SCOTT AND WILKINSON
--_The Kentucky raids on the Miami country along the Wabash in 1791._
The effects of Harmar's campaign were soon apparent. In the closing
months of 1790, the citizens of Ohio, Monongahela, Harrison, Randolph,
Kanawha, Green-Briar, Montgomery, and Russel counties, in western
Virginia, sent an appeal for immediate aid to the governor of that
state, stating that their frontier on a line of nearly four hundred
miles along the Ohio, was continually exposed to Indian attack; that the
efforts of the government had hitherto been ineffectual; that the
federal garrisons along the Ohio could afford them no protection; that
they had every reason to believe that the late defeat of the army at the
hands of the Indians, would lead to an increase of the savage invasions;
that it was better for the government to support them where they were,
no matter what the expense might be, than to compel them to quit the
country after the expenditure of so much blood and treasure, when all
were aware that a frontier must be supported somewhere. On the second of
January, 1791, between "sunset and daylight-in," the Indians surprised
the new settlements on the Muskingum, called the Big Bottom, forty miles
above Marietta, killing eleven men, one woman, and two children. General
Rufus Putnam, writing to President Washington, on the eighth of the
same month, said that the little garrison at Fort Harmar, consisting of
a little over twenty men, could afford no protection to the settlements.
That the whole number of effective men in the Muskingum country would
not exceed two hundred and eighty-seven, and that many of them were
badly armed, and that unless the government speedily sent a body of
troops for their protection, they were "a ruined people." Virginia,
Pennsylvania and Kentucky, were all being sorely pressed by savage
incursions.
It was a fortunate circumstance for the future welfare of the great
west, that George Washington was president of the United States. Great
numbers of the people in the Atlantic states, according to Secretary of
War Knox, were opposed to the further prosecution of the Indian war.
They considered that the sacrifice of blood and treasure in such a
conflict would far exceed any advantages that might possibly be reaped
by it. The result of Harmar's campaign had been very disheartening, and
the government was in straitened circumstances, both as to men and
means. But by strenuous efforts, President Washington induced Congress
to pass an act, on the second day of March, 1791, for raising and adding
another regiment to the military establishment of the United States,
"and for making further provision for the protection of the frontiers."
Governor Arthur St. Clair was appointed as the new commander-in-chief of
the army of the northwest, and Colonel Richard Butler, of Pennsylvania,
was promoted and placed second in command. St. Clair was authorized to
raise an army of three thousand men, but as there were only "two small
regiments of regular infantry," the remainder of the force was to be
raised by special levies of six months' men, and by requisitions of
militia. In the meantime, the government, owing to the pressing demands
of the western people, had authorized the establishment of a local Board
of War for the district of Kentucky. This Board was composed of
Brigadier-General Charles Scott, leader of the Kentucky militia, Harry
Innes, John Brown, Benjamin Logan and Isaac Shelby, and they were vested
with discretionary powers "to provide for the defense of the settlements
and the prosecution of the war." The government had now fully determined
on a definite plan of action. First, a messenger was to be dispatched to
the Wabash Indians with an offer of peace. This messenger was to be
accompanied by the Cornplanter, of the Seneca Nation, and such other
Iroquois chiefs as might be friendly to the United States. Second, in
case this mission of peace should fail, expeditions were to be organized
to strike the Wea, the Eel river and the Kickapoo towns, in order to
prevent them from giving aid to the main Miami and Shawnee villages at
the head of the Maumee. Third, a grand expedition under the command of
St. Clair himself, was to capture Kekionga, establish a military post
there, and check the activities of both the Indians and British in the
valleys of the Wabash and the Maumee. The instructions of the secretary
of war to General St. Clair with reference to Kekionga were specific.
"You will commence your march for the Miami village, in order to
establish a strong and permanent military post at that place. In your
advance, you will establish such posts of communication with Fort
Washington, on the Ohio, as you may judge proper. The post at the Miami
village is intended for the purpose of awing and curbing the Indians in
that quarter, and as the only preventive of future hostilities. It
ought, therefore, to be rendered secure against all attempts and insults
by the Indians. The garrison which should be stationed there ought not
only to be sufficient for the defense of the place, but always to afford
a detachment of five or six hundred men, either to chastise any of the
Wabash, or other hostile Indians, or to secure any convoy of provisions.
