ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN
Harmar wrought wide destruction but of the kind that made the Indians of
the Maumee irrevocably and bitterly angry. The main boast of the
returning campaigners was that the enemy did not pursue them--which,
after all, was more significant than we can realize today. It
illustrates in a word the exact effect of the raid; the Indians were
dumbfounded at the arrival of a white army so far within their forests.
They knew as well as the whites that the punishment administered to the
frontiersmen was almost wholly due to the rash boldness of the latter,
who, rushing heedlessly after the scurrying savages, made ambuscades
possible. Yet Harmar's actual success was only in burning villages and
crops, and sending crowds of old men and women and children fleeing to
the swamps and forest fastnesses. Practically, it was the old story of
a score of Kentucky raids into the "Indian side" of the Ohio over again.
"You are the 'town-destroyer,'" was the cry of an old chieftain to
President Washington, "and when that name is heard our women look
quickly behind them and turn pale." But there was something more to be
done on the Maumee than to make squaws turn pale! That would not keep
back the murdering bands from the infant settlements along and below the
Ohio.
This became plain so suddenly that the shock was felt throughout the
East. In no way could the Northwestern Indians have struck home more
quickly than by perpetrating the terrible Big Bottom Massacre. The New
England colony which, led by Rufus Putnam, founded Marietta at the mouth
of the Muskingum had, by January 1790, expanded in all directions.[87]
One company of pioneers had ascended the Muskingum to Big Bottom, Morgan
County, Ohio. At dusk, on the second night in January, 1791, a band of
savages crossed the river at Silverheels Riffle above the unprotected
blockhouse, and entered the settlement feigning friendship. The pioneers
offered them a portion of the evening meal, when a sudden burst of flame
swept the room. Several whites fell straight forward into the fireplace
before which they were eating; others, to the number of fourteen, were
instantly put to death. But one blow was struck by the whites at Big
Bottom. The goodwife of the woodsman Meeks, uninjured by the first fire
that swept the cabin, took advantage of the cloud of smoke to seize a
broad-ax standing by the wall. As an Indian strode forward to the bloody
finale, the glittering blade sank deeply into his shoulder. It was but
one blow--but it was a token of a Nation's anger; it meant as much as
the blood-red battle-ax the departing murderers left beside the
smouldering ruins of Big Bottom blockhouse.
The message of that war-club sped eastward. The blow at the New England
colony was sure to attract unusual attention, and no doubt played an
important part in deciding the great question of the hour. This was a
question of war or peace. As in the year previous, so now in 1791 (as
well as in later times) there were many who opposed Indian warfare from
humanitarian principles. Suffice it to say these opponents of war did
not live on the Muskingum or Licking Rivers! Yet peace, for all
concerned, if it could be secured at an honorable price, was most
desirable, and the United States faced the question fairly and with
energy. As early as December, 1790, the famous Seneca chieftain
Cornplanter, being in Philadelphia, was urged not only to present the
exact feeling of the Government to the Six Nations in New York and on
the Allegheny, but was asked to visit the hostile western nations as a
peace messenger. The declaration of war by the savages at Big Bottom in
no wise deterred the United States from this purpose of obtaining peace
at the least price in blood and treasure. In March, 1791, Colonel Thomas
Proctor was sent to the Senecas to urge the young men of that tribe not
to take the war path, and then was ordered to go with Cornplanter to the
Maumee River. The task was dangerous and laborious, but Proctor pushed
his way through the forests of Pennsylvania and New York to the Senecas
who kept so well the western door of the "Long House of the Iroquois."
It was a fruitless mission. "The people at the setting sun are bad
people," said an old warrior to the intrepid herald; "you must look when
it is light in the morning until the setting sun, and you must reach
your neck over the land, and take all the light you can, to show the
danger."
The Senecas were right and the further Proctor "reached his neck out"
over the land the more plainly was this seen to be true. Gordon, the
British commander at Niagara, forbade him taking ship for the Maumee;
"the unfriendly denial," he wrote the Secretary of War, "puts a stop to
the further attempting to go to the Miamies." Another item in his letter
was of significance: Joseph Brant with forty warriors had gone westward
to the confederated tribes on an unknown mission.
In April, Colonel Timothy Pickering was also sent to the Senecas, and,
meeting them in convention at Painted Post, urged the chieftains to hold
back the young men from joining the hostile tribes. Governor St. Clair
likewise sent messages, especially to the western tribes urging that
hostile bands be withdrawn from the frontier ere the United States
should be compelled to bring heavy chastisement. But peace is sometimes
as costly, and more so, than war; such proved to be the case now. It was
early believed by the most farsighted that a crushing defeat of the
northwestern confederacy would be a great saving of blood. And so while
peaceful efforts were being forwarded as effectually as the situation of
the distant tribes and the hostility of English agents permitted,
warlike preparations were likewise being made. As the spring of 1791
opened, the frontiers were overrun with murderous bands and the cry from
the infant West to the central government could not be unheeded. "I most
earnestly implore the protection of government," wrote the brave Putnam
to Washington, "for myself and friends inhabiting these wilds of
America." The cry from Kentucky and the lower Ohio was equally piercing.
