The War in the Northwest. 1787-1790
The Federal troops were camped in the Federal territory north of the
Ohio. They garrisoned the forts and patrolled between the little
log-towns. They were commanded by the Federal General Harmar, and the
territory was ruled by the Federal Governor St. Clair. Thenceforth the
national authorities and the regular troops played the chief parts in
the struggle for the Northwest. The frontier militia became a mere
adjunct--often necessary, but always untrustworthy--of the regular
forces.
The Regular Army in the Northwest.
For some time the regulars fared ill in the warfare with the savages;
and a succession of mortifying failures closed with a defeat more
ruinous than any which had been experienced since the days of the
"iron-tempered general the pipe-clay brain,"--for the disaster which
befell St. Clair was as overwhelming as that wherein Braddock met his
death. The continued checks excited the anger of the Eastern people, and
the dismay and derision of the Westerners. They were keenly felt by the
officers of the army; and they furnished an excuse for those who wished
to jeer at regular troops, and exalt the militia. Jefferson, who never
understood anything about warfare, being a timid man, and who belonged
to the visionary school which always denounced the army and navy, was
given a legitimate excuse to criticise the tactics of the regulars;
[Footnote: Draper MSS., G. R. Clark Papers. Jefferson to Innes, March 7,
1791.] and of course he never sought occasion to comment on the even
worse failings of the militia.
Shortcomings of the Regulars.
The truth was that the American military authorities fell into much the
same series of errors as their predecessors, the British, untaught by
the dreary and mortifying experience of the latter in fighting these
forest foes. The War Department at Washington, and the Federal generals
who first came to the Northwest, did not seem able to realize the
formidable character of the Indian armies, and were certainly unable to
teach their own troops how to fight them. Harmar and St. Clair were both
fair officers, and in open country were able to acquit themselves
respectably in the face of civilized foes. But they did not have the
peculiar genius necessary to the successful Indian fighter, and they
never learned how to carry on a campaign in the woods.
They had the justifiable distrust of the militia felt by all the
officers of the Continental Army. In the long campaigns waged against
Howe, Clinton, and Cornwallis they had learned the immense superiority
of the Continental troops to the local militia. They knew that the
Revolution would have failed had it not been for the continental troops.
They knew also, by the bitter experience common to all officers who had
been through the war, that, though the militia might on occasion do
well, yet they could never be trusted; they were certain to desert or
grow sulky and mutinous if exposed to the fatigue and hardship of a long
campaign, while in a pitched battle in the open they never fought as
stubbornly as the regulars, and often would not fight at all.
The Regulars in Indian Warfare.
All this was true; yet the officers of the regular army failed to
understand that it did not imply the capacity of the regular troops to
fight savages on their own ground. They showed little real comprehension
of the extraordinary difficulty of such warfare against such foes, and
of the reasons which made it so hazardous. They could not help assigning
other causes than the real ones for every defeat and failure. They
attributed each in turn to the effects of ambuscade or surprise, instead
of realizing that in each the prime factor was the formidable fighting
power of the individual Indian warrior, when in the thick forest which
was to him a home, and when acting under that species of wilderness
discipline which was so effective for a single crisis in his peculiar
warfare. The Indian has rarely shown any marked excellence as a fighter
in mass in the open; though of course there have been one or two
brilliant exceptions. At times in our wars we have tried the experiment
of drilling bodies of Indians as if they were whites, and using them in
the ordinary way in battle. Under such conditions, as a rule, they have
shown themselves inferior to the white troops against whom they were
pitted. In the same way they failed to show themselves a match for the
white hunters of the great plains when on equal terms. But their
marvellous faculty for taking advantage of cover, and for fighting in
concert when under cover, has always made the warlike tribes foes to be
dreaded beyond all others when in the woods, or among wild broken
mountains.
Striking Contrasts in our Indian Wars.
The history of our warfare with the Indians during the century following
the close of the Revolution is marked by curiously sharp contrasts in
the efficiency shown by the regular troops in campaigns carried on at
different times and under varying conditions. These contrasts are due
much more to the difference in the conditions under which the campaigns
were waged than to the difference in the bodily prowess of the Indians.
When we had been in existence as a nation for a century the Modocs in
their lava-beds and the Apaches amid their waterless mountains were
still waging against the regulars of the day the same tedious and
dangerous warfare waged against Harmar and St. Clair by the forest
Indians. There were the same weary, long-continued campaigns; the same
difficulty in bringing the savages to battle; the same blind fighting
against hidden antagonists shielded by the peculiar nature of their
fastnesses; and, finally, the same great disparity of loss against the
white troops. During the intervening hundred years there had been many
similar struggles; as for instance that against the Seminoles. Yet there
had also been many struggles, against Indians naturally more formidable,
in which the troops again and again worsted their Indian foes even when
the odds in numbers were two or three to one against the whites. The
difference between these different classes of wars was partly accounted
for by change in weapons and methods of fighting; partly by the change
in the character of the battle grounds. The horse Indians of the plains
were as elusive and difficult to bring to battle as the Indians of the
mountains and forests; but in the actual fighting they had no chance to
take advantage of cover in the way which rendered so formidable their
brethren of the hills and the deep woods. In consequence their
occasional slaughtering victories, including the most famous of all, the
battle of the Rosebud, in which Custer fell, took the form of the
overwhelming of a comparatively small number of whites by immense masses
of mounted horsemen. When their weapons were inferior, as on the first
occasions when they were brought into contact with troops carrying
breech-loading arms of precision, or when they tried the tactics of
downright fighting, and of charging fairly in the open, they were often
themselves beaten or repulsed with fearful slaughter by mere handfuls of
whites. In the years 1867-68, all the horse Indians of the plains were
at war with us, and many battles were fought with varying fortune. Two
were especially noteworthy. In each a small body of troops and frontier
scouts, under the command of a regular army officer who was also a
veteran Indian fighter, beat back an overwhelming Indian force, which
attempted to storm by open onslaught the position held by the white
riflemen. In one instance fifty men under Major Geo. H. Forsyth beat
back nine hundred warriors, killing or wounding double their own number.
