Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks--General Clarke's expedition
against the Miami towns--Massacre of McClure's family--The horrors of
Indian assaults throughout the settlements--General Harmar's
expedition--Defeat of General St. Clair--Gen. Wayne's victory, and a
final peace with the Indians.
Here, in the order of the annals of the country, would be the place to
present the famous attack of Bryant's station, which we have anticipated
by an anachronism, and given already, in order to present the reader
with a clear view of a _station_, and the peculiar mode of _attack and
defence_ in these border wars. The attack upon Bryant's station was made
by the largest body of Indians that had been seen in Kentucky, the whole
force amounting at least to six hundred men. We have seen that they did
not decamp until they had suffered a severe loss of their warriors. They
departed with so much precipitation as to have left their tents
standing, their fires burning, and their meat roasting. They took the
road to the lower Blue Licks.
Colonel Todd, of Lexington, despatched immediate intelligence of this
attack to Colonel Trigg, near Harrodsburgh, and Colonel Boone, who had
now returned with his family from North Carolina to Boonesborough. These
men were prompt in collecting volunteers in their vicinity. Scarcely had
the Indians disappeared from Bryant's station, before a hundred and
sixty-six men were assembled to march in pursuit of nearly triple their
number of Indians. Besides Colonels Trigg, Todd, and Boone, Majors
McGary and Harland, from the vicinity of Harrodsburgh, had a part in
this command: A council was held, in which, after considering the
disparity of numbers, it was still determined to pursue the Indians.
Such was their impetuosity, that they could not be persuaded to wait for
the arrival of Colonel Logan, who was known to be collecting a strong
party to join them.
The march was immediately commenced upon their trail. They had not
proceeded far before Colonel Boone, experienced in the habits of Indians
and the indications of their purposes, announced that he discovered
marks that their foe was making demonstrations of willingness to meet
them. He observed that they took no pains to conceal their route, but
carefully took measures to mislead their pursuers in regard to their
number. Their first purpose was indicated by cutting trees on their
path--the most palpable of all directions as to their course. The other
was equally concealed by a cautious concentration of their camp, and by
the files taking particular care to step in the foot prints of their
file leaders, so that twenty warriors might be numbered from the
foot-marks only as one.
Still no Indians were actually seen, until the party arrived on the
southern bank of the Licking, at the point of the Blue Licks. A body of
Indians was here discovered, mounting the summit of an opposite hill,
moving leisurely, and apparently without hurry or alarm--retiring
slowly from sight, as on a common march.
The party halted. The officers assembled, and a general consultation
took place, respecting what was to be done. The alternatives were,
whether it was best to cross the Licking at the hazard of an engagement
with the Indians; or to wait where they were, reconnoiter the country,
act on the defensive, and abide the coming up of Colonel Logan with his
force.
Colonels Todd and Trigg, little acquainted with the Indians, were
desirous to be guided by the judgment of Colonel Boone. His opinion
being called for, he gave it with his usual clearness and
circumspection. As regarded the number of the enemy, his judgment was,
that it should be counted from three to five hundred. From the careless
and leisurely manner of the march of the body, they had seen, he was
aware, that the main body was near, and that the show of this small
party was probably, with a view to draw on the attack, founded upon an
entire ignorance of their numbers. With the localities of the country
about the Licks, from his former residence there, he was perfectly
acquainted. The river forms, by its curves, an irregular ellipsis,
embracing the great ridge and buffalo road leading from the Licks. Its
longest line of bisection leads towards Limestone, and is terminated by
two ravines heading together in a point, and diverging thence in
opposite directions to the river. In his view, it was probable that the
Indians had formed an ambuscade behind these ravines, in a position as
advantageous for them as it would be dangerous to the party, if they
continued their march. He advised that the party should divide; the one
half march up the Licking on the opposite side, and crossing at the
mouth of a small branch, called Elk creek, fall over upon the eastern
curve of the ravine; while the other half should take a position
favorable for yielding them prompt co-operation in case of an attack. He
demonstrated, that in this way the advantage of position might be taken
from the enemy, and turned in their favor. He was decided and pressing,
that if it was determined to attack a force superior, before the arrival
of Colonel Logan, they ought at least to send out spies and explore the
country before they marched the main body over the river.
