USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 15
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#Col. William Stanley Hatch, in his "Chapter of the War of 1812." declares that Harmar never got farther north than the junction of Mad river and the Great Miami, and that this Chillicothe was the Clark county Chillicothe.
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up the Muskingum, was destroyed and twelve people killed." But the Indians did not do all the bad work. In March a party of vol- unteers, meeting a trading party of friendly red people near the Big Beaver, killed three men and a woman, stole all their property and stripped the bodies of clothing. Maj. Isaac Craig, at Fort Pitt, reported that though this looked like deliberate murder, it seemed to meet the approval of most of the people on the Ohio. Corn- planter, the great Seneca chief, sent a remonstrance to Washington, and Governor St. Clair hurried to make amends for this outrage and similar ones.
In the face of these adverse circumstances another of the most important initial settlements of Ohio began, that of the Virginia vet- erans in the Scioto valley. Their previous attempt, coincident with the Marietta settlement, has already been mentioned. In August, 1790, Congress removed the prohibition against them, and a large amount of military land warrants were put in the hands of Nathaniel Massie for location and survey, by Colonel Anderson, who had been entrusted with them by his comrades. Some adventurers had con- tinned to make locations despite the act of Congress, at the risk of their lives, for the Indians were vigilant in defending their country. There was yet danger, but Massie was of a spirit to risk it. On account of the risk, his profit would be great, from one-fourth to one- half of the land he should obtain title for. He followed the usual custom of venturing beyond the Ohio in the winter, as the Indians were then collected in their towns. He gave general notice of his enterprise, offering each of the first twenty-five families as a dona- tion, one inlot, one outlot and one hundred acres of land, provided they would join him in founding a town, and more than thirty fami- lies enlisted in this daring venture into the Indian country. After investigation the Ohio bottom opposite the lower of the Three islands was selected for the settlement, and there in December, 1790, the town was founded, called Massiestown and later Manchester. By the middle of March, 1791, the town of log houses was enclosed with strong pickets, with blockhouses at each angle. With Massie were "the Beasleys, the Stouts, the Washburns, the Ledoms, the Edging- tons, the Denings, the Ellisons, the Utts, the MeKenzies, the Wades, and others, who were equal to the Indians in all the arts and strata- gems of border warfare."i For their main farm the colony used the lower island, which yielded bountiful erops of corn. Deer, elk, buffalo, bear and turkeys were abundant, and the river was full of
* The Ohio company had planted several new settlements in 1790, at Belle Pré and Newbury and Anderson's Bottom on the Ohio, on Wolf Creek, where the first mill in Ohio was built, at Duck Creek and Meig's Bottom. In 1792, Major Goodale, at Belle Pré, commanding the Farmers' Castle, was captured and carried north until he died at the Sandusky.
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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF DEUS
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THE CONQUEST OF OHIO.
command, and he visited the president for counsel and, at Pittsburg and other places, endeavored to encourage the raising of troops and organization for a campaign. At the same time Col. Thomas Proc- tor was sent with Cornplanter to Detroit to treat for peace, and was expected to return by way of Fort Washington early in May, 1791. But the Kentuckians were eager to make war on their own account, and after waiting some time to hear from the peace commission, and hearing nothing, they set out under Gen. Charles Scott, with James Wilkinson as a colonel, in the latter part of May, and ravaged the Indian country on the Wabash. These hostilities while a peace envoy was in the field persuaded the red men that the talk of peace was only to delnde them, and the preparation for an invasion by a large force from Cincinnati was enough to confirm their suspicion. After the return of Scott St. Clair authorized Wilkinson to lead another force of Kentuckians into the Indian country, in August, and they made a path of devastation through what is now northern Indiana, from the Kankakee to the Little river, burning villages and fields and killing Indian men, women and children. All this only intensified the trouble. If there had been a sufficient trained and disciplined army in the field that could be depended upon to act in concert with civilized efforts toward peace, better results might have followed.
