History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 4

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559

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The Indians in this battle adhered to their usual mode of warfare during the first part of the engagement, and, unseen by the whites, poured into the broken, disorderly ranks of the terrified raw troops, a deadly fire. The battle began about half an hour before sunrise, and con- tinued until half past nine, a constant, fierce and mur- derous engagement. The men who manned the guns of St. Clair's army were shot down one after another by the skilled marksman among the Miamis and their confed- erates, and at length confusion beginning to spread from the great number who were falling in all quarters, "it be- came necessary to try what could be done by the bayonet." Lieutenant Colonel Darke led a spirited charge against the enemy's left. flank, before which the Indians instantly gave way, and were driven back three or four hundred yards. For want of a sufficient number of riflemen, however, the advantage thus gained could not be maintained, and the troops were obliged to fall back in turn. The Indians entered the camp, and were repeatedly charged and driven back, but each time with a terrible loss to the whites. In one charge made by the Second regiment, all of the officers fell but three. The Indians fought with desperation and a fury born of long hatred. It was evident that they were controlled by some great chief, and in accordance with a well laid and thoroughly strategic plan. They made the attack from all quarters, and through the whole carnage main- tained the most harrassing line of tactics possible. At last, after four hours of unremitting battle, much of it hand to hand fighting, the remnant of St. Clair's army, terror-stricken, demoralized and utterly hopeless of victory, made a flying, disorderly retreat. The camp and artillery were abandoned necessarily, as there were no horses left, and the men in panic fled pell-mell through the woods and southward along the road, by which they had marched two days before, a well organized army of

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

twice as many men. Most of them threw away their arms, ammunition and accouterments, even after the pur- suit which was continued about four miles, was aban- doned. The road was strewn with them for miles. All day long the rout was continued, and at sunset ended twenty-nine miles from the scene of battle, at Fort Jefferson.

More than a hundred women were with St. Clair's ar- my, following the fortunes of their husbands. The greater number fell victims to the savage enemy, and upon them was wreaked the most cruel vengeance of the victors. Many were found with huge stakes driven through their bodies, pinning them to the ground. The Indians believing that the whites had, for many years, made war merely to acquire land, crammed sand and clay into the eyes and down the throats of the dying and the dead. On the first of February, 1792, the field of battle was reached by General James Wilkinson and a detachment of men, who marched northward from Fort Washington through Preble county. The expedi- tion was made for the purpose of recovering the artillery carriages and burying the dead. The soldiers found indications that the men who had fallen from wounds in the battle had been subjected to the most horrible torture, their limbs having been torn off, and the most indecent indignities perpetrated. Over six hundred skulls were reported to have been found.

It was never known exactly how many Indians fell in this battle, nor, for that matter, how many there were engaged in the fight, though from the extent of the camp which General Wilkinson and his soldiers visited and which was supposed to have been that of the In- dians the night before the engagement, their number must have been very large. It has been variously estimated at from one to three thousand. Two thou- sand is said, by good authorities, to have been the ap- proximate number. It has been generally supposed that Little Turtle, the great chief of the Miamis, led the Indians in this, their fiercest fight and greatest victory, but Stone, in his life of Joseph . Brant, says that that famous chief was present with a hundred and fifty Mo- hawk braves, and commanded the warriors of the wilder- ness.

We have given a somewhat extended account of St. Clair's defeat, because, although it occurred at some distance from the territory of which this volume is the history, a knowledge of the event is necessary to a proper appreciation of the condition of the country at this period, and an adequate understanding of subse- quent occurrence in Preble county.

It was after the terrible defeat at the site of Fort Re- covery that Fort St. Clair was built just west of the site of Eaton. It was intended as an intermediate place of refuge between Fort Hamilton and Jefferson. The work was performed under the supervision of Major John S. Gano, of the State militia, and by the order of General Wilkinson, who had succeeded St. Clair as commandant of Fort Washington. General Harrison, at that time an ensign, was present during the building of Fort St. Clair, his duty being to command the guard on alternate

nights. The detachment of troops detailed for the con- struction of this fort, and who successfully accomplished it during the winter of 1791-92, suffered very severely fron. the cold, having no fires and no covering.