The plan of the United States at this juncture was wholly in keeping
with its dignity and its power. Failing in an attempt of
reconciliation, it was determined to throw into the Indian land several
raiding bands of horsemen "to demonstrate that they [the savages] were
within our reach, and lying at our mercy."[88] In case these strokes did
not awe the offenders, a grand campaign on an extensive scale was to be
inaugurated. Fearing the worst, though hopeful of the better,
preparations for all these movements were put on foot, to be
countermanded if peaceful measures sufficed. The attitude of the
Government at this serious crisis of its first Indian war must be judged
humane and generous. The Indians protested that they had never ceded an
inch of territory northwest of the Ohio; yet at four treaties supposed
representatives of all the nations concerned had received from American
commissioners payment for all lands now (1791) occupied or claimed by
the white men. In each case the nations had been formally invited to
each treaty; they now averred that only irresponsible chieftains had
signed these treaties. In a single instance it is possible to believe
that unscrupulous Indians might have so deceived the government
officials and wronged the Indians, but that this could have occurred on
three occasions was manifestly absurd. The Ohio Company purchase and the
Symmes purchase had been made, the pioneers had emigrated and settled
the lands. The Government had given no white man right to cross the
treaty line. Those settlements could not be uprooted without great
injustice. The war seemed, therefore, an imperative necessity, and the
Government had no honorable alternative if peace efforts failed. We have
had many dealings with the Indians since 1790, and it is of some comfort
to rest assured that our first Indian war was eminently just and right.
Unless otherwise ordered, Brigadier-general Scott of Kentucky was to
make a dash at the Indian villages on the upper Wabash in the early
summer. A little later General Wilkinson was scheduled to lead another
raiding band to the populous settlement on the Eel River, a northern
tributary of the Wabash. These swift strokes, it was hoped, would compel
the Indians to confer concerning peace. No rift in the dark war-clouds
occurred, despite the efforts of Knox and St. Clair to establish an
armistice, and Scott marched northward in May and Wilkinson in August.
Like similar raids, these two were successful failures. Villages and
crops were ruined and captives were taken. Many squaws "looked behind
them and turned pale" perhaps, but in effect they had an opposite
influence from that hoped: they undid whatever little good the efforts
to secure peace had accomplished. There was now utmost need for the
final "grand campaign."
[Illustration: A PART OF ARROWSMITH'S MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, 1796]
[_Showing the region in which Wilkinson_, _Scott_, _Harmar_, _St.
Clair_, _and Wayne operated_]
The army of the United States now consisted of three or four hundred
soldiers--the First Regiment--distributed among the frontier forts on
the Ohio River. It was ordered that the depleted ranks of this regiment
be filled by recruits to be raised "from Maryland to New York
inclusive," and that a full Second Regiment be raised, one company from
South Carolina and one from Delaware and the remainder in the four New
England states.[89] The troops were to be mustered by companies, to
rendezvous at Fort Pitt. Governor Arthur St. Clair was created
Major-general and placed in command of the new army. Brigadier-general
Richard Butler was appointed second in command. The object of the
campaign was to establish a line of military posts from Fort Washington
on the Ohio to the Maumee, where, at the Miami village at the junction
of the St. Mary and St. Joseph, a strong fort was to be built, "for the
purpose of awing and curbing the Indians in that quarter, and as the
only preventative of future hostilities."[90] In present day terms the
army was to march from Cincinnati, Ohio, and erect a fort on the site of
Fort Wayne, Indiana. In every order the underlying theory of the
Government is plain--the one end sought was peace. "This [peace] is of
more value than millions of uncultivated acres," were the words of the
Secretary of War in St. Clair's instructions.[91] It was a war of
self-defense, not a war of conquest.
The business dragged at every point. In the hope that the Indians would
come to reason, Scott's raid was delayed a week at the start. Wilkinson,
who was to move northward June 10, did not march until August 1. The
continued anticipation of good results from these expeditions, which
would render the grand campaign unnecessary, tended to lessen the
energies of the preparations. General Butler was assigned the duty of
raising the recruits in the East--a discouraging task. The pay offered
did not equal an average day's wage. The campaign was not entirely
popular and promised innumerable hardships. Enlistments came in slowly,
and, in many instances, only the unfit and unworthy offered. As late as
April 28 the Secretary of War wrote General Butler: "None of the
companies of the Eastern States are yet nearly completed." As early as
May 12 he wrote St. Clair: "It will at least be the latter end of July,
or the beginning of August before your force shall be assembled."
Originally the army was to march from Fort Washington on July 10.
General St. Clair left Philadelphia March 28 for the Ohio, to
superintend affairs at the point of rendezvous. With "a degree of pain
and difficulty that cannot well be imagined," St. Clair, already a sick
man, pushed on to Pittsburg and Lexington, Kentucky, reaching Fort
Washington on the fifteenth of May. One week later (May 22) General
Butler reached Pittsburg, to receive the army and the stores and
ammunition and hurry all on to Fort Washington. But every rod became a
mile and every hundredweight a ton. It was not until the fifth of June
that the troops from the East reached Fort Pitt--eight hundred and
forty-two soldiers of the twelve hundred Secretary Knox had promised May
19. And yet, few as they were, no boats had been prepared to carry them
south, and indeed very few in which to transport the slowly accumulating
stores and ammunition. Contractor Duer and Quartermaster Samuel Hodgdon
seemingly believed that barges grew on the rich banks of the Ohio and
flat-boats were to be picked from the trees. The congestion of troops
and stores which now resulted at Pittsburg was quite as appalling as
the former scarcity of every needful thing. As rapidly as conditions
permitted, General Butler wrought a certain kind of order out of the
chaos, but not a kind that augured well for the future. That could
hardly have been expected. In one way or another various craft were
knocked together, filled, and set afloat in good hope of reaching Fort
Washington. June dragged by, and July. August found Butler and
Quartermaster-general Hodgdon still at Pittsburg, and it was not until
the twenty-sixth of that month that the last of the army began the
voyage southward--sixty precious days late.
