Historic Highways of America Volume VIII Part 4

CHAPTER IV

WAYNE AND FALLEN TIMBER

The defeat of St. Clair's army cast a nation into gloom. As the terrible tidings sped eastward a thousand frontier cabins were filled with dismayed men, women, and children. The pa.s.sion into which it is said the patient Washington was thrown, upon hearing the melancholy story, was typical of the feeling of a whole people. There could be no doubt, now, what the future would bring forth; a deluge of raiding savages, such as had never overrun the frontiers since Braddock's defeat in 1755, would certainly come; the desperate cry, "White men shall not plant corn north of the Ohio," would now ring out over the thin fringe of frightened settlements on the Miami and Muskingum, and with that cry would come frenzied raiders from whose tomahawks men would do well to escape death and women be fortunate if they were quickly killed. From all the western settlements in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania a cry, anxious and often piteous, was hurried over the mountains to Philadelphia for aid and protection.

The young government now faced a problem difficult in the extreme with fine courage, fully conscious of its own dignity and its own latent power. Within six weeks of St. Clair's annihilation, the Secretary of War submitted a statement to Congress which summed up the situation briefly and clearly. The former treaties with the Indians, the efforts for peace, the sorry details of the campaign were all described.

Peaceful and warlike efforts, alike, had failed. So much for the past.

For the future, the plan was already formulated and ready for adoption by Congress. First, the war must be brought to an end; if peace could be secured without further resort to arms, well and good; "it is submitted," read the Secretary's communication, "that every reasonable expedient be again taken ... that the nature of the case, and a just regard to the national reputation, will admit." Those in best position to judge, however, were sure that the pride of victory was so strong among the confederated nations that "it would be altogether improper to expect any favorable result from such [peaceful] expedients," and Congress was warned accordingly that it was "by an ample conviction of superior force only, that the Indians can be brought to listen to the dictates of peace on reasonable terms." It was properly insisted that relinquishment of territory formerly ceded by the savages could not be arranged "consistently with a proper regard to national reputation." The plan included the organization of a new army, comprising three hundred cavalry, three hundred artillerymen, and five regiments of infantry of four thousand five hundred and sixty men. It was to be styled "The Legion of the United States," and was to be divided into four sub-legions of one thousand two hundred and eighty non-commissioned officers and privates each. The mistakes of the past dictated the necessity of having this force disciplined "according to the nature of the service;" its ultimate object was to establish a strong post on the present site of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

To secure a comprehensive grasp of the interesting campaign now undertaken, it is necessary to keep in mind simultaneously three situations: this new army, the moving companies of peace commissioners, and that ragged pathway northward from Fort Washington with the little stockade forts which guarded it. These varying phases will be treated chronologically, at the risk of coherency, and the scattered threads gathered much in the tangled order in which they were spun amid many hopes and many fears.

One of the first important matters, in this as in previous campaigns, was to retain the neutrality of the Six Nations. The efforts in the year preceding had been approximately successful, though, according to his biographer, Stone, Joseph Brant with a party of Mohawks was present at St. Clair's defeat. As early as January 9, 1792, an express was hurried off to the Reverend Samuel Kirtland, veteran missionary among the Iroquois, informing him that Colonel Pickering had invited the princ.i.p.al chiefs of the Six Nations to visit Washington. He was urged to a.s.sist in securing their acquiescence, especially Joseph Brant's, and to accompany them on the journey.

The next act of Secretary Knox is peculiarly significant and interesting. Captain Peter Pond, a trader, and one William Steedman were ordered to proceed westward to the hostile tribes on the Maumee, feigning to be traders. "No doubt can exist," wrote Knox, "that our strength and our resources are abundant to conquer, and even extirpate the Indians.... But this is not our object. We wish to be at peace with those Indians--to be their friends and protectors--to perpetuate them on the land. The desire, therefore, that we have for peace, must not be inconsistent with the national reputation. We cannot ask the Indians to make peace with us, considering them as the aggressors: but they must ask a peace of us. To persuade them to this effect is the object of your mission. Insinuate, upon all favorable occasions, the humane disposition of the United States; and, if you can by any means ripen their judgement, so as to break forth openly [disclose yourselves], and declare the readiness of the United States to receive, with open arms, the Indians, ... do it.... You might persuade some of the most influential chiefs to repair to our posts on the Ohio, and so, from post to post, to this place."[126] Perhaps never in warfare were spies sent amongst an enemy on so remarkable a mission.