Fort St. Clair was a stockade like the other strong- holds along the border. It enclosed an area of only a few acres, and contained block-houses and officers' quar- ters. The forest was cleared away around it for a space of about forty acres. Stockades were usually made by digging a trench along the proposed line of defences, and in this setting the palisades or pickets, of which from one to two or three thousand were required, ac- cording to the size of the enclosure. General St. Clair, in his "Narrative," further describes the construction of one of the fortresses in the line which stretched north- ward from the site of Cincinnati. As its features were, in a general way, similar to those of Fort St. Clair, we transcribe a portion of his description :

* * It is not trees taken promiscuously that will answer for pickets. They must be tall and straight, and from nine to twelve inches in diameter, for those of a larger size are too unmanageable; of course, few trees that are proper are to be found without going over a considerable space of woodland. When found, they are peeled, cleared of their branches, and cut into lengths of about twenty feet. They were then carried to the ground and butted, that they might be placed firm and upright in the trench, with the axe or cross-cut saw. Some hewing upon them was also necessary, for there are few trees so straight that the sides of them will contact when set upright. A thin piece of timber, called a 'ribbon,' is run around the whole, near the top of the pickets, to which every one of them is pinned, with a strong wooden pin, without which they would decline from the perpendicular with every blast of wind, some hanging outward and some inward, which would render them in a great measure useless. The earth thrown out of the trench is then returned, and strongly rammed to keep the pickets firmly in their place, and a shallower trench is dug outside about three feet distant, to carry off the water, and prevent their being removed by the rains. *

* Pickets are set up on the outside, one between every two of the other; the work is then enclosed."

In October, 1792, a great council of all the Indian tribes of the West -- the largest council of the kind ever held --- was held at Auglaize (Fort Defiance, Ohio), and an armistice was entered into, which the Indians promised to observe until springtime. Peace was not, however, very faithfully observed. It was first broken within the present bounds of Preble county, upon the sixth of November following. On that day about two hundred and fifty Mingo and Wyandot warriors, under the command of Little Turtle, attacked, almost under cover of the guns of Fort St. Clair, a company of one hundred mounted riflemen of the Kentucky militia, commanded by Major John Adair, afterwards governor of Kentucky. Several accounts of this battle or skirmish, differing slightly, have been furnished by participants in the struggle. The first which we produce is condensed in part and in part taken word for word from a letter which James McBride, of Butler county, elicited from Joel Collins, who was in the action, and who afterward was a prominent citizen of Oxford. Writing in 1843 from memory of the events then, fifty years old, the judge stated that these men had been called out to escort a brigade of pack-horses under an order from General Wilkinson. They could then make a trip from Fort Washington, past Fort St. Clair, to Fort Jefferson, and return in six days, encamping each

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night under the walls of one of these military posts for protection. The Indians being elated by the check they had given our army in the preceding year, in defeating St. Clair, determined to make a descent upon the settle- ment then forming at Columbia, at the mouth of the Little Miami. Some time in September two hundred and fifty warriors struck the war pole and took up their line of march. Fortunately for the infant settlement, in passing Fort Hamilton they discovered a fatigue party, with a small guard, chopping firewood east of the fort. While the men were gone to dinner the Indians formed an ambuscade, and, on their return captured two of them. The prisoners informed the Indians that on the morning previous -which must have been on Friday-a brigade of eighty or one hundred pack-horses, loaded with sup- plies for the two military posts in the advance, had left Fort Hamilton, escorted by a company of riflemen, mounted on fine horses, and that if they made their trip in the usual time they would be at Fort Hamilton on their return on Monday night. Upon receiving this in: formation Little Turtle abandoned his design of break- ing up the settlement above Cincinnati and fell back some twelve or fifteen miles, with a view of intercepting the brigade on its return. He formed an ambuscade on the trace at a well-selected location, which he occupied through the day that he expected the return of the escort. But as Major Adair arrived at Fort Jefferson on Sat- urday night, he permitted his men and horses to rest over Sunday, and thus escaped the ambuscade. On Monday night, when on their return, they encamped within a short distance of Fort St. Clair.

