LITTLE TURTLE OF THE MIAMIS (1790-1791)
HE WINS GREAT VICTORIES
During the Revolution, by which the United States became an independent
nation, the great majority of the Indian tribes within reach took
active part on the side of the British.
The Iroquois fought out of friendship, they said; the tribes farther
west fought in the hope of keeping the settlers out of the Kentucky,
Ohio and Indiana country.
For some years after the war, which closed in 1782, there was a dispute
between the United States and England over the carrying out of certain
terms in the treaty of peace. Until the matter was settled, the
British kept Detroit and other American frontier posts.
This encouraged the Indians. They had been much astonished and alarmed
to find that the Americans had "laid the king on his back." Now that
the British had lost the fight, what would happen to _them_?
But the British agents and traders still in the Indian country urged
them on to make good their boast that "no white cabin should smoke
beyond the Ohio." It was reported that the king was only resting, and
that the Americans yet had no right to any land west of the Ohio River.
So the Miamis, the Potawatomis, the Ottawas, the Shawnees, the war
Delawares, the Chippewas, the Kickapoos, the Wyandots, the Senecas,
refused to meet the Americans in council or to bury the hatchet. They
formed a league of defense.
The Miamis were the central nation. "People who live on the peninsula"
was their Chippewa name--for they were Algonquins from the Chippewa and
Ottawa country north of the Great Lakes. "Twanh-twanh," the cry of the
crane, was their own name. Miamis, from the Chippewa word Omaumeg,
were they called in English.
They had been described by early travelers as a pleasant-faced, lively,
very polite people, slow of speech, swift of foot, fond of racing, and
obedient to their chiefs.
Their present home was in the Wabash River valley of northern Indiana,
up as far as the modern city of Fort Wayne. They claimed this country
and also all of western Ohio, where they formerly had lived. The
Shawnees and the Wyandots of Ohio had moved in behind them, they said,
and were merely tenants upon their lands.
Little Turtle, or Mich-i-kin-i-kwa, had become their chief. He had
been born on the Eel River near Fort Wayne in 1752. Therefore now at
the close of the Revolution he was thirty years old. He had not been
born a chief, nor even a Miami. To be sure, his father was chief and a
Miami, but his mother was a Mohegan of the Delawares. By Indian law he
had ranked as only a warrior and a Mohegan. An Indian was known by his
mother.
As a boy of eleven or twelve he had been stirred by the Pontiac war, in
which the Miamis had joined. As a warrior he had campaigned with the
British under General Burgoyne who surrendered at Saratoga.
So by his deeds and his experience in field, camp and council he was a
veteran and had won the chieftainship of the twelve hundred Miamis.
Although his name was Little Turtle, he had nothing little in his
make-up. On the contrary, he was of good size, strong and dignified,
with a long face and full high forehead--not the face or forehead of a
Miami. He seems to have been rather sarcastic, and unpopular.
Those were bloody days while the new United States was trying to extend
across the Ohio River. A treaty was made with the Cherokees and
Chickasaws of the South, and with the Six Nations of the North; one was
supposed to have been made with these Ohio country tribes, also.
These Indians said that they would do nothing for peace until they had
talked with their British "father" at Detroit. They were not sure that
the king had really surrendered their lands beyond the Ohio.
They asserted that their treaty, by which they had sold their lands,
had not been signed by the proper chiefs.
In the seven years since the end of 1782, some two thousand American
settlers and traders had been killed or captured, along the Ohio River;
twenty thousand horses had been stolen. The rifle was more necessary
than the ax and plough.
The Miami villages on the northern border between Ohio and Indiana
formed the base for the many war parties.
So in 1790, President George Washington and Congress ordered General
Arthur Saint Clair, the governor of this Northwest Territory, to clear
the land for the smoke of the white cabins.
Little progress had been made by the white settlements, across the Ohio
River. There were only two of any note: Marietta, named for the French
queen Marie Antoinette; and the newer Cincinnati, christened in 1790 by
Governor Saint Clair himself. There were several smaller ones,
struggling to live.
The governor called for regulars and militia. General Josiah Harmar,
the commander-in-chief of the United States army, was detailed in
charge. On October 3 he started from Fort Washington, at Cincinnati,
with three hundred and twenty regulars of the First Infantry, and
eleven hundred and thirty-three militia of Kentucky and Pennsylvania,
to destroy the towns of Little Turtle the Miami.