In the other a still more remarkable defence was made by thirty-one men
under Major James Powell against an even larger force, which charged
again and again, and did not accept their repulse as final until they
had lost three hundred of their foremost braves. For years the Sioux
spoke with bated breath of this battle as the "medicine fight," the
defeat so overwhelming that it could be accounted for only by
supernatural interference. [Footnote: For all this see Dodge's admirable
"Our Wild Indians."]
But no such victory was ever gained over mountain or forest Indians who
had become accustomed to fighting the white men. Every officer who has
ever faced these foes has had to spend years in learning his work, and
has then been forced to see a bitterly inadequate reward for his labors.
The officers of the regular army who served in the forests north of the
Ohio just after the Revolution had to undergo a strange and painful
training; and were obliged to content themselves with scanty and
hard-won triumphs even after this training had been undergone.
Difficulties Experienced by the Officers.
The officers took some time to learn their duties as Indian fighters,
but the case was much worse with the rank and file who served under
them. From the beginning of our history it often proved difficult to get
the best type of native American to go into the regular army save in
time of war with a powerful enemy, for the low rate of pay was not
attractive, while the disciplined subordination of the soldiers to their
officers seemed irksome to people with an exaggerated idea of individual
freedom and no proper conception of the value of obedience. Very many of
the regular soldiers have always been of foreign birth; and in 1787, on
the Ohio, the percentage of Irish and Germans in the ranks was probably
fully as large as it was on the Great Plains a century later. [Footnote:
Denny's Journal, _passim_.] They, as others, at that early date, were,
to a great extent, drawn from the least desirable classes of the eastern
sea-board. [Footnote: For fear of misunderstanding, I wish to add that
at many periods the rank and file have been composed of excellent
material; of recent years their character has steadily risen, and the
stuff itself has always proved good when handled for a sufficient length
of time by good commanders.] Three or four years later an unfriendly
observer wrote of St. Clair's soldiers that they were a wretched set of
men, weak and feeble, many of them mere boys, while others were rotten
with drink and debauchery. He remarked that men "purchased from the
prisons, wheel-barrows, and brothels of the nation at foolishly low
wages, would never do to fight Indians"; and that against such foes, who
were terrible enemies in the woods, there was need of first-class,
specially trained troops, instead of trying to use "a set of men who
enlisted because they could no longer live unhung any other way."
[Footnote: Draper Collection. Letter of John Cleves Symmes to Elias
Boudinot, January 12, 1792.]
Doubtless this estimate, made under the sting of defeat, was too harsh;
and it was even more applicable to the forced levies of militia than to
the Federal soldiers; but the shortcomings of the regular troops were
sufficiently serious to need no exaggeration. Their own officers were
far from pleased with the recruits they got.
To the younger officers, with a taste for sport, the life beyond the
Ohio was delightful. The climate was pleasant, the country beautiful,
the water was clear as crystal, and game abounded. In hard weather the
troops lived on salt beef; but at other times their daily rations were
two pounds of turkey or venison, or a pound and a half of bear meat or
buffalo beef. Yet this game was supplied by hired hunters, not by the
soldiers themselves. One of the officers wrote that he had to keep his
troops practising steadily at a target, for they were incompetent to
meet an enemy with the musket; they could not kill in a week enough game
to last them a day. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150; Doughty's
Letter, March 15, 1786; also, November 30, 1785.] It was almost
impossible to train such troops, in a limited number of months or years,
so as to enable them to meet their forest foes on equal terms. The
discipline to which they were accustomed was admirably fitted for
warfare in the open; but it was not suited for warfare in the woods.
They had to learn even the use of their fire-arms with painful labor. It
was merely hopeless to try to teach them to fight Indian fashion, all
scattering out for themselves, and each taking a tree trunk, and trying
to slay an individual enemy. They were too clumsy; they utterly lacked
the wild-creature qualities proper to the men of the wilderness, the men
who inherited wolf-cunning and panther-stealth from countless
generations, who bought bare life itself only at the price of
never-ceasing watchfulness, craft, and ferocity.
The Regulars Superior to the Militia.
The regulars were certainly not ideal troops with which to oppose such
foes; but they were the best attainable at that time. They possessed
traits which were lacking in even the best of the frontier militia; and
most of the militia fell far short of the best. When properly trained
the regulars could be trusted to persevere through a campaign; whereas
the militia were sure to disband if kept out for any length of time.
Moreover, a regular army formed a weapon with a temper tried and known;
whereas a militia force was the most brittle of swords which might give
one true stroke, or might fly into splinters at the first slight blow.
Regulars were the only troops who could be trusted to wear out their
foes in a succession of weary and hard-fought campaigns.
The best backwoods fighters, however, such men as Kenton and Brady had
in their scout companies, were much superior to the regulars, and were
able to meet the Indians on at least equal terms. But there were only a
very few such men; and they were too impatient of discipline to be
embodied in an army. The bulk of the frontier militia consisted of men
who were better riflemen than the regulars and often physically abler,
but who were otherwise in every military sense inferior, possessing
their defects, sometimes in an accentuated form, and not possessing
their compensating virtues. Like the regulars, these militia fought the
Indians at a terrible disadvantage. A defeat for either meant murderous
slaughter; for whereas the trained Indian fighters fought or fled each
for himself, the ordinary troops huddled together in a mass, an easy
mark for their savage foes.