This wise counsel of Colonel Boone was perfectly accordant with the
views of Colonels Todd and Trigg, and of most of the persons consulted
on the occasion. But while they were deliberating, Major McGary,
patriotic, no doubt, in his intentions, but ardent, rash, hot-headed,
and indocile to military rule, guided his horse into the edge of the
river, raised the war-whoop in Kentucky style, and exclaimed, in a voice
of gay confidence, "All those that are not cowards will follow me; I
will show them where the Indians are!" Saying this, he spurred his horse
into the water. One and another, under the impulse of such an appeal to
their courage, dashed in after him. The council was thus broken up by
force. A part caught the rash spirit by sympathy. The rest, who were
disposed to listen to better counsels, were borne along, and their
suggestions drowned in the general clamor. All counsel and command were
at an end. And it is thus that many of the most important events of
history have been determined.
The whole party crossed the river, keeping straight forward in the
beaten buffalo road. Advanced a little, parties flanked out from the
main body, as the irregularity and unevenness of the ground would allow.
The whole body moved on in reckless precipitation and disorder, over a
surface covered with rocks, laid bare by the trampling of buffaloes, and
the washing of the rain of ages. Their course led them in front of the
high ridge which extends for some distance to the left of the road. They
were decoyed on in the direction of one of the ravines of which we have
spoken, by the reappearance of the party of Indians they had first seen.
The termination of this ridge sloped off in a declivity covered with a
thick forest of oaks. The ravines were thick set on their banks with
small timber, or encumbered with burnt wood, and the whole area before
them had been stripped bare of all herbage by the buffaloes that had
resorted to the Licks. Clumps of soil here and there on the bare rock
supported a few trees, which gave the whole of this spot of evil omen a
most singular appearance. The advance of the party was headed by McGary,
Harland, and McBride. A party of Indians, as Boone had predicted, that
had been ambushed in the woods here met them. A warm and bloody action
immediately commenced, and the rifles on either side did fatal
execution. It was discovered in a moment that the whole line of the
ravine concealed Indians, who, to the number of thrice that of their
foes, rushed upon them. Colonels Todd and Trigg, whose position had been
on the right, by the movement in crossing, were thrown in the rear. They
fell in their places, and the rear was turned. Between twenty and thirty
of these brave men had already paid the forfeit of their rashness, when
a retreat commenced under the edge of the tomahawk, and the whizzing of
Indian bullets. When the party first crossed the river all were mounted.
Many had dismounted at the commencement of the action. Others engaged on
horseback. On the retreat, some were fortunate enough to recover their
horses, and fled on horseback. Others retreated on foot. From the point
where the engagement commenced to the Licking river was about a mile's
distance. A high and rugged cliff environed either shore of the river,
which sloped off to a plain near the Licks. The ford was narrow, and the
water above and below it deep. Some were overtaken on the way, and fell
under the tomahawk. But the greatest slaughter was at the river. Some
were slain in crossing, and some on either shore.
A singular spectacle was here presented in the case of a man by the name
of Netherland, who had been derided for his timidity. He was mounted on
a fleet and powerful horse, the back of which he had never left for a
moment. He was one of the first to recross the Licking. Finding himself
safe upon the opposite shore, a sentiment of sympathy came upon him as
he looked back and took a survey of the scene of murder going on in the
river and on its shore. Many had reached the river in a state of
faintness and exhaustion, and the Indians were still cutting them down.
Inspired with the feeling of a commander, he cried out in a loud and
authoritative voice, "Halt! Fire on the Indians. Protect the men in the
river." The call was obeyed. Ten or twelve men instantly turned, fired
on the enemy, and checked their pursuit for a moment, thus enabling some
of the exhausted and wounded fugitives to evade the tomahawk, already
uplifted to destroy them. The brave and benevolent Reynolds, whose reply
to Girty has been reported, relinquished his own horse to Colonel Robert
Patterson, who was infirm from former wounds, and was retreating on
foot. He thus enabled that veteran to escape. While thus signalizing his
disinterested intrepidity, he fell himself into the hands of the
Indians. The party that took him consisted of three. Two whites passed
him on their retreat. Two of the Indians pursued, leaving him under the
guard of the third. His captor stooped to tie his moccasin, and he
sprang away from him and escaped. It is supposed that one-fourth of the
men engaged in this action were commissioned officers. The whole number
engaged was one hundred and seventy-six. Of these, sixty were slain, and
eight made prisoners. Among the most distinguished names of those who
fell, were those of Colonels Todd and Trigg, Majors Harland and Bulger,
Captains Gordon and McBride, and a son of Colonel Boone. The loss of the
savages has never been ascertained. It could not have equalled that of
the assailants, though some supposed it greater. This sanguinary affair
took place August 19, 1782.
