JOSIAH HARMAR
--_The first military invasion of the Northwest by the Federal
Government after the Revolution._
The treaty of Fort Harmar, on January 9th, 1789, so far as the Wabash
tribes were concerned, was unavailing. The raids of the Miamis and the
Shawnees continued. Murders south of the Ohio were of almost daily
occurrence. For six or seven hundred miles along that river the
inhabitants were kept in a perpetual state of alarm. In Kentucky,
killings and depredations took place in almost every direction; at Crab
Orchard, Floyd's Fork and numerous other places. Boats were constantly
attacked on the Ohio and whole families slaughtered, and their goods and
cattle destroyed.
One hundred and forty-five miles northwest of the mouth of the Kentucky
river were the Indian villages at Ouiatenon, on the Wabash river. On the
south side of that stream and near the outlet of Wea creek, were the
towns of the Weas; across the river from these towns was a Kickapoo
village. About eighteen miles above Ouiatenon was the important trading
post of Kethtipecanunck (Petit Piconne or Tippecanoe) near the mouth of
the Tippecanoe river, commanded by the chieftain Little Face. About six
miles above the present city of Logansport, and on the Eel river, was
the Miami village of Kenapacomaqua or L'Anguille, commanded by "The
Soldier." At the junction of the St. Marys and the St. Joseph, one
hundred and sixty miles north of the Kentucky river, was the principal
Indian village of Kekionga or Miamitown, commanded by Pecan and LeGris.
All these towns were visited by the French and English traders who
communicated with Detroit and all were under the domination and control
of the British. The savages in these various Indian villages were so far
away from the Kentucky settlements that they considered themselves
immune from any attacks; they were taught by the English to look with
contempt upon the American government, and were given to understand that
as long as the British held the upper posts they would be fully
protected. In war parties of from five to twenty they suddenly appeared
upon the banks of the Ohio to pillage the boats of the immigrants and
murder their crews, or crossing that stream they penetrated the
settlements of the interior, to kill, burn and destroy, and lead away
horses and captives to the Indian towns. Pursued, they were often lost
in the almost impenetrable forests of the north, or the savage bands
scattered far and wide in thicket and swamp.
In the winter of 1789-1790 strange things were happening in the Miami
villages on the St. Joseph and the Maumee. Henry Hay was there, the
British agent of a Detroit merchant. Here are some of the facts that he
has recorded in his diary. LeGris, the Little Turtle, Richardville, and
Blue Jacket, the Shawnee chief, were all in that vicinity. George Girty
lived close by in a Delaware town. He had married an Indian woman and
was really a savage. On the twenty-sixth of December 1789, Girty came
to Miamitown to report to Hay. He said that the Delawares were
constantly being told by the Miamis that the ground they occupied was
not theirs; that the Delawares had answered that they were great fools
to fight for others' lands, and that they would war no longer against
the Americans, but would remove to the Spanish territory beyond the
Mississippi. These facts Hay must report in writing to Alexander McKee,
the British Indian agent. On the second of January, 1790, it was
reported that Antoine Laselle, a French trader who had resided at
Miamitown for nineteen years, was a prisoner in the hands of the Weas.
The crime charged against him was that he had written a letter to the
Americans at Vincennes apprising them of an Indian attack, and that as a
consequence of that letter the attacking party had been captured. One of
them was the son of a Wea who had burned an American prisoner at
Ouiatenon the preceding summer, and the Weas now charged that this son
would be burned by his American captors. Laselle was supposed to be in
imminent peril, and all the French and English traders at Miamitown
called on LeGris. LeGris said that he had always warned the traders
about penetrating the lower Indian country, but that numbers of the
French had gone to trade there without his knowledge. He had cautioned
Laselle, but Laselle had gone without letting him know. If Laselle had
told him of his intended trip, he would have sent along one of his
chiefs with him, or given him a belt as a passport. LeGris said that no
time must be lost, and that he would at once send forward three of his
faithful warriors to put a stop to the business. On the fifth day of
January, one Tramblai arrived from Ouiatenon, and said that all the
reports concerning Laselle were false and that he was having a good
trade. On the thirteenth, Laselle himself arrived with Blue Jacket and a
Frenchman. He bore a letter from the Indians and the French-Canadians at
Tippecanoe to LeGris, certifying that "the bearer Antoine Laselle is a
good loyalist and is always for supporting the King," That was a
satisfactory certificate of character along the Wabash in 1790.