Extreme Difficulty of the War.
The task set the leaders of the army in the Northwest was one of extreme
difficulty and danger. They had to overcome a foe trained through untold
ages how to fight most effectively on the very battle-ground where the
contest was to be waged. To the whites a march through the wilderness
was fraught with incredible toil; whereas the Indians moved without
baggage, and scattered and came together as they wished, so that it was
impossible to bring them to battle against their will. All that could be
done was to try to beat them when they chose to receive or deliver an
attack. With ordinary militia it was hopeless to attempt to accomplish
anything needing prolonged and sustained effort, and, as already said,
the thoroughly trained Indian fighters who were able to beat the savages
at their own game were too few in numbers, and too unaccustomed to
control and restraint, to permit of their forming the main body of the
army in an offensive campaign. There remained only the regulars: and the
raw recruits had to undergo a long and special training, and be put
under the command of a thoroughly capable leader, like old Mad Anthony
Wayne, before they could be employed to advantage.
The Feeling between the Regulars and Frontiersmen.
The feeling between the regular troops and the frontiersmen was often
very bitter, and on several occasions violent brawls resulted. One such
occurred at Limestone, where the brutal Indian-fighter Wetzel lived.
Wetzel had murdered a friendly Indian, and the soldiers bore him a
grudge. When they were sent to arrest him the townspeople sallied to his
support. Wetzel himself resisted, and was, very properly, roughly
handled in consequence. The interference of the townspeople was
vigorously repaid in kind; they soon gave up the attempt, and afterwards
one or two of them were ill-treated or plundered by the soldiers. They
made complaint to the civil authorities, and a court-martial was then
ordered by the Federal commanders. This court-martial acquitted the
soldiers. Wetzel soon afterwards made his escape, and the incident
ended. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Harmar's letter to Henry Lee, Sept. 27,
1789. Also depositions of McCurdy, Lawler, Caldwell, and others, and
proceedings of court-martial. The depositions conflict.]
Fury of the Indian Ravages.
By 1787 the Indian war had begun with all its old fury. The thickly
settled districts were not much troubled, and the towns which, like
Marietta in the following year, grew up under the shadow of a Federal
fort, were comparatively safe. But the frontier of Kentucky, and of
Virginia proper along the Ohio, suffered severely. There was great
scarcity of powder and lead, and even of guns, and there was difficulty
in procuring provisions for those militia who consented to leave their
work and turn out when summoned. The settlers were harried, and the
surveyors feared to go out to their work on the range. There were the
usual horrible incidents of Indian warfare. A glimpse of one of the
innumerable dreadful tragedies is afforded by the statement of one party
of scouts, who, in following the trail of an Indian war band, found at
the crossing of the river "the small tracks of a number of children,"
prisoners from a raid made on the Monongahela settlements. [Footnote:
State Dept. MSS., No. 71, vol. ii. Letters of David Shepherd to Governor
Randolph, April 30, and May 24, 1787.]
Difficulties in Extending Help to the Frontiersmen.
The settlers in the harried territory sent urgent appeals for help to
the Governor of Virginia and to Congress. In these appeals stress was
laid upon the poverty of the frontiersmen, and their lack of ammunition.
The writers pointed out that the men of the border should receive
support, if only from motives of policy; for it was of great importance
to the people in the thickly settled districts that the war should be
kept on the frontier, and that the men who lived there should remain as
a barrier against the Indians. If the latter broke through and got among
the less hardy and warlike people of the interior, they would work much
greater havoc; for in Indian warfare the borderers were as much superior
to the more peaceful people behind them as a veteran to a raw recruit.
[Footnote: Draper MSS. Lt. Marshall to Franklin, Nov. 6, 1787.]
These appeals did not go unheeded; but there was embarrassment in
affording the frontier adequate protection, both because the party to
which the borderers themselves belonged foolishly objected to the
employment of a fair-sized regular army, and because Congress still
clung to the belief that war could be averted by treaty, and so forbade
the taking of proper offensive measures. In the years 1787, '88, and
'89, the ravages continued; many settlers were slain, with their
families, and many bodies of immigrants destroyed; while the scouting
and rescue parties of whites killed a few Indians in return. [Footnote:
Va. State Papers, iv., 357.] All the Indians were not yet at war,
however; and curious agreements were entered into by individuals on both
sides. In the absence on either side of any government with full
authority and power, the leaders would often negotiate some special or
temporary truce, referring only to certain limited localities, or to
certain people; and would agree between themselves for the interchange
or ransom of prisoners. There is a letter of Boone's extant in which he
notifies a leading Kentucky colonel that a certain captive woman must be
given up, in accordance with an agreement he has made with one of the
noted Indian chiefs; and he insists upon the immediate surrender of the
woman, to clear his "promise and obligation." [Footnote: Draper MSS.,
Boone Papers. Boone to Robert Patterson, March 16,1787.]
The Indians Harry the Boats on the Ohio.
The Indians watched the Ohio with especial care, and took their toll
from the immense numbers of immigrants who went down it. After passing
the Muskingum no boat was safe. If the war parties, lurking along the
banks, came on a boat moored to the shore, or swept thither by wind or
current, the crew was at their mercy; and grown bold by success, they
sometimes launched small flotillas of canoes and attacked the scows on
the water. In such attacks they were often successful, for they always
made the assault with the odds in their favor; though they were
sometimes beaten back with heavy loss.