Colonel Logan, on arriving at Bryant's station, with a force of three
hundred men, found the troops had already marched. He made a rapid
advance in hopes to join them before they should have met with the
Indians. He came up with the survivors, on their retreat from their
ill-fated contest, not far from Bryant's station. He determined to
pursue his march to the battle ground to bury the dead, if he could not
avenge their fall. He was joined by many friends of the killed and
missing, from Lexington and Bryant's station. They reached the battle
ground on the 25th. It presented a heartrending spectacle. Where so
lately had arisen the shouts of the robust and intrepid woodsmen, and
the sharp yell of the savages, as they closed in the murderous contest,
the silence of the wide forest was now unbroken, except by birds of
prey, as they screamed and sailed over the carnage. The heat was so
excessive, and the bodies were so changed by it and the hideous gashes
and mangling of the Indian tomahawk and knife, that friends could no
longer recognize their dearest relatives. They performed the sad rights
of sepulture as they might, upon the rocky ground.
The Indian forces that had fought at the Blue Licks, in the exultation
of victory and revenge, returned homeward with their scalps. Those from
the north--and they constituted the greater numbers--returned quietly.
The western bands took their route through Jefferson county, in hopes to
add more scalps to the number of their trophies. Colonel Floyd led out a
force to protect the country. They marched through the region on Salt
river, and saw no traces of Indians. They dispersed on their return. The
greater number of them reached their station, and laid down, fatigued
and exhausted, without any precaution against a foe. The Indians came
upon them in this predicament in the night, and killed several women and
children. A few escaped under the cover of the darkness. A woman, taken
prisoner that night, escaped from her savage captors by throwing herself
into the bushes, while they passed on. She wandered about the woods
eighteen days, subsisting only on wild fruits, and was then found and
carried to Lynn's station. She survived the extreme state of exhaustion
in which she was discovered. Another woman, taken with four children, at
the same time, was carried to Detroit.
The terrible blow which the savages had struck at the Blue Licks,
excited a general and immediate purpose of retaliation through Kentucky.
General Clarke was appointed commander-in-chief, and Colonel Logan next
under him in command of the expedition, to be raised for that purpose.
The forces were to rendezvous at Licking. The last of September, 1782,
General Clarke, with one thousand men, marched from the present site of
Cincinnati, for the Indian towns on the Miami. They fell in on their
route with the camp of Simon Girty, who would have been completely
surprised with his Indians, had not a straggling savage espied the
advance, and reported it to them just in season to enable them to
scatter in every direction. They soon spread the intelligence that an
army from Kentucky was marching upon their towns.
As the army approached the towns on their route, they found that the
inhabitants had evacuated them, and fled into the woods. All the cabins
at Chillicothe, Piqua, and Willis were burned. Some skirmishing took
place, however, in which five Indians were killed, and seven made
prisoners, without any loss to the Kentuckians, save the wounding of one
man, which afterwards proved mortal. One distinguished Indian
surrendered himself, and was afterwards inhumanly murdered by one of the
troops, to the deep regret and mortification of General Clarke.
In October, 1785, Mr. McClure and family, in company with a number of
other families, were assailed on Skegg's creek. Six of the family were
killed, and Mrs. McClure, a child, and a number of other persons made
prisoners. The attack took place in the night. The circumstances of the
capture of Mrs. McClure, furnish an affecting incident illustrating the
invincible force of natural tenderness. She had concealed herself, with
her four children, in the brush of a thicket, which, together with the
darkness, screened her from observation. Had she chosen to have left her
infant behind, she might have escaped. But she grasped it, and held it
to her bosom, although aware that its shrieks would betray their covert.
The Indians, guided to the spot by its cries, killed the three larger
children, and took her and her infant captives. The unfortunate and
bereaved mother was obliged to accompany their march on an untamed and
unbroken horse.
Intelligence of these massacres and cruelties circulated rapidly.
Captain Whitley immediately collected twenty-one men from the adjoining
stations, overtook, and killed two of these savages, retook the desolate
mother, her babe, and a negro servant, and the scalps of the six persons
whom they had killed. Ten days afterwards, another party of immigrants,
led by Mr. Moore, were attacked, and nine of their number killed.