On the thirteenth of February, 1790, the Shawnees who live near
Miamitown, arrive at that village with the prisoner McMullen. His face
is painted black, as one who approaches death. In his hands he holds the
"Shishequia" made of deer hoofs. He constantly rattles this device, and
sings, "Oh Kentuck!" He thinks that the day of doom is at hand and that
he will be burned at the stake. Some Indian chief, however, has lost a
son. The paint will be washed off and the feathers fastened in his
scalplock, and he will be adopted to take the place of the slain, but he
does not know that now. The story of his capture is typical of the
times. He was born in Virginia and came to Kentucky to collect a debt.
With two companions he crosses the Ohio at the mouth of the Kentucky to
hunt wild turkeys. They separate in the woods, and the Shawnees surround
him, and cut off all means of escape to the canoe. He tries to break
through the encircling ring but is hit on the head with a war billet,
and now he is here. The Shawnee band who captured him were out for
revenge. Last spring they had gone out to hunt. A party of Miamis who
were on the warpath returned by another route. The Kentuckians who
followed them, fell in with the Shawnees, and slew some of their women
and children. Thus runs the tale of blood and reprisal of those savage
days.
On the twelfth day of December, 1789, and shortly after his arrival at
Miamitown, Hay relates that he saw the heart of a white prisoner, "dried
like a piece of dried venison," and with a small stick "run from one end
of it to the other." The heart "was fastened behind the fellows bundle
that killed him, with also his scalp." On Sunday, the twenty-first day
of March, 1790, and shortly before Hay's departure from Detroit, a party
of bloody Shawnees arrived with four prisoners, one of them a negro.
Terrible havoc had been done on the Ohio. One boat had been attacked on
which were one officer and twenty-one men. All had been killed, the boat
sunk, and its contents hid in the woods. Nineteen persons had been taken
near Limestone, now Maysville, Kentucky. All were prisoners, save two or
three. John Witherington's family had been separated from him. He had a
wife "7 months gone with child" and seven children. In addition to all
the above outrages, information was gathered from time to time of all
affairs along the Ohio. The garrisons were numbered, the officers named,
and every motion of governor St. Clair closely scrutinized.
Thus in the very heart of the American country did British officers and
agents control the Indian trade; heartlessly wink at or encourage the
scalping parties of the savages, and keep a close and jealous watch on
the numbers and movements of the American forces. The diary of the
Englishman reveals the whole story.
The spring of 1790 was one of horror. Says Judge Burnet: "The pioneers
who descended the Ohio, on their way westward, will remember while they
live, the lofty rock standing a short distance above the mouth of the
Scioto, on the Virginia shore, which was occupied for years by the
savages, as a favorite watch-tower, from which boats, ascending or
descending, could be discovered at a great distance. From that memorable
spot, hundreds of human beings, men, women and children, while
unconscious of immediate danger, have been seen in the distance and
marked for destruction." On the fourth of April, William W. Dowell
writing to the honorable John Brown of Kentucky, relates that about
fifty Indians were encamped near the mouth of the Scioto. To decoy the
passing boats to the shore they made use of a white prisoner, who ran
along the bank uttering cries of distress and begging to be taken on
board. Three boats and a pirogue were captured, and several persons
brutally murdered. A boat belonging to Colonel Edwards of Bourbon,
Thomas Marshall and others, was hailed by the same white prisoner who
pleaded to be taken on board and brought to Limestone. The stratagem
failing to work the savages at once exposed themselves and began to fire
on the boats, but without effect. They then pushed off from the shore
with a boat load of about thirty warriors and gave chase, and as they
were better supplied with oars than the white men, they would have soon
overtaken them. The cool resolution and presence of mind of one Colonel
George Thompson now saved the day. He threw out all the horses in the
boat he commanded, received Colonel Edward's crew into his own, and
after a frantic chase of fifteen miles, effected an escape. Seventeen
horses were lost, fifteen hundred pounds worth of dry goods, and a
considerable quantity of household goods.
The leading spirits in all these attacks at the mouth of the Scioto were
the Shawnees. The attacks became so frequent, that it was now determined
to organize a punitive expedition against them. Two hundred and thirty
Kentucky volunteers under General Charles Scott crossed the river at
Limestone and were joined by one hundred regulars under General Harmar.
They struck the Scioto several miles up from its mouth and marched down
that stream, but the savages scattered in front of them and only four
Indians were slain. Harmar reported to the government that he might as
well have tried to pursue a pack of wolves.
