tract of land on the western side of Lake Ontario, where he made his
home, had an excellent house, and lived in the manner of an Englishman.
Invited again to London, he there was asked to a masquerade, and, as he
needed no mask, went in his native costume, with his tomahawk in his
belt and his face painted vermilion. There were some Turks present at
the ball, and one seemed to be very much interested in Brant's face. He
examined it very closely, and at last raised his hand and pulled the
Chief's long Roman nose, supposing it to be a mask. Immediately Brant
gave a loud, piercing warwhoop, swung his glistening tomahawk around
the head of the startled Mohammedan, and almost brought it down upon
his turbanned skull. Ladies shrieked and fainted. Waiters fell on each
other in a wild endeavor to get away. Champagne glasses and fragile
plates crashed upon the floor. All was confusion and uproar until,
smiling broadly, the well-known Mohawk brave placed his weapon again in
his belt, exclaiming: "Ugh! I would not hurt you for anything. I only
wanted to scare you as I did the Americans."
Under half pay as an English officer, the well-known Mohawk Chieftain
held a commission of colonel from the King of England, although he was
usually called Captain. He encouraged missionaries to come among his
people, lived gorgeously with a retinue of thirty negro servants, and
took great interest in the progress of his tribe. Yet his life was not
an entirely easy one, as numerous enemies plotted against his life. One
Dutchman, whose entire family had been killed by Brant's warriors in
the Mohawk Valley, swore revenge against him and shadowed him by day
and night, awaiting an opportunity to kill him. And he nearly did so
in New York, where the Mohawk Chief had taken a room at a hotel which
fronted on Broadway. Looking out of his window, he saw this infuriated
settler aiming a gun at him from the opposite side of the street, but,
as luck would have it, a Colonial officer saw the act, and running to
the angry Dutchman, took his gun away from him before he could fire it.
This was not the only attempt against the life of the noted Indian
brave. He was shot at one day when walking through the streets, by
an unseen enemy in an old outhouse. Startled by this, he planned to
return to Canada through the Mohawk Valley, but was told that he would
be assassinated if he did so. He, therefore, changed his course and
went home by vessel along the coast. In New York State he was detested
and hated. Men remembered the awful butcheries of his Mohawks and the
carnage of the battles in this state, and had Brant ever ventured among
them, he would never have gotten away alive. Sorrowed by events and
seeing the gradual disintegration of his tribe, the celebrated warrior
spent his declining years in sadness and regret. "Colonel Brant is a
man of education," wrote Aaron Burr. "He speaks English perfectly and
has seen much of England and America. Receive him with respect and
hospitality. He is not one of those Indians who drink, but is quite a
gentleman; one, in fact, who understands and practices what belongs to
propriety and good breeding."
A remarkable piece of work by this renowned warrior was the translation
of the Gospel of John and the Book of Common Prayer into the Mohawk
language, copies of which are in the Harvard University. His wife, a
half-breed, refused to conform to civilized life, and finally removed
to a wigwam, taking some of her children with her and leaving others
at her former home. The great chief, himself, died in 1807, at the age
of sixty-four years, saying to a white friend with his last breath:
"Have pity on the poor Indian; if you have any influence with the great
Englishmen, endeavor to do all the good that you can for the poor
Mohawks."
Buried beside the church which he had built at Grand River, the first
church in Upper Canada, there now stands a monument over his grave,
said to have cost thirty thousand dollars. Upon it is the following
inscription:
"This tomb is erected to the memory of Thay-en-da-negea, or Captain
Joseph Brant, principal chief and warrior of the Six Nation Indians, by
his fellow subjects, and admirers of his fidelity and attachment to the
British Crown."
The civilization of the white man now sweeps by the last resting place
of the red warrior of the Mohawk Valley. His tribe has vanished; his
reputation belongs to the ages.