Captain Whitley pursued the perpetrators of this bloody act, with thirty
men. On the sixth day of pursuit through the wilderness, he came up with
twenty Indians, clad in the dresses of those whom they had slain. They
dismounted and dispersed in the woods though not until three of them
were killed. The pursuers recovered eight scalps, and all the plunder
which the Indians had collected at the late massacre.
An expedition of General Clarke, with a thousand men, against the Wabash
Indians, failed in consequence of the impatience and discouragement of
his men from want of provisions. Colonel Logan was more successful in an
expedition against the Shawnese Indians on the Scioto. He surprised one
of the towns, and killed a number of the warriors, and took some
prisoners.
In October, 1785, the General Government convoked a meeting of all the
Lake and Ohio tribes to meet at the mouth of the Great Miami. The
Indians met the summons with a moody indifference and neglect, alleging
the continued aggressions of the Kentuckians as a reason for refusing to
comply with the summons.
The horrors of Indian assault were occasionally felt in every
settlement. We select one narrative in detail, to convey an idea of
Indian hostility on the one hand, and the manner in which it was met on
the other. A family lived on Coope's run, in Bourbon county, consisting
of a mother, two sons of a mature age, a widowed daughter, with an
infant in her arms, two grown daughters, and a daughter of ten years.
The house was a double cabin. The two grown daughters and the smaller
girl were in one division, and the remainder of the family in the other.
At evening twilight, a knocking was heard at the door of the latter
division, asking in good English, and the customary western phrase, "Who
keeps house?" As the sons went to open the door, the mother forbade
them, affirming that the persons claiming admittance were Indians. The
young men sprang to their guns. The Indians, finding themselves refused
admittance at that door, made an effort at the opposite one. That door
they soon beat open with a rail, and endeavored to take the three girls
prisoners. The little girl sprang away, and might have escaped from them
in the darkness and the woods. But the forlorn child, under the natural
impulse of instinct, ran for the other door and cried for help. The
brothers within, it may be supposed, would wish to go forth and protect
the feeble and terrified wailer. The mother, taking a broader view of
expedience and duty, forbade them. They soon hushed the cries of the
distracted child by the merciless tomahawk. While a part of the Indians
were engaged in murdering this child, and another in confining one of
the grown girls that they had made captive, the third heroically
defended herself with a knife, which she was using at a loom at the
moment of attack. The intrepidity she put forth was unavailing. She
killed one Indian, and was herself killed by another. The Indians,
meanwhile, having obtained possession of one half the house, fired it.
The persons shut up in the other half had now no other alternative than
to be consumed in the flames rapidly spreading towards them, or to go
forth and expose themselves to the murderous tomahawks, that had already
laid three of the family in their blood. The Indians stationed
themselves in the dark angles of the fence, where, by the bright glare
of the flames, they could see every thing, and yet remain themselves
unseen. Here they could make a sure mark of all that should escape from
within. One of the sons took charge of his aged and infirm mother, and
the other of his widowed sister and her infant. The brothers emerged
from the burning ruins, separated, and endeavored to spring over the
fence. The mother was shot dead as her son was piously aiding her over
the fence. The other brother was killed as he was gallantly defending
his sister. The widowed sister, her infant, and one of the brothers
escaped the massacre, and alarmed the settlement. Thirty men, commanded
by Colonel Edwards, arrived next day to witness the appalling spectacle
presented around the smoking ruins of this cabin. Considerable snow had
fallen, and the Indians were obliged to leave a trail, which easily
indicated their path. In the evening of that day, they came upon the
expiring body of the young woman, apparently murdered but a few moments
before their arrival. The Indians had been premonished of their pursuit
by the barking of a dog that followed them. They overtook and killed two
of the Indians that had staid behind, apparently as voluntary victims to
secure the retreat of the rest.
To prevent immigrants from reaching the country, the Indians infested
the Ohio river, and concealed themselves in small parties at different
points from Pittsburgh to Louisville, where they laid in ambush and
fired upon the boats as they passed. They frequently attempted by false
signals to decoy the boats ashore, and in several instances succeeded by
these artifices in capturing and murdering whole families, and
plundering them of their effects. They even armed and manned some of the
boats and scows they had taken, and used them as a kind of floating
battery, by means of which they killed and captured many persons
approaching the settlements.