The movements of the federal government in 1789 and 1790 were extremely
slow. In the first place, a great many of the people of the eastern
seaboard regarded the Kentuckians and all ultra-montane dwellers with
positive distrust. This feeling crept into the counsels of the
government itself. On June 15th, 1789, in a report of Henry Knox,
secretary of war, to President Washington, on the Wabash Indians, the
secretary says that since the conclusion of the war with Great Britain,
"hostilities have almost constantly existed between the people of
Kentucky and the said Indians. The injuries and murders have been so
reciprocal, that it would be a point of critical investigation to know
on which side they have been the greatest." It was probably just such
sentiments as these that led to the orders of July, 1789, withdrawing
the Virginia scouts and rangers who had helped to protect the frontiers,
thus leaving the western people entirely dependent upon the limited
garrisons stationed at the few and widely separated frontier posts. In
the second place, the government neither had the men nor the money at
command wherewith to undertake a successful expedition against the
savages. The number of warriors on the Wabash and its communications
were placed by Secretary Knox at from fifteen hundred to two thousand.
This was probably an over-estimate, but the Indians were formidable. The
regular troops stationed at the frontier posts were less than six
hundred. To organize and equip an army sufficient to extirpate the
Indians and destroy their towns, would require the raising of nineteen
hundred additional men, and an expenditure of two hundred thousand
dollars. This was a sum of money, says the secretary, "far exceeding the
ability of the United States to advance, consistently with a due regard
to other indispensable objects." In the third place, the government
vainly imagined that it was possible to effect a peace with the Wabash
tribes. The views of Secretary of War Knox were very emphatic on this
subject. "It would be found, on examination, that both policy and
justice unite in dictating the attempt of treaty with the Wabash
Indians; for it would be unjust, in the present confused state of
injuries, to make war on those tribes without having previously invited
them to a treaty, in order amicably to adjust all differences." With
these views, Washington himself concurred, observing, "that a war with
the Wabash Indians ought to be avoided by all means consistently with
the security of the frontier inhabitants, the security of the troops,
and the national dignity."
Accordingly, about the first of January, 1790, Governor Arthur St.
Clair, descended the river Ohio from Marietta, opposite Fort Harmar, to
Losantiville, opposite the mouth of the Licking river. Here was located
Fort Washington. He changed the name of Losantiville to Cincinnati,
organized the county of Hamilton, and proceeded to Fort Steuben or
Clarksville, at the Falls of the Ohio. There he dispatched a messenger
to Major John Hamtramck, the commandant at Vincennes, with friendly
speeches to be forwarded by him to the Indians of the Wabash. A sincere
and honest effort was to be made to bring about peace, although St.
Clair himself had but little faith in an amicable adjustment and
expressed the opinion that the Miamis and the renegade Shawnees,
Delawares and Cherokees, lying near them, were "irreclaimable by gentle
means." The heart "dried like a piece of dried venison" was ample proof
that St. Clair was right.
The first peace messenger sent by Hamtramck was Fred Gamelin, a
Frenchman. He proceeded no farther than the Vermilion river, where he
was informed by an Indian that if he went any farther his life would be
taken, and he returned to Vincennes. On the first of April, Hamtramck
sent forward Antoine Gamelin, an intelligent French merchant. The first
village he arrived at was close to Vincennes, and was named Kikapouguoi.
The Indians at this place were friendly, and he proceeded up the Wabash.
He next arrived at a town of the Vermilion Piankeshaws. The first chief
of the village and all the warriors seemed to be pleased with the words
of peace from the Americans, but said that they could not give a proper
answer before consulting their "eldest brethren," the Miamis. They
desired that Gamelin should go forward to Kekionga or Miamitown, and
bring back a report of what the head chiefs should say. Gamelin had now
fairly entered the sphere of British influence. He was told that the
nations of the lake had a bad heart and were ill disposed toward the
Americans; that the Shawnees of Miamitown would never receive his
speech.
Gamelin now advanced to the large Indian village of the Kickapoos,
situated on the Big Vermilion river, in what is now Vermilion County,
Indiana. Their principal town was on the site of what is now known as
"The Army Ford Stock Farm," a few miles from the present village of
Cayuga. This farm has been in the possession of the old Shelby family
for years. The house contains two or three old fireplaces and has been
built for about a century. It stands on a high bluff facing the
Vermilion river, and the view is very picturesque. In making recent
excavations for gravel along the roadway to the west of the buildings,
an Indian skeleton was unearthed. It was in a fair state of preservation
and the teeth in the skull were still perfect. There were also several
Indian arrowheads, remains of a leathern pouch with a draw-string, and
parts of a grass-woven blanket. By the side of the skeleton of the
savage were the bones of a dog, and also a small copper bell, which was
probably worn about the dog's neck. The Kickapoos held the dog in
especial veneration and at the time of the burial of the warrior, fully
equipped with arms and tobacco for the happy hunting ground, the dog was
probably slain to accompany his master.
