As the winter winds came down from the north, two of the spies sent out from Fort Washington came in from the forests—May from Niagara and Reynolds from Montreal. Leaving Fort Hamilton, May crossed St. Clair’s battlefield; beyond, in Harmar’s trail, he found Trueman and two other men killed and scalped; captured, he was saved from death by Simon Girty and sold to Matthew Elliott, in whose employ he labored on the lakes. In numerous instances he identified scalps of friends, in particular that of Colonel Hardin. In September Girty had gone on a raiding expedition to “Fallentimber” between Forts St. Clair and Hamilton to capture horses, saying that he would “do every mischief in his power” and “raise hell to prevent a peace.”[135]Reuben Reynolds, after varied experiences, came down from Montreal through the Vermont forests to Philadelphia, where his deposition was taken by Washington’s secretary, Lear, October 19. The Lake Superior Indians had joined the confederacy and “they expected to have three thousand or threethousand five hundred Indians in the field against the Americans.”[136]May, with equally exaggerated reports, affirmed that there were “3,600 warriors” at the Auglaize River.[137]Not long after this Wayne entertained at his camp at Legionville several of the chiefs of the Allegheny, Cornplanter, New Arrow, Big Tree, and Guasutha. Pointing to the Ohio from where he sat, one of them—according to Posey’s journal—said: “My Heart & mind is fixed on that River & may that water Continue to run & remain the boundary of everlasting Peice, between the white & Red People on its opposite shores.”
Few who had been watching the western situation believed but that spring would bring war. The Indians did not even keep the promised truce. Major Adair, encamped beside the “Bloody Way” within sight of Fort St. Clair, was murderously attacked by Indians early in the morning of November 6. Six whites were killed and five wounded and a large number of packhorses purloined. However few attackssuch as this occurred along the frontier. In March, President Washington appointed the commissioners who were to treat with the Indians at the rapids of the Maumee “when the leaves are fully out.” Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph, and Timothy Pickering were appointed, and received their commissions April 26. General Lincoln left on the twenty-seventh with the baggage for Niagara by way of the Mohawk Valley; Pickering and Randolph left Philadelphia by way of the Susquehanna on April 30.
On the same day another delegation departed from the upper Ohio for the West but not altogether on a peaceful mission; it was Wayne’s army, disciplined, hardened, and eager for the long-anticipated conflict. To Wayne, war seemed inevitable; when informed that the commissioners were to be sent to the Maumee according to agreement, he playfully expressed a desire to be present “with 2500 of his commissioners in company, with not a single Quaker among them!” Before leaving Legionville he had ordered a number of color flags for the sub-legions of the Secretary of War saying,with the confidence of a man who could not but win, “they shall never be lost.”
Thus the third army of the United States floated down the winding Ohio in April, 1793. No other army on the Ohio, since the day Forbes’s and Bouquet’s British regulars left Fort Pitt, could be compared with it in discipline and trustworthiness. Harmar’s and St. Clair’s armies were rabbles beside it. Yet there had been a great struggle to secure proper subordination of officers and proper loyalty on the part of the rank and file. Liberty meant license on the frontier, and here lay Wayne’s heaviest task and greatest victory. With a trained, sober army victory was a matter of time only. However, the Government still looked for a happy outcome of the convention at the rapids of the Maumee; and Wayne was strictly ordered to make no hostile movement until the result of that meeting was known. It was expected that, by August 1, the question of war or peace would have been decided. Wayne landed, and encamped about a mile below Fort Washington, where the high waters left only one convenient spot, which wasaccordingly dubbed “Hobson’s Choice.” The encampment extended to within four hundred yards of the village of Cincinnati, according to the Posey journal. From this village and its stock “of ardent spirit and caitiff wretches to dispose of it” Wayne was anxious to be separated.
The summer passed slowly, and each day’s tidings from the north was awaited with such patience as could be mustered. Faithful drilling, interrupted by fevers and influenza, was the order of the day, according to General Posey’s record. The number of challenges and duels suggests something of the social order. On one occasion an officer challenged one of his superiors who, in reply, had him arrested to obviate an encounter. In June a premature report came that the peace commissioners had failed in their mission. “We now have but one alternative left,” wrote Posey, “and this is We must meet the Savage foe, The Emortal Washington at the Head of our Government, and the Old hero GenlWayne and His well disciplined Legion, we have little to fear accept our god and fear him in love.” The summerwore on with little or no definite tidings from the north. The troops were exercised daily and the necessities of the possible campaign were pushed on up the line of forts from the Ohio River to Fort Jefferson. Contractors and quartermasters were kept busy supplying the comparatively large army. The army and the nation waited for word from the rapids of the Maumee. What would that word be?