In response to the Government's invitation, fifty Indian chieftains from the Six Nations arrived in Philadelphia on March 13. They were treated with utmost courtesy by the government officials and proper gifts distributed. Among other benefits, fifteen hundred dollars a year was promised by the United States to be spent encouraging education and agriculture in the Iroquois land. The chief boon secured by this display of hospitality and liberality was the promise that the Six Nations would wholly abstain from war and would immediately send a delegation to the western tribes to mediate between them and the United States, secure an armistice, and make plans for a final treaty of peace. In this promise the Government placed great hope. The Six Nations were the most prominent of their race on the continent and their chieftains exerted an influence equaled by none. Having received, in person, from the nation's highest executive officers, protestations of friendliest nature, they were the best emissaries that could possibly treat with the hostile tribes on the Maumee on behalf of the Government.

Yet efforts to avert war did not stop here. By May it was determined to send an envoy extraordinary to the Maumee, if the hazard could possibly be accomplished. The Iroquois chiefs would, it was believed, keep their solemn pledges, yet affairs of such a nature usually developed very slowly among red-men and in the present crisis there was no time to be lost. Accordingly a fitting personage was chosen by President Washington to make the perilous attempt. His choice fell quickly on the brave leader of the Ohio Company pioneers to Marietta--General Rufus Putnam.

Sufficient provision for his family in case of a disastrous termination of his journey being promised by the Government, the quiet, bold pioneer departed from his frontier home on May 22 for Fort Washington. His instructions were explicit. He was first to a.s.sure the hostile nations that the United States did not in the least desire any of the Indian's land, but rather solemnly pledged itself to "guaranty all that remain, and take the Indians under our protection." In turn the Indians were to agree to a truce and call in all war-parties. The most prominent chiefs were to be invited to Philadelphia to make a treaty; on his way westward General Putnam was empowered to release all Indian prisoners retained at Fort Washington and give the women presents to carry home with them in token of the Government's pacific intentions.[127]

The frontier to which Putnam now came was in need of brave men and strong. These had been long months since that dark November day when the remains of St. Clair's shattered army poured back upon Fort Jefferson and Fort Hamilton, Brigadier-general Wilkinson now commanded at Fort Washington and with a firm hand was managing affairs on the firing-line.

His outposts, Forts Hamilton and Jefferson, were frequently surrounded by Indian scouts sent down the narrow trace from Little Turtle's cantonments on the Maumee, but no attack on these posts had yet been made in force. Such an attack was frequently antic.i.p.ated, and many sudden calls to arms sounded now and again within the little garrisons lost so far within the northern forests. The brave Captain John Armstrong still commanded at Fort Hamilton, guarding the strategic ford of the Great Miami and the narrow roadway toward Fort Jefferson and the silent corpse-strewn battle-ground beyond. Wilkinson's princ.i.p.al duty was to keep the garrisons of his three little forts alive and in heart, and keep a watchful eye on the victorious enemy. In January, calling on volunteers from the country about Cincinnati, Wilkinson organized a little company to visit St. Clair's slaughter-ground. The snow was two feet deep--a depth seldom if ever exceeded in southwestern Ohio.

Kentucky volunteers crossed the Ohio on ice above the mouth of the Little Miami. Leaving Fort Washington January 25, the fatal field was reached February 1. Such was the depth of snow that comparatively few bodies could be found, save as here and there, on knolls and ridges, a white mound of driven snow marked where a wolf had left a scalped and mangled corpse. The winter of 1791-92 likewise witnessed the erection of an intermediary post between Forts Hamilton and Jefferson, most appropriately named Fort St. Clair. It was erected by a body of men under command of Captain John S. Gano, under whom William Henry Harrison served, half a mile west of the present site of Eaton, Preble County, at St. Clair's Crossing of "Garrison Branch" of Seven Mile Creek.

As the spring of 1792 opened, and the forest roads became pa.s.sable, it was expected that the Indians, by a concerted movement, would attempt to sweep the three forts north of the Ohio and make good their unjust claim to possession of that northern sh.o.r.e.

Accordingly spies were kept well out on the trails for any sign of an advancing army. Others were sent nearer the Indian's lair. On April 7 two messengers, Freeman and Gerrard, were sent from Fort Washington with a speech to the hostile tribes, being ordered to follow Harmar's Trace up the Little and Great Miamis. Three days later Wilkinson sent word to Armstrong to order out a spy by way of St. Clair's road, who should carefully study the route all the way to the Miami towns. Accordingly one of the boldest men on the frontier, William May, was ordered to "desert" to the enemy and, shaving his head and adopting their dress and manner of living, to learn all that was being planned and done in the red-men's camps. On May 12 Sergeant Reuben Reynolds was ordered to "desert" from Fort St. Clair and also follow St. Clair's route to the Maumee and reside with the Indians until a favorable opportunity to return occurred. On May 20 Colonel Hardin and Captain Alexander Trueman left Fort Washington for the Maumee, bearing an official message from the Government, of similar tenor to that given to General Putnam. Thus six men had preceded Putnam to the Maumee, and only two of them went merely as spies--May and Reynolds. The fate of four of these men dampened the ardor of the frontier people for peaceful efforts. Freeman, Gerrard, Trueman, and Hardin were all murdered before reaching the Maumee. Reynolds and May returned in safety later in the year.