No tribe of savages along the Wabash was more irreconcilable than the
Kickapoos. "They were," says Beckwith, "pre-eminent in predatory
warfare. Small parties, consisting of from five to twenty or more, were
the usual number comprising their war parties. These would push out
hundreds of miles from their villages, and swoop down upon a feeble
settlement, or an isolated pioneer cabin, and burn the property, kill
the cattle, steal the horses, capture the women and children and be off
again before the alarm could be given." They were always strongly on the
British side, and numbers of them fought against the Americans at
Tippecanoe.
Gamelin at once encountered opposition. The Kickapoos first found fault
with his speech and said that it contained a threat of war. Upon his
eliminating the objectionable words, they said he could go farther up
the river, but that they could not give a definite answer because some
of their warriors were absent, and they had first to consult the Weas,
who were the owners of their lands. They next found fault with Gamelin
for coming among them empty-handed. They said that they expected "a
draught of milk from the great chief, and the commanding officer of the
post, for to put the old people in good humor; also some powder and ball
for the young men for hunting, and to get some good broth for their
women and children." They promised to keep their young men from
stealing, and to send speeches to their nations in the prairies to
prevent them from making expeditions.
On the fourteenth of April, Gamelin held a council with the Weas and
Kickapoos at Ouiatenon. He found everything hostile. As a Frenchman he
was welcome, but was plainly told that nothing could be done without the
consent of the Miamis; that it was useless to ask them (the Indians) to
restrain their young men, for they were "being constantly encouraged by
the British." One of the chiefs said: "Know ye that the village of
Ouiatenon is the sepulcher of all our ancestors. The chief of America
invites us to go to him, if we are at peace. He has not his leg broke,
having been able to go as far as the Illinois. He might come here
himself; and we should be glad to see him at our village. We confess
that we accepted the axe, but it is by the reproach we continually
receive from the English and other nations, which received the axe
first, calling us women; at the present time they invite our young men
to war."
On the eighteenth of April, Gamelin arrived at Kenapacomaqua or
L'Anguille. The head chief was absent, and the tribesmen would give no
answer. However, they sent some of their men along to hear what the
Miamis at Kekionga would say. On the twenty-third of April, Gamelin
arrived at the head of the Maumee. The next day he got the Miamis, the
Shawnees and a few Delawares in council. He presented each tribe with
two branches of wampum, and began his friendly speeches before the
French and English traders who had been invited to be present. After his
speeches were delivered he displayed the treaty of Fort Harmar. This
greatly displeased them.
Nothing can better display the treachery of the Miamis on this occasion
than the statements of the principal chieftain, LeGris, made to Gamelin
in a private conversation. After telling the Frenchman not to pay any
attention to the Shawnees, as they were the "perturbators of all the
nations," he said that he knew that the Miamis had a bad name on account
of mischief done on the Ohio, but that this mischief was not occasioned
by his young men, but by the Shawnees; that his young men had only gone
out to hunt. This glaring falsehood was told in the face of the fact
that the Little Turtle himself had been out on the warpath only the
winter before, returning with captives and plunder.
On the twenty-fifth of April, Gamelin held a conference with the famous
Shawnee chief, Blue Jacket. The chief was implacable. He informed
Gamelin that no answer could be given to the American peace messenger
without hearing from the British at Detroit. That the Shawnees had
determined to give the two branches of wampum back, and to send Gamelin
to Detroit, or detain him twenty days until an answer could be received
from the British. The chief also stated that he believed that the
Americans were guilty of deception. The next day after this conference
five Potawatomi arrived at Miamitown with two captured negro slaves,
which they openly sold to the British traders.
A day or two after the interview with Blue Jacket, Gamelin was told by
LeGris to call at a French trader's house and receive his answer. He was
there told that he might go back to Vincennes when he pleased, and that
no definite answer could be given to his speeches "Without consulting
the commandant at Detroit." LeGris professed to be pleased with
Gamelin's address, and said that it should be communicated to all the
confederates, but declared that the nations had resolved not to do
anything without the unanimous consent of the tribes.
"The same day, Blue Jacket, chief of the Shawnees, invited me to his
house for supper; and, before the other chiefs, told me that, after
another deliberation, they thought necessary that I should go myself to
Detroit, for to see the commandant, who would get all his children
assembled for to hear my speech. I told them I could not answer them in
the night; that I was not ashamed to speak before the sun."
