USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 21
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But the dwellers at Schoenbrunn had received news by messengers of the attack on Gnadenhutten and providentially made their escape and when William- son's band appeared they found the village deserted and were obliged to satiate their war-lust by looting the houses and setting the town on fire. Returning to Gnadenhutten the incendiary work was made complete by the burning of the "slaughter houses, " the bloody bodies of the dead therein being reduced to heaps of ashes. Seizing the plunder, a rapid retreat was made for their home settlements. "They must have traveled all night," according to Farrar, "for they reached
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Mingo late in the afternoon of Saturday, where they halted only long enough to readjust the packages of olunder to their horses, when they recrossed the river and disappeared from public notice as completely as f they had perished in crossing the stream."
In the stories of "Our Western Border," by Charles McKnight, the harrowing details of the Moravian nassacre are presented as told by the Rev. Edward Christy, who as a member of Williamson's company, vas "a protesting and horrified witness of the dreadful Irama," being one of the eighteen who refused to participate in the infamous slaughter. Christy's re- ital, told in language of such lurid realism as to well ligh suggest dramatic exaggeration, gives the final cene as follows: "Hastily gathering up their ill- otten and blood-stained plunder, they started for ome, driving before them about fifty stolen horses. ome two weeks later a band of Williamson's men arched to Smoky Island, opposite Fort Pitt; attacked settlement of peaceful and friendly Delawares dwell- ng there, under Killbuck and Big Cat. The assaulting ordermen killed several of the Indians. The rest, rith their chief, fled to Sandusky. The borderers, fter the devastation of Smoky Island proceeded to ittsburg, boasting of their inhuman atrocities, and ding their brutalities by having a public vendue of Il the blankets, guns, horses and other booty so vilely ad meanly stolen."
We grant the last word concerning this "deed of readful note" that reddens the bloodiest page in merican history, an ensanguined story that "all the erfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten," to Edmund De
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Schweinitz, who was the principal speaker at the dedication of the monument, June 5, 1872, at Gnaden- hutten, when the marble shaft now standing in the village cemetery, near the scene of the slaughter, was put in place to commemorate the event of ninety years before. There was then present a concourse of people among whom there mingled with equal interest and veneration, descendants of the martyred Moravians and of the men under Williamson. In his life of Zeis- berger, De Schweinitz closes his description of that never to be forgotten day, in March, 1781, in these words: "It was not carnage perpetrated in the flush of victory, ere the heat and passion of battle have passed away. It was not as when a long-beleagured city is taken, and half-intoxicated horsemen dash through the streets, hewing right and left with thei sabers, and sparing neither age nor sex. It was : butchery in cold blood, without the least excitation of feeling, as leisurely and dispassionately done a when animals are slaughtered for the shambles."
CHAPTER XVI. THE EXPEDITION AGAINST SANDUSKY
I N "Annals of the West," the author, James R. Albach-an interesting writer but a fallible author- ity-erroneously asserts: "The success of the ex- pedition of Williamson, excited the borderers to prepare another invasion of the Indian country, to inish the destruction of the Christian Indians by the massacre of the fugitives at Sandusky; it was set on foot immediately after the return of Williamson's party from the Muskingum."
Public sentiment among the borderers, as we have already shown, would not have tolerated another :rime like that at Gnadenhutten. Preparations, however, were at once set on foot for an expedition against the Indians of Sandusky, but it was directed against the hostile tribesmen, the allies of England, lwelling at that place, and not against the Moravians, is Albach would have it believed.
The British defeated and the Revolution at an end n the East, the hopes of England and the efforts of ter waning power centered in the Northwest, and de 'eyster pushed with redoubled energy his policy of allying and urging forth the Ohio tribes against urther encroachments by the borderers. De Peyster ad not abandoned plans against Fort Pitt, while the Americans now renewed their long cherished designs possess Detroit. The Revolution was indeed to ontinue to rage with unabated savagery in the Ohio ountry.
It was the memorable year of 1782, the "bloody ear," in which were enacted so many woeful and ·agic events. The Wyandot settlement known as andusky, became, during this period, the storm center
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of the contending British-Indian and American forces. It was in the midst of the territory in which were located the Wyandots, Shawnees, Delawares and Mingoes.