On July 21 Secretary Knox wrote St. Clair at Fort Washington: "The
president is greatly anxious that the campaign be distinguished by
decisive measures." A letter of August 4 reads: "The president still
continues anxious that you should, at the earliest moment, commence your
operations;" and another under the date of September 1 reads: "[The
president] therefore enjoins you, by every principle that is sacred, to
stimulate your operations in the highest degree, and to move as rapidly
as the lateness of the season, and the nature of the case will possibly
admit." It is a matter of record that at the time this letter was
written neither General Butler or Quartermaster-general Hodgdon had so
much as reached the rendezvous. The latter's delay was never explained
and General Butler was utterly dependent upon quartermaster and
contractor. Butler was at last ordered to Fort Washington by Secretary
Knox in the following peremptory words, which implied neglect and
carelessness--a rebuke which was, perhaps, as undeserved as it was
sharp: "I have received your letter of the 18th instant, which has been
submitted to the President of the United States, and I am commanded to
inform you that he is by no means satisfied with the long detention of
the troops on the upper parts of the Ohio, which he considers
unnecessary and improper. And it is his opinion, unless the highest
exertions be made by all parts of the army, to repair the loss of the
season, that the expenses which have been made for the campaign, will be
altogether lost, and that the measures, from which so much has been
expected, will issue in disgrace."[92] However the quartermaster-general
had been ordered as early as June 9 to "consult Major General Butler
upon all objects of the preparations and as soon as possible repair to
headquarters."[93]
Yet, had the army been assembled at Fort Washington July 15 instead of
September 5, there would have been no such thing as moving northward for
weeks. No sooner had the first of the troops reached St. Clair than it
was clear that he had made no mistake in hurrying to the point of
rendezvous. For instance the carriages of the guns used in Harmar's
campaign were ruined and had not been replaced. There was no corps of
artificers and drafting was resorted to in order to secure smiths,
carpenters, harness-makers, wheelwrights, etc. With the arrival of Major
Ferguson, June 20, it became clear that nearly all the ammunition had
yet to be properly prepared; a laboratory had to be built; the shells
had to be filled with powder, likewise the artillery cartridges, the
shells for howitzers and musket cartridges. Not only did enough of this
work have to be done for the immediate use of the army, but a sufficient
supply had to be prepared for each of the posts to be erected between
Fort Washington and the Maumee, and to supply the main fort on the
Maumee and its defenders until spring. The carriages of the guns that
arrived from Philadelphia were rendered useless and new ones had to be
made. Almost all arms which the troops brought to Fort Washington were
out of repair. An armory had to be built, and, says General St. Clair,
"so fast did the work of that kind increase upon our hands, that at one
time it appeared as if it would never be got through with."[94]
An indeterminate amount of powder shipped from Philadelphia was
practically ruined before it reached Fort Washington; one boatload was
entirely submerged on the way from Fort Pitt. The officers attempted to
keep this from the men but the news leaked out. "The powder was very
bad," records Ensign Pope of the militia, "I fired at a tree several
times and hit but seldom; it would not force the ball." Such of the
powder as was good stood little chance of remaining so in the wretched
tents that were palmed off on the quartermaster-general. Colonel
Mentgetz, inspector, is our authority for the fact that, with the
exception of two companies, the tents would not keep out rain at either
front or back. General Harmar said the flanks of the tents were of
Russian sheeting and the ends were of crocus or osnaburg and would not,
in his opinion, keep out rain. According to Major Zeigler the tents were
infamous and "many hundred dozen of cartridges were destroyed, and the
troops, not being kept dry were sick in great numbers."[95] The
packsaddles were too big--"big enough for elephants," said an officer;
the axes sent from Philadelphia were useless--"would bend up like a
dumpling," according to Major Zeigler. In fact Fort Washington was
transformed into a manufacturing city, and there was almost no kind of
work that was not done--though often the necessary tools had first to be
made. Two traveling forges had been sent west of which only the anvils
were missing!
It is not to be wondered that St. Clair, as General Harmar afterward
said, was often the first up in the morning and went the rounds of the
shops and laboratories greatly disturbed over the vast amount of work to
be done, the difficulty in the doing of it, and the ominous delay. For,
with the heat of the summer's end, the grass was fast withering, which
meant that feed for the horses must be transported--an item of great
magnitude.