"The twenty-ninth of April, I got them all assembled. I told them that I
was not to go to Detroit; that the speeches were directed to the nations
of the river Wabash and the Miami; and that, for to prove the sincerity
of the speech, and the heart of Governor St. Clair, I have willingly
given a copy of the speeches, to be shown to the commandant at Detroit;
and, according to a letter wrote by the commandant of Detroit to the
Miamis, Shawnees, and Delawares, mentioning to you to be peaceable with
the Americans, I would go to him very willingly, if it was in my
directions, being sensible of his sentiments. I told them I had nothing
to say to the commandant; neither him to me. You must immediately
resolve, if you intend to take me to Detroit, or else I am to go back as
soon as possible."
"Blue Jacket got up and told me, 'My friend, we are well pleased with
what you say. Our intention is not to force you to go to Detroit: It is
only a proposal, thinking it for the best. Our answer is the same as the
Miamis. We will send, in thirty nights, a full and positive answer, by a
young man of each nation, by writing to Post Vincennes.' In the evening,
Blue Jacket, chief of the Shawnees, having taken me to supper with him,
told me, in a private manner, that the Shawnee nation was in doubt of
the sincerity of the Big Knives (Americans), so called, having been
already deceived by them. That they had first destroyed their lands, put
out their fire, and sent away their young men, being a hunting, without
a mouthful of meat; also, had taken away their women; wherefore, many of
them would, with great deal of pain, forget the affronts. Moreover, that
some other nations were apprehending that offers of peace would, maybe,
tend to take away, by degrees, their lands; and would serve them as they
did before; a certain proof that they intend to encroach on our lands,
is their new settlement on the Ohio. If they don't keep this side (of
the Ohio) clear, it will never be a proper reconcilement with the
nations Shawnees, Iroquois, Wyandots, and perhaps many others."
On the journey back to Vincennes, every indication along the way was
threatening. At L'Anguille, Gamelin was told that one of the Eel river
chieftains had gone to war with the Americans; that a few days before
his arrival a band of seventy Indians, Chippewas and Ottawas from
Michillimacinac, and some Potawatomi, had passed through the village on
the way to the American frontier. At Ouiatenon, the Weas said that the
English commandant was their father, and that they could do nothing
without his approbation. "On the eighth day of May, Gamelin returned to
Fort Knox, and on the eleventh, some traders arrived from the upper
Wabash, bringing the intelligence that war parties from the north had
joined the Wabash Indians; that the whole force of the savages had gone
to make an attack on the settlements, and that three days after Gamelin
left the Miamis, an American captive had been burned in their village."
[Illustration: Map of the Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne Campaigns.
Drawing by Heaton]
Reluctant as was the government of the United States to engage in war
with the Wabash Indians, no doubt now remained of their warlike
intentions. Every savage town from the Vermilion Piankeshaws to ancient
Kekionga, was under British control. On the first of May, 1790, Governor
Arthur St. Clair transmitted to the war department a part of the report
of Antoine Gamelin, written from Tippecanoe, and observed as follows:
"By this letter, you will perceive that everything seems to be referred
to the Miamis, which does not promise a peaceable issue. The confidence
they have in their situation, the vicinity of many other nations not
very well disposed, and the pernicious counsels of the English traders,
joined to the immense booty obtained by the depredations upon the
Ohio, will most probably prevent them from listening to any reasonable
terms of accommodation, so that it is to be feared the United States
must prepare effectually to chastise them." Shortly afterwards, St.
Clair hastened to Fort Washington at Cincinnati, and there held a
military conference with General Josiah Harmar. Being empowered to call
upon Virginia, then including Kentucky, for one thousand militia, and
upon the State of Pennsylvania for five hundred more, it was resolved to
concentrate three hundred of the Kentucky troops at Fort Steuben
(Clarksville), to march from that place to Post Vincennes. From thence
an expedition under Major John F. Hamtramck was to be directed against
the villages on the lower Wabash, so as to prevent them from aiding the
Miamis higher up. The remaining twelve hundred militiamen were to join
the regulars at Fort Washington and strike directly across the country
to the principal Miami village at Kekionga. No permanent military post
was to be established, however, at the forks of the Maumee. Secretary of
War Knox was fearful of results. While admitting that the Miami village
presented itself "as superior to any other position," for the purpose of
fixing a garrison to overawe the Indians at the west end of Lake Erie,
on the Wabash and the Illinois, still, he was apprehensive that the
establishment of a post at this place would be so opposed to the
inclinations of the Indians generally as to bring on a war of some
duration, and at the same time render the British garrisons "so uneasy
with such a force impending over them, as not only to occasion a
considerable reinforcement of their upper posts, but to occasion their
fomenting, secretly, at least, the opposition of the Indians." How any
official of the government with the report of Antoine Gamelin in his
hands, could hope to soften the animosity of the tribes by the taking of
half measures, or to propitiate the British by a display of timidity, is
hard to conceive. Four months later the hesitating secretary changed his
course.
