At the last of September a Shawnee scout ran breathless into the Chief Cornstalk town. He brought word that far across the Ohio River, in north-western (now West) Virginia, he and his comrade had met a great column of Long Knives, advancing over the mountains, as if to invade the Indian country. His comrade had been killed. He himself had come back, with the word.
Taking eleven hundred warriors—the pick of the Shawnees, the fighting Delawares, the Wyandots, the Mingo Cayugas and the Mingo Senecas—Chief Cornstalk marched rapidly down to give battle.
There really were two American columns, on their way to destroy the Shawnee and Mingo towns in interior Ohio.
The Division of Northern and Western Virginia, twelve hundred men, had mustered at Fort Pitt (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania), in the territory disputed by Virginia and Pennsylvania. It was under command of Lord Dunmore himself, governor of Virginia for the king of England.
The Division of Southern and Eastern Virginia, fifteen hundred men, had mustered at Lewisburg, West Virginia. It was under command of General Andrew Lewis, a valiant soldier.
The Lord Dunmore division was to march south, the General Lewis division was to march west; the two were to join forces at Point Pleasant, where on the border of West Virginia the Big Kanawha River empties into the noble Ohio.
Cornstalk moved fast. He had as aides Logan of the Cayugas, Chi-ya-wee of the Wyandots, Scop-pa-thus of the Senecas, young Red Hawk of the fighting Delawares, his own son El-li-nip-si-co—noted chiefs, all. Among the Shawnee sub-chiefs was Puck-ee-shin-wah, father of a boy named Tecumseh who grew to the greatness of Pontiac.
The General Lewis division had arrived first at the mouth of the Big Kanawha. On the evening of October 9, from the opposite side of the Ohio, Cornstalk's and Logan's men sighted them there, in camp.
Fresh news had come to Cornstalk. He had learned of the other division, under Lord Dunmore. He had learned that the column across from him was equal to his own force, and that another detachment of it was hurrying on its trail.
In a council of the chiefs and principal warriors he proposed that he go over, in person, and treat for peace. But all his men voted him down.
"Very well," he replied. "If you are resolved to fight, then fight you shall. We must not delay. It is likely that we shall have hard work tomorrow, but if any warrior attempts to run away, I will kill him with my own hand."
This night the warriors ferried the Ohio, above the camp, by means of seventy-eight rafts. They worked hard, and formed for battle at daybreak.
"We will make a line behind the Long Knives," ordered Cornstalk, "and drive them forward like bullocks into the two rivers."
Most of the Virginians were asleep in their tents, when, before sunrise, two of their hunters, seeking deer for breakfast, found the Indian army, already in battle array, and covering, as one of the hunters excitedly reported, "four acres of ground."
But these Virginians were no fools. Of the eleven hundred here, wellnigh every man had been a buckskin borderer, deadly with rifle, tomahawk and knife, and up to all Indian tricks. They were fairly drilled, too, as militia. A number of the officers had fought under Major George Washington, when on the fatal Braddock's Field, in 1755, the American Rangers had tried to save the day from the French, and from Pontiac's whooping warriors.
They all had marched for five weeks across one hundred and sixty miles of trackless mountain country, driving their pack-horses and their herds of beef cattle; now they rallied briskly to save their lives. It was nip and tuck.
From before sunrise until sunset raged the great battle of Point Pleasant, or the Big Kanawha. It was the first pitched battle between simon-pure Americans—but the Revolution was near and after this the Americans were to do their own fighting.
The lines were over a mile long, rarely more than twenty yards apart, frequently less than six yards apart, and sometimes mingling. The armies were equal.
Both sides fought Indian fashion, from behind trees and brush. Rifle met rifle, tomahawk met tomahawk, knife met knife. The air was filled with whoops and cheers. Able chiefs faced able chiefs—on the white American side there were leaders who soon became more famous in the Revolution and in the history of the new nation.
It was a long-famous battle. A ballad written upon it was frequently sung, on the frontier:
Let us mind the tenth day of October,Seventy-four, which caused woe;The Indian savages they did coverThe pleasant banks of the O-hi-o.
The battle beginning in the morning,Throughout the day it lashed sore,Till the evening shades they were returningUpon the banks of the O-hi-o.
Seven score lay dead and wounded.Of champions that did face their foe,By which the heathens were confounded,Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.
Col. Lewis and noble captainsDid down to death like Uriah go.Alas, their heads wound up in napkins,Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.
O bless the mighty King of HeavenFor all his wondrous works below,Who hath to us the victory given,Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.
Logan was seen here, there, everywhere. So was Cornstalk. His mighty voice was heard above the din, like the voice of old Annawan when King Philip had been surprised. "Be strong! Be strong!" he appealed to his warriors. With his tomahawk he struck down a skulker. That had been his promise, in the council.
All this October day the battle continued. In single encounters, man to man, valorous deeds were done.