The failure of the quartermaster-general to come forward, even when
ordered to do so, compelled St. Clair to bear the brunt of all the
results of mismanagement and delay. As noted, the delay of the
quartermaster was never explained. His very appointment occasioned an
outcry among officers who had known him; the soldiers laughed many of
his measures to scorn. One of his employees who arrived at Fort
Washington in charge of horses had, seemingly, no knowledge whatever of
frontier life. The horses were not provided with hopples or bells;
released from their long confinement in the barges they broke for the
woods and many were never again secured. St. Clair facetiously hinted
that their master would have had to wear a bell, had he gone to seek
them, in order to be secure from becoming lost. It was found later that
the horses had been fed, not from troughs, as ordered, but from the
sandy river beach, where their grain was strewn and much wasted, the
horses also injuring each other in an attempt to eat it.
But patience is exhausted before one half of the miserable story is
told. More than enough has been suggested to show the condition of the
"grand army" that had gathered and was now about to march northward. It
is almost needless to add that an eternal jealousy between militia and
regulars existed; that the troops were wretchedly clad; that nothing was
known of the country through which the march was to be made, and less
than nothing of the foe that was to be met and conquered. The camp of
the army (except artificers) was moved by St, Clair on August 7 six
miles northward from Fort Washington to Ludlow's Station,[96] where the
pasturage was better and where the troops were not under the influence
of the dramshops at the little settlement about the fort.
On the arrival of General Butler and Quartermaster Hodgdon, September 7,
a slight delay occurred through Butler's being appointed president of a
court-martial which General Harmar had demanded and by which he was
honorably acquitted. It was September 17 before the advance was begun
from Ludlow's Station northward.
When the army, twenty-three hundred strong, at last filed out from
Ludlow's Station, the plan seems to have been to build two forts between
Fort Washington and the proposed fort on the Maumee, the first at the
ford, twenty-three miles north, on the Great Miami, and the second about
the same distance in advance and twice as far from the Maumee.[97]
The army marched from Ludlow's Station under the command of General
Butler and reached the Miami September 17. St. Clair returned to Fort
Washington to hurry up the contractor's agents and muster in the militia
he had called from Kentucky. From September 17 to October 4 the army was
busy building a fort at "Camp Miami," which St. Clair named Fort
Hamilton.[98]
On October 3 Butler made the last preparations for the march, Fort
Hamilton being nearly completed. All the artillery cartridges (except
sixty rounds) were distributed, and one half of the stock of musket
cartridges. A body of contractor's stores was thrown across the Miami,
under cover, to join the army on its march.
Concerning the route and the road, little was known. At the outset of
the campaign St. Clair in his instructions was ordered "to appoint some
skillful person to make actual surveys of your march, to be corrected,
if the case will admit of it, by proper astronomical observations, and
of all posts you may occupy."[99] The first settlers in the Miami
purchase[100] had spread inland a few miles at this time; one
settlement, Ludlow's Station, was made five miles up Mill Creek and
another twelve miles up the Great Miami. Butler's route from Ludlow's
Station to the site of Fort Hamilton was undoubtedly already an open
trail that far. The day before he advanced from Fort Hamilton, Butler
wrote St. Clair: "I have just received a verbal report from Captain
Ginnon, the surveyor, who is returned. He has been seven miles, and says
the face of the country is level but very brushy, and in his opinion it
is impracticable for loaded horses to get on without a road.[101] Of
this I will be a better judge as I advance and try the present order of
march, &c. Should I find it impracticable to execute, I feel confident
that any directions that may be necessary to facilitate the movements
will meet your approval. The road is cut one and a-half miles to a good
stream of water and ground to encamp on. Five miles advanced of that is
a large creek, which is three feet deep at the place he crossed, but a
little below is a ford, ..."
On the fourth of October, with enough provisions to last a few days,
without its commander, who was at Fort Washington hurrying on three
hundred militia, the army under Butler crossed the Miami River and
entered the shadows of the Indian land. We have no definite record of
the first days' marches. It would not seem that more than five miles a
day were accomplished. The route was in alignment with the Eaton Road
between Hamilton and Eaton, Preble County. Four Mile (from Hamilton)
Creek--then known as Joseph's Creek--was crossed near the old "Fearnot
Mill," and the first encampment was made near what was afterward known
as Scott's tanyard on Seven Mile Creek--then called St. Clair's
Creek.[102] The line of march was up Seven Mile Creek, west of Eaton,
where the creek was forded. "The trace cannot now be definitely
located," wrote a Preble County annalist, a generation ago. "It was not
cut to as great width as most of the military roads, and the line has
been almost wholly obscured by the growth of the forest and the action
of the weather upon the soil."[103]
Narrow as the road here was, it was cut wider than St. Clair intended.
After the first day or two General Butler, as he suggested in his letter
of October 3, decided that St. Clair's tri-track plan of march was
impracticable, and gave orders that but one road should be cut, and that
the army march in a body.
On the seventh St. Clair came hurrying on from Fort Washington to join
his army. The militia had gone on on the fifth, but in bad temper.
Several deserted even upon arriving at Fort Washington. A sergeant and
twenty-five men deserted on the night of the third. A score of men
deserted from Fort Hamilton the night before the army marched. The
anxiety of the officers, and the herculean efforts to get the army into
fighting trim, had not created a very loyal spirit in the men who
marched. A little more chicanery and misjudgment and the entire army
would have mutinied. St. Clair, before mounting his horse, wrote Knox
that his troops amounted in all to twenty-three hundred. "I trust I
shall find them sufficient," he added. The words remind one of
Braddock's last letter to the British Ministry before leaving Fort
Cumberland for the death-trap on the Monongahela in 1755. Major Ebenezer
Denny traveled with St. Clair as aide-de-camp and has left us the
official account of the army's march. Denny was not anxious to serve.