The establishment of such a post is considered as an important object of
the campaign, and is to take place in all events."
First as to the mission of peace. In December, 1790, the Cornplanter and
other chiefs of the Seneca tribe, being in Philadelphia, "measures were
taken to impress them with the moderation of the United States, as it
respected the war with the western Indians; that the coercive measures
against them had been the consequence of their refusal to listen to the
invitations of peace, and a continuance of their depredations on the
frontiers." The Cornplanter seemed to be favorably impressed. On the
twelfth of March, Colonel Thomas Proctor, as the agent and
representative of the United States government, was sent forward to the
Seneca towns. His instructions from the secretary of war were, to induce
the Cornplanter and as many of the other chiefs of the Senecas as
possible, to go with him as messengers of peace to the Miami and Wabash
Indians. They were first to repair to Sandusky on Lake Erie, and there
hold a conference with the Delaware and Wyandot tribes who were inclined
to be friendly. Later they were to go directly to the Miami village at
Kekionga, there to assemble the Miami confederates, and induce them to
go to Fort Washington at Cincinnati, and enter into a treaty of peace
with General St. Clair.
On the twenty-seventh of April, Proctor arrived at Buffalo Creek, six
miles from Fort Erie, situated on the north side of the lake, and
twenty-five miles distant from Fort Niagara on the south shore of Lake
Ontario. Both posts were held by the British. Here he found the Farmer's
Brother, Red Jacket, and practically all of the Iroquois chieftains
under the influence of the British officers. The Farmer's Brother, "was
fully regimented as a colonel, red faced with blue, as belonging to some
royal regiment, and equipped with a pair of the best epaulets." The
Indians had practically given up hunting and were being directly fed and
supported out of the English store-houses. From the very beginning, Red
Jacket and the Farmer's Brother questioned his credentials. Proctor
learned from a French trader, that about seven days prior to his
arrival, Colonel Butler of the British Indian department and Joseph
Brant had been in the village. They had told the Senecas to pay no
attention to Proctor's talk, and to give him no aid in going to the
Miamis, for they would all be killed.
In two or three days Proctor succeeded in getting the Indians into a
council. He argued that it was the duty of all men, red or white, to
warn the Miamis to discontinue their thefts and murders, before a
decisive blow should be "levelled at them" by the United States. The
lives of hundreds of their fellow men might thus be saved. He invited
them to bring forward any gentleman of veracity to examine his papers,
or to hear his speeches. In answer to this, Red Jacket proposed that the
council fire be removed to Fort Niagara, so that all proceedings might
take place under the eyes of the British counsellors. Proctor would not
assent to this course, but indicated that he had no objection to the
British officers being present. They were accordingly sent for, but in
the meantime the Farmer's Brother and other British adherents were
telling the Indians that Proctor proposed taking them to the "verge of
the ocean" and that the treaty grounds were twelve months' journey away.
Shortly afterwards Colonel Butler with a staff of British army officers
came into camp. Butler was bold, and told the Indians in Proctor's
presence that Colonel Joseph Brant, of Grand River, and Alexander McKee,
the British agent of Indian affairs at Detroit, were now preparing to go
among the Indians at war with the Americans, "to know what their
intentions were, whether for war or for peace;" that nothing must be
done until their return, for should any embassy be undertaken, this
would certainly bring down the wrath of war upon themselves, and result
in the death of all, for the Miamis were angry with them already.
A strange event now happened. The Iroquois women suddenly appeared in
the Indian councils and seconded the pleas of the American peace
commissioner. Seated with the Indian chiefs, they easily swung the
scales, and carried the day. Red Jacket and other chiefs and warriors
were appointed to accompany Proctor to the west. But the English now
played their final trump card. On the fifth of May, Proctor had written
to Colonel Gordon, the British commandant at Niagara, to obtain
permission to freight one of the schooners on Lake Erie, to transport
the American envoy and such Indian chiefs as might accompany him, to
Sandusky. He now received a cold and insolent answer that at once
blasted all his hopes. Gordon refused to regard Proctor "in any other
light than a private agent," and peremptorily refused to let him charter
any of the craft upon the lake. This made the contemplated mission
impossible.