Cornstalk proved himself a worthy general. When his line bent back, before the discipline of the Long Knives, it was only to form an ambush, and then the whites were bent back. He had early placed his warriors across the base of the point, so that they held the whites in the angle of the two rivers. They dragged logs and brush to position, as breast-works. "We will drive the Long Knives into the rivers like so many bullocks."
That was not to be. Two of General Lewis's colonels had fallen; the Indian fire was very severe and accurate; but after vainly trying to feel out the end of the red line, the general at last succeeded, toward evening, in sending a company around.
Chief Cornstalk thought that this company, appearing in his rear, was the absent part of the division. Lest he be caught between two fires, he swung about and skillfully withdrew.
The battle slackened, at dusk. This night he safely removed his army across the Ohio again, that they might avoid the Lord Dunmore division and protect their towns in Ohio.
Nearly all the Indian bodies found, and nearly all the Virginians killed and wounded, were shot in the head or the breast. That was the marksmanship and the kind of fighting!
The Long Knives lost seventy-five men killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. They lost two great chiefs: Colonel Charles Lewis, the brother of the general, and Colonel John Field—both Braddock men; six captains and as many lieutenants were killed, also.
The Indians said that had they known how to clean their rifles, they would have done better. Cornstalk and Logan lost the sub-chief Puck-ee-shin-wah, but only forty or fifty others in killed and wounded. But when they hastened for their towns they found them in danger from the Lord Dunmore column.
Governor Dunmore sent Chief White-eyes, of the Delawares, who had not joined in the war, to ask Chief Cornstalk for a talk. Chief White-eyes returned with no answer, for the Cornstalk chiefs were in bitter council.
Cornstalk addressed them:
"You would not make peace before Point Pleasant; what is your voice now, when the Long Knives are pressing on in two columns?"
There was no reply.
"We cannot save our villages," he continued. "If your voice is for war, let us first kill our women and children. Then let us warriors go out and fight like men until we, too, are killed."
Still no reply. Cornstalk dashed his hatchet into the council post.
"You act like children," he thundered. "I will go and make peace, myself."
And leaving his hatchet sticking in the post, go he did.
Logan had not been here. He was away, down in Virginia, scouting with his Mingos, and delivering his note to Captain Cresap. On October 21 he arrived with scalps.
He refused to meet the governor.
"Tell the governor that I am a warrior, not a councillor," he bade.
His sore heart was not yet healed. His Mingos were for war. The Revolution was brewing, and Governor Dunmore was anxious to be about his own affairs. So he sought out Logan with two messengers, Scout Simon Girty, and Trader John Gibson, who spoke the Mingo tongue. They returned with Logan's stubborn answer, written out by John Gibson:
I appeal to any white to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not.
During the course of the last long, bloody war [the French and Indian and the Pontiac war] Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, "Logan is the friend of the white men."
I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan; not even sparing my women and children.
There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!
Trader Gibson reported that while making this speech, Logan wept. The sad-hearted chief probably did not put his words in exactly this order, but they made a great sensation. Soon they were being repeated throughout all the Ohio River country, and east of the Alleghanies, in towns, cabins and camps.
"Who is there to mourn for Logan?" would ask some voice, in the circle. And another voice would reply, with deep feeling: "Not one!"
President Thomas Jefferson included the speech in a book that he published—"Notes on Virginia," and said that he challenged the orations of the world to produce anything better.
It was copied into other books. School-children memorized it, for "speaking day"; grown people used it, in contests; and for one hundred years it was the favorite platform piece. Thus Logan lived in the white man's words.
Still Logan did not come in to the peace talk held with Governor Dunmore, southeast of present Circleville in south central Ohio. The Shawnees and Delawares said:
"Logan is like a mad dog. His bristles are up; they are not yet fallen, but the good talk may smooth them down."
He stayed close in his cabin, up the Scioto River, and Cornstalk spoke for the Shawnees, Delawares and Wyandots. It was another great address.
"I have heard the first orators of Virginia—Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee," declared Colonel Benjamin Wilson, of Dunmore's men, "but never have I heard one whose powers surpassed those of Cornstalk on that occasion."
Cornstalk told of the wrongs suffered by the Indians, in their hunting grounds; how they were losing the lands of their fathers, and were being cheated by the white men. He asked that nobody be permitted to trade, on private account, with the Indians, but that the Government should send in goods, to be exchanged for skins and furs, and that no "fire water" should enter into the business, for "from fire water there comes evil."
Then he buried the hatchet. He never dug it up. When the Revolution broke, in 1776, and the British agents urged the Indians to strike the post again and help their great father, the king, Cornstalk held firm for friendship with the Americans.
In the spring of 1777, he and young Red Hawk the Delaware, and another Indian came down to the American fort that had been built on the battle field of Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Big Kanawha of the West Virginia border.
