USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 32
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It was a disorganized attack, the militia heedless of commands pressed forward in disorder to be over- whelmed by the ambuscading savages, while the column of regulars which hastened to the rescue met a similar fate. It was indeed a sorry effort to redeem the previous lost honors of war, for to the disgrace of Trotter was added the defeat of Hardin. Harmar's expedition had come to a "lame and impotent con- clusion" the loss being nearly two hundred killed and some thirty-five wounded.
As noted by Jones in his "Fort Washington," an extract from a letter written by Captain Jonathan Heart from Fort Harmar, December 3, 1790, shows how stubborn was the fighting in this engagement of October 22d. He says: "A regular soldier on the retreat near the St. Joseph River, being surrounded and in the midst of the Indians, put his bayonet through six Indians, knocked down the seventh, and the soldier himself made the eighth dead man in the heap." An early writer who secured his information from those who actually took part in the Harmar campaign, says in regard to the second engagement: "Nothing could
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exceed the intrepidity of the savages on this occasion; the militia they appeared to despise, and with all the undauntedness conceivable, threw down their guns, and rushed upon the bayonets of the regular soldiers; a number of them fell, but being so far superior in numbers, the regulars were soon overpowered, for while the poor soldier had his bayonet in one Indian, two more would sink their tomahawks in his head."
The Indians in this encounter were led and directed by the distinguished Miami chief Little Turtle- Michikinikwa-who will figure largely in subsequent pages. He was born at his village on the Eel River, in 1752, his father being a Miami chief and his mother a Mohican. In one of the Kentucky expeditions Little Turtle captured a boy then about eleven years of age, named William Wells belonging to a good Kentucky family. The chief adopted the youngster. who as he grew up won the esteem and affection of Little Turtle and wife, and in time William married Little Turtle's beautiful daughter, whose Indian name was Waumaugapith, the interpretation of which is Sweet Breeze. Wells rendered valuable service to Little Turtle and his Indian subjects in the signal repulse of Harmar's troops. Descendants of William Wells and his Miami wife are living to-day at Maumee City and have regaled the present writer with interest- ing traditions of the famous Miami chief.
For the dejected survivors it was a dreary march back to Fort Washington, reached November 3d; but the retreat was in keeping with the tumultous conflicts they had experienced; the militia became nearly ungovernable, so that at one time Harmar
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reduced them to order only by threatening to fire on them with the artillery. The outcome of this martial miscarriage was a severe blow to General Harmar; in fact it was his official undoing, though without real fault on his part. He was accused of incompetency and even insobriety during the campaign, and whatever the merits or demerits of his behavior may have been, in the spring of 1791, he was, by the president, superseded as commander of the army, General St. Clair being appointed in his place while Colonel Richard Butler was made a major-general and second in command.
General Harmar, smarting under what he regarded, and rightly, as unjust criticism upon his conduct, demanded a Court of Inquiry which was granted and which met September 15, 1791, at Fort Washington. The findings of the court, proceedings of which are reported in the State Papers, relating to Military Affairs, were highly exonerative and honorable to Gen- eral Harmar. The expedition was from the start, a hopeless failure, because of the inexperience, in- efficiency and insubordination of the soldiers, their incomplete equipment and lack of commissary supplies. General Harmar after his exoneration, resigned from the army and returned to his home in Philadelphia, serving for six years as adjutant-general of Penn- sylvania.
The year 1791 was ushered in with a bloody begin- ning for the Muskingum settlers, for it was on January 2d that the uncompleted blockhouse and one or two adjacent cabins, located on the banks of the Muskingum some thirty miles from Marietta and known as the
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Big Bottom settlement, were attacked without warning by a war-party of twenty-five Delawares and Wyan- dots. The settlement was an off-shoot from Marietta and numbered some thirty-six souls. The harrowing particulars of the massacre are portrayed with graphic reality by Hildreth in his "Pioneer History of the Ohio Valley." Eleven men, one woman and two children, were tomahawked or shot down with merci- less barbarity. The blockhouse was then plundered, the log strips of the floor were torn up, piled in a heap and fired that the structure and the dead bodies of the massacred might be consumed in the flames that lit up the dark forest on that cold midwinter night. Two brothers, Asa and Eleazer Bullard, made a miraculous escape. The others were made captives and borne off by the savage assailants. Similar deeds of scarcely less cruelty were perpetrated in other localities, evidencing that the defeat of Harmar had stirred the warriors to renewed courage and boldness and ferocity.