LITTLE TURTLE, OR MICHIKINIQUA:
THE MIAMI CONQUEROR OF HARMAR AND ST. CLAIR
Very few Indian warriors have ever defeated the forces of whites sent
against them more than once. Nor have many of them exhibited the same
talent for warfare that the English have shown. The red man has never
cared for discipline or tactics, and has usually fought his battles
in a haphazard manner. But there has been one chieftain who has the
distinction of having defeated two separate armies of Colonists, with
numbers about equal to his own braves. Judged from these successes in
battle, and from his sagacity in the council chamber, Little Turtle, a
Miami warrior, deserves a position of particular prominence among the
American red men of distinction.
When the American Revolution came to an end, the Mississippi River was
the western boundary of the United States. Long after the conclusion
of peace, the British retained possession of several posts within
the limits of the property ceded to the Colonists in the northern
portion of the State of New York, and in Ohio and Illinois. These
log fortresses became rallying points for the Indians who disliked
the Americans, and who, as the tide of emigration swept westward,
determined to check it. Although the British no longer fought
against the Colonists, they sometimes supplied the hungry savages
with rations, and sustained by these the Indians were aggressive,
insolent, and sullen. The newly formed Government of the United States
made strenuous attempts to pacify the wild tribes, and, for the most
part, was successful. But the Miami and Wabash braves, under the
leadership of Little Turtle, Blue Jacket and Buckongahelas, formed a
strong confederation of Wyandots, Pottawattamies, Chippewas, Ottawas,
Shawnees, Delawares and Miamis, who resolved to stop all white men from
coming into their territory. Thirty years before, these same tribes
had united under the leadership of Pontiac, and, although having a
temporary success against the whites, had finally been defeated, as we
have seen.
Exposed cabins and small settlements of the whites were continually
burned by the red men, and the adventurous pioneers were slain whenever
there was no assistance near by. Flatboats upon the Ohio River were
never safe from Indian attacks, and had to run by hidden redskins on
the banks. Frequently they were sunk by the enemy, although they had
bullet-proof sides.... Attempts to conciliate the savages were met with
insults, and, so in September, 1791, the President of the United States
directed an army to march into the country of the Indians and defeat
them.
In command of the American troops was General Harmar, an able leader
and an aggressive campaigner. At Fort Washington, where Cincinnati now
stands, he gathered a force of three hundred and twenty regulars and
about twelve hundred militiamen, mostly untrained woodsmen with little
experience in border warfare. Little Turtle was the most active leader
among those who opposed the invasion of the Ohio territory. He won his
position of chief at an early age by his skill and bravery, for he
possessed both in a marked degree. His intelligence was very similar
to that of his white adversaries. His knowledge of the proper way to
fight in the tangled underbrush of the Ohio woodland was supreme. His
portrait exhibits a face in which quickness and keenness of intellect
are strongly marked. His piercing black eyes look defiantly at the
spectator and burn with the fire of ambition and resolution. He
possessed every qualification for a leader of the wild denizens of
the Ohio country, and indulging in the gloomy apprehension that the
whites would overtop and finally uproot his race, he was strong in his
denunciation of the Americans, and in his desire to annihilate them.
On September 13, 1791, the troops under General Harmar pushed into the
Indian country, and soon reached the villages of the Miamis. These
were deserted, so they were burned, the cornfields were cut down, and
the army camped upon the ground. On the next day an Indian trail was
discovered, so Harmar ordered one hundred and fifty militiamen and
thirty regulars, with their officers, to push on ahead and defeat the
hostiles.
[Illustration: LITTLE TURTLE, OR MICHIKINIQUA.]
Captain Armstrong, in charge of this expedition, was a man of
experience in border warfare, but he allowed his entire command to
walk into an ambush. The troops were hot upon the Indian trail, when
a sudden wail from the forest was followed by the loud report of
a rifle on the right of the skirmish line. Immediately a chorus of
horrible yells arose from every quarter, and before the Americans fully
realized it they were surrounded by a ring of spitting rifles. Men fell
over each other in confusion, and terrified by the suddenness of the
onslaught the militia broke ranks and fled. Armstrong, himself, was
knocked into a mire, and sinking up to his neck in the bog was unable
to take part in the fighting. He could only see the terrible slaughter
among the regulars, all of whom were either killed or disabled. And
later on he saw the Indians holding a savage war dance among the bodies
of the slain.