The last boat which brought immigrants to the country down the Ohio,
that was known to have been attacked by the Indians, was assaulted in
the spring of 1791. This circumstance gives it a claim to be mentioned
in this place. It was commanded by Captain Hubbel, and brought
immigrants from Vermont. The whole number of men, women, and children
amounted to twenty persons. These persons had been forewarned by various
circumstances that they noted, that hostile Indians were along the shore
waiting to attack them. They came up with other boats descending the
river, and bound in the same direction with themselves. They endeavored
ineffectually to persuade the passengers to join them, that they might
descend in the strength of numbers and union. They continued to move
down the river alone. The first attempt upon them was a customary Indian
stratagem. A person, affecting to be a white man, hailed them, and
requested them to lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that the
boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore by this artifice, the
Indians put off from the shore in three canoes, and attacked the boat.
Never was a contest of this sort maintained with more desperate bravery.
The Indians attempted to board the boat, and the inmates made use of all
arms of annoyance and defence. Captain Hubbel, although he had been
severely wounded in two places, and had the cock of his gun shot off by
an Indian fire, still continued to discharge his mutilated gun by a
fire-brand. After a long and desperate conflict, in which all the
passengers capable of defence but four, had been wounded, the Indians
paddled off their canoes to attack the boats left behind. They were
successful against the first boat they assailed. The boat yielded to
them without opposition. They killed the Captain and a boy, and took the
women on board prisoners. Making a screen of these unfortunate women, by
exposing them to the fire of Captain Hubbel's boat, they returned to the
assault. It imposed upon him the painful alternative, either to yield to
the Indians, or to fire into their canoes at the hazard of killing the
women of their own people. But the intrepid Captain remarked, that if
these women escaped their fire, it would probably be to suffer a more
terrible death from the savages. He determined to keep up his fire, even
on these hard conditions; and the savages were beaten off a second time.
In the course of the engagement, the boat, left to itself, had floated
with the current near the north shore, where four or five hundred
Indians were collected, who poured a shower of balls upon the boat. All
the inmates could do, was to avoid exposure as much as possible, and
exercise their patience until the boat should float past the Indian
fire. One of the inmates of the boat, seeing, as it slowly drifted on, a
fine chance for a shot at an Indian, although warned against it, could
not resist the temptation of taking his chance. He raised his head to
take aim, and was instantly shot dead. When the boat had drifted beyond
the reach of the Indian fire, but two of the nine fighting men on board
were found unhurt. Two were killed, and two mortally wounded. The noble
courage of a boy on board deserves to be recorded. When the boat was now
in a place of safety, he requested his friends to extract a ball that
had lodged in the skin of his forehead. When this ball had been
extracted, he requested them to take out a piece of bone that had been
fractured in his elbow by another shot. When asked by his mother why he
had not complained or made known his suffering during the engagement, he
coolly replied, intimating that there was noise enough without his, that
the Captain had ordered the people to make no noise.
All attempts of the General Government to pacify the Indians, having
proved ineffectual, an expedition was planned against the hostile tribes
north-west of the Ohio. The object was to bring the Indians to a general
engagement; or, if that might not be, to destroy their establishments on
the waters of the Scioto and the Wabash. General Harmar was appointed to
the command of this expedition. Major Hamtranck, with a detachment, was
to make a diversion in his favor up the Wabash.
On the 13th of September, 1791, General Harmar marched from Fort
Washington, the present site of Cincinnati, with three hundred and
twenty regulars, and effected a junction with the militia of
Pennsylvania and Kentucky, which had advanced twenty-five miles in
front. The whole force amounted to one thousand four hundred and
fifty-three men. Col. Hardin, who commanded the Kentucky militia, was
detached with six hundred men, chiefly militia, to reconnoiter. On his
approach to the Indian settlements, the Indians set fire to their
villages and fled. In order, if possible, to overtake them, he was
detached with a smaller force, that could be moved more rapidly. It
consisted of two hundred and ten men. A small party of Indians met and
attacked them; and the greater part of the militia behaved
badly,--leaving a few brave men, who would not fly, to their fate.
Twenty-three of the party fell, and seven only made their escape and
rejoined the army. Notwithstanding this check, the army succeeded so far
as to reduce the remaining towns to ashes, and destroy their provisions.