When the war was at its height the boats going down the Ohio preferred
to move in brigades. An army officer has left a description [Footnote:
Denny's Military Journal, April 19, 1790.] of one such flotilla, over
which he had assumed command. It contained sixteen flat-boats, then
usually called "Kentuck boats," and two keels. The flat-boats were
lashed three together and kept in one line. The women, children, and
cattle were put in the middle scows, while the outside were manned and
worked by the men. The keel boats kept on either flank. This particular
flotilla was unmolested by the Indians, but was almost wrecked in a
furious storm of wind and rain.
Vain Efforts to Conclude Treaties of Peace.
The Federal authorities were still hopelessly endeavoring to come to
some understanding with the Indians; they were holding treaties with
some of the tribes, sending addresses and making speeches to others, and
keeping envoys in the neighborhood of Detroit. These envoys watched the
Indians who were there, and tried to influence the great gatherings of
different tribes who came together at Sandusky to consult as to the
white advance. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 150, vol. iii.
Harmar's speech to the Indians at Vincennes, September 17, 1787. Richard
Butler to the Secretary of War, May 4, 1788, etc.]
These efforts to negotiate were as disheartening as was usually the case
under such circumstances. There were many different tribes, and some
were for peace, while others were for war; and even the peaceful ones
could not restrain their turbulent young men. Far off nations of Indians
who had never been harmed by the whites, and were in no danger from
them, sent war parties to the Ohio; and the friendly tribes let them
pass without interference. The Iroquois were eagerly consulted by the
western Indians, and in the summer of 1788 a great party of them came to
Sandusky to meet in council all the tribes of the Lakes and the Ohio
valley, and even some from the upper Mississippi. With the Iroquois came
the famous chief Joseph Brant, a mighty warrior, and a man of education,
who in his letters to the United States officials showed much polished
diplomacy. [Footnote: _Do_., pp. 47 and 51.]
The Indians Hold Great Councils.
The tribes who gathered at this great council met on the soil which, by
treaty with England, had been declared American, and came from regions
which the same treaty had defined as lying within the boundaries of the
United States. But these provisions of the treaty had never been
executed, owing largely to a failure on the part of the Americans
themselves to execute certain other provisions. The land was really as
much British as ever, and was so treated by the British Governor of
Canada, Lord Dorchester, who had just made a tour of the Lake Posts. The
tribes were feudatory to the British, and in their talks spoke of the
King of Great Britain as "father," and Brant was a British pensioner.
British agents were in constant communication with the Indians at the
councils, and they distributed gifts among them with a hitherto
unheard-of lavishness. In every way they showed their resolution to
remain in full touch with their red allies. [Footnote: _Do_., St. Clair
to Knox, September 14, 1788; St. Clair to Jay, December 13, 1788.]
Nevertheless, they were anxious that peace should be made. The Wyandots,
too, seconded them, and addressed the Wabash Indians at one of the
councils, urging them to cease their outrages on the Americans.
[Footnote: _Do_., p. 267, Detroit River's Mouth, July 23, 1788.] These
Wyandots had long been converted, and in addressing their heathen
brethren, said proudly: "We are not as other nations are--we, the
Wyandots--we are Christians." They certainly showed themselves the
better for their religion, and they were still the bravest of the brave.
But though the Wabash Indians in answering spake them fair, they had no
wish to go to peace; and the Wyandots were the only tribes who strove
earnestly to prevent war. The American agents who had gone to the
Detroit River were forced to report that there was little hope of
putting an end to hostilities. [Footnote: _Do_., James Rinkin to Richard
Butler, July 20, 1788.] The councils accomplished nothing towards
averting a war; on the contrary, they tended to band all the
northwestern Indians together in a loose confederacy, so that active
hostilities against some were sure in the end to involve all.
Even the Far-Off Chippewas Make Forays.
While the councils were sitting and while the Americans were preparing
for the treaties, outrages of the most flagrant kind occurred. One, out
of many; was noteworthy as showing both the treachery of the Indians,
and the further fact that some tribes went to war, not because they had
been in any way maltreated, but from mere lust of blood and plunder. In
July of this year 1788, Governor St. Clair was making ready for a treaty
to which he had invited some of the tribes. It was to be held on the
Muskingum, and he sent to the appointed place provisions for the Indians
with a guard of men. One day a party of Indians, whose tribe was then
unknown, though later they turned out to be Chippewas from the Upper
Lakes, suddenly fell on the guard. They charged home with great spirit,
using their sharp spears well, and killed, wounded, or captured several
soldiers; but they were repulsed, and retreated, carrying with them
their dead, save one warrior. [Footnote: St. Clair Papers, ii., 50.] A
few days afterwards they imprudently ventured back, pretending
innocence, and six were seized, and sent to one of the forts as
prisoners. Their act of treacherous violence had, of course, caused the
immediate abandonment of the proposed treaty.
The remaining Chippewas marched towards home, with the scalps of the men
they had slain, and with one captured soldier. They passed by Detroit,
telling the French villagers that "their father [the British Commandant]
was a dog," because he had given them no arms or ammunition, and that in
consequence they would not deliver him their prisoner, but would take
the poor wretch with them to their Mackinaw home. Accordingly they
carried him on to the far-off island at the mouth of Lake Michigan; but
just as they were preparing to make him run the gauntlet the British
commander of the lonely little post interfered. This subaltern with his
party of a dozen soldiers was surrounded by many times his number of
ferocious savages, and was completely isolated in the wilderness; but
his courage stood as high as his humanity, and he broke through the
Indians, threatening them with death if they interfered, rescued the
captive American, and sent him home in safety. [Footnote: State Dept.