Dragging himself out of the swamp at dark, the mud-bespattered leader
crept back to Harmar's camp, while the doleful wails of the savages
sounded loud in the inky blackness. And when he arrived he found that
the American General had enough of Turtle's tactics to suit him,
apparently for all time. At any rate he broke camp and retreated
towards the settlements, until he arrived near the ruined villages of
the Miamis. Here he ordered a halt and sent Colonel Hardin back towards
the Indians with only sixty regulars and three hundred militiamen.
These last were pretty poor specimens of soldiers, as they had, for
the most part, been recruited in the Eastern states from men of no
experience whatever in woodland fighting. They were undisciplined,
untrained, and unaccustomed to the frontier. Many had gone out to fight
in order to escape from legal difficulties at home. Their ability
to cope with the watchful enemy was about equal to that of General
Braddock's troops at Fort Duquesne, and they met with about the same
fate.
Hardin had no sooner arrived at the place he had been directed to go
to, when a small body of Miami Indians advanced to meet his troops.
These, by yelling and firing, soon attracted the volleys of his own
men. As the militiamen advanced, the redskins broke into several
bands, and, appearing to be panic-stricken, fled down a long gulley.
In a twinkling the militia started in pursuit, and were hurrying after
the yelping braves, when suddenly a vast number of warriors beset the
sixty regulars on all sides. Little Turtle directed the fighting, and,
realizing that his greater number could soon annihilate the entire
command, ordered a rush upon the soldiers of the new Republic, who had
now formed a hollow square back to back, with bayonets at the ends
of their long muskets. But the Indians fought like demons; rushed
headlong against the glittering steel; and throwing their tomahawks
at the soldiers, struck down those in front, while the others were
soon overpowered by the vastly superior forces of the enemy. The
militia, meanwhile, came straggling back from their pursuit of the
decoy Indians, and for a short while made a fierce attack upon the
savages. But now realizing that the regulars were all killed, and being
unaccustomed to frontier fighting, they lost heart completely and
retreated. Ten regulars got away with the mass of fugitives, and the
dead were left as a prey to the wolves and other animals of the wild
wood.
Elated by their success, the Indians, under Little Turtle and the
other leaders, now continued their depredations upon the frontier with
greater audacity than ever. Harmar retreated to Fort Washington, was
courtmartialed, and was honorably acquitted, but immediately resigned
his commission. His personal conduct in the battles had been brave, and
he claimed a victory, because the warriors of Little Turtle had not
followed him up after the fight. Certainly he had made the campaign
in an extraordinary manner, for never had he met the Indians with
his entire force intact. By splitting his command he had weakened it
badly, and thus the savages had been able to overpower the separate
detachments of his army. To the sagacity of Little Turtle can be
laid the Indian victory, for his was the mind that had planned the
ambuscade, and he was the one who had given personal direction to the
annihilation of the regulars.
George Washington, who was then President of the Republic, was
mortified by this series of defeats to his army, and the situation was
now so grave that Congress ordered the organization of a new force to
punish the savages. The Governor of the Northwest Territory, General
Arthur St. Clair, was put in command of fully two thousand men and
was directed to wipe out the defeat of Harmar, by administering a
crushing blow to the followers of Little Turtle. Before he set out upon
his journey into the wilderness, President Washington called him to
Philadelphia and warned him to guard against surprise by the Indians.
"You have," said he, "your instructions from the Secretary of War.
The Indians have a leader of great bravery in Little Turtle, and have
proven that they can fight with great strength. You know that they
lay many ambuscades. _Beware of a surprise!_ I repeat it. _Beware of a
surprise!_" With these words of counsel ringing in his ears, St. Clair
left for Fort Washington, arriving there in May, 1791.
The leader of the American forces was a man of considerable age, and
was afflicted with gout and rheumatism. In the war of the Revolution he
had exhibited no particular talent, but he possessed undoubted courage.