The army with which General Harmar marched out of Fort Washington in the
latter days of September, 1790, to strike the Indian towns, was a motley
array. Pennsylvania had only partly filled her quota. She had sent forth
substitutes, old and infirm men, and boys. The troops from Kentucky had
seemingly brought into camp every old musket and rifle in the district
to be repaired. There was a scarcity of camp kettles and axes. The
commissariat was miserably deficient. To add to the confusion, the
Kentucky militia were divided in their allegiance between a certain
Colonel William Trotter and Colonel John Hardin. Hardin was fearless,
but extremely rash; Trotter was wholly incompetent. In two or three days
the Kentuckians were formed into three battalions, under Majors Hall,
McMullen, and Ray, with Trotter at their head. Harmar, an old army
officer of the revolution, who felt a contempt for all militia, was in
sore dismay, for the hasty muster was totally lacking in discipline, and
impatient of restraint.
In numbers, as Colonel Roosevelt observes, this army was amply
sufficient to do its work. It consisted of three battalions of Kentucky
militia, one battalion of Pennsylvania militia, one battalion of light
troops, mounted, and two battalions of the regular army under Major John
Plasgrave Wyllys, and Major John Doughty; in all, fourteen hundred and
fifty-three men. There was also a small company of artillery, with three
small brass field pieces, under Captain William Ferguson. But to fight
the hardy and experienced warriors of the wilderness in their native
woods, required something more than hasty levies, loose discipline, and
inexperienced Indian fighters. Harmar was not a Wayne. The expedition
was doomed to failure from the very beginning.
The details of the march along Harmar's trace to the site of the present
city of Fort Wayne it is not necessary to give. The army moved slowly,
and gave the British agents under Alexander McKee plenty of time to
furnish the redskins with arms and ammunition. The star of the Little
Turtle was in the ascendant. He was now thirty-eight years of age, and
while not a hereditary chieftain of the Miamis, his prowess and cunning
had given him fame. The Indians never made a mistake in choosing a
military leader. He watched the Americans from the very time of their
leaving Fort Washington and purposed to destroy them at the Indian town.
On the fourteenth of October the army reached the River St. Marys,
described by Captain John Armstrong as a pretty stream, and Hardin was
sent forward with a company of regulars and six hundred militia to
occupy Miamitown. He found the villages on both banks of the St. Joseph
deserted by the foe. The English and French traders had fled from the
main Indian town on what is now known as the Lakeside shore of the St.
Joseph, and had carried away most of their valuables. John Kinzie and
Antoine Laselle were among the refugees. The savages had burned the
houses in their main village to prevent their occupation by the
Americans, and had buried vast quantities of corn and vegetables in
Indian caches. One hundred and eighty-five houses of the Delawares,
Shawnees and Miamis, were still left standing in the neighboring
villages. All of these were destroyed by the torch after Harmar's
arrival.
On Sunday the seventeenth, the main army crossed the Maumee river from
the south and encamped on the point of land formed by the junction of
the St. Joseph and the Maumee. It was a beautiful spot covered by the
Indian corn fields and gardens. The Kentucky militia in parties of
thirty and forty, throwing aside all discipline, wandered about in
search of plunder. The Indians were wary. They lurked in the woods and
thickets, biding the time when they might destroy the army in detail.
Major McMullen now discovered the tracks of women and children in a
pathway leading to the northwest. Harmar resolved to locate the Indian
encampment and bring the savages to battle. On the morning of the
eighteenth, Colonel Trotter was given the command of three hundred men,
equipped with three days' provisions, and ordered to scour the country.
The detachment after pursuing and killing two Indian horsemen, marched
in various directions until nightfall, and returned to camp. Colonel
Hardin was now given command of the expedition for the two remaining
days.
An event now took place that at once exhibited both the wily strategy of
the Little Turtle as a military leader, and the blundering bravado of
Colonel John Hardin. On the morning of the nineteenth, Hardin moved
forward over the Indian trail leading to the northwest. At a distance of
some five or six miles from the main army, the detachment came upon an
abandoned Indian camp. Here a halt was made, probably to examine the
ground, when Hardin hurriedly ordered another advance, thinking he was
close on the heels of fleeing red men. In the confusion attending this
second movement, Captain Faulkner's company was left in the rear. Hardin
now proceeded about three miles, and had routed two Indians out of the
thicket, when he suddenly discovered that he had left Faulkner behind.