Let us now see what Alexander McKee and Joseph Brant were doing in the
west. Shortly before Proctor's arrival at Buffalo Creek, Brant had
received private instructions from British headquarters to set out for
the Grand River, and to go from thence to Detroit. It appears that
shortly after Harmar's defeat, the confederated nations of the
Chippewas, Potawatomi, Hurons, Shawnees, Delawares, Ottawas, and Miamis,
together with the Mohawks, had sent a deputation of their chiefs to the
headquarters of Lord Dorchester at Quebec, to sound him on the
proposition as to what aid or assistance they might expect in the event
of a continuance of the war. They also demanded to know whether the
British had, by the treaty of peace, given away any of their lands to
the Americans. Dorchester, while hostile to the new republic, and
firmly resolved to hold the posts, was not ready as yet to come out in
the open. He informed the tribes that the line marked out in the treaty
of peace, "implied no more than that beyond that line the King, their
father, would not extend his interference;" that the king only retained
possession of the posts until such time as all the differences between
him and the United States should be settled; that in making peace, the
king had not given away any of their lands, "inasmuch as the King never
had any right to their lands, other than to such as had been fairly
ceded by themselves, with their own free consent, by public convention
and sale. * * * * In conclusion, he assured the deputation, that
although the Indians had their friendship and good will, the Provincial
Government, had no power to embark in a war with the United States, and
could only defend themselves if attacked."
In strange contradiction to the Canadian governor's words, Alexander
McKee came to the Rapids of the Miami in the month of April to hold a
council with the Wabash confederates. Thither came Brant, summoned from
Buffalo Creek. McKee waited three months for the gathering of the
tribes, but about July first they were all assembled. "Not only the
Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Potawatomis and others," says
Roosevelt, "who had openly taken the hatchet against the Americans, but
also representatives of the Six Nations, and tribes of savages from
lands so remote that they carried no guns; but warred with bows, spears,
and tomahawks, and were clad in buffalo-robes instead of blankets. McKee
in his speech to them did not incite them to war. On the contrary, he
advised them, in guarded language, to make peace with the United States;
but only upon terms consistent with their "honor and interest." He
assured them that, whatever they did, he wished to know what they
desired; and that the sole purpose of the British was to promote the
welfare of the confederated Indians. Such very cautious advice was not
of a kind to promote peace; and the goods furnished the savages at the
council included not only cattle, corn and tobacco, but also quantities
of powder and balls." England was determined that the Miami chieftains
should command the valleys of the Wabash and the Maumee, and while
breathing forth accents to deceive the credulous, were arming the red
men with the instruments of war.
On the sixteenth of May, the American prisoner, Thomas Rhea, captured by
a party of Delawares and "Munsees" arrives at Sandusky. An Indian
captain is there with one hundred and fifty warriors. Parties are coming
in daily with prisoners and scalps. Alarm comes in on the twenty-fourth
of May that a large body of American troops in three columns are moving
towards the Miami towns. The Indians burn their houses and move to Roche
de Bout, on the Maumee. Here are Colonels Joseph Brant and Alexander
McKee, with Captains Bunbury and Silvie, of the British troops. They are
living in clever cabins built by the Potawatomi and other Indians,
eighteen miles above Lake Erie. They have great stores of corn, pork,
peas and other provisions, which, together with arms and ammunition,
they are daily issuing to the Indians. Savages are coming in in parties
of one, two, three, four and five hundred at a time, and receiving
supplies from McKee, and going up the Maumee to the Miami villages.
Pirogues, loaded with the munitions of war are being rowed up the same
stream by French-Canadians. They are preparing for an American attack.
Rhea hears some things. While he is on the Maumee he tells Colonel McKee
and other British officers that he has seen Colonel Thomas Proctor on
his way to the Senecas and has talked with him. That Proctor told him he
was on his way to Sandusky and the Miami villages, and that he expected
the Cornplanter to accompany him and bring about peace; that he
(Proctor), expected to get shipping at Fort Erie, The British officers
who hear these things, say that if they were at Lake Erie, Proctor would
get no shipping. The Mohawks and other Indians declare that if Proctor,
or any other Yankee messenger, arrives, he will not carry back any
message. Simon Girty and one Pat Hill assert, that Proctor should never
return, even if he had a hundred Senecas with him.