"You must go," General Harmar declared, "some will escape and you may be
among the number."[104]
St. Clair and Denny reached Fort Hamilton on the seventh, and on the day
following pushed on after the army over the narrow course it had made;
this was running "north sixteen degrees." Four encampments were passed
and the militia, and St. Clair reached his army that evening. There was
full need of him. The army was making but five miles a day; and at that
disastrously slow pace the stores were not keeping up. Tonight (the
eighth) St. Clair wrote a stinging letter to Israel Ludlow. Instead of
having ninety thousand rations, as was promised, St. Clair had to write
"by day after tomorrow I shall not have an ounce unless some arrives....
If you found the transportation impracticable, you ought to have
informed me, that I might have taken means to have got supplies forward,
_or not have committed my army to the wilderness_.... No disappointment
should have happened which was in the power of money to prevent; and
money could certainly have prevented any here.... Want of drivers will
be no excuse to a starving army and a disappointed people."[105]
Another exceedingly unfortunate affair demanded St. Clair's attention,
in his opinion, that night. He had given carefully studied and explicit
orders by which the army should march. As noted, General Butler changed
the order of march as he threatened to do in his letter to St. Clair
from Fort Hamilton. The reasons for the change did not appeal to the
commander-in-chief; Butler was called to account for his action,
apologized, and stated his reasons. St. Clair had ordered that the army
march in three lines, contending that it was far more easy to cut three
roads, ten feet in width each, than to cut one road of thirty or forty.
St. Clair's method was that pursued by the wisest and most successful
generals--Forbes and Bouquet--in hewing the first roads across the
Alleghenies. "The quantity of timber," St. Clair records, "increases in
a surprising proportion, as the width of the road is increased;"[106]
the veteran conqueror of Fort Duquesne, General Forbes, wrote his
right-hand man Colonel Bouquet under the same circumstances, urging the
cutting of several paths, saying, "I don't mean here to cut down any
large trees, only to clear away the Brushwood and saplins...."[107]
Temporarily, St. Clair allowed Butler's alteration to stand, but
insisted that it should soon be corrected as the army pushed on.
The result was that Butler conceived an intense dislike for St. Clair.
The latter has placed it on record that, upon Butler's arrival at Fort
Washington, "he was soured and disgusted, and I suppose it was
occasioned by the fault that had been found with the detention of the
Troops up the river;"[108] Knox's rebuke, previously quoted, would make
plain the reason of any disinterest on the part of General Butler. St.
Clair's reproof here and now seemed to increase it; "from that moment,"
St. Clair said, "his coolness and distance increased, and he seldom came
near me. I was concerned at it, but as I had given no cause, I could
apply no cure."[109] As the half mutinous, because half fed, army
blundered on, it might seem that lack of provisions was its most serious
menace; yet it becomes pretty clear that the estrangement of Butler and
St. Clair was even more serious.
On the ninth of October, the army pushed on nine miles, and the horses
being tied up at night an eight o'clock start was achieved on the
morning of the tenth, but only eight miles were traversed. At two
o'clock on the afternoon of the eleventh the army drew out into the low
prairie land which lies six miles south of Fort Jefferson, Darke County,
Ohio, and halted for the night to search for a safe path through it. On
the day after, a party led by General Butler found a "deep-beaten"
Indian trail which skirted the lower levels "avoiding the wet land," and
this was followed for five and a half miles. There is no record that St.
Clair followed an Indian trail until near the center of Darke County.
The course heretofore had been run by the compass.[110]
From this night's encampment St. Clair rode forward a short mile and
chose the site for the next fort on the line from the Ohio River to the
Maumee. The spot chosen was near the present site of Fort Jefferson,
Ohio--latitude 50° 4['] 22[''] N. The work of erecting the new post was
undertaken with alacrity by many of the soldiers and officers--the
latter working in the mud with the men. Major Ferguson found the lack
of axes a serious handicap, there being but one ax to three
workmen.[111] Yet these discouragements were not as disheartening as the
continual dearth of provisions. This undermined discipline,
perseverance, loyalty, and honor. Desertions became more alarmingly
frequent, but men who were not fed could not work and would not march.
As half-rations, and those exceedingly poor, became the necessary order
of the day, the army slowly melted from under the discouraged St. Clair.
Every night found the army smaller and yet more discouraged.[112] In
vain St. Clair beseeched Hodgdon to hurry on provisions.[113] But the
contractor's horses were lacking and those to be had were unfit for the
heavy loads bound to them.