The remainder of the letter we quote verbatim. Judge Collins wrote :

The chief of the band of Indians being informed of our position by his runners, concluded that by a night attack he could drive us out of our encampment. Accordingly he left his ambush and a short time be- fore daybreak, on Tuesday morning, the Indians, by a discharge of rifles and raising the hideous yells for which they are distinguished, made a simultaneous attack upon three sides of the encampment leav- ing that open next to the fort. The horses became frightened and num- bers of them broke from their fastenings. The camp, in consequence of this, being thrown into some confusion, Captain Adair retired with his men and formed them into three divisions, just beyond the shine of the fires, on the side next the fort, and while the enemy were endeavor- ing to secure the horses and plunder the camp-which seemed to be their main object -- they were in turn attacked by us-on the right by the major and his division, on the left by Lieutenant George Madison, and in the center by Lieutenant Job Hale, with their respective divis- ions. The enemy, however, were sufficiently strong to detail a fighting party double our numbers, to protect those plundering the camp and driving off the horses, and as we had left the side from the fort open to them they soon began to move off, taking all with them.

.As soon as day dawn offered light sufficient to distinguish a white man from an Indian there ensued some pretty sharp fighting, so close in some instances as to bring in use the war-club and tomahawk. Here Lieutenant Hale was killed, and Lieutenant Madison wounded. As the Indians retreated the white men hung on their rear, but when we pressed them too close they would turn and drive us back. In this way a kind of running fight was kept up until after sunrising, when we lost sight of the enemy, and nearly all of our horses, about where the town of Eaton now stands. On returning from the pursuit our camp pre- sented rather a discouraging appearance. Not more than six or eight horses were saved -- some twenty or thirty lay dead on the ground. The loss of the enemy remained unknown. The bodies of two Indians were found among the dead horses. We gathered up our wounded -- six in number, took them to the fort, where a room was assigned them as a hospital, and their wounds dressed by Surgeon Boyd, of the regular

army. The wound of one man, John James, consisted of but little more than the loss of his scalp. * .

Another of the wounded, Lute Voorhes, afterward be- came a resident of Preble county, and died here not many years since.

"By sunset on the day of the action, we had some kind of rough coffins prepared for the slain. For the satisfaction of surviving friends, I will name them, and state that in one grave, some fifty paces west of the site of Fort St. Clair, are the remains of Captain Job Hale. Next to him on his left we laid the remains of our orderly sergeant, Matthew English, then followed the four privates, Robert Bowling, Joseph Clin- ton, Isaac Jett and John Williams. Dejection and even sorrow hung on the countenances of every member of the escort as we stood around or assisted in the interment of these our fellow-comrades. Hale was a noble and brave man, fascinating in his appearance and deportment as an officer. It was dusk in the evening when we com- pleted the performance of our melancholy duty. What a change! The evening before nothing was to be seen or heard in the encampment but life and animation."

Another account of the engagement is given by Major Adair in his report to General Wilkinson. Writing from Fort St. Clair, he says:

"This morning, about the first appearance of day, the enemy at- tacked my camp, within sight of this post. The attack was sudden, and the enemy came on with a degree of courage that proved them warriors indeed. Some of my men were hand in hand with them be- fore we retreated, which, however, we did to a kind of stockade, in- tended for stables; we then made a stand. I then ordered Lieutenant Madison to take a party and gain their right flank if possible. I called for Lieutenant Hale to send to the left, but found he had been slain. I then led forward the men that stood near me, which, together with the ensigns, Buchanan and Florin, amounted to about twenty- five, and pressed the left of their centre, thinking it absolutely necessary to assist Madison. We made a manly push, and the enemy retreated, taking all of our horses except five or six. We drove them about six hundred yards through our camp, where they again made a stand, and we fought them for some time. Two of my men were shot dead.

"At that moment I received information that the enemy were about to flank us on the right, and on turning that way I saw about sixty of them running to that point. I had yet heard nothing of Madison. I then ordered my men to retreat; which they did with deliberation, heartily cursing the Indians, who pursued us close to our camp, where we again fought them until they gave way; and when they retreated our ammunition was almost expended, although we had been supplied from the garrison in the course of the action. I did not think proper to follow them again, but ordered my men into the garrison to draw ammunition. I returned in a few minutes to a hill to which we had first drawn them; where I found five of my men scalped, who were brought in.