"My Shawnees are restless," he warned. "The current sets so strongly against the Americans, that I fear my people will disobey me and float with the stream."
Captain Matthew Arbuckle was the commander of the fort. He kept the Cornstalk party as hostages for the good behavior of the Shawnees. Cornstalk did not object, but spent much time in talking with the officers, and in kindly drawing maps of the Ohio country, for them.
One day in a council he said:
"When I was young and went to war, I often thought, each might be my last adventure, and I should return no more. I still lived. Now I am in the midst of you, and if you choose, you may kill me. I can die but once. It is alike to me, whether now or hereafter."
Those brave words were not forgotten. This same day somebody shouted loudly from the opposite side of the Ohio. It was the young Chief Ellinipsico. He had not known what had happened to his father, and had traveled many miles, seeking him.
Cornstalk called him over. There was much rejoicing in the reunion; they loved each other dearly.
On the very next day two soldiers, named Hamilton and Gilmore, went over the Kanawha River, to hunt. The majority of the Ohio Indians were now helping the British. Some of the hostile warriors, lurking in West Virginia, fired on the two men and killed Gilmore.
Instantly the cry arose among the soldiers at the fort, that Ellinipsico had planned the ambush. Ellinipsico denied it. He said that he had come alone, on purpose to find his old father.
But that made no difference. Captain John Hall and squad were returning in a canoe bearing the body of Gilmore.
"Let us go and kill those Indians in the fort!"
Captain Arbuckle and Private Stuart tried in vain to force them back. In their cabin, of the fort, the Chief Cornstalk party had been told by a white woman that they were in danger. They now heard the Captain Hall men approaching. Young Ellinipsico grew frightened, but his father steadied him.
"My son," said Cornstalk, "the Great Spirit has seen fit that we should die together, and has sent you here to that end. It is his will, and let us submit—it is all for the best."
He faced the door, and stood calmly waiting. Without a word or a struggle he fell dead, pierced through the front by seven bullets. Ellinipsico was now calm, also. He did not even stand, and thus he died, not moving. He was a worthy son of Cornstalk. Young Red Hawk was a Delaware and, hoping to be spared, he crept into the fire-place chimney. But he was dragged out, to death. The fourth Indian fought with his hands, and was cut to pieces.
The murderers of the generous, noble-hearted Cornstalk were never punished, but they certainly were not admired. The white men who had met him in war and in peace mourned him as much as the red men did. And from that day the Shawnee nation "became the most deadly foe to the inhabitants of the frontiers." Who may blame them?
Meanwhile Logan was living in misery, but he was soon to follow Chief Cornstalk. His end was far less happy. He had not been much heard from lately. After he had refused to meet the Long Knives in a peace talk, the troops had destroyed some of his villages. He and a band of his Mingos retreated northward toward the Great Lakes.
The Mingos aided the British, but Logan pursued fire-water more frequently than he did war. He never got over his grief. It had bitten him too deeply, and had poisoned his thoughts. Still, the good in him cropped out.
When in 1778 the famous American scout Simon Kenton had been captured by the Shawnees, he was taken, by the torture trail, to the village in northern Ohio where Logan was living.
He had little hopes, but Logan walked over to him.
"Well, young man," said Logan in good English, "these other young men seem very mad at you."
"Yes, sir; they certainly are," frankly answered Simon Kenton. Already one arm had been almost cut from his shoulder, by an axe.
Logan gravely smiled. "Well, don't be disheartened. I am a great chief. You are to go to Sandusky; they speak of burning you there, but I will send two runners tomorrow to speak good for you."
That was the real spirit of Logan. The two runners were sent, and Simon felt much encouraged. During the next day he was well treated in the village. He and Logan talked together freely.
In the evening the two runners returned. They went straight to Logan's lodge, but no word came to Kenton. Now he feared again. He feared more, when in the morning Logan himself approached him, said only, "You are to be taken at once to Sandusky," gave him a piece of bread and whirling on his heel strode gloomily away.
Evidently the power of Logan had weakened, the Shawnees had not listened, and Sandusky, north on the Sandusky River, was waiting with the stake.
So Simon Kenton journeyed unwillingly onward, to be saved, at the last moment, by the British. But Logan had done his best. After this he drank harder, until his mind was injured. He had flashes of good, and he had longer flashes of bad. He seemed bent upon doing as much harm to himself as he could.
Then, in 1780, one day at Detroit he thought that while drunk he had killed his Shawnee wife. He imagined that he was being arrested; and in the fight that he made he was shot dead by his own nephew, on the road between Detroit and Sandusky.
Many mourned Cornstalk. "Who was there to mourn Logan"—the "friend of the white man?"
"Not one!"
But the name "Logan" was worn, like a badge of honor, by others in the Mingo people.
During the Revolution, by which the United States became an independent nation, the great majority of the Indian tribes within reach took active part on the side of the British.