He had soon collected two small regiments of regular infantrymen and
some six months' levies of militia, whose pay was two dollars and
ten cents a month for privates, and thirty dollars for captains. The
militiamen were utterly untrained in border warfare, and their officers
had had little experience, but the regular troops were well used to
Indian campaigns. There were two small batteries of light guns and a
few cavalrymen to swell the fighting force, which amounted in all to
about two thousand warriors.
The levies of raw troops were gathered together at Fort Hamilton,
twenty-five miles north from Fort Washington, and from this place an
advance was begun into the Indian country on October 4th. The little
army stumbled slowly through the deep woods and across the open places,
cutting out its own road and making about five or six miles a day. As
the wild beasts of the forest were plentiful, frequently both deer and
bear were slaughtered, and venison helped to sustain the strength of
the men. Halting to build another fort, christened in honor of Thomas
Jefferson, the army again pressed into the country of the hostiles,
while the scouts occasionally interchanged shots with parties of
skulking braves. Now and again a militiaman would disappear, showing
that the savages were closely watching the movements of the column,
while numerous desertions cut the force down from its original numbers
to fourteen hundred men. Snow was on the ground, the wintry woods
surrounded the Americans with a bleak and awful silence, the sickness
of St. Clair made it impossible for him to command in person, and had
it not been for the efforts of the Adjutant General, Colonel Winthrop
Sargent, an old Revolutionary officer, the expedition would have failed
ingloriously, even before the Indians had been reached.
But now the army of invasion neared the Miami settlements, where the
redskins were making busy preparation to give the Americans a warm
reception. They had met in a grand war council, at which the plan
of attack had been decided upon, and various tribes had been given
positions in the line. Little Turtle was to be Commander-in-Chief, so
he made a rousing speech, telling the Indians to fight to the last
ditch, to attack the militia in preference to the regular troops,
and to rush the enemy in such masses that they would be overwhelmed.
An ambuscade was decided upon where the ground was most favorable to
the savages, and here Little Turtle pointed out the proper positions
which he wished the various warlike bands to assume. The intelligent
Miami chief was not to take any position in the line of battle, but
was to direct the operations from the rear, like a white general, and
thus the Indians displayed more foresight than usual; foresight which
was to tell with tremendous effect upon the illy disciplined frontier
detachments under St. Clair.
On November 3rd, the army of invasion camped upon the eastern fork of
the Wabash River, upon a narrow hillock, where the troops were somewhat
crowded together, with the artillery and cavalrymen in the centre.
Around them was boggy, swampy ground, while all about the wintry woods
in frozen silence gave no warning of the savage foe, lurking beneath
the underbrush in vindictive anger.
The militiamen were marched well to the front, nearly a quarter of a
mile beyond the rest of the troops, and there went into camp, while
several bands of savages seen in the gloomy woods made them fully aware
that they were in touch with the foe.
At sunrise, next morning, the soldiers were up and doing, and, as
they were dismissed from parade, St. Clair sent orders that some
entrenchments should be thrown up before they marched against the
Miami towns, which he knew to be not far distant. Just as these orders
reached the commander of this advance guard, a blood-curdling yell
sounded from the woodland in front. Another and another followed, and
then a volley of musketry flashed from the dense underbrush. A second
volley followed the first, the militiamen could see no foe, while many
of their comrades were soon writhing upon the ground in mortal agony.
Some endeavored to fight, but the majority, terrified by the sudden and
unexpected onslaught, turned and rushed in a wild panic back to the
camp of the regulars. In vain the officers tried to stop the retreat;
the men dashed past them like cowards, and precipitating themselves
among the regular troops, spread dismay and confusion among them. The
veterans sprang to arms, while the drums rolled the call to quarters.
As the painted braves came bounding through the underbrush, they were
met with a crashing volley from the old campaigners, which halted their
mad career. They stopped, crouched down behind the brush and fallen
timber, and soon surrounded the camp on all sides. The pickets were
either killed or driven in upon the centre; while wild yells, cries
of defiance, and savage catcalls issued from the followers of Little
Turtle.