Referring to the modern map of Ohio, it will be seen that the Sandusky River, originating at the "Palmer Springs" in Springfield township, Richland county, where it is called the Little Sandusky, flows west through Crawford county, Bucyrus now being on its banks, into Wyandot county, in which it turns north and finds its way through Seneca and Sandusky coun- ties, watering the present towns of Tiffin and Fremont, and finally emptying into the Sandusky Bay. Just before emerging from Wyandot county, the Sandusky or Little Sandusky River, is joined by the Tymochtee a Wyandot word meaning "around the plains." The "plains" was the level section bounded, in general on the north by the (Little) Sandusky, on the east by the Olentangy, on the south by the Scioto, and or the west by the Tymochtee.
These "plains" lying between the headwaters o the Sandusky and Tymochtee, that flowed north and those of the Olentangy and Scioto that flowed south were in those Indian days overgrown with high coars grass, with here and there slight surface elevation called "islands" which were covered with timber Over these "Sandusky Plains," some forty miles i extent, east and west, and perhaps reaching twent miles, north and south, says Butterfield, "birds of strange plumage" flew and "prairie hens sailed away slowly dropping into the grass, while sand-hill crane blew their shrill pipes;" "prairie owls, on cumbrou wings, fluttered away in the distance and the nois
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bittern was heard along the streamlets; wild geese were frightened from their nests, and occasionally a bald or gray eagle, soared far above them; many fox- squirrels were seen and rattlesnakes were also found to be very numerous." Deer, turkeys and pheasants there were in abundance. Little wonder that "these plains were always a favorite hunting-ground for the Indians."
In these "plains" the Wyandots had chosen the location of their most eastern headquarters, and called the town Sandusky after the river upon which it was ocated. The Wyandots were numbered among the chief allies of the British and the council-house of their Northwestern Confederacy was at the site of Browns- :own on the Detroit River. There was the permanent residence of their Half-King, but in the later years of the Revolution, when affairs between the British and Americans became acute, Pomoacan took up his tem- porary abode at Sandusky. The latter therefore became a town of great importance. This fierce varrior tribe had gradually pushed from the northwest akes into the Ohio country; their favorite abodes being on the Sandusky River, on the bay of which vere their first Ohio villages.
As with all Indian tribes, according to the exigencies of peace and war, their towns were changed, from time o time, both as to location and name, thus causing nuch confusion in the recital of their history. From he mouth of the river, they naturally worked up the tream into the interior and "the name Sandusky, as pplicable to their principal town upon that river eems to have come into use after the occupation of he western posts, by the English, in 1760."
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The Sandusky town, concerning which we now speak, the Wyandot center, so prominent in Indian affairs through the Revolutionary period, was situated on the west bank of the river bearing the same name, five miles below, that is north of, the present town of Upper Sandusky. Much confusion arises from the indiscriminate use, by writers, of the names Sandusky and Upper Sandusky, their sites being in such juxta- position, though the towns under those respective names did not exist contemporaneously. The old Wyandot Sandusky was called even in its day Upper Sandusky. The latter as a town was established many years later, became the final Ohio home of the Wyandots, the location of their mission, and later was made the site of the county seat. Four miles north- east of the present Upper Sandusky there was a Wyan- dot town called Upper Sandusky, also Crane's Town, which was the residence of Tarhe, the Crane, a famous Wyandot chief, of whom we shall hear much anon. In 1818 the Wyandots transferred their council-house from the Crane's Town to the site of the present Upper Sandusky, giving it at the time of their removal, that name.
Sandusky was near the point of portage on that famous waterway between Lake Erie and the Ohio. From time out of mind, the travel and trade between Canada and the Mississippi found a favorite water route, by way of the Sandusky River, from its bay up the stream to the junction of the west branch, known as the Little Sandusky, thence, at a point about five miles west of the site of Bucyrus, over a portage to the Little Scioto, the northeast branch of the Scioto.