As the leaves began to open, the emissaries of a hundred Indian nations were threading the forests of the Old Northwest and Canada upon trails converging on the western shore of Lake Erie. Roche de Bout,[138]as the locality of the “Rapids of the Miami of the Lakes” was known, was on the present site of Maumee City, Ohio. Great fields of Indian corn spread up and down both sides of the broad valley; a score of vegetable plants thrived amid the corn. In the same area probably no such amount of ground was under cultivation by Indian squaws as in the Maumee Valley. The spreading fields supported many villages and it was from these important centers ofIndian life that so many marauding parties descended upon Kentucky, calling forth retaliating armies such as those of Clark, Harmar, and St. Clair. And Harmar, only, had actually reached this populous and fertile lair. Here the convention was to be held. The United States commissioners had proceeded to Niagara where they were entertained generously by Governor Simcoe at Navy Hall, a mile distant from Fort Niagara, being advised that the delegates from the various nations would undoubtedly be late arriving on the ground. On July 5, Colonel Brant and fifty Indians arrived at Fort Erie from the Maumee to meet and interview the American commissioners. This delegation alleged that the warlike actions of General Wayne had prevented the meeting at the rapids and inquired specifically whether or not the commissioners were properly authorized to run a new boundary line. Before this advanced deputation returned it was clear that the Indians would refuse to recognize any treaty made since the famous Stanwix treaty of 1768.[139]By their instructionsthe commissioners[140]were ordered to insist upon the boundaries established at the Treaty of Fort Harmar.[141]From the beginning, despite the liberality of the offers of the United States—trading-posts north of the Ludlow Line to be evacuated and fifty thousand dollars to be paid to settle any miscellaneous claims by Indians not benefited in previous treaties—there was no hope of reconciliation. In fact there was no agreement even among the “hostile” and the “peaceful” nations at Roche de Bout. The delegates from the Six Nations did not agree with the ill-disposed councils of the embittered Shawanese and Miami warriors and were not advised of the final decision of the council. The American commissioners were ever held off at arm’s length. On the twenty-first of July they reached the mouth of the Detroit River, and took quarters with Captain Matthew Elliott. From this point communications passed to and fro between the real convention at Roche de Bout and the Americansfifty miles away. The last message from the Indians was sent August 13. Its important paragraph read: “At our general council, held at the Glaize last fall, we agreed to meet commissioners from the United States, for the purpose of restoring peace, provided they consented to acknowledge and confirm our boundary line to be the Ohio: and we determined not to meet you, until you gave us satisfaction on that point: that is the reason we have never met.”[142]On the sixteenth day of August the commissioners replied that the above message was a virtual declaration of war, and declared that “impartial judges will not attribute the continuance of the war to them.”[143]
A glimpse into the council of Indians at the rapids is afforded us in the deposition made by an unknown Pennsylvanian youth, who was captured by Wea Indians in 1783 and who had lived among the Indians throughout the ten years since that time. He attended the treaty. On the tenth of July there were fourteen hundred Indianspresent; on the twentieth, twenty-four hundred. Of these, eighteen hundred were warriors. It was unanimously agreed that the Ohio should be made the boundary line and that the Indians be paid for Kentucky. Simon Girty, Governor Simcoe’s aide-de-camp, a Lieutenant Silvy of the Fifth (British) Regiment, and another British officer remained at Colonel McKee’s house, which was fifty yards distant from the council fire.
In the evenings the head chiefs, especially those of the Shawanese and Delaware nations, met with Colonel McKee and his guests. “McKee always promised that the King, their Father, would protect them & afford them every thing they wanted in case they went to war.... Advise that they ought not to make Peace upon any other terms than to make the Ohio the boundary line. After the final decision, McKee furnished the savages with arms, ammunition, scalping knives and Tomahawks even more than they could use this winter.” On the twenty-eighth of July the Indians separated to reassemble “at au-Glaize twenty-four days from that time” to watch Wayne and attack him if opportunity offered.[144]
Instantly a score of Indian runners were hurrying south and east to Knox and Wayne with the secret code message to prepare for war.[145]The exact date of Wayne’s receipt of this message (sent from Niagara, August 23) is not recorded. It was two hours after midnight, September 24, when the express thundered into Petersburg, Kentucky, with an order to General Scott “to take the field with the Mounted Volunteers & to be at Fort Jefferson By the first of October.”[146]Hobson’s Choice was the scene of intense activity as September drew to a close, and by October 5 all was in readiness for the northwardmovement. Excluding invalids, and garrisons to be left at the four forts on the line of march, Wayne estimated his available force at twenty-six hundred regulars and three hundred and sixty mounted volunteers. “... you may rest assured,” Wayne wrote Knox upon leaving Fort Washington, “that I will not commit the legion [risk an engagement] unnecessarily; and unless more powerfully supported ... I will content myself by taking a strong position advanced of [Fort] Jefferson, and by exerting every power, endeavor to protect the frontiers, and to secure the posts and army during the winter.”[147]
Already the far-sighted Wayne had anticipated the matter of road-building, an important department of a pioneer general’s duty in which he particularly excelled. As early as July 10, the American commissioners to the hostile tribes wrote Secretary Knox that the Indian scouts reported that Wayne “has cut and cleared a road, straight from fort Washington, into the Indian country, in a direction that would havemissed fort Jefferson; but that, meeting with a large swamp, it was, of necessity, turned to that fort, and then continued six miles beyond it.”[148]The very fact that when Wayne left Fort Washington, October 7, he covered the seventy-five odd miles to the site of Fort Greenville (Greenville, Ohio) in six days is proof enough that the Indians’ spies were well within the mark in saying that a road had been built; more than that, packhorses had been wearing it deep into the ground with heavy loads of food for mouths and guns, and large droves of cattle had already rough-stamped Wayne’s Trace from the Ohio to the Stillwater. Faithful James O’Hara was quartermaster and Elliott and Williams the contractors. Colonel Robert Elliott, a native of Hagerstown, Pennsylvania, met his death at the hands of the savages at the “bigg hill” near Fort Jefferson while engaged in hurrying on provisions to the northern posts. “Mr Elliott had on a wig,” records General Posey in a strain of gloomy defiance, “the indians will not get his skulp.”