"Since I began to write this a few of the enemy appeared in sight, and I pursued them with a party about a quarter of a mile, but could not overtake them, and did not think proper to go further. Madison, whom I sent to the right, was on the first attack wounded and obliged to retreat into the garrison, leaving a man or two dead. To this mis- fortune I think the enemy are indebted for the horses which they have got; had he gained their right flank and I once had possession of their left, I think we might have routed them at that stage of the action, as we had them on the retreat.

"I have six killed and five wounded; four men are missing. I think they went off early in the action on horse-back and are by this time at Fort Hamilton. My officers and a number of my men distinguished themselves greatly. Poor Hale died calling to his men to advance. Madison's bravery and conduct need no comment; they are well known. Florin and Buchanan acted with a coolness and courage that do them much honor; Buchanan after firing his gun knocked an Indian down with the barrel.

"They have killed and taken a great number of the pack-horses. I intend following them this evening some distance, to ascertain their strength and route if possible. I can, with propriety say, that about fifty of my men fought with a bravery equal to any men in the world; and had not the garrison been so nigh as a place of safety for the bashful I think many more would have fought well. The enemy have no doubt as many men killed as myself; they left two dead upon the ground and I saw two carried off. The only advantage they have

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gained is our horses, which is a capital one, as it disables me from bringing the interview to a more certain and satisfactory conclusion."

CHAPTER V. WAYNE'S WAR .--- FALL OF LOWERY.

IMMEDIATELY after the defeat of St. Clair the general government sought, by friendly negotiation, to secure peace, though vainly. Preliminary steps were also im- mediately taken toward bringing about a reorganization of the army, putting it into a thoroughly efficient condi- tion, and liberally eqipped it, that it might be in readi- ness should necessity require.

General Wayne (the Mad Anthony, of Revolutionary fame, and the companion-in-arms of the President), was chosen by Washington, as commander of the army of the Northwest. He spent the winter of 1792 at Legion- ville, below Pittsburgh, in collecting and organizing his army, and at the close of April, 1793, moved down the river and encamped near Fort Washington, at a place called "Hobson's Choice." Here Wayne was engaged during the negotiations for peace, in drilling his soldiers, in cutting military roads through the forest, collecting supplies in the Indian country, and in making prepara- tions for an immediate campaign, in case the efforts of the commissioners to obtain peace should be unsuccess- ful. On the sixteenth of August, 1793, the commis- sioners received the final answer of the Indian council, and on the twenty-third they sent messengers to Wayne, informing him of the outcome-the failure to secure peace. The general being authorized to move into the Indian country and wage war against the hostile tribes, did so as early as was possible. He had an army of about three thousand men, consisting in about equal . parts of the mounted riflemen, volunteers from Ken- tucky, and of troops brought together in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, very many of them hard characters, and some from the prisons-outlaws and renegades, who were reckless of what the future had in store for them, and actuated only by the spirit of action and adventure. The Kentuckians were commanded by General Charles Scott, the second ranking officer in the army, and who, as well as General Harry Lee (the Light Horse Harry, of Revolutionary fame), and General William Darke had been favorably considered by Washington in connection with the chief command of the expedition.

General Wayne began his march northward into the Indian country on the seventh of October, 1793, not following St. Clair's trace, but cutting a new one for his army on the east side of Seven Mile creek. Many of Wayne's soldiers were superstitious, and had they ad- vanced into the enemy's country upon the road which St. Clair's ill-fated army had taken, they would have felt an apprehension of defeat which possibly might have brought on one, or which would, at least, have had the effect of lessening their faith in the force of arms and

demoralizing their spirit. From Fort Hamilton, Wayne's trace diverged more considerably from St. Clair than it had south of that post. He marched through what is now Preble county, a short distance east of Eaton, and that portion of the route lying south of the town has been adopted as the location of a public highway, long known as "the old trace road." The trace crossed Banta's fork at or near the forty foot pitch, and ascended the high bank north at a point on the east side of the present north road, from which point it bore a little west of north to Fort Greenville. A portion of the old trail is' still marked by a growth of young sycamores, which have sprung up where the forest was cut away. Many of the first settlers saw on the uncovered roots of trees, along the trace, the indisputable marks of wagon wheels or of the heavy ordnance trains. On his way northward on this expedition, Wayne named the streams according to the distance from Fort Hamilton at which he crossed them, as Four Mile creek and Seven Mile creek. The latter had before that time been known and mapped as Ct. Clair's creek.