The frontiersmen appealed for protection to Con- gress, which was sorely perplexed by the acute situation; acute as to the Indians and delicate as to the attitude of the British, the shadow of whose patronage lay over the movements of the tribesmen. It is not the province of this narrative to trace the diplomatic difficulties that beset the government at this date. Justin Winsor, in his "Westward Movement," says Lord Dorchester, formerly known as Guy Carleton but now elevated to the peerage, Governor-General of Canada, when he reached Quebec, in October 1786, was under "instructions to prevent, if possible, the Indians
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bringing on a war with the Americans," yet James Schouler, in his "United States History, " speaks of Dor- chester, as one "by whose instigation the Northwestern Indians at this period [1791] were studiously kept at enmity with the United States." The American govern- ment as the State Papers prove had endeavored earnest- ly to bring the Ohio Indians into peaceful and friendly relations. Their efforts were unavailing. The sub- jugation of the tribesmen, possibly their expulsion from the Ohio country, was unavoidable for the safety of the western settlers. How to prosecute this war without incurring the active hostility of the British was the problem. The wily go-between in the inter- national sparring was Chief Joseph Brant, at that time, undoubtedly the most influential warrior of his people. Great Britain and the United States eagerly competed for the friendship and services of the great Mohawk, who midst it all moved myste- riously among the Six Nations, the Ohio tribes and the Canadian authorities. Without doubt he secretly hoped and intrigued for a new western Indian con- federacy, with British support hostile to the Americans. Simon Girty likewise temporarily left his abiding-place on the Canadian side of the Detroit River and mingled with the Ohio tribes, brooding mischief among the warriors, by instigating them against the Americans.
But Washington undeceived and undaunted, de- cided there should be made without delay, martial incursions into the enemy's country, preliminary to an invasion of overwhelming magnitude. In May, General Charles Scott, accompanied by Colonel James Wilkinson, with a force of eight hundred mounted
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men, left the Ohio at the mouth of the Kentucky and rapidly advanced to the Wea villages on the Wabash. Their tribal center, Ouiatenon,-Ouia was the French for Wea -- and other towns in the vicinity were de- stroyed, the surrounding country laid waste and many Indians killed and captured. Two months later (July) General Wilkinson commanding five hundred and fifty mounted Kentuckians speedily proceeded from near Fort Washintgon to the Indian village Kenapacomaqua --- L'Anguille, French for eel-on the Eel River. The Indian inmates attempted flight by the river and five canoes were seized and all the savages with whom the boats were crowded were taken and killed. The town and other villages of the Miamis and Kickapoos were wiped out, hundreds of acres of corn, "chiefly in the milk" laid waste and considerable numbers of prisoners captured, among them "the sons and sisters of the king" of the Kickapoos. This expedition was conducted "with such celerity and signal success" as to draw forth a letter of thanks to Wilkinson from Gendral Knox, secretary of war.
The sudden blows struck by Scott and Wilkinson served only to further exasperate the Ohio tribesmen, who now entered upon extensive plans in defense of their country and resistance to the threatened approach of St. Clair. Under the leadership of Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis, Blue Jacket, chief of the Shawnees, and the noble head warrior of the Delawares, Buckongahelas, a war alliance was formed of their respective tribes. In this the chiefs had the aid not only of Simon Girty but of Alexander McKee and Mathew Elliott of the British Indian department,
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which began at once to forward supplies and munitions of war to the Miami towns for the use of the tribes in their impending campaign.
Meanwhile General St. Clair, under directions from Washington, was pushing forward preparations for his invasion which was intended to be irresistible, three thousand men being designated as the enrollment required. The objective point was to be the Miami towns at the head of the Maumee, the wigwams of which had been destroyed by Harmar, a habitable location, which had been the seat of the powerful Miami nation from time immemorial, often made desolate and as often rehabitated-a tribal site called by Little Turtle, "that glorious gate through which all good words of our chiefs had to pass from the north to the south and from the east to the west." A chain of forts, which were to be some twenty-five miles apart, was to be erected from the Ohio to the Lakes. Elaborate and specific instructions as to the expedition, its route, manner of march and encampment, discipline, and precautionary measures were outlined by the president. Special levies, militia and regulars were to constitute the army which slowly began to assemble at Fort Washington.