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"his portage, over which the barks and canoes were arried, was from four to two miles in extent and it 3 claimed even less, according to the season of high r low waters in the rivers. Through Sandusky, herefore, passed the traders and the going and coming ands of warriors. It was not only a chief trading ost for the tribesmen and the British, but it was made he principal depot in the Ohio interior from which he British distributed their arms and provisions to heir Indian allies, making it also the rendezvous at which they could rally the tribesmen for border forays. uch was Sandusky at the time our narrative has cached. It was the menacing outpost of the British nd the stronghold of the Wyandots, who had many ther but smaller villages down the river and in the ountry to the west, it being estimated that in Sandusky nd immediate vicinity, not far from seven hundred Tyandots found their home and that their war chief ould summon no less than four hundred warriors from le country round about. It was from this Sandusky eighborhood that Pomoacan and Elliott, with their vage band marched (1781) against the Moravian llages on the Muskingum and, after looting the towns, rried the missionaries and the Christian Indians .ptive to the Sandusky River, locating them some ven miles south of Sandusky, in the territory of the plains," where, says Loskiel, "the exiles pitched on the best spot they could find in this dreary waste." Upon the Tymochtee, near the present site of rawfordsville, eleven miles from the Wyandot San- isky, the Delawares had a village, called Pipe's Town, here resided the warrior chief Captain Pipe. Some
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thirty miles east of Sandusky, close to the presen location of Leesville, was another Delaware village which, at this time, was the abode of the noted wa chief Wingenund. It was this "country of the enemy' that the borderers now proposed to invade, penetratin to its very stronghold, which must be destroyed.
General Irvine was absent from Fort Pitt at th time of the Moravian massacre at Gnadenhutter Upon his return shortly thereafter, he gave his attentio to the renovation and reparation of the fort, which h found in a sorry condition, and to the strengthenin and reequipment of the garrison force, which consiste of only about two hundred men fit for service, and ( these a number were detached for duty at Fort Mclı tosh and elsewhere.
The matter of an offensive warfare against the Oh Indians, especially the proposed scheme against Sai dusky, promptly received the attention of the sagaciou and courageous commander. The Washington-Irvir correspondence reveals that, as early as April, a expedition against Sandusky was being considere
Besides the question of their offensive military mov ment, there was "another kind of enterprise" the agitating the borderers. Irvine outlines this "ente prise" in a letter to Washington, written in Ap (1872): "Emigrations and new states are mu talked of; advertisements are set up, announcing day to assemble at Wheeling for all who wish to becor members of a new state on the Muskingum." I proceeds to say further "should these people actual emigrate, they must be either entirely cut off, or il- mediately take protection from the British," whi
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le fears is the real design of some of the party, though he thinks "a great majority have no other views han to acquire lands." The 20th of May was the lay appointed for these Ohio emigrants to rendezvous tt Wheeling.
It was evident General Irvine regarded the "new tate scheme" as a dangerous one and doubtless was herefore the more ready to enter upon the enterprise gainst Sandusky as a counter undertaking; besides public sentiment was growing in favor of the latter. General Irvine gave the plan his sanction but rather han resort to his authority to call out the regular hilitia for his expedition he advocated the call for volunteers, with the understanding that when enrolled, hey should place themselves under his orders, to be h all respects subject to the military laws governing he state or county militia, the same as if called out y his requisition. Three hundred was regarded as he least number required. As it was out of the power f the military authorities to furnish any material id to the expedition, either of arms, provisions or quipment, each volunteer was therefore expected to upply himself with a horse, as all were to be mounted, nd equipment, with rifle, rations and necessaries. General Irvine further made it known that those ntering upon the expeditions must not expect to make ettlements in the country to be invaded and that any onquests they might make should be in behalf of and or the United States. There was a general desire that vine should command the expedition, for he was a rave and popular officer, a native of Ireland, and ierefore fearless in fight; and in the American Rev-
1
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olution his career had been a highly honorable one. both as a patriot and a soldier. But he declined, for good reasons, to lead the Sandusky campaign and so it was agreed that the volunteers should select their own officers.
The 20th of May-the same date set for the gathering of the Ohio Emigrants-was the day fixed for the rendezvous and the place, Mingo Bottom.
The project, says Butterfield, was as carefully considered, and as authoritatively planned, as any military enterprise in the West, during the Revolution the scheme being "not irruptive in its origin bu smooth and steady-flowing," and its promoters wer "a large proportion of the best known and most in fluential private citizens."
The early days of May saw the settlers in the valley of the Monongahela and the Youghiogheny astir wit preparations for the Sandusky campaign, and by th fifteenth many were on their way to place of rendez vous. The volunteers knew that they were enterin upon serious business for many of them "execute deeds in consideration of love and affection, and man witnesses were called to subscribe to last wills an testaments." Among the latter was William Crav ford, who bequeathed his property, both real an personal, to his wife, children and grandchildren.