Mad Anthony Street, in Cincinnati, is the beginning of Wayne’s Road northward up Mill Creek Valley, thence running northwest to Fort Hamilton on the watershed south of the head branches of the West Fork. The route through Hamilton is given by Everts as across the sites of Snider’s paper-mill, Niles tool works, and Cape and Maxwell’s plant.[149]The old track crossed the Miami a few rods south of the eastern end of the High Street bridge and from there circled around the west end of what is locally known as the “Devil’s Backbone” on what was L. D. Campbell’s peninsula but which is now an island. Wayne’s first camp was at Five Mile Spring, southeast of the village of Five Mile. The old route passed over the present site of that village and kept on the eastern side of Seven Mile Creek all the way to Fort St. Clair (Eaton, Preble County). Two Mile, Four Mile, Seven Mile, and Nine Mile Creeks were all so named from Wayne’s crossing-places. Following up the valley of Seven Mile about two miles, the old track leaves it near Nine Mile Creek andturns due north, leaving Butler County in Wayne Township, section 6. In Preble County the “south end” of Wayne’s Trace has always been used as a highway and known as “Wayne’s Trace Road.” The trace passes through Washington Township east of Eaton, crossing the Greenville Road on a bluff near a sycamore-tree on the east side of the road. It crossed Banta’s Fork at or near the “Forty-foot Pitch” and ascended the high bank at a point on the east side of the present road. The swamp which the Indian spies said had turned Wayne’s route nearer Fort Jefferson than was originally intended evidently lay in the vicinity of Ithaca, Twin Township, Darke County. The first settler in Brown Township, John Woodington, made his clearing beside Wayne’s Trace on the farm owned by William Herdman in section 28 on the Greenville Pike. Through these parts the explorer will find the famous old track partially marked out by the growths of young sycamores which sprang up here when the forests were cut down. Many of the first settlers “saw on the uncovered roots of trees, along the trace, the indisputablemarks of wagon wheels or of the heavy ordinance trains.”[150]
Dr. Belknap’s Map of Wayne’s Route in the Maumee Valley, 1794Click here for larger image sizeDr. Belknap’s Map of Wayne’s Route in the Maumee Valley, 1794[From the original in the library of Harvard University]
Click here for larger image size
[From the original in the library of Harvard University]
A happy interest attaches to an old route like Wayne’s, from the very fact that the labor spent in hewing it out and in transporting over it vast quantities of provisions and ammunition was not expended in vain. Wayne’s Road, like Forbes’s route across the Alleghenies, led to victory; the dark winding tracks of the armies of Braddock and St. Clair possess a romantic element that is fascinating in the extreme, but wholly unsatisfactory. There is an inspiration in following the rough tracks of men who won which is not found in the paths of men who, after struggles perhaps more heroic because facing greater odds, failed. Wayne was a thousand times better equipped for his campaign than was St. Clair. Before his campaign, the savage war was not taken very seriously. Now proper preparations had been made, approximately sufficient stores accumulated, the official personnel sifted down; and as the “Legion of the United States” went swiftly forward in the October sunlight ofthat Indian summer, there was a sane consciousness of preparedness and power which was all but victory. The Indians were quick to recognize and describe, in their figurative way, the two chief characteristics of Wayne as a frontier commander—he was both the “Black Snake” and the “Whirlwind.” When in motion, he swept through the forests like a cyclone; the record of no pioneer army in America equals the marching records of Wayne’s Legion. It was a standing order that every march should be under high pressure and that no break or interruption should in any case delay the movement of the main body a single moment. This impressed the savages tremendously; they had known no such army as this—which advanced into their country almost as fast as others had run out of it. Thus they talked of the “Whirlwind” around their northern fires. Wayne, too, was a “Black Snake.” He was as cunning as he was impetuous. As will be seen, he built roads he never traversed, doubled his track, and over and again completely outwitted the astonished Indian spies that attempted, with sharp eyes inthe brown leaves, to fathom his purposes.