On the ninth of March, 1791, the secretary of war issued orders to
General Charles Scott of Kentucky, to lead an expedition against the Wea
or Ouiatenon towns on the Wabash. The expedition was not to proceed
until the tenth day of May, as hopes were entertained that Proctor might
negotiate a peace. The force to be employed was to consist of seven
hundred and fifty mounted volunteers, including officers. All Indians
who ceased to resist were to be spared. Women and children, and as many
warriors as possible, were to be taken prisoners, but treated with
humanity.
The tenth day of May arrived, but Proctor was not heard from. The
hostility of the savages was daily increasing. Scott was delayed a few
days longer in the hope that intelligence might arrive, but on the
twenty-third of May he crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Kentucky and
plunged into the wilderness. Before him lay one hundred and fifty-five
miles of forest, swamp and stream. The rain fell in torrents and every
river was beyond its banks. His horses were soon worn down and his
provisions spoiled, but he pressed on. On the morning of the first of
June, he was entering the prairies south of the Wea plain and
approaching the hills of High Gap. He now saw a lone Indian horseman to
his right and tried to intercept him, but failed. He pushed on rapidly
to the Indian towns.
On the morning of June first, 1791, the landscape of the Wea is a thing
of beauty. To the north lies the long range of the Indian Hills, crowned
with forest trees, and scarped with many a sharp ravine. At the southern
edge of these hills flows the Wabash, winding in and out with graceful
curves, and marked in its courses by a narrow fringe of woodland. To the
east lies Wea creek, jutting out into the plain with a sharp turn, and
then gliding on again to the river. Within this enclosure of wood and
stream lie the meadows of the Ouiatenons, dotted here and there with
pleasant groves, and filled with the aroma of countless blossoms.
"Awake from dreams! The scene changes. The morning breath of the first
day of summer has kissed the grass and flowers, but it brings no evil
omen to the Kickapoo villages on this shore, nor to the five Wea towns
on the adjacent plain. High noon has come, but still birds and grass and
flowers bask in the meridian splendor of a June sunshine, unconscious of
danger or the trampling of hostile feet. One o'clock! And over High Gap
hostile horsemen are galloping. They separate; one division wheels to
the left led by the relentless Colonel Hardin, still smarting from the
defeat of the last year by the great Miami, Little Turtle. But the main
division, led by the noble Colonel Scott, afterward the distinguished
soldier and governor of Kentucky, moves straight forward on to
Ouiatenon."
Scott's advance since the morning has been swift and steady. He fears
that the Indian horseman will give the alarm. At one o'clock he comes
over High Gap, a high pass through the hills to the southwest of the
present town of Shadeland. To the left he perceives two Indian villages.
One is at a distance of two miles and the other at four. They were
probably situated in the prairie groves. He now detaches Colonel John
Hardin with sixty mounted infantry and a troop of light horse under
Captain McCoy, and they swing to the left. Scott moves briskly forward
with the main body for the villages of the Weas, at the mouth of Wea
creek. The smoke of the camp fires is plainly discernible.
[Illustration: Showing the Wea Plains and the Line of Scott's March,
Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Drawing by Heaton Map]
As he turns the point of timber fringing the Wea, and in the vicinity of
what is now the Shadeland Farm, he sees a cabin to the right. Captain
Price is ordered to assault it with forty men. Two warriors are killed.
Scott now gains the summit of the eminence crowning the south bank of
the Wabash. The Wea villages are below him and scattered along the
river. All is in confusion and the Indians are trying to escape. On the
opposite shore is a town of the Kickapoos. He instantly orders his
lieutenant-commandant, James Wilkinson, to charge the Weas with the
first battalion, and the eager Kentuckians rush to the river's edge,
just as the last of five canoes loaded with warriors, has pushed from
the shore. With deadly and terrible aim the riflemen empty the boats to
the last man.
