Historic Highways of America Volume VIII Part 2

The President's call for militia was answered with too great alacrity. A motley collection of Kentucky militia was a.s.sembling by the middle of September, and those from Pennsylvania reached Fort Washington on the twenty-fourth. The Kentuckians were formed into three battalions under Majors Hall, M'Mullen, and Bay, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Trotter--under whom they were anxious to serve. The Pennsylvanians were formed in one battalion under Lieutenant-colonel Trubley and Major Pond, the whole commanded by Colonel John Hardin, subject to General Harmar's orders. The regulars were formed in two battalions under Major John P.

Wyllys and Major John Doughty. The company of artillery, having three pieces of ordnance, was under the command of Captain William Ferguson. A battalion of flying militia or light mounted troops was commanded by Major James Fontaine. The entire army numbered one thousand four hundred and fifty-three, of which three hundred and twenty were regulars. The "army" had a.s.sembled quickly; the stores had been forwarded to the place of rendezvous with exceeding despatch and faithfulness. The army was fatally weak in two particulars: many undisciplined old men and boys had volunteered as subst.i.tutes; and the arms, furnished by the volunteers themselves, were in lamentably poor condition. Taken all in all, with the exception of armament, which was somewhat bettered at Fort Washington, this first little American army that now began an invasion of the Maumee Valley was in no better or no worse condition than the ordinary militia forces formerly put into the field by Pennsylvania or Kentucky.

On the twenty-sixth of September the militia, eleven hundred strong, under Colonel Hardin, set forth from Fort Washington, striking in a northwesterly direction toward the valley of the Little Miami, on General Clark's route of 1780. David H. Morris, making a slight error in dates, leaves this account, which gives, as the first day's march of the militia, four miles: "On the 29th of September, we took up our march for the Maumee Villages, near where Fort Wayne now stands, and proceeded four miles."[75]

Of the start from Fort Washington Thomas Irwin leaves record: "My Second visit to Said Cincinnati was as a volunteer from Washington, Pa. on Harmars Campaign about the first week in October 1790.... Fort Washington was Built, not finished, in my absence. The Militia from Kentucky and Pennsylvania Rendezvoused There at the same time Marched from Thence for the Indian Towns Between the 10th and 15th of october 1790 on the Trace made By General Clark from Kentucky in october 1782[76] which crossed the river hill[77] north of Fort Washington pa.s.sed Mcmillins[78] Spring as it was afterwards Called Encamped at reading until Harmar came up with the regular Troops."

At the beginning of the last century Harmar's route was easily traced through Warren County, running north of Mason and west of Lebanon.[79]

On September 30 the regulars under General Harmar left Fort Washington, by way of the same route, it would seem, as the militia. Captain Armstrong's record for the day reads: "The army moved from Fort Washington, at halfpast ten o'clock, A. M.,--marched about seven miles N. E. course--hilly, rich land. Encamped on a branch of Mill creek."

How one can understand from this record that Harmar's route followed what later became known as the "old Wayne Road" or "old Hamilton Road"

up Mill Creek Valley is beyond the ken of the present writer. Encamping on the night of September 2 on Muddy Creek, Warren County, General Harmar lay one mile south of the militia encampment.[80] On the day following he moved through Hardin's camp, which was located a few miles southwest of Lebanon, and rested one mile in advance on Turtle Creek.

Here the divisions of the army united, and here the line of march was formed, according to Armstrong's journal, on September 3.

A. H. Dunlevy, a pioneer in this neighborhood west of Lebanon in 1798, left record that near his home on the old route was the site of one of Harmar's camps--possibly that of Colonel Hardin. A half acre was cleared and several graves were then visible there. "The brush," he wrote, "was piled in heaps around the camp. These brush heaps were decayed in 1798 but made fine harbors for snakes and as the warm sun of spring came out, I think hundreds of them could be seen in an hour pa.s.sing from one brush heap to another. I used to amuse myself in watching their movements and noting their peculiar colors. Every kind of snake seemed to nestle together in those brush heaps."[81]

On the fourth the combined army moved in a northwesterly direction through the Turtle Creek Valley and, continuing over the hilly region northeast of Lebanon, crossed the Little Miami at what has long been known as Fish-pot Ford about six miles northeast of Lebanon.[82] Moving up the east bank of the river, camp was pitched one mile north of the crossing-place on Caesar's Creek.[83] The route the day following was up the river on the famous war path toward the Indian Chillicothe and Piqua towns in the valleys of that and the Mad River, along the general alignment of the Little Miami Railroad. Marching ten miles, according to Captain Armstrong, the army encamped "at five o'clock on Glade creek, a very lively, clear stream."