The lateness of the season prevented a more elaborate campaign than Wayne had suggested to the Secretary of War. The army swept northward to Greenville Creek and on the present site of Greenville, Ohio, erected Fort Greenville—named by Wayne in honor of his dead friend General Nathaniel Greene of Revolutionary fame. By November 16, Posey records, all the houses were completed and once more the drilling and manœuvering began. We have it under the hand of the same authority that General Wayne affirmed that never in the Revolutionary War had he commanded such well-drilled troops as these which spent the winter with him buried deep in those Ohio forests. It is sure that a general never needed well-drilled soldiers more; and no less sure that no troops needed encouragement more than these. There were, however, the bright sides to life even here. Though coffee was a dollar and brown sugar seventy-five cents a pound, and whiskey five dollars a gallon, yet there was good cheer and merrymaking. A battery was built for the officers to play “fiver,” of which the younger men became very fond. On one evening the veteran General Scott entertained the officers in his apartments and was drawn out to tell of pioneer Kentucky in whose battles he had displayed so much courage and lost his three sons. “He told us how ColoBoon first discovered Kentucky,” wrote Posey; “‘ColoBoon was a very enterprizing, smart man,’ said General Scott, ‘but very whimsical.’” There were frequent scouting expeditions in which the whole garrison was interested. On one occasion Wells’s audacious rangers fell upon three Indians at their midday repast; one of the three in the pursuit was compelled to leap into a creek and when he “came up” he was found to be a white man, Christopher Miller. His life being saved, he renounced the wild career, visited his aged parents in Kentucky, and then returned to become one of Wayne’s most successful spies. No doubt the soldiers laughed at this transformation of a red into a white man, and perhaps swore that if other Indians were dowsed equally well they would be found to be equally white and to be wearing British uniforms!
There was one duty that fell now to Wayne that was not congenial. Posey was one of the detachment which pushed forward in the December snow to St. Clair’s slaughter-ground and erected there the most advanced of the chain of forts between the Ohio and Maumee. As the company neared the spot, Captain Edward Butler touched Posey on the shoulder and said: “When you reach the ground go to a large spreading oak which you cannot fail to see. Under that oak my brother’s marquee was pitched and there you will find his bones which you can identify by a fracture of one thigh bone.”
“We went to the place,” writes Posey, “and found part of his [General Richard Butler’s] bones, his skull and both thy bones, one we discovered had been broken.... We collected all the bones and laid them in one Pile, on every skul bone you might see the mark of the skulping knife a round every skul bone.” The pieces of guns—many barrels bent double by fiendish Indians—were collected, and four cannon were discovered just where an Indian prisoner had said they would befound. A strong fort was built and very appropriately named Fort Recovery, Captain Alexander Gibson commanding the garrison. On the sixth day, a portion of the party returned to Fort Greenville. The erection of Fort Recovery was another leap toward the Maumee and soon Indians began to arrive at Fort Greenville bearing white flags and talking of an armistice and peace. Wayne, obeying orders from the Secretary to end the war without another campaign if possible, received the emissaries as though he believed their lying rôle. Deceived by Wayne’s attitude, one of the Allegheny chiefs, Big Tree, committed suicide. He had sworn to kill three hostile Indians to avenge the death of his “very dear friend” General Butler; exasperated at the hint of peace he made way with himself.
The peace emissaries, and all talk of an armistice, faded with the winter snows, and by early summer every plan for the crucial campaign had been made both by the Indians and by Wayne. It was July before Scott’s fifteen hundred mounted volunteers arrived at Greenville. Already one bloodyskirmish had taken place near the walls of Fort Recovery in which near a thousand Indians had participated. Large quantities of stores had been forwarded to Greenville and Fort Recovery, and the grand advance on the Maumee was on the eve of starting. Of this campaign we have Lieutenant Boyer’s official narrative,[151]supplemented by the slight records of Posey and Lieutenant William Clark, a brother of George Rogers Clark.[152]
At eight o’clock in the morning of July 28 Wayne with two thousand regulars and fifteen hundred mounted volunteers set out for the Maumee Valley from Fort Greenville. The route followed by St. Clair and used during the winter by the Fort Recovery garrison was the course pursued, and camp was pitched in the afternoon on Stillwater Creek after a twelve-mile march. The next day the army was off before sunrise; we “pushed forward without regard to bag or baggage,” records Clark, “as if not in search, but in actual pursuit of a flying & disorderly enemy.” Fort Recovery was reached at noon and the army camped a mile beyond. On the day following the army crashed onward, following the winding stream called a tributary of the “St. Mary’s” by St. Clair, but which was in fact the head of the Wabash. Clark says the stream was crossed “more than a dozen times” and “Camp Beaver Swamp” was pitched where the stream was found to be impassable, eleven miles from Fort Recovery. Much of the journey today had been through wide prairies covered with nettles, the water unfit to drink and mosquitoes, “larger than I ever saw,” observed Boyer. Today the road was opened as the army advanced and the route was up the Wabash from the present village of Fort Recovery, Mercer County, Ohio.
The construction of a bridge at Camp Beaver Swamp seventy yards in length delayed the army one day but enabled theroad-cutters to hew a way through to the St. Mary River.[153]On August 1, the army pressed on over the backbone of Ohio and down the northern slope into the basin of the Maumee River, and encamped beside the famous little St. Mary River. Today, emerging suddenly from the vast stretch of nettles and brush that grew in the swampy district, the army suddenly drew out into a beautiful level meadow, every corps of the army having the first view of all the other divisions. This day Clark affirms that the army crossed the trace followed by General Harmar in 1790 to the Miami village. Tonight the army encamped by the St. Mary and on the morrow the erection of what was first called Fort Randolph and later Fort Adams was begun.[154]This was the seventh fortified post in the chain from the Ohio and was located on the south bank of the St. Mary, four miles above Rockford(the old Shane’s Crossings), Mercer County, Ohio.