On their return to Fort Washington, Gen. Harmar was desirous of wiping
off, in another action, the disgrace which public opinion had impressed
upon his arms. He halted eight miles from Chillicothe, and late at night
detached Col. Hardin, with orders to find the enemy, and bring them to
an engagement. Early in the morning this detachment reached the enemy,
and a severe engagement ensued. The savages fought with desperation.
Some of the American troops shrunk; but the officers conducted with
great gallantry. Most of them fell, bravely discharging their duty. More
than fifty regulars and one hundred militia, including the brave
officers, Fontaine, Willys, and Frothingham, were slain.
Harmar, in his official account of this affair, claimed the victory,
although the Americans seem clearly to have had the worst of it. At his
request, he was tried by a court martial, and honorably acquitted. The
enemy had suffered so severely, that they allowed him to return
unmolested to Fort Washington.
The terrors and the annoyance of Indian hostilities still hung over the
western settlements. The call was loud and general from the frontiers,
for ample and efficient protection. Congress placed the means in the
hands of the executive. Major General Arthur St. Clair was appointed
commander-in-chief of the forces to be employed in the meditated
expedition. The objects of it were, to destroy the Indian settlements
between the Miamies; to expel them from the country; and establish a
chain of posts which should prevent their return during the war. This
army was late in assembling in the vicinity of Fort Washington. They
marched directly towards the chief establishments of the enemy, building
and garrisoning in their way the two intermediate forts, Hamilton and
Jefferson. After the detachments had been made for these garrisons, the
effective force that remained amounted to something less than two
thousand men. To open a road for their march, was a slow and tedious
business. Small parties of Indians were often seen hovering about their
march; and some unimportant skirmishes took place. As the army
approached the enemy's country, sixty of the militia deserted in a body.
To prevent the influence of such an example, Major Hamtranck was
detached with a regiment in pursuit of the deserters. The army now
consisting of one thousand four hundred men continued its march. On the
third of November 1792, it encamped fifteen miles south of the Miami
villages. Having been rejoined by Major Hamtranck, General St. Clair
proposed to march immediately against them.
Half an hour before sunrise, the militia was attacked by the savages,
and fled in the utmost confusion. They burst through the formed line of
the regulars into the camp. Great efforts were made by the officers to
restore order; but not with the desired success. The Indians pressed
upon the heels of the flying militia, and engaged General Butler with
great intrepidity. The action became warm and general; and the fire of
the assailants passing round both flanks of the first line, in a few
minutes was poured with equal fury upon the rear. The artillerists in
the centre were mowed down, and the fire was the more galling, as it was
directed by an invisible enemy, crouching on the ground, or concealed
behind trees. In this manner they advanced towards the very mouths of
the cannon; and fought with the infuriated fierceness with which success
always animates savages. Some of the soldiers exhibited military
fearlessness, and fought with great bravery. Others were timid and
disposed to fly. With a self-devotion which the occasion required, the
officers generally exposed themselves to the hottest of the contest, and
fell in great numbers, in desperate efforts to restore the battle.
The commanding general, though he had been for some time enfeebled with
severe disease, acted with personal bravery, and delivered his orders
with judgment and self-possession. A charge was made upon the savages
with the bayonet: and they were driven from their covert with some loss,
a distance of four hundred yards. But as soon as the charge was
suspended, they returned to the attack. General Butler was mortally
wounded; the left of the right wing broken, and the artillerists killed
almost to a man. The guns were seized and the camp penetrated by the
enemy. A desperate charge was headed by Colonel Butler, although he was
severely wounded, and the Indians were again driven from the camp, and
the artillery recovered. Several charges were repeated with partial
success. The enemy only retreated, to return to the charge, flashed with
new ardor. The ranks of the troops were broken, and the men pressed
together in crowds, and were shot down without resistance. A retreat was
all that remained, to save the remnant of the army. Colonel Darke was
ordered to charge a body of savages that intercepted their retreat.
Major Clark, with his battalion, was directed to cover the rear. These
orders were carried into effect, and a most disorderly retreat
commenced. A pursuit was kept up four miles, when, fortunately for the
surviving Americans, the natural greediness of the savage appetite for
plunder, called back the victorious Indians to the camp, to divide the
spoils. The routed troops continued their flight to fort Jefferson,
throwing away their arms on the road. The wounded were left here, and
the army retired upon fort Washington.