St. Clair, meanwhile, was awaiting at Cincinnati the arrival of his reinforcements. He had two regiments of regulars and some Kentucky militia, but the levies that were sent down the river seemed to be largely collected from the streets and prisons of the cities of the east, as nnfit for fighting Indians as could be imagined. It also appears that the general staff, with the exception of Winthrop Sar- gent. adjutant-general, who was the mainstay of the army, was sadly inefficient. The contractor for commissary was Colonel Duer, late of the Scioto company, and his work was grossly mismanaged. The clothing furnished the volunteers and levies was miserable, the tents were infamous, the packsaddles were big enough for elephants, the axes were soft metal, the powder was too poor to effectively carry the bullets, and even the wine at headquarters was bad.# St. Clair him- self was growing old and his health was such that he should not have undertaken the campaign, if the prospect of the work of such a poorly equipped and disorganized army were not enough to forbid his risking his reputation with it. Doubtless he realized that more good would come of postponing the campaign over a year, but his levies were enlisted for six months only, and some of them declared the time began when they left home.
St. Clair's orders were to advance on the Maumee village (Fort Wayne) and establish a fortified post, with a chain of forts between
* Testimony at the investigation.
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that position and Cincinnati. On his march he must, of course, ent a road for wagon train and build the forts. In the middle of September, when he had 2,300 men, exclusive of commissioned offi- cers, he began building Fort Hamilton, at the site of the city of Ham- ilton, and thence, on October 4th, the main part of the army marched northward, under Gen. Richard Butler, while St. Clair waited a few days to prod the commissary department and push forward some militia who were already rapidly deserting. From Fort Hamilton on the Sth he wrote to Israel Ludlow, agent of the contractors, that he was not performing his duty, and the troops were already short of provisions. "A competent number of horses were provided to your hand ;" the general wrote, "how they have been employed I know not ; certainly one half of them have never been upon the road, or we should not have been in our present situation : and take notice that the want of drivers will be no excuse to a starving army and a disap- pointed people." Two weeks later Hodgdon, the quartermaster-gen- eral, was sent back to Cincinnati to discover what was the matter with the commissary department. On the 13th the army was about six miles south of Greenville, and began the building of Fort Jeffer- son, with the troops on half rations of flour. Oldham's company of militia being ordered to escort a cavalcade of horses baek for flour, refused and declared if they went they would never return, and nothi- ing could be done but send another company. While vet at Fort Jefferson, with the general fearing he would not be able to leave his bed, the levies began to declare their time was up, and desert. To stop this the army was drawn up on the 23d to witness the shooting of two deserters and one mutineer. Next day they set out on the march again, moving about nine miles a day.
From the time the troops were at Fort Hamilton horses had been stolen, presumably by Indians, but red men were not seen until the 28th, when the army was in the low and wet country of the head- waters of the Wabash. Then sentries were provoked to fire in the darkness at night, arousing the camp. A friendly Indian chief, Piamingo, and nineteen warriors were sent out on a seont. On October 31st the army halted to wait for provisions coming up on packhorses from Fort Jefferson. The militia were at the point of mutiny, and a third of them turned out with the expressed deter- mination of going home. Sixty did start baek, vowing they would stop the paekhorses, and in consequence of this the First regiment of I'nited States troops, about three hundred strong, was ordered back to Fort Jefferson, ostensibly to bring the deserters back, but really to protect the convoys. The flour arrived, and the army marched on November 2d about eight miles through a snow storm. Next day they trudged nine miles through water and mud and went into camp ou a piece of dry ground on the southeast side of a branch of the Wabash. The camping ground was so small that the militia
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was ordered aeross the creek about three hundred yards to another dry spot, and the men seemed so exhausted that the building of intrenehments was postponed until morning. It was evident that the Indians were about, the sentinels firing so often in the night that General Butler sent out an officer and detachment to investigate.