Little Turtle of course soon knew all about this. His spies infested
the region. He rallied his bands. The Indians whom he
commanded--Ottawas, Potawatomis, Chippewas, Shawnees, Senecas,
Delawares, Miamis, and so forth--were the same nations that had obeyed
the Bloody Belt of Pontiac. He had able aides, too; the skilled
Buc-kon-ga-he-las of the Delawares, Blue-jacket of the Shawnees, and
others--great fighters, every one.
White men, also, were helping him. There were three, especially: Simon
Girty, Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, who was part Indian. They
were three traitors who had deserted from the American garrison at Fort
Pitt, in 1778, and had spread false reports among White-eyes'
Delawares, and elsewhere.
Serving the enemies of their country, they had continued to live among
the Shawnees and Wyandots, and in their savagery were worse than the
Indians. Their names are red on the pages of history.
In Chief Little Turtle's main village, sometimes called "Girty's Town,"
located a few miles southeast of present Fort Wayne, Indiana, there was
another white man--a young man. His name had been William Wells, but
now was Black Snake. The Indians had captured him when a little boy in
Kentucky; he had grown up with the Miamis, had married Chief Little
Turtle's sister, and was rated as a Miami warrior. But his heart was
not bad.
General Josiah Harmar, commander-in-chief of the United States army,
was a year younger than Chief Little Turtle, commander-in-chief of the
Indian army. They both were veterans of the Revolution, had good
fighters under them, and might be thought well matched. But the
general got threshed.
Little Turtle waited for him to come on, and plagued his march with
parties of scouts who in the swamps and thickets cut off his foraging
squads.
The general had tough going, for two weeks. When on October 17 he
arrived at Girty's Town, he found it abandoned and burning, to deprive
him of more supplies.
Then General Harmar made his first mistake. He detached thirty of the
First Infantry regulars, under Captain John Armstrong, and one hundred
and fifty of the militia, under Colonel John Hardin of Kentucky, to
follow the retreating Indians and perhaps destroy the next village.
He played into the hands of Little Turtle, who had over a thousand
warriors. Colonel Hardin and Captain Armstrong had marched scarcely
six miles, when in an open place they were completely ambushed. A
swarm of Indians suddenly poured in a heavy fire from the brush on all
sides; rose, and charged with tomahawk and knife.
This was too much for the militia, who were poorly drilled. Away they
pelted, trying to reach the main army. But the well-drilled regulars
stood stanch, and met the tomahawk with the bayonet, in the hope of
forcing a passage.
The Little Turtle warriors cared nothing about the militia, and let
them go. The few regulars did not last long. Every soldier except two
officers and two privates was killed.
Of these two officers, in the break-up Ensign Asa Hartshorne of
Connecticut fortunately stumbled over a log and lay concealed until he
might escape.
Captain Armstrong crouched to his neck in a swampy pond, and stayed
there all night, while only two hundred yards from him the enemy held a
war-dance over the bodies of the slain. They had whipped the trained
soldiery, who had fought bravely.
The next day, with all his army General Harmar advanced upon the Miami
towns. Little Turtle had ordered them burned. The general destroyed
the corn-fields and the fruit-trees; and seeing no Indians to fight,
turned back for Fort Washington.
He had gone about ten miles, when scouts brought word that the Indians
were gathering in their towns again. The general made a second
mistake. Colonel Hardin, stung by the way in which his militia had
acted, begged for another chance. Instead of going, himself, General
Harmar again detached some of the militia--six hundred this time--and
sixty of the regulars under Major John P. Wyllys of Washington's old
Continentals. He told Colonel Hardin to find the Indians.
The colonel found them, on the morning of October 22. His only fear
had been that they would run off and not give him his revenge. But he
had not counted the strategy of Little Turtle.
When the first few Indians were sighted, Colonel Hardin made careful
and scientific preparation. He attacked. The Indians did run off,
with the happy, shouting militia in full hue and cry after. The
regulars followed slowly. When a gap of two miles had opened, as if
from the very earth out sprang Little Turtle's whole remaining force, a
thousand, and the hapless regulars were in the same plight as before.
The militia fought their way back, too late. The battle on the field
had become hand-to-hand. Both sides were brave; but when a soldier
thrust with his bayonet, two tomahawks were there, to crash into his
skull.
Major Wyllys was killed; so was Lieutenant Ebenezer Frothingham; fifty
of the rank and file fell. Only eight men escaped. Of the militia, a
major, two captains, and over ninety others died.