On the sixth, the site of old Chillicothe was reached; "recrossed the Little Miami," says Armstrong, "at half past one o'clock, halted one hour, and encamped at four o'clock on a branch." Morris's account from the thirtieth of September reads: "Thirtieth, we moved forward on the old Indian trail leading to the old Chilcothie town, on the little Miami, and after several days marching, arrived at the place where the town once stood. Here we fired off our guns; and in the evening, having recrossed the river, encamped about a mile above, near where James Galloway now lives."

The old Indian trail ran from Chillicothe to Old Piqua across Mad River Township, Clark County, where, five miles west of Springfield, Tec.u.mseh was born. After Clark's destruction of this village in 1780, its inhabitants moved across to the Great Miami where New Piqua was built, and which was destroyed by Clark in 1782. The path Harmar now followed bore toward the northwest, taking him to the site of the later Piqua on the Great Miami. Armstrong's journal reads: "7^{th}.... Pa.s.sed through several low praries, and crossed the Pickaway fork of Mad river....

Encamped on a small branch, one mile from the former. Our course the first four miles north, then northwest.--Nine miles."

The Irwin MS., from the point of union of Harmar and Harding, reads: "formed the Line of march there which was in Two Lines one on the right and one on the Left of s^d Trace a strong front and Rear guard on Said Trace the Baggage in the Center Pa.s.sed near where the Town of Lebanon Stands in Warren County west of Waynesville and Xenia Crossed Mad river perhaps 10 miles from Dayton Struck the great Miami near the old Piqua Towns that was Detroyed By s^d Gen^l. Clark Crossed the Miami some Distance above Them."

For the journey between the two Miamis the Morris journal is perhaps most definite: "On the day following, we crossed Mad river, and camped near New Carlisle,[84] in Clark county, and within one mile of Epee town, located precisely where Elnathan Cory now lives. This town gave name to the creek on which it stood, now called Honey-creek.... Here we killed 20 cows intended for beef.... The next day we crossed Indian creek ... and same day crossed Lost Creek in Miami county.... On this evening, we encamped at a spring, on the farm formerly owned by Nathaniel Gerrard, and about two miles from the town of Troy. Gen.

Harmar gave to this spring, the name _Tea Spring_, as he and his officers refreshed themselves there, on that beverage."

Armstrong's record for the eighth and ninth is: "The army moved at halfpast nine o'clock. Pa.s.sed over rich land, in some places a little broken: pa.s.sed several ponds, and through one small prarie, a N. W.

course.--Seven miles. 9th--The army moved at halfpast nine o'clock.

Pa.s.sed through a level, rich country, well watered: course N. W.,--halted halfpast four o'clock, two miles south of the Great Miami.--Ten miles."

These commonplace records do not in any way represent the real state of affairs; perhaps they suggest only the topics of conversation of the vanguard of scouts and guides that led the army. The little band of troops was now in the heart of the enemy's country. The face of the land was covered with forests, broken here and there by patches of bush and prairie. That the Indians knew of their advance, there was little doubt.

When, where, or how they would oppose that advance, no one knew. The Great Miami was now reached and soon the strategic portage of the St.

Mary would be taken possession of. The course would then be down grade to the Miami towns on the Maumee. Would the enemy rally here on the watershed crest near the old French fort on the Loramie? Such speculations as these occupied many more minds, it may confidently be believed, than thoughts of the streams or prairies crossed. The records left us tell only of the commonplaces, leaving the human element to the imagination. Yet this can be better conceived if the route is correctly outlined.

On the tenth of September Harmar crossed the Great Miami River. "At the crossing," wrote Armstrong, "there is a handsome high prairie on the S. E. side." "On the following day," reads the Morris record, "we crossed the big Miami, a little above the town of Piqua, near Manning's old mill.... This evening we encamped not far from upper Piqua." This agrees with the Irwin MS. previously quoted.