On the fourth the army hurried on about eleven miles to “a small, dirty water,” as Clark described it, “a branch of the Glaize [Auglaize] River,” where camp was fortified for the night. The day after, a march of equal length “down the creek” to the camp described by Boyer as “Camp forty-four miles in advance of Fort Recovery.” Wayne’s camps were each proof against insult from the enemy, which accounts for his encamping early each afternoon. On the afternoon of August 6, the army reached the banks of the celebrated “Glaize,” the Auglaize River. Here, according to Posey, a stronger encampment than usual was built, named Fort Loramie.
As the Maumee was neared the feeling of the army was intense. While at Fort Adams, Wayne had made feints at cutting two roads, one down the St. Mary River and another northwest straight toward Roche de Bout. These routes were both opened for some distance, that down the St. Mary at least as far as the famous ford at Shane’s Crossing—the present Rockford.[155]That the Indian spies would report the building of these roads, there was no doubt. But when on August 4 the swift advance was renewed neither road was followed! A straight course northward into the Auglaize Valley was taken—a route that could not have been pursued in any but the driest weather. It ran northward from Fort Adams, probably near the Fort Jennings of the War of 1812, situated on the left bank of the Auglaize in the northwest part of Jennings Township, Putnam County, Ohio. Thence the route was straight down the Auglaize in general alignment with the present Defiance Road.
Wayne’s tactics in road-building as he neared the enemy’s villages is perhaps quite unparalleled; indeed, as will be emphasized, this remarkable campaign was not lessimpressive to the savages—these swift plunges through the forests, the sudden pauses and the astonishing feints—than was the battle which soon crushed the Indian confederacy. At the same time the careful historian would greatly err should he not give Wayne credit for obeying, even now, the earnest commands of his superiors to secure an armistice and a peace without a battle. Secretary Knox had, over and again, urged Wayne to secure peace without bloodshed if possible. A battle in any case was hazardous; there were possibilities of defeat; there were greater promises of a continuous war even in case of an American victory. The British had displayed characteristic arrogance in building a fort at Roche de Bout this very spring, around which the Indian cohorts were probably gathering. Complications with England were undoubtedly possible, if not entirely probable. From Lieutenant Clark’s journal it is clear that General Wilkinson proposed, as soon as the Auglaize was reached, to make a dash with a flying column upon the populous district at the junction of the Auglaize with the Maumee.Wayne refused to consider the plan[156]—and throughout the remainder of Clark’s journal his words are well-nigh abusive of General Wayne’s whole management of the campaign.[157]The dare-devil Wayne’s caution at this strategic juncture of this important campaign portrays an element of steadiness for which the hero of Stony Point has perhaps never received sufficient credit.
On the eighth of August, after marching through five miles of cornfields, where were “vegetables of every kind in abundance,” according to Boyer, the tired Legion came in view of the Maumee, of which they and a whole nation had heard so much. The spotof encampment was the site of the present city of Defiance on the commanding point between the rivers, and here in the three days succeeding, Fort Defiance was erected. To the Indians the name of the spot was Grand Glaize.[158]Wells’s rangers reported that the Indian army was lying two miles above the British fort, on the west bank of the Maumee. According to Posey, Wayne on the eleventh despatched an old Indian to the hostile camp with offers of peace; two days later an old squaw was posted off with a similar message. Neither returned. On the sixteenth, the fort being nearly completed, Major Hunt was left in command, and the grand advance began. The route was down the left bank of the Maumee straight toward the painted lines of Little Turtle’s army. Christopher Miller—the red-man made white by that plunge in the creek—met the army today with a message from the chieftain White Eyes, Clark records, asking Wayne to remain ten days at Grand Glaize, not erecting a fort, and the Indians would perhaps treat with him.“This letter,” Lieutenant Clark states, “was generally considered as a challenge.”[159]
Nineteen miles was made the first day (August 16) and twelve the day following. As the road was “generally bad,” as Boyer affirms, these tremendous marches must be considered remarkable, for each camp was heavily fortified and the enemy was just at hand. The spies in advance were unceasing in their vigilance and activity; and on the eighteenth poor May, who had lived with the Indians as a spy the preceding winter at Wayne’s command, was entrapped and captured, suffering a most cruel death. This day the army encamped forty-one miles from Fort Defiance and made a strong entrenchment which was named Fort Deposit. Here the heavy baggage was stored that the troops might go into action unencumbered.
On the twentieth, at seven in the morning, the Legion advanced in fighting order. The Indian army, its left wing lying onPresque Isle, was stretched across the valley for two miles in a well-chosen position. A tornado had swept the forest here and the mass of fallen trees offered a particularly advantageous spot for the Indians’ favorite method of fighting. Such spots were very common in the old Black Forest of the West and were generally known as “fallen timber” by the Indians and pioneers;[160]in them cavalry was almost useless. Thus the mounted volunteers, the Indians believed, would be debarred from the fight.