And here at Fort Jefferson another and more pitiful estrangement
between St. Clair and Butler occurred. While the fort was being erected,
the latter officer came to St. Clair's tent and, in view of the slow
advance of the army and the lateness of the season, asked St. Clair for
a thousand picked men with permission to hurry on by a forced march to
the Maumee and begin the erection of the fort there to be built. "I
received the proposal," records St. Clair, "with an astonishment that, I
doubt not, was depicted in my countenance, and, in truth, had liked to
have laughed in his face, which he probably discovered. I composed my
features, however, as well as I could, told him, though it did not
appear to me, at first view, as a feasible project, nevertheless, it
deserved to be considered; that I would consider it attentively, and
give him an answer in the morning, which I accordingly did, with great
gravity: and from that moment, his distance and reserve increased still
more sensibly."[114] Butler seems to have considered himself treated
with contempt in this instance. It cannot be supposed that such a brave
veteran officer as Butler could have asked a thing which it was out of
St. Clair's power to grant; yet from the records of the condition of
affairs it is difficult to see how St. Clair could have risked dividing
his army which, for the whole week following, was on half-rations, and
men deserting by twos and threes and even scores every night. Passing
the question--which in no way can be decided--of the propriety of
Butler's plan, the circumstance seems to have deeply embittered a brave
and good man with whom Fate had been dealing most unkindly since the
very beginning of the present campaign. As will be seen, it were a
kindness to Butler to believe that continued untoward fortune rendered
him mentally incapable of acting henceforward in a sane manner toward
General St. Clair.
Explorations were carried on throughout the twenty-third and the line of
march on the Indian trail, previously discovered, was renewed on the
twenty-fourth; the army stumbled helplessly on to Greenville Creek,
where the city of Greenville, Ohio, now stands. This small effort to
advance was more than the hungry army could endure and one whole dark
week was spent here waiting for provisions. The condition of army
discipline was probably indescribable. The Kentuckians, who formed the
large portion of the militia, were not afraid of the savages but the
lack of food completely demoralized them. On the last day of October a
large party numbering at least sixty deserted, and, hastening down the
roadway which the army had cut, threatened to seize the provision train
that was supposed to be slowly nearing the sorry army. The threat cast a
gloom over the army and St. Clair was compelled to order out the First
Regiment, not so much in pursuit of the deserters,[115] as for the
protection of the needed provisions. The army, weakened by the absence
of this regiment, marched on--following an Indian trail that ran north
from Greenville on the general alignment of the present Fort Recovery
Road. St. Clair states the direction of the path as "north 25°
west."[116]
Added to St. Clair's many discouragements and Butler's disaffection,
was physical ailment. The touch of gout experienced on the journey over
the Alleghenies did not leave him. In his meager _Journal_ he records on
October 24: "So ill this day that I had much difficulty in keeping with
the army."[117] November dawned wet and cold but on the first his
"friendly fit of gout" was growing better.
On the third of November the army made its last day's march--little
dreaming that it was the last or that just ahead lay the bloodiest
battlefield in American pioneer history. The Thomas Irwin manuscript,
previously quoted,[118] gives us a glimpse of the day that is of
singularly pathetic interest. "In the afternoon of the 3^d Something
Broke which Caused a general halt Nearly one hour the Day was Cold us
waggoners in front had a very handy way of making fire we made up a
Large fire Several of the officers Collected around to warm themselves
Gen^l St Clair was Brought and took a Seat he not Being able to walk
they Discoursed on Different Subjects one was where they thought we
were the general oppinion was that we had passed over the Dividing ridge
Between the Miamie waters and was then on the waters of St. Marys Col
Serjant Came up at the time Stated the advance gard had Chased 4 or 5
Indians from a fire out of a thicket & got part of a venison at it he
Likewise stated there had Been more Indians Seen that Day than any Day
previous The General observed that he Did not think the Indians was
watching the motions of the army with a view to attack them other than
Steal horses or Catch a person if they had a Chance We all Coincided [?]
in that oppinion." Poor St. Clair! Was ever a general more terribly
mistaken? Just beyond lay Little Turtle, now closing swiftly in on the
doomed army.
"The army moved about two miles," continues Irwin, "from there Halted to
Encamp at a good place But Scarce of Water an Express Came up from the
advance gard give information that they had arrived at a fine running
Stream of water and a good place to Encamp the army moved to S^d Creek
got there a Little after Sunset. it was Between 8 & 9 oclock Before the
army got fixed to Rest." Then follows the ominous sentence: "this was on
the 3^d of November 1791."
Happy it is that the bloody promontory to which St. Clair's army hobbled
late on that cold November night can forever bear the cheerful name
which another and more successful campaigner--whose soldiers were not
always half-famished--gave it. And still no thoughtful student can look
upon the slow-moving Little Wabash from the present site of Fort
Recovery, Ohio, without remembering that here Camp Destruction was
pitched before ever Fort Recovery was erected. A fine high plateau or
promontory thrusts itself out into the lower flats through which the
river curves. At its extreme point the river approaches on the left and
in front. On the right are extensive fields where the sunlight plays so
tenderly that it is difficult to picture the rank swamp which lay there
a century ago. Beyond the river, level flats extend half a mile and more
to the foothills beyond.
Major Denny had accompanied the advance guard and quartermaster to this
spot, and though "it was farther than could have been wished," word was
sent back to the army advising that the march be continued to that
point. It being "later than usual when the army reached the ground this
evening," records Denny, "and the men much fatigued prevented the
General from having some works of defense immediately erected." The army
camped in a hollow square on the summit of the promontory; General
Butler commanded the right and front and his troops under Majors Butler,
Clarke, and Patterson lay in two lines along the edge of the high ground
near the Wabash. The left was composed of the battalions under Bedinger
and Gaither, in the first line, and Lieutenant-colonel Darke's troops in
the second. "The army was Encamped in a hollow Square," says Irwin,
"allong the Bank of s^d Creek perhaps 50 yards Between the Lines so
that the rear Could go to the Creek for water." The militia was sent
forward across the Wabash and encamped about one-fourth of a mile in the
bottoms. The tired men fell to work gathering wood, and soon two rows
of fires were brightly blazing in the narrow avenue between the troops
of Butler on the left and Darke on the right. The rain had turned to
snow. Many of the exhausted men sank instantly to sleep.