They were prepared to "do or die," were the! sturdy, backwoodsmen, gathering at Mingo Botton It must have been a picturesque as well as a warlil group. Butterfield describes the appearance of th volunteer: "His hunting-shirt, reaching half-way dow his thighs, was securely belted at the waist, the boso:
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F AN AMERICAN STATE
erving as a wallet. The belt, tied behind, answered :veral purposes besides that of holding the wide folds the shirt together. Within it on the right side, was ispended his tomahawk; on the left his scalping knife. is equipage was very simple. Strapped to his saddle as the indispensable knapsack, made of coarse tow oth, in which were several small articles, placed tere, perhaps, by a loving wife or a thoughtful mother · sister. From the pommel of his saddle was sus- ended a canteen-a very useful article, as the weather as unusually warm for the season. Flour and bacon nstituted his principal supply of food. His blanket, jed as a covering for his saddle, answered for a bed night." He carried a flint-lock rifle; a powder-horn curely fastened to a strap, passing over his left oulder, under the right; a leather pouch, either stened to his belt or thrust into his bosom, was filled ith bullets, bullet-patches and extra flints. These ung, active, venturesome and undaunted Irish or cotch-Irish volunteers, threaded their way, through e woods, along the bridle-paths or the banks of reams to the Ohio.
On Friday morning, May 24th, all had crossed the ner and the cavalrymen in motley attire, assembled the place of meeting. The exact number was four Undred and eighty men, mostly from Washington ad Westmoreland counties, Pennsylvania; a few were fom Virginia. They assembled, at noon, to organize &d elect officers, distributing themselves into eighteen ompanies, each company choosing a captain, a lieu- thant and an ensign. This plan of a small company, less than fifty each, was the frontier method, as
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small bands could be best commanded and handlec in contending with the Indians who fought largely under cover and in scattered groups. The "army' as a whole then chose one colonel commandant, fou! field majors, and one brigade-major. The candidate for commander were Colonel David Williamson and Colonel William Crawford. Upon counting the votes it was found that two hundred and thirty were cast fo: Williamson and two hundred and thirty-five for Craw ford. The latter we have frequently met with befor in our history. He was the surveyor boy with Wash ington in the Shenandoah Valley; was with Washington at Braddock's defeat and the Forbes expedition against Fort Duquesne; in 1767 he took up his hom on the banks of the Youghiogheny and became the land agent of Washington, accompanying him down th Ohio; he was with Dunmore in 1774 and destroyed th Mingo town, near the present site of Columbus; h had in charge the building of Fort McIntosh, and aided in the building of Fort Laurens. During th Revolution he did valiant service at the head of Virginia regiment, gaining the confidence of Washing ton as a "brave and active officer." He was i command of Fort Pitt in 1778, under his superic Brigadier-General Edward Hand.
The choice of a leader of the Sandusky campaig could not have been better made, for Crawford wa courageous, judicious and intimately acquainted wit Indian warfare. David Williamson was made secon in command; Thomas Gaddis and John McClellan were chosen third and fourth field majors. The othe officers were Major Brinton, fifth in command; Dani
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et, Brigade-Major; Dr. John Knight, surgeon; hn Slover and Jonathan Zane, "pilots"; and John Jose, aide-de-camp to Colonel Crawford. This Lieu- inant Rose, "a very vigilant, active, brave young ntleman, well acquainted with service and a surgeon," is the romantic figure of this expedition, a man of mystery. He had recently served as aid to General Ivine, having previously rendered conspicuous service i the Revolution at the beginning of which he had indered his aid to the American colonists. It de- loped, two years after Crawford's expedition, that I was one Baron Gustave Henri De Rosenthal, from Ivonia, Russia, whence he had fled in disguise to nerica, before the Revolution, having killed a fellow ibleman in a duel. He assumed the name of John lose, and "fought long and gallantly for American dependence." He spoke the languages fluently, pecially French and German. After the Revolution ]: was pardoned by the Russian authorities, and iturned to his native country and the United States vernment, in recognition of his service in the cause Independence, granted him bounty lands in Ohio. ] has been said that "this accomplished man and fiend of our country is the only Russian on the Ameri- on side in the war of Independence."