In the meantime, a brisk fire has been kept up from the Kickapoo camp.
Scott now determines to cross the river and capture the town, but the
recent rains have swelled the stream and he cannot ford it. He orders
Wilkinson to cross at a ford two miles above, and detaches King's and
Logsdon's companies, under conduct of Major Barbee, to cross the river
below. Wilkinson fails, for the river is swift and very high. Barbee is
more successful. Many of the hardy frontiersmen breast the stream, and
others pass in a small canoe. But the instant the Kentuckians foot the
opposite shore, the Indians discover them and flee.
About this time Scott hears from Colonel Hardin. The redoubtable old
Indian fighter who was saved to die in the service of his country, has
pushed on and captured the two villages observed from High Gap, and is
encumbered with many prisoners. He now discovers a stronger village
farther to the left, and proceeds to attack. This latter village is
probably in the neighborhood of the present site of Granville, and
opposite the point where the Riviere De Bois Rouge, or Indian creek,
enters the Wabash. Scott at once detaches Captain Brown and his company
to support the Colonel, but nothing can stop the impetuous Kentuckian,
and before Brown arrives, "the business is done," and Hardin joins the
main body before sunset, having killed six warriors and taken fifty-two
prisoners. "Captain Bull," says Scott, "the warrior who discovered me in
the morning, had gained the main town, and given the alarm a short time
before me; but the villages to my left were uninformed of my approach,
and had no retreat."
The first day of fighting had been very encouraging. The next morning
Scott determined to destroy Kethtipecanunck, or Tippecanoe, eighteen
miles up the river. His knowledge of geography was poor, for he talks
about Kethtipecanunck being at the mouth of the Eel river, but his
fighting qualities were perfect. On examination, however, he discovers
that his men and horses are greatly worn down and crippled by the long
march and the fighting of the day before. Three hundred and sixty men
are at last selected to make the march on foot. At half after five in
the evening they start out under the command of lieutenant-commandant
Wilkinson and at one o'clock the next day they have returned, having
completely burned and destroyed what Scott denominated as "the most
important settlement of the enemy in that quarter of the federal
territory." Wilkinson's detachment had reached the village near
daybreak. The advance columns of the Kentuckians charged impetuously
into the town just as the Indians were crossing the Wabash, and a brief
skirmish ensued from the opposite shores, during which several Indian
warriors were killed and two Americans wounded. Many of the inhabitants
of Kethtipecanunck were French traders and lived in a state of
semi-civilization. "By the books, letters, and other documents found
there," says Scott, "it is evident that place was in close connection
with, and dependent upon, Detroit; a large quantity of corn, a variety
of household goods, peltry, and other articles, were burned with this
village, which consisted of about seventy houses, many of them well
furnished." Scott lamented that the condition of his troops prevented
him from sweeping to the head of the Wabash. He says he had the kind of
men to do it, but he lacked fresh horses and provisions and was forced
to return to Kentucky. On the fourth of June, he released sixteen of the
weakest and most infirm of his prisoners and gave them a written address
of peace to the Wabash tribes. It was written in a firm, manly tone, but
without grandiloquence. He now destroyed the villages at Ouiatenon, the
growing corn and pulse, and on the same day of the fourth, set out for
Kentucky. The grand old man, who was to fight with Wayne at Fallen
Timbers, had done well. Without the loss of a single man, and having
only five wounded, he had killed thirty-two warriors "of size and
figure," and taken fifty-eight prisoners. He took a receipt from Captain
Joseph Asheton of the First United States Regiment at Fort Steuben, for
forty-one prisoners.
On the twenty-fifth of June, governor St. Clair wrote to the Kentucky
Board of War to send a second expedition against the Wabash towns. On
the fifth day of July the Board appointed James Wilkinson as the
commander. The troops were ordered to rendezvous at Fort Washington, by
the twentieth of July, "well mounted on horseback, well armed, and
provided with thirty days' provisions." In certain instructions from
Governor St. Clair to General Wilkinson, of date July thirty-first,
Wilkinson's attention is called to a Kickapoo town "in the prairie,
northward and westward of L'Anguille," about sixty miles. This town will
be mentioned later. Wilkinson was directed also to restrain his command
from "scalping the dead." With a Kentuckian, the only good Indian was a
dead one.