As if half conscious of the doom hanging over the army, certain of the
officers were given to pondering on the number of Indians seen that day.
"Fresh signs," writes Denny, "... appeared today in several places;
parties of riflemen detached after them, but without success." The Irwin
MS. reads: "The advance gard Seen they Supposed about 30 Indians in the
Bottom on the other Side of s^d Creek [Wabash] when they arrived at it
in the Evening and had Seen Considerable Sign that Day." The premonition
of disaster intensified as the camp became quiet and the blazing fires
were brightly reflected in the light snow. Among certain officers the
premonition took shape, and it was determined to send out a party to
reconnoiter. Captain Butler at first resolved to lead the party, but
soon thought it improper to leave the camp. Accordingly, Colonel Gibson
went to Captain Slough of the first battalion of levies carrying a
raccoon in his hand; finding Slough, he invited him to his tent to see
"how to dress a racoon Indian fashion."[119] Captain Butler joined them,
and the three went to General Butler's tent where wine was served.
Slough agreed to go out with a party of volunteers, nominally to catch
"some of the rascals who might attempt to steal horses." It is plain,
whatever the officers may have given as a reason for the scouting
expedition, that Slough was sent to feel of the woods--to guard against
surprise. His line of men paraded in the firelight before Butler's tent
before stealing out beyond the lines. Passing Colonel Oldham's tent,
Slough stopped and informed that officer of the detachment and its
mission. Colonel Oldham "was lying down with his clothes on" and
"requested me not to go, as he was sure my party would be cut off, for,
says he, I expect the army will be attacked in the morning; I replied,
that as I had received my orders I must go."
Slough led his party through the militia camp and onward about a mile on
the Indian trail. Here they were divided, each party hiding on opposite
sides of the path. Soon a party of Indians passed each hiding company;
one company opened fire. It was not long before the men realized that
something extraordinary was on hand. A larger body of Indians soon came
near Slough's band on the left of the trace, paused, and coughed as if
to attract another volley, and then passed on. The scouting party came
together on the trail and agreed that an Indian army was advancing; a
hurried march to camp followed. On the way "every fifteen or twenty
yards we heard something moving in the woods on both sides of the path,
but could not see what it was," wrote Slough. It was a thrilling moment
when these men heard Little Turtle's quiet lines worming their way
through the underbrush--an army making so strange a noise in the night
that even frontiersmen could not recognize it. Yet an unrecognized sound
brought utmost alarm; "we pushed on," said Slough, "and gained the
militia camp as soon as possible."
Slough's first thought was to send word immediately to St. Clair. He
hurried to Colonel Oldham's tent. "I was just going to dress myself,"
says Oldham, "and go and inform the commander in chief about it; I will
thank you [Slough] to inform the general that I think the army will be
attacked in the morning."
Slough hastened to General Butler's tent, but, seeing no one but the
sentry, passed on to Colonel Gibson's tent. Here he aroused Gibson and
Doctor M'Croskey, and repeated his alarming story. He asked Gibson to go
with him to General Butler. Colonel Gibson was not dressed, and urged
Slough to go alone and arouse Butler. He obeyed, and as he returned to
General Butler's tent the latter walked out of it and went to the fire.
Calling Butler aside, that the sentry should not overhear the news, "I
told him what colonel Oldham had said, and that, if he thought proper, I
would go and make the report to general St. Clair. He stood some time,
and after a pause, thanked me for my attention and vigilance, and said,
as I must be fatigued I had better go and lie down. I went from him and
lay down...." It was five days before General St. Clair heard of
Slough's scouting episode of the night of November 3.[120]
All that Slough and Oldham suspected was true and more. All night long
the Indians crept around the army, ready for an attack at sunrise. The
army began stirring at an early hour; some there were, it is sure, who
anxiously awaited the dawn. The troops paraded under arms, as usual,
before sunrise. Ranks had just been broken when a scattering fire was
heard in the militia camp, and soon the Indian yell. The militia stood a
moment and then fell back to the river, crossed it, and were upon Major
Butler's and Clark's battalions, throwing the latter into a confusion
that was never remedied despite the energy of those officers. The
Indians were upon the heels of the militia, but were repulsed by the
fire of the first line. With well-timed accuracy the Indians charged the
opposite side of the square, where, too, they were at first repulsed.
The American army was now practically surrounded--the savages lying
hidden in the brush, forests, and high grass on the low ground which
surrounded the promontory on three sides and in front. The artillery was
placed at the center of the two sides of the square and here the battle
raged most fiercely. For some time, it would seem, the honors of the
conflict were evenly divided. But from the position of the two armies it
can readily be seen that the American fire was not so effective as that
of the savages whose firmness and audacity was unparalleled. From their
concealed position it required little marksmanship to pick men off
rapidly on the high ground just beyond and hidden only by a low-lying
cloud of smoke from their own guns. The officers, hurrying back and
forth, offered conspicuous targets. From St. Clair (who had to be
assisted to mount his horse) down, the officers were brave and
efficient. As St. Clair passed down one line, Butler passed up the
other. They never met, though St. Clair frequently asked for Butler as
the battle wore away.