In this fatal battle, fell thirty-eight commissioned officers, and five
hundred and ninety-three non-commissioned officers and privates.
Twenty-one commissioned officers, many of whom afterwards died of their
wounds, and two hundred and forty-two non-commissioned officers and
privates were wounded.
The savage force, in this fatal engagement, was led by a Mississago
chief, who had been trained to war under the British, during the
revolution. So superior was his knowledge of tactics, that the Indian
chiefs, though extremely jealous of him, yielded the entire command to
him; and he arranged and fought the battle with great combination of
military skill. Their force amounted to four thousand; and they stated
the Americans killed, at six hundred and twenty, and their own at
sixty-five; but it was undoubtedly much greater. They took seven pieces
of cannon and two hundred oxen, and many horses. The chief, at the close
of the battle, bade the Indians forbear the pursuit of the Americans, as
he said they had killed enough.
General Scott, with one thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky, soon
after marched against a party of the victors, at St. Clair's fatal
field. He found the Indians rioting in their plunder, riding the oxen in
the glee of triumph, and acting as if the whole body was intoxicated.
General Scott immediately attacked them. The contest was short but
decisive. The Indians had two hundred killed on the spot. The cannon and
military stores remaining, were retaken, and the savages completely
routed. The loss of the Kentuckians was inconsiderable.
The reputation of the government was now committed in the fortunes of
the war. Three additional regiments were directed to be raised. On the
motion in congress for raising these regiments, there was an animated,
and even a bitter debate. It was urged on one hand, that the expense of
such a force would involve the necessity of severe taxation; that too
much power was thrown into the hands of the president; that the war had
been badly managed, and ought to have been entrusted to the militia of
the west, under their own officers; and with more force they urged that
no success could be of any avail, so long as the British held those
posts within our acknowledged limits, from which the savages were
supplied with protection, shelter, arms, advice, and instigation to the
war.
On the other hand, the justice of the cause, as a war of defence, and
not of conquest, was unquestionable. It was proved, that between 1783
and 1790, no less than one thousand five hundred people of Kentucky had
been massacred by the savages, or dragged into a horrid captivity; and
that the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia had suffered a loss not
much less. It was proved that every effort had been made to pacify the
savages without effect. They showed that in 1790, when a treaty was
proposed to the savages at the Miami, they first refused to treat, and
then asked thirty days for deliberation. It was granted. In the interim,
they stated that not less than one hundred and twenty persons had been
killed and captured, and several prisoners roasted alive; at the term of
which horrors, they refused any answer at all to the proposition to
treat. Various other remarks were made in defence of the bill. It tried
the strength of parties in congress, and was finally carried.
General St. Clair resigned, and Major General Anthony Wayne was
appointed to succeed him. This officer commanded the confidence of the
western people, who confided in that reckless bravery, which had long
before procured him the appellation of "Mad Anthony." There was a
powerful party who still affected to consider this war unnecessary, and
every impediment was placed in the way of its success, which that party
could devise. To prove to them that the government was still disposed to
peace, two excellent officers and valuable men, Col. Hardin, and Major
Truman, were severally despatched with propositions of peace. They were
both murdered by the savages. These unsuccessful attempts at
negotiation, and the difficulties and delays naturally incident to the
preparation of such a force, together with the attempts that had been
made in congress, to render the war unpopular, had worn away so much
time that the season for operations for the year had almost elapsed. But
as soon as the negotiations had wholly failed, the campaign was opened
with as much vigor as the nature of the case would admit. The general
was able, however, to do no more this autumn, than to advance into the
forest towards the country of the savages, six miles in advance of fort
Jefferson. He took possession of the ground on which the fatal defeat of
St. Clair had taken place, in 1792. He here erected a fortification,
with the appropriate name of Fort Recovery. His principal camp was
called Greenville.
In Kentucky, meanwhile, many of the people clamored against these
measures, and loudly insisted that the war ought to be carried on by
militia, to be commanded by an officer taken from their state. It was
believed, too, by the executive, that the British government, by
retaining their posts within our limits, and by various other measures,
at least countenanced the Indians in their hostilities. That government
took a more decisive measure early in the spring. A British detachment
from Detroit, advanced near fifty miles south of that place, and
fortified themselves on the Miami of the lakes. In one of the numerous
skirmishes which took place between the savages and the advance of
General Wayne, it was affirmed, that the British were mingled with the
Indians.