The Iroquois fought out of friendship, they said; the tribes farther west fought in the hope of keeping the settlers out of the Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana country.
For some years after the war, which closed in 1782, there was a dispute between the United States and England over the carrying out of certain terms in the treaty of peace. Until the matter was settled, the British kept Detroit and other American frontier posts.
This encouraged the Indians. They had been much astonished and alarmed to find that the Americans had "laid the king on his back." Now that the British had lost the fight, what would happen tothem?
But the British agents and traders still in the Indian country urged them on to make good their boast that "no white cabin should smoke beyond the Ohio." It was reported that the king was only resting, and that the Americans yet had no right to any land west of the Ohio River.
So the Miamis, the Potawatomis, the Ottawas, the Shawnees, the war Delawares, the Chippewas, the Kickapoos, the Wyandots, the Senecas, refused to meet the Americans in council or to bury the hatchet. They formed a league of defense.
The Miamis were the central nation. "People who live on the peninsula" was their Chippewa name—for they were Algonquins from the Chippewa and Ottawa country north of the Great Lakes. "Twanh-twanh," the cry of the crane, was their own name. Miamis, from the Chippewa word Omaumeg, were they called in English.
They had been described by early travelers as a pleasant-faced, lively, very polite people, slow of speech, swift of foot, fond of racing, and obedient to their chiefs.
Their present home was in the Wabash River valley of northern Indiana, up as far as the modern city of Fort Wayne. They claimed this country and also all of western Ohio, where they formerly had lived. The Shawnees and the Wyandots of Ohio had moved in behind them, they said, and were merely tenants upon their lands.
Little Turtle, or Mich-i-kin-i-kwa, had become their chief. He had been born on the Eel River near Fort Wayne in 1752. Therefore now at the close of the Revolution he was thirty years old. He had not been born a chief, nor even a Miami. To be sure, his father was chief and a Miami, but his mother was a Mohegan of the Delawares. By Indian law he had ranked as only a warrior and a Mohegan. An Indian was known by his mother.
As a boy of eleven or twelve he had been stirred by the Pontiac war, in which the Miamis had joined. As a warrior he had campaigned with the British under General Burgoyne who surrendered at Saratoga.
So by his deeds and his experience in field, camp and council he was a veteran and had won the chieftainship of the twelve hundred Miamis.
Although his name was Little Turtle, he had nothing little in his make-up. On the contrary, he was of good size, strong and dignified, with a long face and full high forehead—not the face or forehead of a Miami. He seems to have been rather sarcastic, and unpopular.
Those were bloody days while the new United States was trying to extend across the Ohio River. A treaty was made with the Cherokees and Chickasaws of the South, and with the Six Nations of the North; one was supposed to have been made with these Ohio country tribes, also.
These Indians said that they would do nothing for peace until they had talked with their British "father" at Detroit. They were not sure that the king had really surrendered their lands beyond the Ohio.
They asserted that their treaty, by which they had sold their lands, had not been signed by the proper chiefs.
In the seven years since the end of 1782, some two thousand American settlers and traders had been killed or captured, along the Ohio River; twenty thousand horses had been stolen. The rifle was more necessary than the ax and plough.
The Miami villages on the northern border between Ohio and Indiana formed the base for the many war parties.
So in 1790, President George Washington and Congress ordered General Arthur Saint Clair, the governor of this Northwest Territory, to clear the land for the smoke of the white cabins.
Little progress had been made by the white settlements, across the Ohio River. There were only two of any note: Marietta, named for the French queen Marie Antoinette; and the newer Cincinnati, christened in 1790 by Governor Saint Clair himself. There were several smaller ones, struggling to live.
The governor called for regulars and militia. General Josiah Harmar, the commander-in-chief of the United States army, was detailed in charge. On October 3 he started from Fort Washington, at Cincinnati, with three hundred and twenty regulars of the First Infantry, and eleven hundred and thirty-three militia of Kentucky and Pennsylvania, to destroy the towns of Little Turtle the Miami.
Little Turtle of course soon knew all about this. His spies infested the region. He rallied his bands. The Indians whom he commanded—Ottawas, Potawatomis, Chippewas, Shawnees, Senecas, Delawares, Miamis, and so forth—were the same nations that had obeyed the Bloody Belt of Pontiac. He had able aides, too; the skilled Buc-kon-ga-he-las of the Delawares, Blue-jacket of the Shawnees, and others—great fighters, every one.
White men, also, were helping him. There were three, especially: Simon Girty, Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, who was part Indian. They were three traitors who had deserted from the American garrison at Fort Pitt, in 1778, and had spread false reports among White-eyes' Delawares, and elsewhere.
Serving the enemies of their country, they had continued to live among the Shawnees and Wyandots, and in their savagery were worse than the Indians. Their names are red on the pages of history.