He now dispatched Major James Fontaine with a part of the cavalry to
locate that officer. About this time Captain John Armstrong, who was in
command of a little company of thirty regulars marching with the
militia, informed Hardin that a gun had been fired in front of them
which he thought was an alarm gun, and that he had discovered the tracks
of a horse that had come down the trail and had returned. Hardin with a
dare-devil indifference paid no attention. He moved rapidly on without
scouts and without flankers. Armstrong now warned Hardin a second time.
He said that he had located the camp fires of the Indians and that they
must be close at hand. Hardin rode on, swearing that the Indians would
not fight.
All at once the army marched into the entrance of a narrow prairie,
flanked on each side by heavy timber. At the far end of the prairie a
fire had been kindled and some trinkets placed in the trail. The front
columns came up to these baubles and halted--the whole detachment, save
Faulkner's company, was in the defile. To the right and left of them,
concealed in the underbrush, were three hundred Miamis, led by the
Little Turtle. The Indians had divided and "back-tracked" the trail, and
were now watching the Americans enter the trap. At the moment the army
halted, a furious fire was opened, and all but nine of the militia at
once fled, carrying Hardin along with them. The company of Faulkner,
coming up in the rear, suddenly saw two horsemen approaching. Each of
them had a wounded man behind him covered with blood. The fugitives were
yelling: "For God's sake retreat! You will all be killed! There are
Indians enough to eat you all up!" The regulars, however, true to
tradition, stood their ground. All were stricken down in their tracks
except five or six privates, and their captain and ensign. Captain
Armstrong sank to his neck in a morass, and the savages did not find
him. "The Indians remained on the field; and the ensuing night, held the
dance of victory, over the dead and dying bodies of their enemies,
exulting with frantic gestures, and savage yells, during the ceremony."
The captain was a witness of it all. The scene of this conflict was at
what is now known as Heller's Corners, eleven miles northwest of Fort
Wayne, at the point where the Goshen road crosses the Eel river.
On the day of Hardin's defeat the main body of the army had moved down
the north bank of the Maumee about two miles and had occupied the
Shawnee village of Chillicothe. On the twentieth, Harmar ordered the
burning and destruction of every house and wigwam in the town, and
censured the "shameful cowardly conduct of the militia who ran away, and
threw down their arms without firing scarcely a single gun." He was in a
fury, and was now determined to march back to Fort Washington, and on
the twenty-first of October the whole army moved back for a distance of
seven miles and encamped at a point south and east of the present site
of Fort Wayne.
Hardin was chagrined. He determined if possible to retrieve his own
credit and that of the Kentucky militia. In the night he approached
Harmar. He told the general that the Indians had probably returned to
their towns as soon as the army had left them. Now was the time for a
grand surprise. Harmar, after much importunity, gave his consent to a
second expedition. Late in the night, three hundred and forty picked
militiamen and sixty regulars started back for Kekionga. The detachment
marched in three columns, the federal troops in the center with Captain
Joseph Asheton, a brave officer and a good fighter at their head; the
militia were on both flanks. Major John P. Wyllys and Colonel Hardin
rode at the front.
The sun has risen, and the advance guards of the small army now ascend
the wooded heights overlooking the Maumee. Beyond lie the brown woods,
the meadows, and the Indian corn fields. A few savages appear, digging
here and there for hidden treasures of corn. All are seemingly unaware
of hostile approach. Wyllys now halts the regulars, with the militia in
the advance, and forms his plan of battle. Major Hall with his battalion
is to swing around the bend of the Maumee, cross the St. Marys and come
in on the western side of the Indian towns. There he is to wait for the
main attack. Major McMullen's battalion, Major Fontaine's cavalry and
Wyllys with his regulars are to cross the ford in front, encompass the
savages on the south, east and north, and drive them into the St.
Joseph. Hemmed in on all sides, exposed to a murderous crossfire, their
escape will be impossible. Strict orders are given that the troops are
on no account to separate, but the battalions are to support each other
as the circumstances may require.
What a terrible fate awaits the regulars. The Little Turtle had observed
that in Trotter's expedition on the morning of the eighteenth, the four
field officers of the militia had left their commands to pursue a lone
Indian on horseback. As the militia emerge on the northern bank of the
Maumee a few warriors expose themselves, and the Kentuckians
disregarding all orders, instantly give chase. The Indians fly in all
directions, the militia after them, and the regulars are left alone.
This is the opportune moment. As the regulars cross the ford and climb
the opposite bank, the painted and terrible warriors of the Miami chief
arise from their hiding places and fire at close range. Wyllys falls,
his officers fall, all but a handful are remorselessly mowed down,
scalped and mutilated, and the day is won. Thus for the second time has
the cunning Little Turtle completely outwitted his paleface antagonists.