On the 8th of August, 1794, General Wayne reached the confluence of the
Au Glaize, and the Miami of the lakes. The richest and most extensive
settlements of the western Indians were at this place. It was distant
only about thirty miles from the post on the Miami, which the British;
had recently occupied. The whole strength of the enemy, amounting to
nearly two thousand warriors, was collected in the vicinity of that
post. The regulars of General Wayne were not much inferior in numbers. A
reinforcement of one thousand one hundred mounted Kentucky militia,
commanded by General Scott, gave a decided superiority to the American
force. The general was well aware that the enemy were ready to give him
battle, and he ardently desired it. But in pursuance of the settled
policy of the United States, another effort was made for the attainment
of peace, without the shedding of blood. The savages were exhorted by
those who were sent to them, no longer to follow the counsels of the bad
men at the foot of the Rapids, who urged them on to the war, but had
neither the power nor the inclination to protect them; that to listen to
the propositions of the government of the United States, would restore
them to their homes, and rescue them from famine. To these propositions
they returned only an evasive answer.
On the 20th of August, the army of General Wayne marched in columns. A
select battalion, under Major Price, moved as a reconnoitering force in
front. After marching five miles, he received so heavy a fire from the
savages, concealed as usual, that he was compelled to retreat. The
savages had chosen their ground with great judgment. They had moved into
a thick wood, in advance of the British works, and had taken a position
behind fallen timber, prostrated by a tornado. This rendered their
position almost inaccessible to horse. They were formed in three regular
lines, according to Indian custom, very much extended in front. Their
first effort was to turn the left flank of the American army.
The American legion was ordered to advance with trailed arms, and rouse
the enemy from his covert at the point of the bayonet, and then deliver
its fire. The cavalry, led by Captain Campbell, was ordered to advance
between the Indians and the river, where the wood permitted them to
penetrate, and charge their left flank. General Scott, at the head of
the mounted volunteers, was commanded to make a considerable circuit
and turn their right. These, and all the complicated orders of General
Wayne, were promptly executed. But such was the impetuosity of the
charge made by the first line of infantry, so entirely was the enemy
broken by it, and so rapid was the pursuit, that only a small part of
the second line, and of the mounted volunteers could take any part in
the action. In the course of an hour, the savages were driven more than
two miles, and within gun-shot of the British fort.
General Wayne remained three days on the field of battle, reducing the
houses and corn-fields, above and below the fort, and some of them
within pistol shot of it, to ashes. The houses and stores of Col. M'Kee,
an English trader, whose great influence among the savages had been
uniformly exerted for the continuance of the war, was burned among the
rest. Correspondence upon these points took place between General Wayne
and Major Campbell, who commanded the British fort. That of General
Wayne was sufficiently firm; and it manifested that the latter only
avoided hostilities with him, by acquiescing in the destruction of
British property within the range of his guns.
On the 28th the army returned to Au Glaize, destroying all the villages
and corn within fifty miles of the river. In this decisive battle, the
American loss, in killed and wounded, amounted to one hundred and seven,
including officers. Among those that fell, were Captain Campbell and
Lieutenant Towles. The general bestowed great and merited praise, for
their bravery and promptitude in this affair, to all his troops.
The hostility of the Indians still continuing, the whole country was
laid waste: and forts were erected in the heart of their settlements, to
prevent their return. This seasonable victory, and this determined
conduct on the part of the United States, rescued them from a general
war with all the nations north-west of the Ohio. The Six Nations had
manifested resentments, which were only appeased for the moment, by the
suspension of a settlement, which Pennsylvania was making at Presqu'
Isle, within their alleged limits. The issue of this battle dissipated
the clouds at once which had been thickening in that quarter. Its
influence was undoubtedly felt far to the south. The Indian inhabitants
of Georgia, and still farther to the south had been apparently on the
verge of a war, and had been hardly restrained from hostility by the
feeble authority of that state.
No incidents of great importance occurred in this quarter, until August
3d, of the next year when a definitive treaty was concluded by General
Wayne, with the hostile Indians north-west of the Ohio. By this treaty,
the destructive war which had so long desolated that frontier, was ended
in a manner acceptable to the United States. An accommodation was also
brought about with the southern Indians, notwithstanding the intrigues
of their Spanish neighbors. The regions of the Mississippi valley were
opened on all sides to immigration, and rescued from the dread of Indian
hostilities.