At eleven o’clock the advanced lines met. At the first burst of sudden flame the American vanguard of volunteers was staggered, perhaps surprised at the fire from an unseen enemy lying beneath the tangled wind-rack of the forest. The guards on the right fell back through the regulars commanded by Cook and Steele. Theregulars were thrown into confusion. It was fifteen minutes before order was restored but when joined by the riflemen and legionary cavalry, a charge with trailed arms was ordered and the savages were pricked out from their lairs with the point of the bayonet. A heavy firing on the left announced that the battle now was raging there, but only for a moment. The whole Indian plan of battle was destroyed by the impetuous bayonet charges of troops hard-drilled in the dull days at Legionville, Hobson’s Choice, and in the snows of Greenville. The redskins hid where a tornado had passed—not expecting another more destructive than the first! For two miles the scattering horde was pursued headlong through the forests. A halt was ordered just within sight of the British fort, whose guns were silent though menacing. The Indians poured on down the valley toward the present site of Toledo and Lake Erie.
The battle of Fallen Timber was a decisive and important victory. The Indians numbered about fifteen hundred; a considerable number of advancing allies neverreached the battle-ground. The rapid strides of Wayne had forced the meeting unexpectedly. Those ten days the Indians had requested for conference would have largely increased their strength. The number killed and wounded on either side was inconsiderable; forty Indians, only, were found on the two-mile field of conflict. Twenty-six killed and eighty-seven wounded, was the Legion’s loss. Of the Kentuckians, who hardly got into the action on account of the swift success of the Legion, seven privates were killed, and ten privates and three officers were wounded.
Remaining three days on the battle-field, Wayne destroyed many acres of corn and many Indian huts and then returned to Fort Defiance. Thence he ascended the Maumee to the junction of the St. Mary and St. Joseph—Harmar’s battle ground—and built a fort which he permitted the oldest officer (Posey?) to name “Fort Wayne in honor of the hero of Stony Point.” From Fort Wayne the army ascended the St. Mary to Fort Adams, and thence passed to Loramie’s, where a newFort Loramie was erected. The troops from there opened a new route across to Fort Greenville. Here, in the following year, the awed and broken Indian nations signed the Treaty of Fort Greenville which practically reaffirmed the previous Treaty of Fort Harmar.
Viewed as a whole, Wayne’s campaign is most interesting from the standpoint of road-building. It was Wayne’s advance which awed the savages, not the battle of Fallen Timber. The army crashing northward through the forests as though ever in the pursuit of a foe, the impregnable forts that arose here and there, the strongly fortified camps, the fleet and active scouting parties, the stern but even temper of Wayne’s exhortations for peace, and at last, the fierce bayonet charge amid the prostrate trees, accomplished the very mission of the hour. That winding line of a road from the Ohio to Roche de Bout, and the five new forts that sprang up on it in 1793 and 1794, have left their impress strongly upon western history. The Indians never forgot the “Whirlwind,” who wasalso a “Black Snake.” Since that road was built, the Indian race has never been a national menace. Bloody battles there have been, but at no time has the expansion of the United States been seriously jeopardized by Indian hostility.
Clark’s conquest of Vincennes was now made good by the conquest of the Maumee Valley; Harmar’s reverses and St. Clair’s annihilation were avenged—the Old Northwest was won.
“... on the [24th] of June 1778 we left our Little Island and Run about a mile up the River in order to gain the main Channel and shot the Falls at the very moment of the sun being in a great Eclipse which caused Various conjectures among the superstitious as I knew that spies were kept on the River below the Towns of the Illinois I had resolved to march part of the way by Land and of course left the whole of our baggage, except as much as would equip us in the Indian mode. The whole of our force, after leaving such as was Judged not competent to the expected fatiegue, Consisted only of four companies, commanded by Captns Jno. Montgomery,J. Bowman, L. Helm, and W. Harrod my force being so small to what I expected owing to the various circumstances already mentioned I found it necessary to alter my plans of operations, as post St. Vincent at this time was a Town of considerable force consisting of near four Hundred militia with an Indian Town adjoining and great numbers continually in the Neighborhood, and in the scale of Indian affairs of More Importance than any other. [I] had thought of attacking it first but now found that I could by no means venture near it Resolved to begin my career in the Illinois where there was more Inhabitants but scattered in different Villages, and less danger of being immediately overpowered by the Indians, and in case of necessity, [we could] probably make our retreat good to the Spanish side of the Mississippi, but if Successful here [we] might pave our way to the possession of Post St. Vincent.... As I intended to leave the Ohio at Ft. Massiac 3 leagues below the Tennessee I landed on Barritaria a small island in the mouth of that River in order to prepare for the march ... having every thing prepared we moved down to a little gul[ley] a small distance above Massiac in which we concealed our Boats and set out a Northwest course, nothing remarkable on this rout, the weather was favorable, in some parts water scarce as well as game, of course we suffered drought and Hunger but not [to] excess, on the third Day, John Saunders, our principal guide, appeared confused we soon discovered that he was totally lost without there was some other cause of his present conduct I asked him various question, and from his answers I could scarcely determine what to think of him, whether or not he was sensible that he was lost the thought of which [?] or that he wished to deceive us the cry of the whole Detachment was that he was a Traitor, he beged that he might be suffered to go some distance into a plain that was in full view to try to make some discovery whether or not he was right. I told him he might but that I was suppitious [suspicious] of him from his conduct that from the first of his being employed always said that he knew the way well that there was now a different appearance that I saw the nature of the Cuntrywas such that a person once acquainted with it could not in a short time forget it that a few men should go with him to prevent his escape—and that if he did not discover and take us intothe Hunters Roadthat lead from the East into Kaskaskia that he had frequently described that I would have him Immediately put to death which I was determined to have done, but after an Hour or two’s search he came to a place that he perfectly knew and we discovered that the poor fellow had been as they call it bewildered. On the eavining of the fourth of July we got with in a few miles of the Town.”