After he had been joined by the survivors, General Harmar resumed his
march to Fort Washington. He claimed a victory, because he had
destroyed the Indians' winter supplies; but he had lost one hundred and
eighty-three soldiers killed, and forty wounded, and the Indians not
more than fifty warriors.
The victory and the field of battle were left to Little Turtle.
General Harmar had proved to be a commander whose orders were "Go"
instead of "Come," and Colonel Hardin had not known how to fight
Indians.
However, Little Turtle realized that the Americans had other officers,
and that General Washington was not a man to back down.. There would
be another army.
So he spent much of the winter in visiting various tribes and enlisting
them. He went as far north as Ontario of Canada, and there appealed to
the Missisauga nation of Algonquins. He traveled west to the Illinois
River. He was a second Pontiac.
General and Governor Saint Clair himself was the officer appointed by
President Washington to lead the next expedition against the Little
Turtle army. He was a gallant old Continental, aged fifty-seven and
gray-haired. As a young officer in a Scotch regiment he had come over
to America with a British army, in 1758, to fight the French and
Indians. After that war he had become a true American citizen of
Pennsylvania, and as colonel and major-general had served with the
Buff-and-Blue in the war for American independence.
He had been unlucky in his campaigns, but nobody ever doubted his
courage. General Washington thought highly of him, and now took pains
to say, in person, to him, before the start was made:
"Beware of a surprise. You know how the Indians fight. So I
repeat--beware of a surprise."
General Saint Clair had been promised three thousand men, but when
early in September of this year 1791 he left Fort Washington, he had
only two thousand men. Still, it was a strong army, comprising the
greater portion of the whole army of the United States. There were the
First and Second Infantry, half a battalion (two companies) of the
regular artillery, a company of mounted riflemen volunteers, and six
hundred Kentucky militia.
Major-General Richard Butler of Pennsylvania, and of the Continental
army in the Revolution, was field officer in command; and a number of
the other officers had been trained under Washington. But the Second
Regiment was new, the last spring, and largely of recruits; and the
Kentucky militia had not wanted to come.
Part of them deserted, on the way out. The First Regiment was sent to
catch them. This left fourteen hundred men, to march on into the
Indian country. General Saint Clair was so crippled with the
rheumatism and the gout that he could scarcely mount a horse.
Twenty miles north of Fort Washington he halted long enough to erect
Fort Hamilton--Hamilton, Ohio; twenty miles farther he erected Fort
Saint Clair; and twenty miles farther, Fort Jefferson, near the present
city of Greenville, Ohio.
He was following up along the Indiana-Ohio line, to strike the Miami
villages. By the night of November 3 he had arrived within about fifty
miles of Little Turtle's principal town. The place on the modern map
is Fort Recovery, northern Ohio, close to Indiana.
Little Turtle was ready. He had twelve hundred men. Buckongahelas the
Delaware, and Blue-jacket the Shawnee were helping him. So was a
Missisauga chief who had been drilled under British officers. So was
Simon Girty the white-Indian savage. So were a number of Canadians and
French half-breeds, from Canada and from the Illinois country. And so,
it is stated, were several British officers from Detroit, who wished to
see their old foes, the Continentals, licked. Their red coats were
noticed in the battle, next day.
General Saint Clair was a good soldier, and planned well. He had
planted a string of supply depots behind him. He had made a practice
of sounding the reveille two hours before day-break, every morning in
camp, and keeping the men at parade until almost sunrise, to guard
against a surprise. He tried to be thorough.
This afternoon of November 3 he had selected an excellent camp ground,
from which a few Indians had fled at his approach. It was high,
compact, and protected by a creek. He stationed his main body in two
lines about seventy yards apart, facing in opposite directions.
His scouts had reported that the Indians were collecting in force about
twelve miles distant. His intention was, to fortify the camp, so that
the knapsacks and other baggage might be left there; and as soon as the
delayed First Regiment came in, to push right on and attack.
Little Turtle's scouts also had been active. They had surveyed the
marches and the camps, had measured the infantry, artillery and
cavalry--and had been alarmed by the showing. Here was an old general
and some big captains, wise in the art of war.
Now what to do?
Little Turtle called a grand council of all the chiefs, red and white.
They debated whether to attack the camp, or to try an ambush in the
field. Little Turtle favored attacking the camp. An ambush would be
expected by the old general, but an attack upon a strongly guarded camp
would not be expected. A maxim of war says: "Never do what the enemy
expects you to do."