MSS., No. 150, vol. iii. William Wilson and James Rinkin to Richard
Butler, August 4, 1788; Wilson and Rinkin to St. Clair, August 31,
1788.]
The other Indians made no attempt to check the Chippewas; on the
contrary, the envoys of the Iroquois and Delawares made vain efforts to
secure the release of the Chippewa prisoners. On the other hand, the
generous gallantry of the British commander at Mackinaw was in some sort
equalled by the action of the traders on the Maumee, who went to great
expense in buying from the Shawnees Americans whom they had doomed to
the terrible torture of death at the stake. [Footnote: _Do_., Rinkin to
Butler, July 2, 1788; St. Clair to Knox, September 4, 1788.]
Under such circumstances the treaties of course came to naught. After
interminable delays the Indians either refused to treat at all, or else
the acts of those who did were promptly repudiated by those who did not.
In consequence throughout this period even the treaties that were made
were quite worthless, for they bound nobody. Moreover, there were the
usual clashes between the National and State authorities. While Harmar
was trying to treat, the Kentuckians were organizing retaliatory
inroads; and while the United States Commissioners were trying to hold
big peace councils on the Ohio, the New York and Massachusetts
Commissioners were conducting independent negotiations at what is now
Buffalo, to determine the western boundary of New York. [Footnote:
_Do_., Wilson and Rinkin to St. Clair, July 29, 1788. These treaties
made at the Ohio forts are quite unworthy of preservation, save for mere
curiosity; they really settled nothing whatever and conferred no rights
that were not taken with the strong hand; yet they are solemnly quoted
in some books as if they were the real sources of title to parts of the
Northwest.]
Continued Ravages.
All the while the ravages grew steadily more severe. The Federal
officers at the little widely scattered forts were at their wits' ends
in trying to protect the outlying settlers and retaliate on the Indians;
and as the latter grew bolder they menaced the forts themselves and
harried the troops who convoyed provisions to them. Of the innumerable
tragedies which occurred, the record of a few has by chance been
preserved. One may be worth giving merely as a sample of many others. On
the Virginian side of the Ohio lived a pioneer farmer of some note,
named Van Swearingen. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150, vol. ii.,
Van Swearingen to William Butler, Washington County, Sept. 29, 1787.]
One day his son crossed the river to hunt with a party of strangers.
Near a "waste cabbin," the deserted log hut of some reckless adventurer,
an Indian war-band came on them unawares, slew three, and carried off
the young man. His father did not know whether they had killed him or
not. He could find no trace of him, and he wrote to the commander of the
nearest fort, begging him to try to get news from the Indian villages as
to whether his son were alive or dead, and to employ for the purpose any
friendly Indian or white scout, at whatever price was set--he would pay
it "to the utmost farthing." He could give no clue to the Indians who
had done the deed; all he could say was that a few days before, one of
these war parties, while driving off a number of horses, was overtaken
by the riflemen of the neighborhood and scattered, after a fight in
which one white man and two red men were killed.
The old frontiersman never found his son; doubtless the boy was slain;
but his fate, like the fate of hundreds of others, was swallowed up in
the gloomy mystery of the wilderness. So far from being unusual, the
incident attracted no comment, for it was one of every-day occurrence.
Its only interest lies in the fact that it was of a kind that befell the
family of almost every dweller in the wilds. Danger and death were so
common that the particular expression which each might take made small
impress on the minds of the old pioneers. Every one of them had a long
score of slain friends and kinsfolk to avenge upon his savage foes.
The Indians Harass the Regular Troops.
The subalterns in command of the little detachments which moved between
the posts, whether they went by land or water, were forced to be ever on
the watch against surprise and ambush. This was particularly the case
with the garrison at Vincennes. The Wabash Indians were all the time out
in parties to murder and plunder; and yet these same thieves and
murderers were continually coming into town and strolling innocently
about the fort; for it was impossible to tell the peaceful Indians from
the hostile. They were ever in communication with the equally
treacherous and ferocious Miami tribes, to whose towns the war parties
often brought five or six scalps in a day, and prisoners, too, doomed to
a death of awful torture at the stake. There is no need to waste
sympathy on the northwestern Indians for their final fate; never were
defeat and subjection more richly deserved.
The bands of fierce and crafty braves who lounged about the wooden fort
at Vincennes watched eagerly the outgoing and incoming of the troops,
and were prompt to dog and waylay any party they thought they could
overcome. They took advantage of the unwillingness of the Federal
commander to harass Indians who might be friendly; and plotted at ease
the destruction of the very troops who spent much of the time in keeping
intruders off their lands. In the summer of 1788 they twice followed
parties of soldiers from the town, when they went down the Wabash, and
attacked them by surprise, from the river-banks, as they sat in their
boats. In one instance, the lieutenant in command got off with the loss
of but two or three men. In the other, of the thirty-six soldiers who
composed the party ten were killed, eight wounded, and the greater part
of the provisions and goods they were conveying were captured; while the
survivors, pushing down-stream, ultimately made their way to the
Illinois towns. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150, vol. iii. Lt.
Spear to Harmar, June 2, 1788; Hamtranck to Harmar, Aug. 12, 1788.] This
last tragedy was avenged by a band of thirty mounted riflemen from
Kentucky, led by the noted backwoods fighter Hardin. They had crossed
the Ohio on a retaliatory foray, many of their horses having been stolen
by the Indians. When near Vincennes they happened to stumble on the war
party that had attacked the soldiers, slew ten, and scattered the others
to the winds, capturing thirty horses. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Wm. Clark
Papers. N. T. Dalton to W. Clark, Vincennes, Aug. 23, 1788; also Denny,
p. 528.]