In Chief Little Turtle's main village, sometimes called "Girty's Town," located a few miles southeast of present Fort Wayne, Indiana, there was another white man—a young man. His name had been William Wells, but now was Black Snake. The Indians had captured him when a little boy in Kentucky; he had grown up with the Miamis, had married Chief Little Turtle's sister, and was rated as a Miami warrior. But his heart was not bad.
General Josiah Harmar, commander-in-chief of the United States army, was a year younger than Chief Little Turtle, commander-in-chief of the Indian army. They both were veterans of the Revolution, had good fighters under them, and might be thought well matched. But the general got threshed.
Little Turtle waited for him to come on, and plagued his march with parties of scouts who in the swamps and thickets cut off his foraging squads.
The general had tough going, for two weeks. When on October 17 he arrived at Girty's Town, he found it abandoned and burning, to deprive him of more supplies.
Then General Harmar made his first mistake. He detached thirty of the First Infantry regulars, under Captain John Armstrong, and one hundred and fifty of the militia, under Colonel John Hardin of Kentucky, to follow the retreating Indians and perhaps destroy the next village.
He played into the hands of Little Turtle, who had over a thousand warriors. Colonel Hardin and Captain Armstrong had marched scarcely six miles, when in an open place they were completely ambushed. A swarm of Indians suddenly poured in a heavy fire from the brush on all sides; rose, and charged with tomahawk and knife.
This was too much for the militia, who were poorly drilled. Away they pelted, trying to reach the main army. But the well-drilled regulars stood stanch, and met the tomahawk with the bayonet, in the hope of forcing a passage.
The Little Turtle warriors cared nothing about the militia, and let them go. The few regulars did not last long. Every soldier except two officers and two privates was killed.
Of these two officers, in the break-up Ensign Asa Hartshorne of Connecticut fortunately stumbled over a log and lay concealed until he might escape.
Captain Armstrong crouched to his neck in a swampy pond, and stayed there all night, while only two hundred yards from him the enemy held a war-dance over the bodies of the slain. They had whipped the trained soldiery, who had fought bravely.
The next day, with all his army General Harmar advanced upon the Miami towns. Little Turtle had ordered them burned. The general destroyed the corn-fields and the fruit-trees; and seeing no Indians to fight, turned back for Fort Washington.
He had gone about ten miles, when scouts brought word that the Indians were gathering in their towns again. The general made a second mistake. Colonel Hardin, stung by the way in which his militia had acted, begged for another chance. Instead of going, himself, General Harmar again detached some of the militia—six hundred this time—and sixty of the regulars under Major John P. Wyllys of Washington's old Continentals. He told Colonel Hardin to find the Indians.
The colonel found them, on the morning of October 22. His only fear had been that they would run off and not give him his revenge. But he had not counted the strategy of Little Turtle.
When the first few Indians were sighted, Colonel Hardin made careful and scientific preparation. He attacked. The Indians did run off, with the happy, shouting militia in full hue and cry after. The regulars followed slowly. When a gap of two miles had opened, as if from the very earth out sprang Little Turtle's whole remaining force, a thousand, and the hapless regulars were in the same plight as before.
The militia fought their way back, too late. The battle on the field had become hand-to-hand. Both sides were brave; but when a soldier thrust with his bayonet, two tomahawks were there, to crash into his skull.
Major Wyllys was killed; so was Lieutenant Ebenezer Frothingham; fifty of the rank and file fell. Only eight men escaped. Of the militia, a major, two captains, and over ninety others died.
After he had been joined by the survivors, General Harmar resumed his march to Fort Washington. He claimed a victory, because he had destroyed the Indians' winter supplies; but he had lost one hundred and eighty-three soldiers killed, and forty wounded, and the Indians not more than fifty warriors.
The victory and the field of battle were left to Little Turtle. General Harmar had proved to be a commander whose orders were "Go" instead of "Come," and Colonel Hardin had not known how to fight Indians.
However, Little Turtle realized that the Americans had other officers, and that General Washington was not a man to back down.. There would be another army.
So he spent much of the winter in visiting various tribes and enlisting them. He went as far north as Ontario of Canada, and there appealed to the Missisauga nation of Algonquins. He traveled west to the Illinois River. He was a second Pontiac.
General and Governor Saint Clair himself was the officer appointed by President Washington to lead the next expedition against the Little Turtle army. He was a gallant old Continental, aged fifty-seven and gray-haired. As a young officer in a Scotch regiment he had come over to America with a British army, in 1758, to fight the French and Indians. After that war he had become a true American citizen of Pennsylvania, and as colonel and major-general had served with the Buff-and-Blue in the war for American independence.
He had been unlucky in his campaigns, but nobody ever doubted his courage. General Washington thought highly of him, and now took pains to say, in person, to him, before the start was made:
"Beware of a surprise. You know how the Indians fight. So I repeat—beware of a surprise."