Next morning, the 4th, before sunrise, just as the troops had been dismissed from the usual parade, the woods in front rang with the vells of Indians and the reports of their rifles. The advanced force of militia, after firing a few shots, rushed baek to the main body. All the troops were at onee under arms and posted to meet the attack, which speedily enveloped both flanks. Their volleys and the roar of their artillery made a great noise, while the Indians, concealed by the smoke, crept up in close range, posted themselves behind trees and logs, and, in perfeet quiet, save the erack of their rifles, fired murderously into the mass of soldiers. After all the officers of the artillery were killed but one, and he badly wounded, and nearly all of the men were cut off, the Indians took possession of the guns. Again and again the troops charged with fixed bayonets and routed the red men from their places, but as the attacking parties fell baek into line, the Indians resumed their hiding places, and continued their fire. ' The ground began to be covered with the dead and wounded. The left flank, particularly exposed, gave way. St. Clair, on foot, led a foree that drove out the Indians from that quar- ter. Other gallant efforts were made, but the troops were gradually bunched together, and General Butler and the greater part of the regi- mental officers having been killed or disabled, the men lost all hope and gave way to panic. The order to move toward the road, intended to begin a retreat, had to be repeated three times before it was heeded. Then, after four hours of such a fight, the remnant hurried to Fort Jefferson, with little opposition, and after the first two or three miles, without pursuit. They were not long in reaching that place, where the First regiment was awaiting them, and then what was left of the army pushed on in the night to meet a convoy of provisions, for there was nothing at the fort to eat."
St. Clair had about 1,400 men in this fight, besides the officers. The killed and wounded were 890, and of the 86 or 90 officers, 16
* The story of this disaster is told, with as much vigor as old Scotch bal- lads relate the frays of Highlander and Lowlander, in an ancient ballad of Ohio, of which the following are the first stanzas:
'Twas November the fourth, in the year of ninety-one,
We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson;
Sainclaire was our commander; which may remembered be.
For there we left nine hundred men in the Western Ter'tory.
At Bunker's Hill and Quebeck, there many a hero fell, Likewise at Long Island (it is I the truth can tell), But such a dreadful carnage may I never see again As happened near St. Mary's, upon the river plain.
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were killed or wounded. It was a bloodier defeat than Braddock's, and it showed that the lesson of 1755 was forgotten. The Indians, under the great Maumee general, Meechee Konahquah, again dem- onstrated their ability in warfare. The result was a furious outery against General St. Clair, and denunciation of the people responsible for the quartermaster, ordnance and commissary failures, but, as Gen. John Armstrong said, "The people at large, in behalf of whom the action was brought on, are more essentially to blame, and lost the battle. An infatuated security seemed to pervade the minds of all amongst ns."
General St. Clair visited the federal capital and tendered his res- ignation from the army, which was accepted. A court of inquiry threw the blame on the delays and gross mismanagement of the quar- termaster and commissary departments, the lateness of the season and the inexperience of the troops, and the general's conduet was com- mended. Preparations were begun for an army of five thousand men in spite of the ery that the Indian war was only an exense for the Federalists to impose a standing army upon "the people," and, "to the great disgust" of the Virginia planters, President Washing- ton appointed Anthony Wayne commander-in-chief. Wayne began the training of an army at a post a few miles below Pittsburg and took his time for it, while peace negotiations continued. Wayne was, as the British ambassador wrote, "the most vigilant, active and enter- prising offieer in the American army," but, as Washington said, he was supposed to be "more active and enterprising than judicious and cantions ; vain and open to flattery."
There were talks with the Senecas and negotiations with the Brit- ish minister concerning the evacuation of the posts on the lakes. An important point was seored by General Putnam, who was sent with the missionary Heekewelder, to Vineennes, to treat with the Potta- watomies and other tribes, whom he persuaded to peace by guarantee- ing them peaceable possession of their lands. Brant was invited to Philadelphia and urged to work for peace. In a great eouneil at the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee, Cornplanter and Red Jacket, of the friendly Senecas, in the fall of 1792, endeavored to urge the Manmees and their allies to make terms, but without avail. In the summer of 1793 Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and Timothy Piekering were appointed to treat with the western Indians to confirm the boundary line in Ohio agreed upon at Fort Harmar, and it was understood that $50,000 worth of presents and an annuity of $10,000 would be promised the red men.