Dreadful Nature of the Warfare.
The war bands who harried the settlements, or lurked along the banks of
the Ohio, bent on theft and murder, did terrible deeds, and at times
suffered terrible fates in return, when some untoward chance threw them
in the way of the grim border vengeance. The books of the old annalists
are filled with tales of disaster and retribution, of horrible suffering
and of fierce prowess. Countless stories are told of heroic fight and
panic rout; of midnight assault on lonely cabins, and ambush of
heavy-laden immigrant scows; of the deaths of brave men and cowards, and
the dreadful butchery of women and children; of bloody raid and
revengeful counter stroke. Sometimes a band of painted marauders would
kill family after family, without suffering any loss, would capture boat
after boat without effective resistance from the immigrants, paralyzed
by panic fright, and would finally escape unmolested, or beat off with
ease a possibly larger party of pursuers, who happened to be ill led, or
to be men with little training in wilderness warfare.
At other times all this might be reversed. A cabin might be defended
with such maddened courage by some stout rifleman, fighting for his
cowering wife and children, that a score of savages would recoil
baffled, leaving many of their number dead. A boat's crew of resolute
men might beat back, with heavy loss, an over-eager onslaught of Indians
in canoes, or push their slow, unwieldy craft from shore under a rain of
rifle-balls, while the wounded oarsmen strained at the bloody handles of
the sweeps, and the men who did not row gave shot for shot, firing at
the flame tongues in the dark woods. A party of scouts, true wilderness
veterans, equal to their foes in woodcraft and cunning, and superior in
marksmanship and reckless courage, might follow and scatter some war
band and return in triumph with scalps and retaken captives and horses.
Deeds of a War Party.
A volume could readily be filled with adventures of this kind, all
varying infinitely in detail, but all alike in their bloody ferocity.
During the years 1789 and 1790 scores of Indian war parties went on such
trips, to meet every kind of success and failure. The deeds of one such,
which happen to be recorded, may be given merely to serve as a sample of
what happened in countless other cases. In the early spring of 1790 a
band of fifty-four Indians of various tribes, but chiefly Cherokees and
Shawnees, established a camp near the mouth of the Scioto. [Footnote:
American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., pp. 87, 88, 91.] They
first attacked a small new-built station, on one of the bottoms of the
Ohio, some twenty miles from Limestone, and killed or captured all its
fifteen inhabitants. They spared the lives of two of the captives, but
forced the wretches to act as decoys so as to try to lure passing boats
within reach.
Their first success was with a boat going downriver, and containing four
men and two unmarried girls, besides a quantity of goods intended for
the stores in the Kentucky towns. The two decoys appeared on the right
bank, begging piteously to be taken on board, and stating that they had
just escaped from the savages. Three of the voyagers, not liking the
looks of the men, refused to land, but the fourth, a reckless fellow
named Flynn, and the two girls, who were coarse, foolish, good-natured
frontier women of the lower sort, took pity upon the seeming fugitives,
and insisted on taking them aboard. Accordingly the scow was shoved
inshore, and Flynn jumped on the bank, only to be immediately seized by
the Indians, who then opened fire on the others. They tried to put off,
and fired back, but they were helpless; one man and a girl were shot,
another wounded, and the savages then swarmed aboard, seized everything,
and got very drunk on a keg of whiskey. The fates of the captives were
various, each falling to some different group of savages. Flynn, the
cause of the trouble, fell to the Cherokees, who took him to the Miami
town, and burned him alive, with dreadful torments. The remaining girl,
after suffering outrage and hardship, was bound to the stake, but saved
by a merciful Indian, who sent her home. Of the two remaining men, one
ran the gauntlet successfully, and afterwards escaped and reached home
through the woods, while the other was ransomed by a French trader at
Sandusky.
Before thus disposing of their captives the Indians hung about the mouth
of the Scioto for some time. They captured a pirogue going up-stream,
and killed all six paddlers. Soon afterwards three heavily laden scows
passed, drifting down with the current. Aboard these were twenty-eight
men, with their women and children, together with many horses and bales
of merchandise. They had but sixteen guns among them, and many were
immigrants, unaccustomed to savage warfare, and therefore they made no
effort to repel the attack, which could easily have been done by
resolute, well-armed veterans. The Indians crowded into the craft they
had captured, and paddled and rowed after the scows, whooping and
firing. They nearly overtook the last scow, whereupon its people shifted
to the second, and abandoned it. When further pressed the people shifted
into the headmost scow, cut holes in its sides so as to work all the
oars, and escaped down-stream, leaving the Indians to plunder the two
abandoned boats, which contained twenty-eight horses and fifteen hundred
pounds' worth of goods.
Pursuit of the War Party.
The Kentuckians of the neighborhood sent word to General Harmar, begging
him to break up this nest of plunderers. Accordingly he started after
them, with his regular troops. He was joined by a number of Kentucky
mounted riflemen, under the command of Col. Charles Scott, a rough
Indian fighter, and veteran of the Revolutionary War, who afterwards
became governor of the State. Scott had moved to Kentucky not long after
the close of the war with England; he had lost a son at the hands of the
savages, [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 71, vol. ii., p. 563.] and he
delighted in war against them.
Harmar made a circuit and came down along the Scioto, hoping to surprise
the Indian camp; but he might as well have hoped to surprise a party of
timber wolves. His foes scattered and disappeared in the dense forest.