At last it was agreed that things were going badly and that a bayonet
charge, only, would dislodge the enemy, who were rapidly cutting down
the efficient strength of the army--making particular havoc among the
officers. Colonel Darke was thereupon ordered to turn the left flank of
the enemy, which he accomplished with firmness and success--driving the
savages several hundred yards. Yet soon they swarmed back, not being
held where they were, and, in turn drove the troops backward. About the
cannon, which the Indians were taught to dread, the battle ebbed and
flowed bloodily. As fast as the gunners were shot down others took their
places. Now and again the red line swept up to the guns and the piles of
slain were scalped, amid the smoke, in the very face of the army. On the
left flank, too, the savages were beginning to overpower and gain the
summit of the promontory and enter the lines. They were charged fiercely
but after each charge there was a sudden dearth of officers, and the
lines returned very thin. The army was now attacked from every side,
though not until late in the long three hours of conflict did the
Indians take the initiative. Their settled plan was to get the troops in
range, lie low, make no noise save with their guns, retire when
assaulted, but follow back eagerly. Such tactics were all that were
necessary. As in Braddock's battle beside the Monongahela, so here, the
white army on higher ground in plain sight could not do such fatal
execution, by any means, as the Indian army strewn among the standing
and fallen trees, the brush and rank grasses of the lower ground, and on
the sloping sides of the promontory.
By nine o'clock the army had been exposed for three hours to the
merciless Indian fire. Hundreds had fallen; the ground was literally
covered with dead and dying. The only question was, Could the remainder
escape? The army was cut off from the road. Benjamin Van Cleve, a young
man, has left record of this memorable break for the road when order to
retreat was at last given: "I found," he says, "the troops pressing like
a drove of bullocks to the right. I saw an officer ... with six or eight
men start on a run a little to the left of where I was. I immediately
ran and fell in with them. In a short distance we were so suddenly among
the Indians, who were not apprised of our object, that they opened to
us and ran to the right and left without firing. I think about two
hundred of our men passed through them before they fired."[121] An
opening being made, the army poured heedlessly along. No order or
semblance of order existed, save in a remnant of Clark's command which
essayed to cover the rear. In the very rear, on a horse which could not
be pricked out of a walk, came St. Clair, unmindful of the bloody tumult
behind him where the old men and wounded were being killed.
This awful battle was a fitting close for such a campaign. In almost
every sense it was the greatest defeat suffered by white men on this
continent at the hands of aborigines. St. Clair's army numbered on the
eve of November 3 one thousand four hundred and eighty-six men and
eighty-six officers. Of these, eight hundred and ninety men and sixteen
officers were killed or wounded. The army poured back to Fort Jefferson
and then on to Fort Washington. The path hewn northward became, like
Braddock's Road, a route for the hordes of Indians toward the frontiers.
Their victory, so bloody, so overwhelming, gave confidence. Perhaps
never before nor afterward did any battlefield present a scene equal to
that Wabash slaughter field. The dying were tortured and the dead
frightfully mutilated. On the theory that the army sought to conquer the
Indian land, sand was crushed into the eyes of the dead in cruel
mockery. Several scores of women followed the army--though contemporary
records are singularly silent on this point.[122] Many of them, it is
sure, fell into the hands of the savages and the first white visitors to
the battleground found great stakes driven through many corpses.[123]
The two underlying causes for this terrible reverse of American arms
were the long delay in getting the army on its feet, properly supplied;
and the undisciplined condition of the troops. The immediate cause of
the defeat was, without question, the failure of all the officers who
knew of Captain Slough's discoveries on the night of November 3 to
communicate them to General St. Clair. Colonel Oldham ordered Slough to
St. Clair; he went only to General Butler who dismissed him without
acceding to his spoken request to be allowed to take the news to the
commander-in-chief. The words of the standard authority on St. Clair's
defeat are perhaps severe, but no new information has come in half a
century to give ground for altering them; Albach says: "The
circumstances under which the omission occurred, would favor an
inference that he [Butler] sacrificed the safety of the army to the
gratification of his animosity against St. Clair. The evidence given
before the committee of Congress is conclusive that he failed, at least
to perform his whole duty in the premises."[124] Butler's side of the
story could never be told; fatally wounded while heroically exhorting
his men, the poor man was carried to his marquee under an oak, by his
brother, Captain Edward Butler. Propped up on his mattress, a loaded
revolver placed in each hand, the old veteran was left to his fate. As
his friends left the tent by the rear, the Indians surged in at the
front.[125]
St. Clair's road northward was the main thoroughfare to Fort Hamilton
and Fort Jefferson from the Ohio and, though superseded by another route
soon built parallel to it, was ever of importance in the burst of
population from Pennsylvania and Kentucky into the Old Northwest. But
the soldiers of St. Clair's successor were too superstitious to follow
that ill-starred track. And, as Forbes came successfully to Fort
Duquesne over a new route built parallel to Braddock's, so the second
conqueror of the Old Northwest cut a new road parallel to St. Clair's.