Mr. Draper founds his conclusion that the “two Wabashes” were the Little Wabash and the Fox wholly on present-day (1878-90) reports[163]of the nature of the country at the Little Wabash above the mouth of the Fox and above the mouth of the Big Muddy. The reports he received from residents of the neighborhoods carry evidence that the ground between the Little Wabash and Fox most nearly agrees with Clark’s and Bowman’s descriptions of the crossing-place.[164]This is true, and is of importance. But Clark’s and Bowman’s use of the word “heights” was merely relative; Mr. Draper’s correspondents speak of high grounds and low grounds as the landlies today. With water but three or four feet deep, a few acres of land might have been uncovered, though not sufficiently elevated today to be termed a hill or even high ground. There is a point on the Little —abash above the mouth of the Fox that can be made to answer in a general way Clark’s and Bowman’s descriptions—going on the doubtful supposition that their descriptions were entirely accurate. In order to find a spot where Clark saw nearly five miles of water before him, Mr. Draper suggests a point about two miles above the mouth of the Fox, where there is a wide bottom on the west of the Little —abash, another bottom between that stream and the Fox, and another east of the Fox.[165]The possibility that the distance was exaggerated by Clark (who said Vincennes was two hundred and forty miles from Kaskaskia when it was not over one hundred and seventy-five) is not considered. As a matter of fact, the whole plan of finding today five miles of low ground from any point west of the Little —abash to the east of either the Fox or the Big Muddy, is overthrown by Clark’s statement in theMemoirthat (on the western side of the Little Wabash) “we formed a camp on a height which we found on the bank of the river.” Mr. Draper’s objection to the Little Wabash and Big Muddy crossing-place was because the high ground on the bank of the Little Wabash (seemingly here referred to by Clark) prevented there being five miles of low ground to the opposite side of the Big Muddy.[166]If Clark and Bowman gave the distance of width of water correctly, the crossing-place was two miles above the mouth of the Fox, and Clark’s statement of forming a camp on a height on the river bank is totally inexplicable—for there is no height at this point to answer such a description. If, by “nearly” five miles, Clark meant three miles, misjudging distance on water inversely with the usual way, his camp could have been on the immediate high bank of the Little Wabash above the mouth of the Big Muddy.[167]
Certain other considerations have a tendency to influence the present writer in believing that the crossing-place was here—above the mouth of the Big Muddy. It was exceedingly wet from the day Clark left Kaskaskia; even on the watersheds he found deep standing water. On reaching the Petit Fork he found the rivers at flood-tide. By turning north to the Clay County route he would strike the Little Wabash at a more northerly point, and would almost completely head the deep little Bonpas which lay between the Fox and the Big Wabash. The Clay County route was in one sense, then, a watershed route, compared with the Wayne County route. It is difficult to believe that Clark’s guides would ignore this after having been compelled to cross the Petit Fork on felled trees. Again, on the second day out from the crossing-place of the Little Wabash, Bowman records: “16th. Marched all day through rain and water; crossed Fox river.” If this entry is correct, of course the Little Wabash and Big Muddy crossing-place is completely established. Mr. Draper, holding that the Fox was crossed simultaneously with the Little Wabash on the fifteenth, suggeststhat Bowman meant Bonpas for Fox.[168]Choosing between possible errors, the present writer finds it easier to believe that Bowman misjudged the width of water crossed on the fifteenth, than that he called the Bonpas the Fox. For on the seventeenth the heads of the Bonpas are specifically accounted for by Bowman as follows: “17th. Marched early; crossed several runs, very deep.” Mr. Draper does not account for these, and it is difficult to do so if they were not the heads of the Bonpas. For, if Clark crossed the Little Wabash just above the mouth of the Fox, his route, after crossing the Bonpas, was northeast, and would, without any sort of question, have been on watersheds between little tributaries, first of the Bonpas, and then of the Embarras. Again, by every account, it is sure Clark and Bowman expected to strike the Embarras, and strike it at about seven or eight miles due west from Vincennes. If, as Draper believed, they were pursuing an old trail, which, it is well known,[169]ran from the crossing-place of the Little Wabashtwo miles above the mouth of the Fox to the Wabash just below the mouth of the Embarras, how can it be explained that the army reached, or ever intended to reach, the Embarras seven or eight miles above its mouth? The very name would warn them away and it seems highly improbable that, if what was later known as the southern route was traversed, the army would ever have seen the Embarras.