Nevertheless, coming across some moccasin tracks, Scott's horsemen
followed the trail, killed four Indians, and carried in the scalps to
Limestone. The chastisement proved of little avail. A month later five
immigrant boats, while moored to the bank a few miles from Limestone,
were rushed by the Indians at night; one boat was taken, all the
thirteen souls aboard being killed or captured.
Misadventures of Vigo.
Among the men who suffered about this time was the Italian Vigo; a fine,
manly, generous fellow, of whom St. Clair spoke as having put the United
States under heavy obligations, and as being "in truth the most
disinterested person" he had ever known. [Footnote: American State
Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., Sept. 19, 1790.] While taking his
trading boat up the Wabash, Vigo was attacked by an Indian war party,
three of his men were killed, and he was forced to drop down-stream.
Meeting another trading boat manned by Americans, he again essayed to
force a passage in company with it, but they were both attacked with
fury. The other boat got off; but Vigo's was captured. However, the
Indians, when they found the crew consisted of Creoles, molested none of
them, telling them that they only warred against the Americans; though
they plundered the boat.
Preparations to Attack the Indians.
By the summer of 1790 the raids of the Indians had become unbearable.
Fresh robberies and murders were committed every day in Kentucky, or
along the Wabash and Ohio. Writing to the Secretary of War, a prominent
Kentuckian, well knowing all the facts, estimated that during the seven
years which had elapsed since the close of the Revolutionary War the
Indians had slain fifteen hundred people in Kentucky itself, or on the
immigrant routes leading thither, and had stolen twenty thousand horses,
besides destroying immense quantities of other property. [Footnote:
American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i. Innes to Sec. of War,
July 7, 1790.] The Federal generals were also urgent in asserting the
folly of carrying on a merely defensive war against such foes. All the
efforts of the Federal authorities to make treaties with the Indians and
persuade them to be peaceful had failed. The Indians themselves had
renewed hostilities, and the different tribes had one by one joined in
the war, behaving with a treachery only equalled by their ferocity. With
great reluctance the National Government concluded that an effort to
chastise the hostile savages could no longer be delayed; and those on
the Maumee, or Miami of the Lakes, and on the Wabash, whose guilt had
been peculiarly heinous, were singled out as the objects of attack.
The expedition against the Wabash towns was led by the Federal commander
at Vincennes, Major Hamtranck. No resistance was encountered; and after
burning a few villages of bark huts and destroying some corn he returned
to Vincennes.
Harmar's Expedition against the Miami Towns.
The main expedition was that against the Miami Indians, and was led by
General Harmar himself. It was arranged that there should be a nucleus
of regular troops, but that the force should consist mainly of militia
from Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the former furnishing twice as many as
the latter. The troops were to gather on the 15th of September at Fort
Washington, on the north bank of the Ohio, a day's journey down-stream
from Limestone.
Poor Quality of the Militia.
At the appointed time the militia began to straggle in; the regular
officers had long been busy getting their own troops, artillery, and
military stores in readiness. The regulars felt the utmost
disappointment at the appearance of the militia. They numbered but few
of the trained Indian fighters of the frontier; many of them were hired
substitutes; most of them were entirely unacquainted with Indian
warfare, and were new to the life of the wilderness; and they were badly
armed. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., pp.
104, 105; Military Affairs, i., 20.] The Pennsylvanians were of even
poorer stuff than the Kentuckians, numbering many infirm old men, and
many mere boys. They were undisciplined, with little regard for
authority, and inclined to be disorderly and mutinous.
The Army Assembles.
By the end of September one battalion of Pennsylvania, and three
battalions of Kentucky, militia, had arrived, and the troops began their
march to the Miami. All told there were 1453 men, 320 being Federal
troops and 1133 militia, many of whom were mounted; and there were three
light brass field-pieces. [Footnote: _Do._, Indian Affairs, i., p. 104;
also p. 105. For this expedition see also Military Affairs, i., pp. 20,
28, and Denny's Military Journal, pp. 343, 354.] In point of numbers the
force was amply sufficient for its work; but Harmar, though a gallant
man, was not fitted to command even a small army against Indians, and
the bulk of the militia, who composed nearly four-fifths of his force,
were worthless. A difficulty immediately occurred in choosing a
commander for the militia. Undoubtedly the best one among their officers
was Colonel John Hardin, who (like his fellow Kentuckian, Colonel
Scott), was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and a man of experience
in the innumerable deadly Indian skirmishes of the time. He had no
special qualifications for the command of more than a handful of troops,
but he was a brave and honorable man, who had done well in leading small
parties of rangers against their red foes. Nevertheless, the militia
threatened mutiny unless they were allowed to choose their own leader,
and they chose a mere incompetent, a Colonel Trotter. Harmar yielded,
for the home authorities had dwelt much on the necessity of his
preventing friction between the regulars and the militia; and he had so
little control over the latter, that he was very anxious to keep them
good-humored. Moreover, the commissariat arrangements were poor. Under
such circumstances the keenest observers on the frontier foretold
failure from the start. [Footnote: Am. State Papers, Indian Affairs, i.
Jno. O'Fallan to the President, Lexington, Ky., Sept. 25, 1790.]
The March to the Miami.
For several days the army marched slowly forward. The regular officers
had endless difficulty with the pack horsemen, who allowed their charges
to stray or be stolen, and they strove to instruct the militia in the
rudiments of their duties, on the march, in camp, and in battle. A
fortnight's halting progress through the wilderness brought the army to
a small branch of the Miami of the Lakes. Here a horse patrol captured a
Maumee Indian, who informed his captors that the Indians knew of their
approach and were leaving their towns. On hearing this an effort was
made to hurry forward; but when the army reached the Miami towns, on
October 17th, they had been deserted. They stood at the junction of two
branches of the Miami, the St. Mary and the St. Joseph, about one
hundred and seventy miles from Fort Washington. The troops had marched
about ten miles a day. The towns consisted of a couple of hundred
wigwams, with some good log huts; and there were gardens, orchards, and
immense fields of corn. All these the soldiers destroyed, and the
militia loaded themselves with plunder.