It was September 17th (1791) that the main portion of the two thousand three hundred "effectives"-as they were called with seeming irony-moved forward twenty-five miles from Cincinnati to the Great Miami, where the advance detachment had already erected Fort Hamilton, a stockade fifty yards square with four good bastions and platforms for cannon and with barracks for about two hundred men. This army
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though larger in numbers was little better in condition than that of Harmar, in the previous campaign. Washington Irving says these levies were picked up and recruited from the off-scourings of large towns and cities, enervated by idleness, debauchery, and every species of vice. The "effectives" were certainly a disreputable lot, dissipated and disorderly; the equip- ment was poor and inadequate; the tents and clothing nearly worthless; food for the men and fodder for the horses were deficient in both quality and quantity; desertions from the start, often in squads, were appal- ling in number. St. Clair, the commander, a brave, high-minded man, versed in the art of scientific warfare, but inexperienced in Indian combat, was broken in health, hardly able to sit upon his horse and really unfit for the hardships and duties that lay before him. General Butler was also in ill health and the main bur- den of responsibility fell upon Adjutant General Winthrop Sargent.
But there was no turning back and the forces, united at Fort Hamilton, slowly trudged forward, cutting roadways through the woods, building bridges over the streams and wearily tramping across the boggy plains, making but five or six miles a day. On October 12th, they had left Fort Hamilton forty-four miles behind and stopped, six miles south of Greenville, to build another stockade, they named Fort Jefferson. Here they remained twelve days. On November 3d, the foot-sore and bedraggled army, now reduced to a total of about fourteen hundred men, encamped on the eastern fork of the Wabash, upon an elevated timber- covered ground, with the creek in front and on the
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right, and a ravine on the left. Here were stationed the artillery and regulars. In front across the low, fordable stream the militia bivouacked, "while all around the wintry woods lay in frozen silence." It was the night before the battle, for at sunrise of the 4th, just as the soldiers were preparing breakfast the Indian horde, whose presence was unknown and unsus- pected, suddenly plunged from their hidden ambush and with savage yells opened fire on the militia, who rushed pellmell into the center of the camp of the regulars amid whom they spread dismay and confusion. It was the repetition of Braddock's entrapment. The story of the desperate and gory conflict has been told again and again from the official reports and the diaries of participants, the last and perhaps best war picture being that by the pen of Roosevelt.
There was no time nor room for the terror-benumbed soldiers to form or respond to the onslaught of the "woodland warriors," who soon completely encircled the American camp, and Indian fashion, protected by logs, trees and brush, crowded closer and closer, as they poured their shots into the crowded and dis- ordered soldiers, huddled like sheep on the elevated ground. The officers, amid this "wall of flame" strove bravely to rally and form the troops, who discharged their rifles in an aimless manner for the enemy was mostly hidden from sight. The artillerymen were soon picked off and the cannon silenced. The men fell in great numbers in all parts of the camp, confusion increased, the Indians boldly swarmed for- ward to shoot at close range and even dash into the American ranks and engage in close encounter.
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St. Clair, so weak he had to be lifted upon his horse, had three mounts shot from under him; eight bullets pierced his clothing and one clipped his grey hair. General Richard Butler, second in command, was twice hit and fell mortally wounded, and lay according to the account of Stone, in the "Life of Brant, " upon the field, writhing in agony, when Simon Girty, who played a conspicuous part in the battle, being in com- mand of the Wyandots, passed the general who knew the renegade and requested him to put an end to his misery; this the traitor refused to do but one of his warriors sprang forward and planted his tomahawk in the head of the dying officer, and thus terminated his sufferings; "his scalp was instantly torn from his crown, his heart taken out and divided into as many pieces as there were tribes engaged in the battle." Butterfield in his "History of the Girtys" regards this account as "trustworthy" but Roosevelt insists that after Butler received his mortal wound, "there is no further certain record of his fate except that he was slain." Certain it is that many such incidents added bloody coloring to the dreadful scene of the battle, and "no words can paint the hopelessness and horror of such a struggle as that in which they were engaged."