On the eleventh the army moved to and crossed Loramie's Creek, seven miles from its camping-place of the preceding night (ten miles from the camp near the Great Miami of September 9). Of the route from the Great Miami onward, Irwin states: "Crossed Loirimous Creek a short Distance from its mouth into the great Miami river had a pretty good Indian Trace from there to what was Called the old french store or Trading house at St marys had a good Trace from there to the Maumee towns." The Morris record reads: "Next day, we took up our march for Lorrimiers, a French trader at St. Marys--... We crossed Lorrimie creek on the next morning, at a village that had been burned by Clark or Logan, some ten years before. From here, we pa.s.sed over the summit level for St. Marys, where we encamped.... Having crossed St. Marys we encamped on its eastern bank."[85]

On September 12, by Armstrong's journal, the army "crossed a stream at seven miles and a half running N. E. on which there are several old camps, much deadened timber, which continues to the river Auglaize, about a mile. Here has been a considerable village--some houses still standing. This stream is a branch of the Omi [Maumee] river, and is about twenty yards wide."

From this on the route was along the old trace which followed the St.

Mary, some distance to the northward of the immediate bank, to its junction with the Maumee, where the army arrived on the seventeenth of September, having accomplished the hard march of over one hundred and sixty miles in eighteen days by the regulars and twenty by the militia.

On the thirteenth, "I think the 1^{st} or 2^d morning after we Left St Marys," according to Mr. Irwin, "8 or 10 mounted men went out in Search of some horses that had Been Lost or missing over night Started a Smart young Indian without a gun in the open woods--Took him prisoner Brought him into Camp ... he give Every information respecting the movements of the Indians Stated they had Determined to move Their families and property out of the Towns and Burn Them. Six hundred men was Detached or Drafted from the army placed under the Command of Col. Hardin he Being the 2^d in Command with orders to proceed as quick as possible to the Towns. When We arrived found what the prisoner Stated was True 2 Indians happened to Be under the Bank of the river when the army came up they tried to Escape the Troops Discovered them and about 100 guns was Discharged at them one was found Dead the Next Day in the Brush, The Ballance of the army arriv'd at the Towns two Days after the first got there I was with the rear."[86]

Signs that the Indians had retreated in a northwesterly direction being discovered, General Harmar, on the eighteenth, ordered Colonel Trotter of the militia to follow and attack them with a force of three hundred men. The detachment was provided with three days rations. About one mile from camp an Indian was pursued and killed. A little later a second solitary Indian scout was killed--after wounding one of his a.s.sailants.

Trotter moved hither and thither with apparent aimlessness until nightfall when he returned to camp--to Harmar's disgust. The militia in camp had scattered in various directions searching for corn and other plunder which the savages had buried. The gun fired to call these into camp, Trotter affirmed, was thought to be an alarm signal for him to return. The men under Trotter displayed no more military characteristics than the prowling militia left at the encampment. Such men, it was sure, would suffer at the hands of the fierce, watchful enemy, if ever their turn should come.

It came on the very next day! It was now Colonel Hardin's turn to strike a blow, and he was ordered out on the Indian path which ran northwest toward the Kickapoo towns. Proceeding about eleven miles from camp (Fort Wayne, Indiana) to near the point where the Goshen state road crosses the Eel River, the keen scouter John Armstrong saw important "signs"

and heard an alarm gun in front. Hardin did not act on the advice and made no disposition of his troops for battle. Soon after, Armstrong discovered the fires of the Indian camp--but Hardin, scorning the enemy, pushed straight on. The Indian commander--the famous Miami warrior, Little Turtle--based his plans on just such recklessness. Deep in the brush and gra.s.s on either side of the trail his dogs of war crouched silent as cougars. The army had walked well into the trap before two crimson streaks of fire flashed out in the very faces of the troopers.

The militia bolted at breakneck speed--some never stopping in their flight until they reached the Ohio River. A small band of regulars under Armstrong retired slightly and held their ground temporarily; then they retreated to Harmar's camp. This savage stroke cost heavily, the Indians killing almost an average of a white man apiece--the loss, about one hundred, equalling, probably, the number of the waylaying savage force.