General Saint Clair had been promised three thousand men, but when early in September of this year 1791 he left Fort Washington, he had only two thousand men. Still, it was a strong army, comprising the greater portion of the whole army of the United States. There were the First and Second Infantry, half a battalion (two companies) of the regular artillery, a company of mounted riflemen volunteers, and six hundred Kentucky militia.
Major-General Richard Butler of Pennsylvania, and of the Continental army in the Revolution, was field officer in command; and a number of the other officers had been trained under Washington. But the Second Regiment was new, the last spring, and largely of recruits; and the Kentucky militia had not wanted to come.
Part of them deserted, on the way out. The First Regiment was sent to catch them. This left fourteen hundred men, to march on into the Indian country. General Saint Clair was so crippled with the rheumatism and the gout that he could scarcely mount a horse.
Twenty miles north of Fort Washington he halted long enough to erect Fort Hamilton—Hamilton, Ohio; twenty miles farther he erected Fort Saint Clair; and twenty miles farther, Fort Jefferson, near the present city of Greenville, Ohio.
He was following up along the Indiana-Ohio line, to strike the Miami villages. By the night of November 3 he had arrived within about fifty miles of Little Turtle's principal town. The place on the modern map is Fort Recovery, northern Ohio, close to Indiana.
Little Turtle was ready. He had twelve hundred men. Buckongahelas the Delaware, and Blue-jacket the Shawnee were helping him. So was a Missisauga chief who had been drilled under British officers. So was Simon Girty the white-Indian savage. So were a number of Canadians and French half-breeds, from Canada and from the Illinois country. And so, it is stated, were several British officers from Detroit, who wished to see their old foes, the Continentals, licked. Their red coats were noticed in the battle, next day.
General Saint Clair was a good soldier, and planned well. He had planted a string of supply depots behind him. He had made a practice of sounding the reveille two hours before day-break, every morning in camp, and keeping the men at parade until almost sunrise, to guard against a surprise. He tried to be thorough.
This afternoon of November 3 he had selected an excellent camp ground, from which a few Indians had fled at his approach. It was high, compact, and protected by a creek. He stationed his main body in two lines about seventy yards apart, facing in opposite directions.
His scouts had reported that the Indians were collecting in force about twelve miles distant. His intention was, to fortify the camp, so that the knapsacks and other baggage might be left there; and as soon as the delayed First Regiment came in, to push right on and attack.
Little Turtle's scouts also had been active. They had surveyed the marches and the camps, had measured the infantry, artillery and cavalry—and had been alarmed by the showing. Here was an old general and some big captains, wise in the art of war.
Now what to do?
Little Turtle called a grand council of all the chiefs, red and white. They debated whether to attack the camp, or to try an ambush in the field. Little Turtle favored attacking the camp. An ambush would be expected by the old general, but an attack upon a strongly guarded camp would not be expected. A maxim of war says: "Never do what the enemy expects you to do."
The Missisauga chief sided with Little Turtle. He was a tall, stout, fierce fellow, very swarthy and severe looking. He wore hide leggins and moccasins; a long blue shirt, a brocade vest, an overcoat instead of a blanket, and a turban studded with two hundred silver brooches. In either ear were two bangles, twelve inches long, formed of silver medals and quarter-dollars; in his nose were three nose-jewels of painted silver.
He was respectfully listened to as a wise captain, and he and Little Turtle carried the day.
"But the gray-haired general is always ready for a surprise attack."
"All right. Wait until the hour when he is not ready. Then strike."
Under the direction of Commander-in-Chief Little Turtle, in the darkness this night the Indian army stole forward and was posted with as much skill as any white army.
The Miamis held the center; the Wyandots, the Delawares and the Senecas held the right; the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, the Shawnees, and others, held the left.
They were ready. They could hear the challenges of the alert sentries, at the gray-hair's camp. Two hours before day-break they heard the drums beating the reveille. The soldiers of the gray-hair were on the watch.
The light in the east broadened. Securely hidden, the Little Turtle army waited. They might see the dim tents of the militia advance-guard, camped a quarter of a mile this side of the creek.
Beyond, where the main camp was under arms, the smoke of the fires began to thicken.
Toward the time of sunrise the soldiers grew tired of standing in ranks. The dawn-hour for surprise by Indians had passed. Trumpet and drum-roll sounded for "Break ranks." Having stacked their guns the soldiers gladly made for their tents, or squatted around the breakfast fires.
Another day had begun, without event.
Little Turtle allowed fifteen minutes or so, for the soldiers to settle and doze. Then he gave the signal, a half hour before sunrise.
General Saint Clair was lying sick in his tent. There burst a distant rifle shot; it was instantly followed by a crackling volley, as from half a thousand rifles—and an answering heavier volley from the muskets of the militia.