The conflict continued nearly three hours until the survivors, comprising the remnant of the army became too stupefied and bewildered for further action of any kind. That all might not be sacrificed, St. Clair ordered a retreat. Such of the wounded as could be moved were hastily gathered together, a last charge, by the remaining combatants, was made against the enemy, that an opening through their lines might be made
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enabling the fleeing force to escape. The flight was successful. The Indian warriors at first attempted pursuit but returned to secure the rich booty left upon the field. As the diary of Major Ebenezer Denny -a brave participant in the battle-recounts, it was a disgraceful flight even to the very gates of Fort Jefferson. The road for miles was covered with fire- locks, cartridge-boxes and regimentals. Stragglers for hours continued to stumble into the fort. The killed and missing numbered thirty-seven officers, one major- general (Butler), one lieutenant-colonel, three majors, twelve captains, ten lieutenants, eight ensigns, two quartermasters, one adjutant, and one surgeon; and five hundred and ninety-three privates; the wounded, thirty-three officers and two hundred and fifty privates. A total disability of over nine hundred men, two-thirds the entire force engaged. It was a far greater loss than that incurred by Washington in any battle of the Revolution, surpassing by hundreds his most disastrous defeat at Germantown. The artillery and all supplies, including clothing, two hundred tents, three hundred horses, one hundred and thirty beef cattle, and food in wagons with muskets and other equipments, all valued at $33,000, or more, were left to be gathered by the highly elated savages and borne to their lodges as plunder of war. The loss of the Indians was supposed to be about one hundred and fifty. As the contest was one for territorial posses- sions, the Indians, in their mutilations of the dead, practised, says Stone, a bitter sarcasm upon the rapacity of the white men, by filling their mouths with the soil they had marched forth to conquer.
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Indeed the later disclosures, upon the scene of action, of the Indian brutalities, are almost too inhuman to be recorded. In January (1792) following St. Clair's disaster, General James Wilkinson was ordered to visit, with a sufficient force, the site of the late battle, examine the conditions prevailing and make such disposal, as might be possible, of the dead. From the letter of Captain Buntin, one of Wilkinson's officers, to St. Clair, we take the following passage, as quoted in the "Annals of the West" (1846) by James H. Perkins: "In my opinion, those unfortunate men who fell in the enemy's hands, with life, were used with the greatest torture-having their limbs torn off; and the women [many accompanied the army] have been treated with the utmost indecent cruelty, having stakes as thick as a person's arm drove through their bodies.
* * * By the General's orders, pits were dug in different places and all the dead bodies that were exposed to view, or could be conveniently found, the snow being very deep, were buried."
The actual number of Indians engaged in this victory, for them, is not recorded. Simon Girty is said to have told a prisoner (William May), that there were twelve hundred in the attack, among them, it is known, were many Canadians and half breeds. Little Turtle was the acknowledged chief in command, aided by Blue Jacket, Buckongahelas, and other chiefs, among whom at the head of one hundred and fifty Mohawks, was the famous Brant, according to statements sub- sequently made by the chief's descendants to Stone, his biographer. There must also have been found in the Indian ranks, of that attack, a young warrior, now
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in the beginning of his career and destined to be the greatest hero of the Ohio tribes, Tecumseh, the Shaw- nee. Upon their learning of the proposed St. Clair campaign, the chiefs selected Tecumseh to act as the head of a small party of spies, to watch the movements of the American army and make report to the Indian headquarters. Most faithfully did Tecumseh perform the duty assigned him. All unbeknown to St. Clair, every mile of his progress, was heralded to the chiefs, planning for the opportune moment to strike the advancing foe. Tecumseh will merit greater attention later on.