But now the battle was on in earnest, and the Indians ceased their
cries to creep from log to log, from tree to tree, and closer to the
American line. The deep boom of the cannon reverberated through the
forest, as the regulars turned their pieces against the foe. The
soldiers foolishly stood in close order, and, as they were in the open,
they were a shining mark for the balls of the Indians. Men fell dead
and wounded upon every side; the lines began to waver and break, while
St. Clair and Butler walked behind their men, urging them to be cool,
and to hold their own without flinching. St. Clair's blanket, coat and
leggins were pierced by eight bullets; a lock of his gray hair was
clipped off by a ball; yet he came through the battle unscathed. Butler
had less good fortune. His arm was broken by a leaden missile; another
struck him in the side, so that he had to be carried to the centre of
the line. Here, propped up upon knapsacks, he directed the fighting
with grim good humor until, in one of the Indian charges, a painted
warrior broke through the American line and buried his tomahawk in his
brain.
The cannon kept up their fire, but the savages turned their unerring
rifles upon the gunners, and soon had killed nearly every one of them.
When they saw the men lying upon the ground, they took courage, and
with a wild yelping made a charge from the woodland in the endeavor
to capture the pieces. But now the Americans could see the skulking
foe, and with bayonets fixed, made a dash into the oncoming horde of
painted braves. The Indians did not wait to receive the blow, but,
turning about, scurried helter-skelter to the protection of the forest,
into which the victorious rangers ran in great enthusiasm. This was
shortlived, for the redskins quickly surrounded them in the rear,
poured in a galling fire from behind the protection of stumps and
logs, and, before they could get back to their own line, had killed
one-half of those who had charged them. One detachment rushed across
the Wabash in pursuit of the Indians, and, before the men returned to
the American line, nearly all had been slaughtered. The dead were lying
about in heaps; the tomahawks of the Indians dispatched every man who
was breathing; while, as one of the packers has written in his memoirs,
"the bleeding heads of the scalped artillerymen and rangers looked like
pumpkins in a December cornfield on the farm in Pennsylvania."
The fight had now lasted all day, and the American army had begun to
realize that it was impossible to defeat the bloodthirsty followers of
Little Turtle, who, emboldened by the disorganization in the ranks of
the white men, now pushed in upon them from every quarter. It was five
o'clock in the evening when the ranks began to give away. The camp and
artillery were abandoned. Most of the militia threw away their arms
and accoutrements. St. Clair in vain endeavored to stem the torrent
of the rout. Horses, soldiers, and the few camp followers and women
who had accompanied the army were all mixed together in a confusion of
panic-stricken uselessness. But out of the rabble St. Clair managed to
get enough men together to charge the savages, who held the roadway
in the rear, to push them aside, and make room for the torrent of
fugitives who now ran for their lives towards Fort Jefferson. The
troops pressed on like a drove of bullocks. They stampeded; they fled
ignominiously; while in their rear the wild wail of jubilation from
the victorious red men sounded harshly from the dark background of
the frozen forest. St. Clair, like Braddock, had been overwhelmingly
repulsed.
From the moment of retreat until sunset the yelping redskins followed
the panic-stricken Americans. Thirty-eight officers and five hundred
and ninety-three men were slain or missing, while twenty-one officers
and two hundred and forty-two men were wounded, many of whom died
soon afterwards, so that practically two-thirds of the entire force
of fourteen hundred were either lost or disabled. What a terrible
defeat! What a humiliating blow! And all through the sagacity and
ability of Little Turtle, Chief of the Miamis, the man with a red skin
who organized and led an Indian army in a manner equal to the best
of white leaders. Fortunate, indeed, was it that the Indians stopped
to plunder the camp of the Americans, for, had they kept on, it is
probable that only a few stragglers would have lived to tell the tale
of the awful butchery. "Five hundred skull bones lay in the space of
three hundred and fifty yards," said an American general, who visited
the battle ground not many months after the defeat. "From thence, five
miles on, the woods were strewn with skeletons, muskets, broken wagons,
knapsacks and other debris." The loss to Little Turtle's men has never
been ascertained, but it is certain that his dead and missing were not
proportionate to those of St. Clair.