On the first day of August, Wilkinson rode out of Cincinnati with five
hundred and twenty-five men. His destined point of attack was the Eel
river towns, about six miles above the present city of Logansport. The
country he had to pass through was mostly unknown, full of quagmires and
marshes, and extremely hard on his horses. He made a feint for the Miami
village at Kekionga, but on the morning of the fourth, he turned
directly northwest and headed for Kenapacomaqua, or L'Anguille, as the
Eel river towns were known. After some brief skirmishes, with small
parties of warriors and much plunging and sinking in the bogs, he
crossed the Wabash about four and one half miles above the mouth of the
Eel river, and striking an Indian path, was soon in front of the Indian
towns. He now dismounted and planned an attack. The second battalion was
to cross the river, detour, and come in on the rear of the villages.
The first battalion was to lie perdue until the maneuver was executed,
when a simultaneous charge was to be made on all quarters of the town.
Before the plan could be executed, however, the troops were discovered,
whereupon an instant charge was made by plunging into the river and
attacking the town on the front. Six warriors were killed, "and in the
hurry and confusion of the charge, two squaws and a child."
Wilkinson found the towns of the Eel river tribes scattered along Eel
river for a distance of three miles. These villages were separated by
almost impassable bogs, and "impervious thickets of plum, hazel and
black-jack." The head chief of the tribe, with his prisoners and a
number of families were out digging a root, which the Indians
substituted for the potato. A short time before Wilkinson arrived, most
of the warriors had gone up the river to a French store to purchase
ammunition. This ammunition had come from Kekionga on the same day.
Several acres of green corn with the ears in the milk were about the
town. All of this was destroyed. Thirty-four prisoners were taken and a
captive released.
After encamping in the town for the night, Wilkinson started the next
morning for the Kickapoo town "in the prairie." He considered his
position as one of danger, for he says he was in the "bosom of the
Ouiatenon country," one hundred and eighty miles from succor, and not
more than one and a half days' forced march from the Potawatomi,
Shawnees and Delawares. This was, of course, largely matter of
conjecture.
The Kickapoo town that Wilkinson was headed for was in fact about sixty
miles from Kenapacomaqua and in the prairie. But it was south and west
of the Eel river villages instead of north and west. The imperfect
geographical knowledge of the times led Wilkinson to believe it was on
the Illinois river, but it was in fact on Big Pine creek, near the
present town of Oxford, in Benton County, Indiana. Wilkinson was right
in one regard, however, for he knew that the village he sought was on
the great Potawatomi trail leading south from Lake Michigan. This trail
passed down from the neighborhood of what is now Blue Island, in
Chicago, south through Momence and Iroquois, Illinois, south and east
again through Parish Grove, in Benton County, across Big Pine Creek and
on to Ouiatenon and Kethtipecanunck, or Tippecanoe. It was a great fur
trading route and of great commercial importance in that day. This
Kickapoo village "in the prairie," was about twenty miles west of the
present city of Lafayette, and about two and one-half miles from the
present site of Oxford, at a place known in later years as "Indian
Hill." It was well known to Gurdon S. Hubbard, who visited it in the
early part of the last century and had an interesting talk with the
Kickapoos there about the battle of Tippecanoe. Jesse S. Birch, of
Oxford, an accurate local historian, has preserved an interesting
account of this village as seen by the early settlers in the years from
1830 to 1840. The Kickapoos had, at that time, moved on to other places,
but bands of the Potawatomi were still on the ground. "Pits," says
Birch, "in which the Indians stored their corn, were to be seen until a
few years ago. The burying grounds were about half a mile northwest of
the village and only a short distance west of the Stembel gravel pit.
The Potawatomi were peaceful, John Wattles, who describes their winter
habitations, visited them often in his boyhood days. Pits, the sides of
which were lined with furs, were dug four or five feet deep, and their
tents, with holes at the top to permit the escape of smoke, were put
over them. By keeping a fire on the ground in the center of the pit,
they lived in comparative comfort, so far as heat and Indian luxuries
were concerned, during the coldest weather. There are evidences of white
men having camped near this village. Isaac W. Lewis found an English
sovereign while at play on his father's farm, but a short distance from
the site of the village. In the early 30's, his father and eldest
brother, while plowing, found several pieces of English money." The
glittering coins of "the great father," had easily found their way into
savage hands.