A conference was held at the Detroit river, and though the com- missioners asked for nothing more than the Fort Harmar conces- sions in Ohio, and Clark's grant on the lower Ohio, and promised munificent gifts, the Indians in couneil at the foot of the Manmee
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rapids* were defiant and insisted on the Ohio river as a boundary. There can be no doubt that they were sustained in this determination by British influenee. Brant, who attended the council, found to his surprise that the British advised the Indians to hold the river Ohio. They were told that the United States had no right in the Northwest under the treaty of 1783 but that of pre-emption of lands and that right had been forfeited by making war on the rightful owners of the soil. This was revealed by the Indians in their declaration that they had as much right to give their lands to the British as to the Amer- icans. It was stated clearly in the speech of Lord Dorchester, gover- nor of Canada, to a deputation of Indians from the council, in February, 1794, in which he complained of the American settlements beyond the Ohio, as "infringements on the king's rights," and said he should not be surprised if England was at war with the United States within a year.
Meanwhile General Wayne had brought what he had been able to collect of the proposed army down the Ohio to a camp called "Hob- son's choice," near Cincinnati, and garrisons were maintained at Forts Hamilton and Jefferson and St. Clair (near Eaton). The Detroit conference closed on August 16, 1793, and as it became known that the army would soon move, September 21st was devoted to fasting and prayer for the success of the soldiers. October 7th Wayne advanced with about 2,600 regular troops and three or four hundred mounted volunteers to a point six miles north of Fort Jef- ferson, where he built Fort Greenville. Ten days later the Indians attacked the convoy of one of his wagon trains between Forts St. Clair and Jefferson, and killed Lieutenant Lowry and fourteen others. On the 24th Wayne was joined by a thousand mounted Ken- tuckians. He was not disposed, however, to repeat the experiment of a campaign in the late fall. Having an abundance of provisions, he contented himself with staying where he was through the winter and drilling his troops to fight Indians. On Christmas day a detach- ment reached the St. Clair battlefield, and after gathering up and burying the whitened bones, in which were counted six hundred skulls, Fort Recovery was built upon the seene of disaster.
The West, which then meant mainly Kentucky, was cheered and encouraged to allegianee to the Union by these movements for pro- teetion from Indian hostility, but in the East there was grumbling at the expense of the war. Political exeitement ran high. The Federalists, committed to Alexander Hamilton's policy of a strong eentral government and financial system, were accused by the Repub- licans and Democrats of aristoeratic monarchical tendeneies. The raneorous disputes were intensified by the culmination of the French
* This great council included the Iroquois and Maumee confederacies, Wyan- dots, Delawares, Shawanees, Pottowatomies, Chippewas and other tribes of the north, and the Cherokees and Creeks of the south.
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revolution in the Terror of 1793, which disgusted the Federalists with republicanism in Europe, while the Democrats continued warm friends of France and began to urge an alliance with that country against England. Even Jefferson, secretary of state, became in- volved in this sentiment. President Washington was insulted and maligned because he held the country firmly to neutrality in relation to England, France and Spain. In Georgia he was burned in effigy. The French determined to force the United States into war against Spain as well as England. In 1793 a French embassy was in Ken- tucky to organize an army to drive the Spanish from the Missis- sippi valley, and George Rogers Clark came into prominence again as a proposed leader in this movement. With the title of major-gen- eral in the army of France, and "commander-in-chief of the French revolutionary legions on the Mississippi river," he published a call for volunteers in the first Ohio newspaper, the "Centinel of the Northwest Territory."*
In April, 1794, Governor Dorchester, who had told the Indians that the encroachments of the Americans could no longer be endured, sent Colonel Simcoe to build a British fort at the rapids of the Mau- mee. There could be no stronger encouragement of the red men to war. In the following month a messenger from the Spanish col- onies appeared to tell the northwestern Indians that the great Creek nation of the south would join with them in an united effort to destroy the power of the English. Thus the strength of the red men of the West, which had sufficed so far to hold the United States in cheek, was urged to renewed exertion by both the English and Span- ish authorities, one of these practically hostile nations aiming to hold the great lakes, while the other was determined to retain the com- mand of the Mississippi and all the gulf coast. The situation was a critical one, but Washington, firm and steadfast in nature, was unmoved in the midst of these dangers, to which were added the hos- tility of the French party and a state of rebellion in western Penn- sylvania. He held Wayne steady to the one purpose of occupying the seat of Indian power on the Maumee, forbidding all raids and side campaigns, and John Jay was sent to Europe to negotiate for the removal of the British posts and the acquirement of commercial rights on the Mississippi. If Wayne had failed Jay might also have failed, but Wayne was winning his victory by training his soldiers all through the winter in the realities of war, not in the silly show of militia parade; teaching them to fight from the shelter of trees and stumps, to hit what they shot at, to fire and charge to a more advanced shelter, to throw up log breastworks on a moment's notice,
* The first issue of this paper, printed in large type on coarse paper, was dated at Cincinnati, November 9, 1793. In 1796 it was changed to Freeman's Journal.