The presence of Rose at Mingo Bottom gave much stisfaction, says Butterfield, to such of the volunteers had previously made his acquaintance at Fort Pitt. Al were captivated by his fine appearance, urbanity ad warm-heartedness. Colonel Crawford was also acompanied by his only son, John Crawford, "the il of his father, a young man greatly and deservedly
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esteemed as a soldier and citizen"; by his son-in-law William Harrison; and his nephew William Crawford son of Valentine Crawford.
It was the morning of Saturday, May 25, 1782, tha this little army, the men and officers of which wer eager for the campaign, took up their march fron Mingo Bottom to Sandusky, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, in a straight course. But the rout chosen was not the most direct one but one that lay through the present counties of Jefferson, Harrison Tuscarawas, Holmes, Ashland, Richland and Crawford to the center of Wyandot. The journey, as planned involved a march of one hundred and seventy-fiv miles, a somewhat circuitous route, as it was the polic of Crawford to avoid Indian trails and the region usually traveled. Crawford expected, however, t reach his destination in seven days. We need nc follow each step of the way; this has been done b Butterfield in his "Crawford's Expedition."
As the author just mentioned indicates, the hill: swamps and tangled growth of forests and the stream to be crossed, made the advance less rapid than ant
E cipated. From the moment of starting, every pr caution was taken against surprises or ambuscades b the Indians. On Thursday, the fourth day of th march, the army reached the Muskingum, up th western side of which they marched to the site of th charred remains of Schoenbrunn, or New Schoenbrunn where they made their fourth encampment. The had thus far proceeded sixty miles, making an averag of only fifteen miles per day. Here the horses we plentifully fed "in the fields upon corn from the stalk nd
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which was found still ungathered and in abundance- the unharvested crop of the previous year" left by the exiled Moravians.
From the outset of the expedition, the knowledge of the project and its every movement were known to the Indians. Simon Girty, who seems to have been almost omnipresent by his swift flittings, "like a host of evil spirits," from village to village in the Sandusky country, had reported to de Peyster that the expedition was on foot and that immediate and adequate measures must be taken to meet it. De Peyster at once re- sponded by getting ready a vessel, the "Faith," to convey a body of British Rangers to the Sandusky River. Girty exerted himself to the utmost, in aiding the Half-King, Dunquat, of the Wyandots at Sandusky, to call in all the absent warriors and hunters of the hation: the Delawares at Wingenund's camp, near what is now Crestline and those on the Tymochtee at Pipe's Town. Runners were also sent to the Mingoes und Shawnees informing them of the approach of the Americans and the impending conflict.
The force forwarded by de Peyster consisted of 'two companies of white soldiers" from Detroit, Known as Butler's Rangers, commanded by Captain William Caldwell, and a band of "Lake Indians" from the Detroit regions. This force, the horses of the Rangers and two field pieces being sent around by and, crossed Lake Erie to Lower Sandusky, whence hey marched in all haste to Upper Sandusky, where hey arrived "just in time of need," meeting there a 'wild assemblage of whooping and stamping Wyandots und Delawares and some Mingoes." The combined
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Indian force numbered not less than two hundred. These with the white troops were gathered at the Half-King's town on June 4th to meet and give battle to Crawford's advancing army. In command of the entire army was Captain Caldwell; under him, to direct the Indians, was Captain Mathew Elliott; Dunquat, aided by Simon Girty, had immediate com- mand of the Wyandots; Captain Pipe, aided by George Girty, had direct oversight of the Delawares.
On May 29th, Crawford's army resumed the march. Leaving their encampment on the Muskingum, they advanced to Killbuck Creek, near the present site of Millersburg, up which stream they moved to a point about ten miles south of Wooster. From this point, after a night's encampment, the army moved westward to the Rocky Fork of the Mohican, up which they traveled to near the site of Mansfield; then passing due west into Crawford county, they reached the head- waters of the Sandusky, not far from the present village of Leesville, three miles west of Crestline. Slover here announced to Crawford that the open country known as the Sandusky Plains was but a few miles away in a southwest direction. Slover, though a Virginian by birth, was "at home" in this region. He had been brought up among the Ohio Indians, having been taken captive by the Miamis when only eight years of age, his father being killed at the time of the boy's capture on New River, Virginia. Slover was adopted into the Miami tribe and given the name of Mannucothe. After a captivity of six years among the Miamis, Slover was sold to a Delaware Indian who put him in the hands of a white trader by whom
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