, had secreted themselves behind a pile of brush wood; that these Indians sprang upon the Major and binding his hands with cords, they led him off into the forest. The tracks of two Indians with mocasins on, and those of the Major with shoes on, between the Indians' tracks, showed the manner in which he was led off into captivity. He was taken to Upper Sandusky, where he died of a fever some six weeks after he was taken prisoner. His neighbours followed his tracks six miles and then gave up the pursuit.
Captain King, originally from Rhode Island, was shot and killed while cutting wood. He left a wife and two children. Jonas Davis was killed and scalped about a mile from the garrison, at the mouth of Congress creek. Benoni Hurlbut, one of the spies, was killed at the mouth of the Little Hock- ing in 1791, while returning from a scout.
These were the principal losses of the Belpre settlement. Major Goodale was the principal man at Relpre, a brave, enter- prising man, whose destruction was justly and deeply lamen- ted by all who knew him. He had passed through the war of the revolution, whose dangers he had shared, and whose lau- rels adorned his brow. He left a widow, two sons and five daughters, orphan children, to mourn his loss, and who do hon- or to his memory.
The Newberry settlement, experienced some losses, and was harrassed continually. One woman and two children were killed. One child was tomahawked in the mother's arms, but survived. The woman and children were going to a party at work in a field, near the garrison, to carry them food. Pursuit was instantly made, but the murderers escaped unhurt.
In 1790 a settlement was began at Big Bottom on the Mus- kingum river, about thirty-five miles above Marietta. On the
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2d day of January 1791, the settlement at the Big Bottom was attacked by the Indians; fourteen persons were killed and five persons were carried into captivity. Among the slain, at Big Bottom, January 2d 1791, were a woman and two children; the remainder were young men. The Indians, up to this time, had often visited the settlement in a friendly manner, and the Indian war had been confined to parts distant from this settle- ment. The settlers were off their guard. The Indians from the summit of a neighboring hill, had watched our people all day, and just at the twilight of the evening, commenced their attack. One party visited a cabin in a friendly manner while another party visited the block house. The cabin was occu- pied by four men of the name of Choat. The Indians entered the cabin, beckoned to the men to keep silent, bound them with cords and made them prisoners. Another party of the Indians had reached the block house, where the occupants were at sup- per who had their arms standing in a corner of the room. A large Mohawk opened the door, while his companions fired upon the astonished inen at their supper table. A woman assailed the big Mohawk with an axe, and cleaved the flesh from the side of his scull down to his shoulder. She was killed, and all the persons in the room as the Indians supposed, shared her fate. After the slaughter was over, the Indians plundered the house. Under the beds in a corner of the room, they found a boy, fourteen or fifteen years old. Him they made prisoner and carried him off to Detroit, with them. Another cabin was oc- cupied by two men of the name of Ballard, who hearing the guns, rushed out of the house, and made their escape to the settlement at Wolf creek which had been begun simultaneously with the one at Big Bottom. Reaching that settlement, the Ballards gave the alarm, so that being prepared for their re- ception, when they appeared there early next morning, the Indians made no attack on the Wolf creek settlement. The Indians next attacked the settlement at Waterford, but were beaten off without loss of lives, though the Indians destroyed their cattle, In 1794, Abel Sherman was killed at Waterford,
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a settlement some twenty miles above Marietta. In 1795, Sherman Waterman was killed, on little Wolf creek.
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