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just as the American volunteer soldier had to learn over again half a century later.
A very important part of Wayne's army were the scouts, of which there were two commands, under Ephraim Kibbey, one of the first settlers of Columbia, and William Wells, lately a captive among the Indians, who had married a sister of Little Turtle, and fought against the whites during the Harmar and St. Clair campaigns. With Wells there were three other men who should be as famous as the "Three Musketeers" of Dumas: Henry Miller, Christopher Miller, his brother, added to the party during the campaign by cap- ture from the Indians, of whom he was at first a faithful ally, and Robert MeClelland, a scout who had come to Cincinnati in 1791, and was famous for his ability to jump over a team of oxen. His later career as an explorer of Oregon, is told by Washington Irving.
In the meantime the little Ohio colonies had to keep under arms to protect their homes. At Cincinnati Secretary Sargent, acting governor in the fall of 1792, proclaimed that "the practice of assemb- ling for public worship without arms may be attended with most serious and melancholy circumstances." In the Seioto valley Massie, aided by Duncan McArthur, a soldier of Harmar's expedition, was attempting to push his surveys inland, but encountered much Indian hostility. The Frenchmen brought over by the Scioto company had established themselves at Gallipolis, four miles below the mouth of the, Kanawha, and some of them took part in the St. Clair cam- paign, the Count Malartie particularly distinguishing himself as a staff officer. But their discontent was increased by an Indian raid afterward, in which several of them were captured and one scalped. Even news of the Terror in France did not reconcile them to the dif- ficulties of frontier life, though their cabin homes were not uncom- fortable, and their gardening met with success. They were involved in a vexations lawsuit to obtain titles to the lands they had bought, but the Scioto company had totally failed, had no lands to deliver to them, and its chief spirit, Colonel Dner, was put in prison for debt. Even the Ohio company was struggling for existence. They vet had no deeds to their lands, and by contract could have none until the sec- ond payment of $500,000 was paid. On account of the rise in value of continental securities, the speculation based on the eheapness of these securities failed. Putnam and Cutler asked Congress for relief, and an act was passed in April, 1792, ordering a patent to them for the 750,000 aeres paid for, 214,465 more on account of army bounties, and a gift of 100,000 acres to be divided among actual settlers.
The famous French philosopher, known as Count de Volney, escaped the guillotine in 1794 by the fall of Robespierre, and in 1796 went down the Ohio. He described the people at Gallipolis as for- lorn and sickly, but, judging from his description, as well off as the
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ordinary frontier settler. A later distinguished visitor was Louis Phillippe, afterward the citizen king of Franee, who was at Gallipolis in 1798.
The main furore about the Scioto seandal was due to politics. Even Jefferson rejoiced at the misfortunes of Duer in the panic of 1792. While the colonists suffered temporarily on account of failure of title to land, the Ohio company made an effort to have Gallipolis ineluded in their donation of land, so that it could be assigned to the French, and though Congress did not do this, the Ohio company offered the Freneh a ehanec at the donation tracts of hundred acre lots, and a little later (March, 1793) Congress granted them 20,000 aeres, now in Scioto county, and 4,000 more to Jean Gabriel Gervaise, the leader, who proposed to found a town upon it. But the poor adven- turers were then mostly seattered. At the worst, however, they had something to be thankful for, as they escaped the Terror and missed the slaughter of Napoleon's wars. Hypolite de Malartie, an aide-de- eamp with St. Clair in 1791, wrote to the general from Europe five years later : "I am very sorry I have left America. I have lost my father ; the guillotine has deprived me of a great part of my family, the rest are in prison. The more I reflect, the more my country inspires horror your's is the only country to live in." On the other hand, Barlow, who indueed these Frenchmen to seek refuge in Ohio, went baek to Franee as a diplomat, and died in the snow while accompanying Napoleon in Russia.
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