But Wilkinson was not destined to strike this main Kickapoo town. He
encamped the first night six miles from Kenapacomaqua, and the next day
he marched west and then northwest passing between what are now the
points of Royal Center and Logansport, and "launched into the boundless
prairies of the west with the intention to pursue that course until I
could strike a road which leads from the Potawatomi of Lake Michigan
immediately to the town I sought." Here for eight hours he floundered
about in an endless succession of sloughs and swamps, wearing out his
horses and exhausting his men. "A chain of thin groves extending in the
direction of the Wabash at this time presented to my left." Wilkinson
now extricated himself from the swamps and gained the Tippecanoe trail,
and camped at seven o'clock in the evening. He had marched a distance of
about thirty miles, and several of his horses were completely broken
down.
At four o'clock the next morning this little army was in motion again.
At eight o'clock signs were discovered of the proximity of an Indian
town. At twelve o'clock noon, he entered Kethtipecanunck, but the
savages had fled at his approach. They had returned since the expedition
of June and cultivated their corn and pulse. These were in a flourishing
condition. Having refreshed his horses and cut down the corn, he resumed
his march for the Kickapoo town "in the prairie, by the road which leads
from Ouiatenon to that place." After proceeding some distance he
discovered some "murmurings" among the Kentuckians, and found on
examination that two hundred and seventy of his horses were lame, and
that only five days' provisions were left for his men. Under these
circumstances, he abandoned the contemplated assault on the main
Kickapoo town, and "marched forward to a town of the same nation,
situated about three leagues west of Ouiatenon." He destroyed the town
of thirty houses and "a considerable quantity of corn in the hills," and
the same day moved on to Ouiatenon, forded the Wabash, and encamped on
the margin of the Wea plains. At all the villages destroyed by Scott he
found the corn re-planted and in a state of high cultivation. He
destroyed it all, and on the twelfth of August he fell in with
General Scott's return trace and marched to the Ohio, where he
arrived on the twenty-first day of the month. He had traveled a distance
of four hundred and fifty-one miles in twenty-one days; a feat of
horsemanship, considering the wild and difficult nature of the country,
of no small degree of merit.
[Illustration: Indian Hills on the Wabash River just below the old
site of Fort Ouiatenon. Photo by Heaton]
The expedition had in all things been a success. He had captured a
number of prisoners, cut down four hundred and thirty acres of corn in
the milk, and destroyed at least two Indian towns.
Some of the historians who have commented on these campaigns of Scott
and Wilkinson and the Kentucky militia, have sought to minimize and even
to discredit these expeditions. Says Albach: "The expeditions of Harmar,
Scott and Wilkinson were directed against the Miamis and Shawnees, and
served only to exasperate them. The burning of their towns, the
destruction of their corn, and the captivity of their women and
children, only aroused them to more desperate efforts to defend their
country, and to harass their invaders." The review of Secretary of War
Knox, communicated to President Washington on the twenty-sixth of
December, 1791, however, contains the following: "The effect of such
desultory operations upon the Indians, will, by occupying them for their
own safety and that of their families, prevent them spreading terror and
destruction along the frontiers. These sort of expeditions had that
precise effect during the last season, and Kentucky enjoyed more repose
and sustained less injury, than for any year since the war with Great
Britain. This single effect, independent of the injury done to the
force of the Indians, is worth greatly more than the actual expense of
such expeditions."
Other effects produced were equally important. The brave Kentuckians,
for the first time, were acting in conjunction with, and under the
direction and control of the federal authorities. The cement of a common
interest, as Washington would say, was binding state and nation
together. Not only were the soil and the long suffering people of
Kentucky rendered more secure against Indian attack, but the hardy
descendants of the pioneers were being trained for the eventful conflict
of 1812, when seven thousand of the valorous sons of that commonwealth
should take the field in the defense of their country.