Struggling to don his blanket-coat he limped out, his gray queue ragged. The camp sprang to arms, for officers and men knew their business; but here came the militia like a drove of stampeded cattle, legging frantically for shelter from a horde of whooping, darting Indians. The militia dived through the lines of the regulars, into the very center of the camp, and for a short period all was chaos.
It was a furious fight. Re-forming their lines, the regulars stood well. They checked the charge by a thunderous volley from the long-barreled flint-lock muskets—the same as used at Brandywine, Princeton and Yorktown.
The strategy of Little Turtle and his chiefs was excellent. They shifted the attack from point to point. They attacked both lines at once. They took advantage of every cover, and constantly appeared closer. They killed every horse and every gunner of the artillery posted in the center.
Of the Second Infantry, all the officers fell except two. General Butler hastened bravely up and down the one line, encouraging the troops; General Saint Clair limped heroically up and down the other line. Eight bullets pierced his clothing—a lock of his hair was shorn off. General Butler was shot twice; and while he was sitting, mortally wounded, an Indian rushed in and tomahawked him.
General Saint Clair's army was being shot to pieces. He ordered bayonet charges; but when these had cleared a little space, the Indians re-appeared, thicker than ever. Their fire, it is recorded, "was tremendous."
The camp was entered, and pillaged. Some two hundred and fifty women, among them the general's dashing daughter, had come with the army; and these suffered terribly.
After three hours' battle, the general ordered a final charge, to open a way. Pressing behind the bayonets, the weary troops commenced a retreat of twenty-nine miles to Fort Jefferson.
The general, on a poor pack-horse, insisted on bringing up the rear. Out of his less than fourteen hundred soldiers, thirty-eight officers and six hundred men were killed or missing; twenty-one officers and two hundred and forty-two men were wounded. Fifty of the women had died. It was as bad as the defeat of General Braddock's army, in 1755. For a year and a half the field was covered with bleaching bones.
Little Turtle, the Missisauga chief and Simon Girty the white savage had directed the attack. After a pursuit of four miles, seeing that the soldiers were on the run and throwing away guns, knapsacks, and all, they called the chase off.
It had been victory enough. They had captured seven pieces of cannon, two hundred cattle, many horses; they returned to the villages with one hundred and twenty scalps strung on one pole, and with three pack-horses piled high with kegs of liquor.
Their own loss was stated to be fifty-six. Surely this was a great triumph for Commander-in-Chief Little Turtle.
President Washington was almost beside himself when he got the frank report from General Saint Clair. Another American army—as good a selection as had opposed the British themselves in many a battle of the Revolution—had been fairly outwitted and fairly defeated, by Indians.
General Anthony Wayne was appointed to try next. "Mad Anthony," soldiers and citizens had styled him, because of his head-long valor in the Revolution. He was a good man for the job, if he did not act too fast and get ambushed.
He took his time. The army of the United States was reorganized into the Legion of the United States. He was placed in command.
There were four Sub-legions, or corps, each composed of artillery, dragoons, infantry and riflemen. The enlisted men wore round caps like helmets.
The badge of the First Sub-legion was white binding, with short plumes of white wool and black horse-hair.
The badge of the Second Sub-legion was red binding, with short plumes of red wool and white horse-hair.
The badge of the Third Sub-legion was yellow binding, with yellow wool and black horse-hair.
The badge of the Fourth Sub-legion was green binding, with green wool and white horse-hair.
"Another defeat will be ruinous to the reputation of the United States," had said President Washington. With this in mind, General Wayne declared for drilling his troops hard, at Legionville, below Pittsburg. Infantry, artillery and cavalry were kept busy at target practice, broad-sword practice, and battle formations.
In the spring of 1793 he moved down to Fort Washington at Cincinnati. On August 8, he marched north, with two thousand troops the equal of any troops in the world, to invade the country of the Miamis.
Meanwhile there had been fighting, but the warriors of Little Turtle showed no signs of letting up. A message from the British had told them that war with the United States was due this year, and that the Indians were expected to hold their ground.
Now the great warrior "Mad Anthony" was advancing. Him, the Indians much respected. His reputation was known. They had named him "Black Snake," and "Big Wind" or "Whirlwind." From the methods with which he made his marches—his men deployed in open order, his dragoons sweeping the flanks, his scouts before, and every night's camp pitched early and surrounded by a log breast-works—they saw that he was wise.
He established more forts. He erected a new one near the site of Fort Jefferson at Greenville, Ohio; and spent the winter there. He built Fort Recovery on the skull-dotted field where General Saint Clair had been routed. There the Wayne men defeated the Little Turtle men. The Indians spent two nights in carrying off their dead and wounded. But the British from Detroit had come southward and built another fort for themselves—Fort Maumee—at the Maumee River Rapids, in northwestern Ohio, south of modern Toledo.
That was a rallying-place for the allied Indians, and encouraged them. The "Big Wind" continued, laying waste the villages and fields. He built Fort Defiance in the very heart of the Miami country, and proceeded down the Maumee River toward the British fort.