It was one of the bloodiest ambuscades in western history. Armstrong's journal for the nineteenth reads: "Attacked about one hundred Indians fifteen miles west of the Miami village; and from the dastardly conduct of the militia, the troops were obliged to retreat. I lost one sergeant, and twenty-one out of thirty men of my command. The Indians on this occasion gained a complete victory--having killed, in the whole, near one hundred men, which was about their number. Many of the militia threw away their arms without firing a shot, ran through the federal troops and threw them in disorder." Of the Indians Armstrong adds "they fought and died hard."

When Hardin's troops returned, they found that Harmar had moved two miles down the Maumee in the work of destroying the Indian villages and crops. From this camp, an old Shawanese village, various companies were sent out in different directions to finish the work of destroying the Indian settlements. On the night of the twenty-first, when seven miles distant from the Miami village, Colonel Hardin proposed to Harmar that he be allowed his pick of the militia with which to return secretly upon the Indians. It was believed, and spies no doubt so reported, that the Indians had returned to their central villages at the junction of the St. Mary and St. Joseph. Harmar acquiesced, feeling that another blow would undoubtedly prevent the savages from following the army.

The force was composed of three hundred and forty militia, under Majors Hall and McMullen, Major Fontaine's mounted militia, and sixty regulars under Major Wyllys. The Miami town was reached after sunrise. Hardin's plan was to surround secretly the village and make a simultaneous attack from all sides. Major Hall's battalion was sent to cross the St. Mary and hold themselves in readiness to attack from the rear when the main body, which would cross the Maumee at the common ford, fell upon the village in front. Hall's men wantonly fired on a fugitive Indian before the signal for attack was given; to make matters worse the militia under McMullen and Fontaine began pursuing the various parties of flying redskins, leaving Major Wyllys and the regulars unsupported. The latter crossed the Maumee, according to the fixed scheme, but were suddenly a.s.sailed by an overpowering force led by Little Turtle and were compelled to return with loss of many men, including Major Wyllys himself. The militia then hastened back to the main army. Miserable as had been the deportment of the militia, their muskets had done severe execution, and Harmar had no fear now of an Indian attack--nor the slightest remnant of confidence in any but the fragment of regular troops left to him.

On the twenty-third the army took up the line of outward march for Fort Washington and reached the Ohio on the fourth day of November, having lost one hundred and eighty-three killed and thirty-one wounded. Major Wyllys and Lieutenant Frothingham of the regulars, and Major Fontaine and Captains Thorp, McMurtrey, and Scott, and Lieutenants Clark and Rogers of the militia were the princ.i.p.al officers sacrificed.

On the other hand there is ground for partly agreeing with Irwin that Harmar's campaign was not wholly a defeat. The Indian loss was as large as the American--and this was a great deal accomplished. Few armies before had entered the Indian land and not been followed by the Indians on the return with distinct losses. Harmar's repeated though costly operations on the Maumee had given the Indians all the battle they wished; indeed it is not too much to say that they were stunned.

CHAPTER III

ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN

Harmar wrought wide destruction but of the kind that made the Indians of the Maumee irrevocably and bitterly angry. The main boast of the returning campaigners was that the enemy did not pursue them--which, after all, was more significant than we can realize today. It ill.u.s.trates in a word the exact effect of the raid; the Indians were dumbfounded at the arrival of a white army so far within their forests.

They knew as well as the whites that the punishment administered to the frontiersmen was almost wholly due to the rash boldness of the latter, who, rushing heedlessly after the scurrying savages, made ambuscades possible. Yet Harmar's actual success was only in burning villages and crops, and sending crowds of old men and women and children fleeing to the swamps and forest fastnesses. Practically, it was the old story of a score of Kentucky raids into the "Indian side" of the Ohio over again.

"You are the 'town-destroyer,'" was the cry of an old chieftain to President Washington, "and when that name is heard our women look quickly behind them and turn pale." But there was something more to be done on the Maumee than to make squaws turn pale! That would not keep back the murdering bands from the infant settlements along and below the Ohio.