The remaining details of this disordered conflict are soon told. The
parties of militia under McMullen and Fontaine, sweeping up the east
side of the St. Joseph, drove a party of Indians into the river near the
point of the old French fort. Fontaine was hit by a dozen bullets and
fell forward in his saddle. The Indians were now caught between Hall's
battalion on the west and McMullen's riflemen and Fontaine's cavalry on
the east. A brief massacre ensued, and Captain Asheton and two soldiers
killed a number of the savages in the water with their bayonets. The red
men finally charged on Hall's battalion--it gave way--and they made
their escape.
Captain Joseph Asheton in commenting on this last battle at the Maumee,
makes the following observation: "If Colonel (Major) Hall, who had
gained his ground undiscovered, had not wantonly disobeyed his orders,
by firing on a single Indian, the surprise must have been complete." The
question of whether there was any surprise at all or not, remains in
doubt. The Fort Wayne Manuscript, which possesses some historical value
at least, says that about eight hundred Indians were present; three
hundred Miamis under the Little Turtle, and a body of five hundred more
savages, consisting of Shawnees, Delawares, Potawatomi, Chippewas and
Ottawas. That the Shawnees were commanded by Blue Jacket, and the
Ottawas and Chippewas by an Ottawa chief named Agaskawak. The battle
itself, was skillfully planned on the part of the savages. They must
have known that the militiamen were in the vanguard and would cross the
Maumee first. They rightly calculated that the impetuosity of the
Kentuckians and their lack of discipline, would lead them at once into a
headlong charge. This would make the destruction of the regulars
comparatively easy and lead to the demoralization of the whole
detachment. A plan so well designed as this, and so skillfully executed,
is not formed on the instant. Besides, it is not probable that the
Little Turtle remained out of touch with the American army while it was
in the immediate vicinity of the Indian towns.
On November sixth, Governor St. Clair wrote to the secretary of war that
the savages had received "a most terrible stroke." It is true that they
had suffered a considerable damage in the burning of their cabins and
the destruction of their corn, but the total loss of warriors was only
about fifteen or twenty. The American army, on the other hand, had lost
one hundred and eighty-three in killed, and thirty-one wounded. Among
the slain were Major Wyllys and Lieutenant Ebenezer Frothingham, of the
regular troops, and Major Fontaine, Captains Thorp, McMurtrey and Scott,
Lieutenants Clark and Rogers, and Ensigns Bridges, Sweet, Higgins and
Thielkeld, of the militia.
"The outcome of the campaign," says B. J. Griswold, the Fort Wayne
historian, "considered from the most favorable angle, gave naught to the
American government to increase its hopes of the pacification of the
west." On the other hand, the savages, their spirit of revenge aroused
to the white heat of the fiercest hatred, assembled at the site of
their ruined villages, and there, led to renewed defiance of the
Americans through the fiery speech of Simon Girty, set about the work of
preparation to meet the next American force which might be sent against
them. In a body, these savages, led by Little Turtle, LeGris and Blue
Jacket, proceeded to Detroit, where they "paraded the streets, uttering
their demoniac scalp yelps while bearing long poles strung with the
scalps of many American soldiers."
Governor St. Clair expressed regret that a post had not been
established; it would be the surest means of obliging the Indians to be
at peace with the United States. On December second, 1790, Major John
Hamtramck, writing from Vincennes, gave it as his opinion that "nothing
can establish peace with the Indians as long as the British keep
possession of the upper posts, for they are daily sowing the seed of
discord betwixt the measures of our government and the Indians." He
further summed up the situation as follows: "The Indians never can be
subdued by just going to their towns and burning their houses and corn,
and returning the next day, for it is no hardship for the Indians to
live without; they make themselves perfectly comfortable on meat alone;
and as for houses, they can build with as much facility as a bird does
his nest." Speaking of this campaign and of its effects on the Miamis,
Roosevelt says that "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
dread of tomahawk and scalping knife; the attacks fell unceasingly on
all the settlements from Marietta to Louisville."
The expedition of Hamtramck against the Kickapoo towns on the Vermilion
river was a failure. He destroyed the Indian village at the site of the
old Shelby farm, near Eugene, but the warriors being absent, he returned
to Vincennes. Some local historian has written a bloodcurdling
description of the merciless massacre of old men, women and children by
Hamtramck's army, but this tale is an injustice both to the worthy Major
and the soldiers under him. The only truthful part of this sketch is
that "the adjoining terrace lands were filled with thousands of the
greatest varieties of plum bushes and grape vines and it was known as
the great plum patch." Since General Harrison's march to Tippecanoe the
crossing at this river has been known as "the Army Ford."