General Putnam learned at Fort Washington of the fate of his predecessors and determined not to throw life away uselessly. Favorable messages having been received from the upper Wabash, he turned all his efforts toward securing a meeting with the Wabash Indians in the fall of the year at Vincennes, Indiana. No more attempts were made to reach the Maumee over the "b.l.o.o.d.y Way," as the Indians termed the route north from Fort Washington. "The President of the United States must know well why the blood is so deep in our paths," exclaimed a Shawanese chieftain, "... he has sent messengers of peace on these b.l.o.o.d.y roads, who fell on the way." A messenger was even now preparing to come this way to whom b.l.o.o.d.y roads were not new and for whom they had no fear. Leaving the Indian commissioners going slowly on their way to a conference with the hostile tribes at "Auglaize"--the mouth of the Auglaize River where Defiance, Ohio, now stands--and Putnam waiting for the Weas and Kickapoos to a.s.semble at Vincennes, let us look back to the gathering "Legion of the United States" into whose ready hands the matter of peace would go when the Indians got courage enough to throw off the mask.

It was one thing to plan an army on paper but a far more serious task to raise and organize it. And first and foremost arose the trebly difficult task of choosing a leader. The officers of Revolutionary days were fast pa.s.sing into old age, and as Washington looked about him to the comrades of former years, there were few left capable of taking up the difficult task that St. Clair laid down. A memorandum left by Washington indicates the serious necessity of a wise choice and the nature of the possible candidates. Lincoln was sober, honest, and brave, but infirm and past the vigor of life; Baron Steuben, a stickler for tactics, was likewise sober and brave and sensible, but a foreigner; Moultrie was brave and had fought against the Cherokees, but Washington knew little of him; McIntosh was considered honest and brave but was not well known and consequently not popular, and was infirm; Wayne was "More active and enterprising than Judicious and cautious. No oeconomist it is feared:--open to flattery--vain--easily imposed upon and liable to be drawn into sc.r.a.pes. Too indulgent (the effect perhaps of some of the causes just mentioned) to his Officers. Whether sober--or a little addicted to the bottle I know not;" Weedon was not deficient of resource and was of a convivial nature though not unduly so; Hand was sensible and judicious and not intemperate; Scott was brave and "means well" but not suited for extensive command, convivial; Huntington, sober, sensible, discreet; Wilkinson, lively, sensible, pompous, and ambitious, "whether sober or not I do not know;" Gist, activity and attention doubtful, but of n.o.ble spirit; Irvine, sober, tolerably sensible, prudent, an "oeconomist;" Morgan, fortunate and had met with _eclat_, possibly intemperate, troubled with palpitation and illiterate; Williams sensible though vain, in poor health; Putnam, (Rufus) strong-minded, discreet, "nothing conspicuous in character ... known little out of his own State and a narrow circle;" Pinckney, brave, honorable, erudite, sensible and a stickler for tactics.[128]

No other officers are named as possible candidates for a position no one could possibly desire. As the list stands, it forms a startling refutation of the oft repeated saying that though drinking was common in the old days it was not carried to excess. The problem with Washington seems to have been, speaking mildly, to find a responsible man with a clear head. His decision at first seems to have wavered between Lincoln and Moultrie; under these men as major-generals, Wayne, Morgan, and Wilkinson might serve as brigadiers. What may have induced the final decision cannot be stated definitely, but the command was at last offered to Brevet Major-general "Mad" Anthony Wayne and it was accepted.

Brevet Brigadier-generals Wilkinson and Thomas Posey were second in active command. Major-general Scott was to command fifteen hundred mounted Kentucky militia.

As with Washington, so with Wayne, the most serious task was to choose his officers from the recruits which early in 1792 were hurried on to Pittsburg to defend the frontier under the dashing hero of Stony Point--Wayne's appointment having been well received everywhere save in Virginia and Kentucky. If the army was to be disciplined "according to the nature of the service"--Indian-fighting--Indian-fighters must do the training. "We will be under the necessity," wrote Wayne to Knox from Pittsburg, "of discharging many of the men--who never were--nor never will be fit for service, they are at present a nuisance to the Legion & a useless expense to the publick.... You may rest a.s.sured I will carefully guard against improper appointments or recommendations--we shall have some difficulty before we can purge the Legion of Characters who never were fit for Officers."[129] Such administrative ability as this was the very thing needed on the frontier; it drove from the gathering army many useless characters and made possible the encouragement and promotion of such valuable men as Lieutenant William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame), Eaton, and William Henry Harrison. The fine spirit of Wayne infused courage throughout the frontier and made men eager to serve and win promotion, though sometimes "without shoez or shirts called upon to do the hardest duty & 7 mo. pay due--while they have not money to buy a chew of tobacco."[130]