This became plain so suddenly that the shock was felt throughout the East. In no way could the Northwestern Indians have struck home more quickly than by perpetrating the terrible Big Bottom Ma.s.sacre. The New England colony which, led by Rufus Putnam, founded Marietta at the mouth of the Muskingum had, by January 1790, expanded in all directions.[87]

One company of pioneers had ascended the Muskingum to Big Bottom, Morgan County, Ohio. At dusk, on the second night in January, 1791, a band of savages crossed the river at Silverheels Riffle above the unprotected blockhouse, and entered the settlement feigning friendship. The pioneers offered them a portion of the evening meal, when a sudden burst of flame swept the room. Several whites fell straight forward into the fireplace before which they were eating; others, to the number of fourteen, were instantly put to death. But one blow was struck by the whites at Big Bottom. The goodwife of the woodsman Meeks, uninjured by the first fire that swept the cabin, took advantage of the cloud of smoke to seize a broad-ax standing by the wall. As an Indian strode forward to the b.l.o.o.d.y finale, the glittering blade sank deeply into his shoulder. It was but one blow--but it was a token of a Nation's anger; it meant as much as the blood-red battle-ax the departing murderers left beside the smouldering ruins of Big Bottom blockhouse.

The message of that war-club sped eastward. The blow at the New England colony was sure to attract unusual attention, and no doubt played an important part in deciding the great question of the hour. This was a question of war or peace. As in the year previous, so now in 1791 (as well as in later times) there were many who opposed Indian warfare from humanitarian principles. Suffice it to say these opponents of war did not live on the Muskingum or Licking Rivers! Yet peace, for all concerned, if it could be secured at an honorable price, was most desirable, and the United States faced the question fairly and with energy. As early as December, 1790, the famous Seneca chieftain Cornplanter, being in Philadelphia, was urged not only to present the exact feeling of the Government to the Six Nations in New York and on the Allegheny, but was asked to visit the hostile western nations as a peace messenger. The declaration of war by the savages at Big Bottom in no wise deterred the United States from this purpose of obtaining peace at the least price in blood and treasure. In March, 1791, Colonel Thomas Proctor was sent to the Senecas to urge the young men of that tribe not to take the war path, and then was ordered to go with Cornplanter to the Maumee River. The task was dangerous and laborious, but Proctor pushed his way through the forests of Pennsylvania and New York to the Senecas who kept so well the western door of the "Long House of the Iroquois."

It was a fruitless mission. "The people at the setting sun are bad people," said an old warrior to the intrepid herald; "you must look when it is light in the morning until the setting sun, and you must reach your neck over the land, and take all the light you can, to show the danger."

The Senecas were right and the further Proctor "reached his neck out"

over the land the more plainly was this seen to be true. Gordon, the British commander at Niagara, forbade him taking ship for the Maumee; "the unfriendly denial," he wrote the Secretary of War, "puts a stop to the further attempting to go to the Miamies." Another item in his letter was of significance: Joseph Brant with forty warriors had gone westward to the confederated tribes on an unknown mission.

In April, Colonel Timothy Pickering was also sent to the Senecas, and, meeting them in convention at Painted Post, urged the chieftains to hold back the young men from joining the hostile tribes. Governor St. Clair likewise sent messages, especially to the western tribes urging that hostile bands be withdrawn from the frontier ere the United States should be compelled to bring heavy chastis.e.m.e.nt. But peace is sometimes as costly, and more so, than war; such proved to be the case now. It was early believed by the most farsighted that a crushing defeat of the northwestern confederacy would be a great saving of blood. And so while peaceful efforts were being forwarded as effectually as the situation of the distant tribes and the hostility of English agents permitted, warlike preparations were likewise being made. As the spring of 1791 opened, the frontiers were overrun with murderous bands and the cry from the infant West to the central government could not be unheeded. "I most earnestly implore the protection of government," wrote the brave Putnam to Washington, "for myself and friends inhabiting these wilds of America." The cry from Kentucky and the lower Ohio was equally piercing.