Failure and Defeat of a Militia Expedition.
On the 18th Colonel Trotter was ordered out with three hundred men to
spend a couple of days exploring the country, and finding out where the
Indians were. After marching a few miles, they came across two Indians.
Both were killed by the advanced horsemen. All four of the field
officers of the militia--two colonels and two majors--joined
helter-skelter in the chase, leaving their troops for half an hour
without a leader. Apparently satisfied with this feat, Trotter marched
home, having accomplished nothing.
Defeat of a Small Detachment of Troops.
Much angered, Harmar gave the command to Hardin, who left the camp next
morning with two hundred men, including thirty regulars. But the militia
had turned sulky. They did not wish to go, and they began to desert and
return to camp immediately after leaving it. At least half of them had
thus left him, when he stumbled on a body of about a hundred Indians.
The Indians advanced firing, and the militia fled with abject cowardice,
many not even discharging their guns. The thirty regulars stood to their
work, and about ten of the militia stayed with them. This small
detachment fought bravely, and was cut to pieces, but six or seven men
escaping. Their captain, after valiant fighting, broke through the
savages, and got into a swamp near by. Here he hid, and returned to camp
next day; he was so near the place of the fight that he had seen the
victory dance of the Indians over their slain and mutilated foes.
The Army Begins its Retreat.
This defeat took the heart out of the militia. The army left the Miami
towns, and moved back a couple of miles to the Shawnee town of
Chilicothe. A few Indians began to lurk about, stealing horses, and two
of the militia captains determined to try to kill one of the thieves.
Accordingly, at nightfall, they hobbled a horse with a bell, near a
hazel thicket in which they hid. Soon an Indian stalked up to the horse,
whereupon they killed him, and brought his head into camp, proclaiming
that it should at least be worth the price of a wolf scalp.
Next day was spent by the army in completing the destruction of all the
corn, the huts, and the belongings of the Indians. A band of a dozen
warriors tried to harass one of the burning parties; but some of the
mounted troops got on their flank, killed two and drove the others off,
they themselves suffering no loss.
A Detachment Sent Back to Attack Indians.
The following day, the 21st, the army took up the line of march for Fort
Washington, having destroyed six Indian towns, and an immense quantity
of corn. But Hardin was very anxious to redeem himself by trying another
stroke at the Indians, who, he rightly judged, would gather at their
towns as soon as the troops left. Harmar also wished to revenge his
losses, and to forestall any attempt of the Indians to harass his shaken
and retreating forces. Accordingly that night he sent back against the
towns a detachment of four hundred men, sixty of whom were regulars, and
the rest picked militia. They were commanded by Major Wyllys, of the
regulars. It was a capital mistake of Harmar's to send off a mere
detachment on such a business. He should have taken a force composed of
all his regulars and the best of the militia, and led it in person.
This Detachment Roughly Handled.
The detachment marched soon after midnight, and reached the Miami at
daybreak on October 22d. It was divided into three columns, which
marched a few hundred yards apart, and were supposed to keep in touch
with one another. The middle column was led by Wyllys in person, and
included the regulars and a few militia. The rest of the militia
composed the flank columns and marched under their own officers.
Immediately after crossing the Miami, and reaching the neighborhood of
the town, Indians were seen. The columns were out of touch, and both of
those on the flanks pressed forward against small parties of braves,
whom they drove before them up the St. Joseph. Heedless of the orders
they had received, the militia thus pressed forward, killing and
scattering the small parties in their front and losing all connection
with the middle column of regulars. Meanwhile the main body of the
Indians gathered to assail this column, and overwhelmed it by numbers;
whether they had led the militia away by accident or by design is not
known. The regulars fought well and died hard, but they were completely
cut off, and most of them, including their commander, were slain. A few
escaped, and either fled back to camp or up the St. Joseph. Those who
took the latter course met the militia returning and informed them of
what had happened. Soon afterwards the victorious Indians themselves
appeared, on the opposite side of the St. Joseph, and attempted to force
their way across. But the militia were flushed by the easy triumph of
the morning and fought well, repulsing the Indians and finally forcing
them to withdraw. They then marched slowly back to the Miami towns,
gathered their wounded, arrayed their ranks, and rejoined the main army.
The Indians had suffered heavily, and were too dispirited, both by their
loss, and by their last repulse, to attempt further to harass either
this detachment or the main army itself on its retreat.
Practical failure of the expedition.
Nevertheless, the net result was a mortifying failure. In all, the
regulars had lost 75 men killed and 3 wounded, while of the militia 28
had been wounded and 108 had been killed or were missing. The march back
was very dreary; and the militia became nearly ungovernable, so that at
one time Harmar reduced them to order only by threatening to fire on
them with the artillery.
The loss of all their provisions and dwellings exposed the Miami tribes
to severe suffering and want during the following winter; and they had
also lost many of their warriors. But the blow was only severe enough to
anger and unite them, not to cripple or crush them. All the other
western tribes made common cause with them. They banded together and
warred openly; and their vengeful forays on the frontier increased in
number, so that the suffering of the settlers was great. Along the Ohio
people lived in hourly dread of tomahawk and scalping knife; the attacks
fell unceasingly on all the settlements from Marietta to Louisville.