Within seven miles of the British fort he built Fort Deposit. He had two thousand Legionaries, and eleven hundred mounted Kentucky riflemen; Little Turtle's army was being driven back upon the British fort, and must fight or quit.
So far, the "Big Wind" had proved himself the master.
By this time Little Turtle had lost his brother-in-law, "Black Snake" or William Wells, whose blood was the white blood, and who could no longer fire upon his race.
When he had heard that another American army was on its way, he had led Little Turtle apart.
"I now leave your nation for my own people," he had said. "We have been friends. We are friends yet until the sun is an hour higher. From that time we are enemies. Then if you wish to kill me, you may. If I want to kill you, I may."
William Wells plunged into the forest, and found General Wayne. He became a valuable scout with the United States column.
From Fort Deposit General Wayne sent word to the Miamis that they must make peace at once, or be attacked. Little Turtle called a council. Some of his men were dubious.
"It is no use fighting that man. His eye is never shut," they complained.
Little Turtle himself was dubious. The council debated upon whether to try another "Saint Clair" surprise, or to choose their ground, and wait.
Blue-jacket the Shawnee was for fighting.
"Listen," spoke Little Turtle. "We have beaten the enemy twice, under separate generals. We cannot expect the same good fortune always. The Americans are led now by a chief who never sleeps. The night and the day are alike to him. During all the time that he has been marching upon us we have watched him close but we have never been able to surprise him. Think well of it. Something whispers to me that we could do well to treat with him."
Somebody accused Little Turtle of being afraid, at last. That was enough. He objected no more, and the council decided to form battle array and wait, at Presq' Isle, near the British fort. Blue-jacket took charge.
It was good ground for defense. Another "Big Wind" had passed through the timber, and laid the trees crisscross in great confusion. Amidst this maze Little Turtle, Blue-jacket, Simon Girty, and the other leaders stretched three lines of warriors and half-breeds, in a front two miles long. Their left rested at the river, their right was protected by a thicket, the British fort was behind them.
The British commander had said that he would open his gates to them, if they were again driven back.
The "Big Wind," who never slept, had not delayed. This morning of August 20,1794, he marched right onward, in battle array. At noon he struck the Fallen Timbers, at Presq' Isle.
Now he was "Mad Anthony," again. He made short work of the Little Turtle army of fifteen hundred. He sent his Kentucky mounted riflemen against their right flank; he sent his dragoon regulars against their left flank; he sent his regular infantry in a bayonet charge straight through their center. They were not to fire a shot until the Indians had broken cover; then they were to deliver a volley and keep going so hard that the enemy would have no time to reload.
For once, Little Turtle's warriors did not stand. They feared this mad general. The trained infantry Legionaries moved so fast that they outfooted the cavalry; and they alone drove the warriors helter-skelter back through the timber, to the very walls of the British fort.
There the mounted riflemen and the dragoons smote with their "long knives," or broad-swords—for the gates of the fort werenotopened, and the walls proved only a death-trap.
The Battle of Fallen Timbers was over in about an hour. The Americans lost thirty-eight killed, one hundred and one wounded. The loss of the Miamis and their allies numbered several hundred. Nine Wyandot chiefs had been slain.
Their warriors were scattered, their villages and corn-fields were destroyed, the British had not helped them, United States forts occupied their best ground from the Ohio River right through north to Lake Erie, and the long war had ended.
The Miamis and eleven other nations signed a treaty of peace, at Greenville, in August of the next year, 1795.
"I am the last to sign," said Little Turtle, "and I think I will be the last to break it."
Ever after this, Little Turtle lived at peace with the Americans.
The United States built him a house on his birthplace at the Eel River twenty miles from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He tried to adopt civilization and bring his people to agriculture and prosperity.
He was opposed by jealous chiefs, who envied him his house and accused him of having been bought by the Americans. But he was wiser than they.
He had been the first of the great chiefs to frown upon the torture of captives; give him a good mark for that. Now he frowned upon liquor. With Captain William Wells, his friend, he appeared before the Kentucky legislature, and asked for a law against selling liquor to the Indians. In the winter of 1801-1802 he asked to be vaccinated, at Washington, and took some of the vaccine back with him, for his people.
He frequently visited Philadelphia. There he met the famous Polish patriot Kosciusko. They had many talks. Kosciusko presented him with a fine pair of pistols and a valuable otter-skin robe.
Chief Little Turtle died July 14, 1812, while on a visit at Fort Wayne. The notice in a newspaper said:
"Perhaps there is not left on this continent, one of his color so distinguished in council and in war. His disorder was the gout. He died in a camp, because he chose to be in the open air. He met death with great firmness. The agent for Indian affairs had him buried with the honors of war."
His portrait, painted by a celebrated artist, was hung upon the walls of the War Department at Washington.