The plan of the United States at this juncture was wholly in keeping with its dignity and its power. Failing in an attempt of reconciliation, it was determined to throw into the Indian land several raiding bands of hors.e.m.e.n "to demonstrate that they [the savages] were within our reach, and lying at our mercy."[88] In case these strokes did not awe the offenders, a grand campaign on an extensive scale was to be inaugurated. Fearing the worst, though hopeful of the better, preparations for all these movements were put on foot, to be countermanded if peaceful measures sufficed. The att.i.tude of the Government at this serious crisis of its first Indian war must be judged humane and generous. The Indians protested that they had never ceded an inch of territory northwest of the Ohio; yet at four treaties supposed representatives of all the nations concerned had received from American commissioners payment for all lands now (1791) occupied or claimed by the white men. In each case the nations had been formally invited to each treaty; they now averred that only irresponsible chieftains had signed these treaties. In a single instance it is possible to believe that unscrupulous Indians might have so deceived the government officials and wronged the Indians, but that this could have occurred on three occasions was manifestly absurd. The Ohio Company purchase and the Symmes purchase had been made, the pioneers had emigrated and settled the lands. The Government had given no white man right to cross the treaty line. Those settlements could not be uprooted without great injustice. The war seemed, therefore, an imperative necessity, and the Government had no honorable alternative if peace efforts failed. We have had many dealings with the Indians since 1790, and it is of some comfort to rest a.s.sured that our first Indian war was eminently just and right.

Unless otherwise ordered, Brigadier-general Scott of Kentucky was to make a dash at the Indian villages on the upper Wabash in the early summer. A little later General Wilkinson was scheduled to lead another raiding band to the populous settlement on the Eel River, a northern tributary of the Wabash. These swift strokes, it was hoped, would compel the Indians to confer concerning peace. No rift in the dark war-clouds occurred, despite the efforts of Knox and St. Clair to establish an armistice, and Scott marched northward in May and Wilkinson in August.

Like similar raids, these two were successful failures. Villages and crops were ruined and captives were taken. Many squaws "looked behind them and turned pale" perhaps, but in effect they had an opposite influence from that hoped: they undid whatever little good the efforts to secure peace had accomplished. There was now utmost need for the final "grand campaign."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PART OF ARROWSMITH'S MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, 1796]

[_Showing the region in which Wilkinson_, _Scott_, _Harmar_, _St.

Clair_, _and Wayne operated_]

The army of the United States now consisted of three or four hundred soldiers--the First Regiment--distributed among the frontier forts on the Ohio River. It was ordered that the depleted ranks of this regiment be filled by recruits to be raised "from Maryland to New York inclusive," and that a full Second Regiment be raised, one company from South Carolina and one from Delaware and the remainder in the four New England states.[89] The troops were to be mustered by companies, to rendezvous at Fort Pitt. Governor Arthur St. Clair was created Major-general and placed in command of the new army. Brigadier-general Richard Butler was appointed second in command. The object of the campaign was to establish a line of military posts from Fort Washington on the Ohio to the Maumee, where, at the Miami village at the junction of the St. Mary and St. Joseph, a strong fort was to be built, "for the purpose of awing and curbing the Indians in that quarter, and as the only preventative of future hostilities."[90] In present day terms the army was to march from Cincinnati, Ohio, and erect a fort on the site of Fort Wayne, Indiana. In every order the underlying theory of the Government is plain--the one end sought was peace. "This [peace] is of more value than millions of uncultivated acres," were the words of the Secretary of War in St. Clair's instructions.[91] It was a war of self-defense, not a war of conquest.

The business dragged at every point. In the hope that the Indians would come to reason, Scott's raid was delayed a week at the start. Wilkinson, who was to move northward June 10, did not march until August 1. The continued antic.i.p.ation of good results from these expeditions, which would render the grand campaign unnecessary, tended to lessen the energies of the preparations. General Butler was a.s.signed the duty of raising the recruits in the East--a discouraging task. The pay offered did not equal an average day's wage. The campaign was not entirely popular and promised innumerable hardships. Enlistments came in slowly, and, in many instances, only the unfit and unworthy offered. As late as April 28 the Secretary of War wrote General Butler: "None of the companies of the Eastern States are yet nearly completed." As early as May 12 he wrote St. Clair: "It will at least be the latter end of July, or the beginning of August before your force shall be a.s.sembled."

Originally the army was to march from Fort Washington on July 10.