After his return to Fort Washington, St. Clair pre- pared his official report, "a model in its way, cool, dispassionate, magnanimous in a high degree," to General Knox, the War Secretary at Philadelphia, then the seat of government. Major Denny was the messenger and it was December 19th before he reached his destination. When Washington learned the appal- ling news, the story goes, it was whispered to him, as he sat at a formal dinner, which he continued with his usual serenity, following which was a reception attended by him with his characteristic courtliness. The guests having departed, Washington-now alone with Tobias Lear, his secretary-walking backward and forward, broke out suddenly: "It's all over-St. Clair's defeated-routed-the officers nearly all killed, the men by hundreds-the rout complete-too shocking to think of-and a surprise into the bargain." He continued to pour forth a torrent of bitter invectives against St. Clair, that he had ignored the president's warnings and permitted the army "to be cut to pieces,
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hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a surprise-the very thing I guarded him against. O God, O God, he's worse than a murderer! How can he answer it to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him-the curse of widows and orphans-the curse of heaven." This explosion came in tones appalling. His very frame shook. It was awful, said Mr. Lear. More than once he threw up his hands as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. Mr. Lear remained speechless, awed into breathless silence. Then having spent his "un- governable burst of passion," Washington regained his composure and declared, "St. Clair shall have justice, " and that was accorded him for he still retained the undiminished esteem and good opinion of the president. This anecdote was first published in "Wash- ington in Domestic Life" by Benjamin Rush, who received the account direct from Colonel Tobias Lear, private secretary to the president and a personal witness of the incident. It has since been repeated by in- numerable historians from Washington Irving to Roose- velt and Lodge and undoubtedly occurred as related, despite the skepticism of William Henry Smith, who in his valuable sketch of St. Clair, pronounces the story as apocryphal.
The popular clamor against St. Clair was, of course, loud and deep. He promptly announced his intention of resigning his commission but expressed his desire to retain it until a court could investigate his conduct. Officers could not be spared at that time for such a purpose, and the matter was referred to a committee of Congress, which after due examination exonerated
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St. Clair, and reported the cause of the defeat as due to circumstances and conditions for which the comman- der of the expedition was not responsible.
It was however a staggering blow to the government at the head of which was Washington, now charged with inefficiency and maladministration. The fron- tiersmen were thrown into a state of terror and the settlers on the Muskingum and the Miamis hastily took refuge in the stockades. It was a day of gloom and dismay. Was the government at Philadelphia impotent and would the Northwest be regained by the British and the tribesmen? St. Clair's resignation was accepted and in April, 1792, Washington, after mature deliberation, appointed as successor to the unfortunate, war-worn patriot, the young dashing plumed Navarre of warfare-Anthony Wayne. He was now less than fifty and had, more than ten years before, won the rank of major-general for his brilliant bravery and generalship in the battles of the Revolu- tion. His star was brightest at Stony Point, into the citadel of which he forced his way at the point of the bayonet, a dare-devil feat, for which he was subse- quently known as "Mad Anthony." After the Revolu- tion he conducted, in Georgia, a campaign against the Creek Indians, in which he evinced a talent for sucess- fully coping with a savage foe.
Congress at once enlarged and reorganized the army, adopted plans for the strengthening of the frontier posts and advocated measures for the placation of the Indian tribes so far as possible. Wayne was directed to make preparations for the carrying of
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another war into the country of the enemy. Rufus Putnam was appointed a brigadier-general to serve under Wayne.
The American government, however, earnestly desired to avoid war, for which it could neither spare the men nor the money. Every effort was made to bring about councils conducive to peace, with some, if not all, the tribes. In March (1792), fifty Iroquois chiefs assembled at Philadelphia, "to the mutual satisfac- tion of the parties," says Stone, but the satisfaction must have been purely a sentimental one for no tan- gible results ensued. Brant declined the invitation and sent his regrets, but a few months later personally visited the "city of brotherly love" and met some American representatives, who he wrote to a British official, offered him "several allurements of gain," viz., "a thousand guineas down," and double the half pay and pension he was then receiving from Great Britain, if he would transfer his allegiance to the Ameri- can government. But we are not permitted to trace the sinuous intrigues between the red and two white races, at this period, in the midst of which there now appears Colonel John G. Simcoe, first lieutenant- governor of the newly organized territory of Western Canada, with headquarters at Fort Niagara. Nor can we more than note the numerous councils and tentative measures for peace. In the summer of 1792, messen- gers for secret information and envoys of peace were sent into the Miami and Wabash countries. Major Alexander Truemen and Captain John Hardin, official spies, while proceeding on their errand, the former to Sandusky and the latter to the Northwest, were
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