Of the march, and one of the sad incidents of war, the death of Lowery and his brave companions, which occurred subsequently, we will let General Wayne testify, in his own language. On the twenty-third of October he wrote to the Secretary of War from his camp on the southwest branch of the Great Miami, six miles beyond Fort Jefferson (six miles south of the present town of Greenville, Darke county):

I have the honor to inform you that the legion took up its line of march from Hobson's Choice, on the seventh inst., and arrived at this place in perfect order, and without a single accident, at ten o'clock on the evening of the thirteenth, when I found myself arrested for the want of provisions. Notwithstanding this defect, I do not despair of supporting the troops in our present position, or rather at a place called Stillwater, at an intermediate distance between the field of St. Clair's battle and Fort Jefferson. The safety of the western frontiers, and the reputation of the legion, the dignity and interest of the Nation, all for- bid a retrograde manœuvre, or giving up one inch of ground we now possess, until the enemy are compelled to sue for peace. The greatest difficulty which at present presents itself is that of furnishing a sufficient escort to secure our convoys of provisions and other supplies from in- sult and disaster, and at the same time to retain a sufficient force at camp to sustain and repel the attacks of the enemy, who appear to be desperate and determined. We have recently experienced a little check to our convoys, which may probably be exaggerated into something se- rious, by the tongue of fame, before this reaches you. The following is, however, the fact: .

"Lieutenant Lowery of the second sub-legion, and Ensign Boyd, of the first. with a command consisting of ninety non-commissioned offi- cers and privates, having in charge twenty wagons belonging to the quartermaster general's department, loaded with grain, and one of the contractor's wagons, loaded with stores, were attacked carly on the morning of the seventeenth inst., about seven miles advanced of Fort St. Clair, by a party of Indians. Those gallant young gentlemen (who promised at a future day to be ornaments to the profession,) together with thirteen non-commissioned officers and privates, bravely fell, after an obstinate resistance against superior numbers, being abandoned by the greater part of the escort, upon the first discharge. The savages killed or carried off about seventy horses, leaving the wagons and stores, standing in the road, which have all been brought to this camp, with- out any other loss or damage, except some trifling articles."

Lowery died urging his men to fight and doing all in his power to beat back the savage horde that had as- sailed him. His last breath sent forth words of encour- agement to the brave men who fought by his side.

The summer of 1794 had well nigh passed before .

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Wayne met the Indians of the confederated tribes in battle array, and achieved the brilliant victory which brought long enduring peace to the troubled borderers.

The winter season was regarded as an unfavorable time to carry on hostilities against the Indians, and on its approach General Wayne dismissed the Kentucky militia men and placed the regular troops in winter quarters. He erected Fort Greenville near the site of the present town of Greenville, in Darke county, and made that post his headquarters. On December 23, 1793, he ordered eight companies of infantry and a de- tachment of artillery to take possession of the ground on which St. Clair was defeated in 1791, and to erect a fortification at that point. The order was executed, and the new fort was appropriately named Fort Recovery. Soon after the completion of this defence, Wayne re- ceived from some of the hostile tribes a message, in which they expressed a desire to make peace with the United States. The terms, however, on which the com- mander of the army proposed to make a treaty were either evaded or rejected by the Indians, probably be- cause they were led by Lord Dorchester, governor- general of Canada, and others, to believe that Great Britain would, in the course of the year 1794, assist them in their attempt to force the American settlers to retire from the territory lying on the northwest side of the Ohio river. At this period, too, a critical and unset- tled state of relations existed between the governments of Great Britain, France and Spain, on the one side, and the United States on the other, and it was only by skilful diplomacy and decisive measures that our gov- ernment escaped being drawn into the vortex of Euro- pean politics. But this complication of troubles is too broad for treatment in these pages. It belongs to na- tional rather than local history, and reference is merely made to it that the reader may be reminded of the other perils which surrounded the infant Republic while this harassing Indian war was being waged upon the western border.

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History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 4

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages: 559

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559