The Missisauga chief sided with Little Turtle. He was a tall, stout,
fierce fellow, very swarthy and severe looking. He wore hide leggins
and moccasins; a long blue shirt, a brocade vest, an overcoat instead
of a blanket, and a turban studded with two hundred silver brooches.
In either ear were two bangles, twelve inches long, formed of silver
medals and quarter-dollars; in his nose were three nose-jewels of
painted silver.
He was respectfully listened to as a wise captain, and he and Little
Turtle carried the day.
"But the gray-haired general is always ready for a surprise attack."
"All right. Wait until the hour when he is not ready. Then strike."
Under the direction of Commander-in-Chief Little Turtle, in the
darkness this night the Indian army stole forward and was posted with
as much skill as any white army.
The Miamis held the center; the Wyandots, the Delawares and the Senecas
held the right; the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, the Shawnees, and others,
held the left.
They were ready. They could hear the challenges of the alert sentries,
at the gray-hair's camp. Two hours before day-break they heard the
drums beating the reveille. The soldiers of the gray-hair were on the
watch.
The light in the east broadened. Securely hidden, the Little Turtle
army waited. They might see the dim tents of the militia
advance-guard, camped a quarter of a mile this side of the creek.
Beyond, where the main camp was under arms, the smoke of the fires
began to thicken.
Toward the time of sunrise the soldiers grew tired of standing in
ranks. The dawn-hour for surprise by Indians had passed. Trumpet and
drum-roll sounded for "Break ranks." Having stacked their guns the
soldiers gladly made for their tents, or squatted around the breakfast
fires.
Another day had begun, without event.
Little Turtle allowed fifteen minutes or so, for the soldiers to settle
and doze. Then he gave the signal, a half hour before sunrise.
General Saint Clair was lying sick in his tent. There burst a distant
rifle shot; it was instantly followed by a crackling volley, as from
half a thousand rifles--and an answering heavier volley from the
muskets of the militia.
Struggling to don his blanket-coat he limped out, his gray queue
ragged. The camp sprang to arms, for officers and men knew their
business; but here came the militia like a drove of stampeded cattle,
legging frantically for shelter from a horde of whooping, darting
Indians. The militia dived through the lines of the regulars, into the
very center of the camp, and for a short period all was chaos.
It was a furious fight. Re-forming their lines, the regulars stood
well. They checked the charge by a thunderous volley from the
long-barreled flint-lock muskets--the same as used at Brandywine,
Princeton and Yorktown.
The strategy of Little Turtle and his chiefs was excellent. They
shifted the attack from point to point. They attacked both lines at
once. They took advantage of every cover, and constantly appeared
closer. They killed every horse and every gunner of the artillery
posted in the center.
Of the Second Infantry, all the officers fell except two. General
Butler hastened bravely up and down the one line, encouraging the
troops; General Saint Clair limped heroically up and down the other
line. Eight bullets pierced his clothing--a lock of his hair was shorn
off. General Butler was shot twice; and while he was sitting, mortally
wounded, an Indian rushed in and tomahawked him.
General Saint Clair's army was being shot to pieces. He ordered
bayonet charges; but when these had cleared a little space, the Indians
re-appeared, thicker than ever. Their fire, it is recorded, "was
tremendous."
The camp was entered, and pillaged. Some two hundred and fifty women,
among them the general's dashing daughter, had come with the army; and
these suffered terribly.
After three hours' battle, the general ordered a final charge, to open
a way. Pressing behind the bayonets, the weary troops commenced a
retreat of twenty-nine miles to Fort Jefferson.
The general, on a poor pack-horse, insisted on bringing up the rear.
Out of his less than fourteen hundred soldiers, thirty-eight officers
and six hundred men were killed or missing; twenty-one officers and two
hundred and forty-two men were wounded. Fifty of the women had died.
It was as bad as the defeat of General Braddock's army, in 1755. For a
year and a half the field was covered with bleaching bones.
Little Turtle, the Missisauga chief and Simon Girty the white savage
had directed the attack. After a pursuit of four miles, seeing that
the soldiers were on the run and throwing away guns, knapsacks, and
all, they called the chase off.
It had been victory enough. They had captured seven pieces of cannon,
two hundred cattle, many horses; they returned to the villages with one
hundred and twenty scalps strung on one pole, and with three
pack-horses piled high with kegs of liquor.
Their own loss was stated to be fifty-six. Surely this was a great
triumph for Commander-in-Chief Little Turtle.