“The next Day after the rear arrived a Detachment of 400 men was ordered out under the Command of Col. Trotter of Kentucky with orders to assertain what Course the Indians had went to Draw 2 Days provisions and Be out over night I was a volunteer in Sd. Detachment There was about 25 Mounted men attached to the Same a short Distance after we crossed the St Joseph River from where part of the Town stood fell in with 2 Indians Killed Both and Lost one man marched all Day after in good order Seen considerable Signs Could not assertain which way They had gone The Six pounders was Shot about Sun Set at the main Camp The Col Concluded it was Done to Call the Command in we returned to Camp a short time after Dark Lay out side of Camp all night had our own guards out, Turned out next morning to perform the 2d Day under Command of Col Hardin went a northwest Course from whence we Crossed sdriver after going 3 or 4 mile found a Large fresh Indian trail pursued it with all Speed in Single file or in any way they Could get allong from front to the rear was over half a mile The Indians retreated with a view to draw the front into ambuscade which they Done Completely with Two fires Cut off the front Entirely our Company being in front the first Day had to take the rear the Second Day when the front was Cut off we formed a Line in the rear Cols Hardin Hall and Major Fountain was all on horse Back halted with us when we formed, The Indians pursued the front untill they Come within one hundred yards Then halted we had But about 75 in our Company had all treed in Line across the trace They Could see the officers on horse Back with us we Stood in that situation untill near Dark Then Covered the retreat got into Camp a short time after Dark Inever could assertain how many men we Lost in that Scrap a Captn Scott son of Gen or governor Scott of Kentucky was killed in that Scrap our Troops was very much scattered a Number Came in after Night as the Cannon was fired Every hour through the Night at the main Camp perhaps there was 15 or 20 killed, perhaps more or Less The Commencement was one of the most unexpected Surprises Ever any troops met with Two of us went out and Examined their Encampment where their trace was first Discovered over 2 mile on this Side where the Battle was as there was there a general Halt for a short time I would have Said there was 4 or 5 hundred Indians and we had not Near as many Men that Day as was out the Day Before There was Experienced officers along that ought to have known Better they was too anxious on the pursuit the Troops should have Been marched in such a Situation that no advantage Could have Been Taken of them as was the Case the Day Before The army remained in Camp perhaps 2 Days making ready to return to Fort Washington when the army moved from Camp perhaps aboutthe 10th or 12th of November 1790 four or five mounted men with an officer placed themselves on a high Eminence so that they could see over all the place where the Indian town Stood about two hours after the army Cleared out the Indians Came in from Different Quarters to get provision as they had Considerable hid under ground Said Spies remained there untill Dark Came into Camp which was about 4 or 5 mile Informed Harmar and the officers what Discoveries they had made a Detachment of 4 or 5 hundred men was Drafted from the Different Companies of sdarmy that Night to be on the ground Next morning by Day Light and to Be placed under the Command of Col Hardin the plan of attack was made By the officers previous to their march and was well Executed By the officers and troops Engaged in the Same There was too few troops in said Detachment for the number of the Enemy they had to Contend with if 200 men had arrived there about Sunrise they would have give the Enemy a Complete Defeat They give them a pretty good Drubing as it was There was about 60 regulars under theCommand of Major —— They fought well Done great Execution Lost Their major and Lieutenant in the Battle. Col Hardins post in The aforesaid plan was on The west side of The St. Joseph river opposite to where The Indian town stood he was There in good Time The other Troops Crossed the Maumee went right to where The Town Stood The Indians was Encamped in and round where it stood Major Fountain had the Command of The Light horse and mounted men he Charged right in among The Enemy fired off his pistols and Drew his Sword Before They Could recover The Shock George Adams informed them that he was Near The Major at That Time That it appeared when The Enemy got over Their surprise Ten or Twelve Indians Discharged Their guns at him The Major kind of fell or hung on his horse They then Discharged Several Guns at said Adams he received Several flesh wounds But recovered By this Time The Militia and regulars Come up. The Indians fought with Desperation was Drove from Their Encampment By The Militia and regulars Down The Bank into the river which wasperhaps 20 yards wide and perhaps 6 inches Deep Col Hardins men on The opposite Side which placed them Between two fires The Indians charged on Hardins troops having no other Chance to Escape Hardins troops give way and retreated the Same way They went out and was not in That Battle any more. Some of the Troops informed me That Major Fountain was Living when our Troops Drove the Indians from The Battle ground. Major Mcmillin of Kentucky Collected The Troops and Tarried on The Battle Ground untill They Indians had entirely Disappeared and not one to Be Seen or heard I never understood what was the Number of our Troops Killed by the Enemy on That Campaign Though it was Considerable my oppinion is There was more Indians Killed in That Battle Than was Killed when Genl—ayne defeated Them in 1794 if Harmar had Sent out a Detachment of Six hundred men Next Day to Collected The Dead and Buried Them and assertained how many of The Enemy was Killed I think There would have Been no risk in it as The Indians was So Completely Cut up on The Day of TheBattle Such a move would have Been an honor and Credit to that Campaign I can Never agree That Harmars Campaing was a Defeated one.”