One of the most interesting ma.n.u.scripts now extant of Wayne, his army, its marches and battles, is preserved in the library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Its author was no less a personage than Brigadier-general Thomas Posey, a.s.sociated with General Wilkinson as second in command of the army. General Posey's journal continually emphasizes the human element in the scenes through which he pa.s.sed, and frequent side-lights from this. .h.i.therto unused source will be introduced in this narrative.[131] Posey reached Pittsburg on August 2. "As we pa.s.sed through the upper part of Virginia," he leaves record of the journey across the mountains, "the people would often say what a pitty, such a likely parcel of young men were Going to be Slaughtered by the indians as Gen^l St Clair's army was." One of the most striking observations of Pittsburg was the ominous statement, "at least one half of the People of Pittsburg are in mourning for Gen^l Richard Butler."

Throughout the summer the gathering troops remained at Pittsburg while rigid examinations and drilling exercises were begun. On November 28 the army moved down the Ohio to a distance of seven miles above Fort McIntosh at the mouth of Beaver Creek and twenty-two miles below Pittsburg; this place was accordingly named Legionville. Here, "out of the reach of whisky, which baneful poison is prohibited from entering this camp," as Wayne wrote the Secretary of War,[132] winter quarters were established, houses for the soldiers being erected first and those for officers afterward. Severe daily drilling was the order of the day at Legionville, the result of which, though delayed, was sure.

While Wayne was whipping an army into shape on the upper Ohio two events were on the tapis at opposite corners of the Black Forest of the West to which the officials at Philadelphia were paying much heed. At Vincennes, on the twentieth of September, Putnam was scheduled to meet the delegates of the Wabash Nations for a treaty of peace, and early in October the commissioners from the Six Nations were to meet the chiefs of the disaffected northwestern tribes at the mouth of the Auglaize on the broad Maumee. At Vincennes Putnam accomplished all that could have been expected, and a treaty was signed by thirty-one Wabash chiefs on September 27. The treaty, finally, was not ratified by the United States Senate because of an objectionable clause which was not compatible with the law of eminent domain.[133]

Where Defiance, Ohio, now stands, flanked by its two rivers, one of the most unique conventions in our history a.s.sembled as the autumn winds stirred the forests. From the east, Cornplanter and a stately retinue of forty-eight chiefs of the Six Nations proceeded to "Au Glaize." From even the far-away Canadian Nations emissaries arrived. When at last the famous convention a.s.sembled, and the pipe pa.s.sed from chieftain to chieftain, two speakers, only, addressed the a.s.sembly. Red Jacket spoke for the Senecas and the delegation from the Iroquois land. A Shawanese chieftain, whose name was not recorded, answered on the part of the hostile tribes. His words were a bold rebuke to the Six Nations for maintaining friendship with the United States. "... although you consider us your younger brothers," sneered the Shawanese, "your seats are not at such a distance, but what we can see your conduct plainly; these are the reasons why we consider you to speak from the outside of your lips; for whenever you hear the voice of the United States, you immediately take your packs and attend their councils.... We see plainly folded under your arm the voice of the United States--wish you to unfold it to us, that we may see it freely and consult on it." So saying he threw a triple string of wampum across the fire to the Senecas rather than handing it across in a friendly way. That Philadelphia conference of last March did not please the western tribes.

In turn the Seneca sketched the story of the French and English domination and of the birth of the United States, which, he said, desired peace with the confederated Indians. The Shawanese repeated the story of St. Clair's disaster of the year before and a.s.serted that the Indians claimed certain lands east of the Ohio and all lands west of that river. Those to the eastward would be given up for proper compensation. In reply to the Seneca's desire to bring about a treaty with the hostile nations, the Shawanese replied: "Inform General Washington we will treat with him, at the Rapids of Miami, next spring, or at the time when the leaves are fully out.... We will lay the b.l.o.o.d.y tomahawk aside, until we hear from the President of the United States...."[134] Cornplanter returned eastward with his delegation and the reports of the convention were hurried on to Philadelphia with the ominous hint that no boundary would ever be consented to by the northwestern Indians save only the Ohio River. The message as it spread across the Alleghenies brought dark days and anxious nights to cabins on the thin fringe of pioneer settlements from the Muskingum to the Miami.

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 h.e.l.l 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 three thousand 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 sh.o.r.es."

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 "b.l.o.o.d.y 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 attacks such 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-antic.i.p.ated 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 was accordingly 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 pa.s.sed 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 Gen^l Wayne and His well disciplined Legion, we have little to fear accept our G.o.d and fear him in love." The summer wore 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 sh.o.r.e 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 of Indian 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 instructions the 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 pa.s.sed to and fro between the real convention at Roche de Bout and the Americans fifty 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 Indians present; 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 rea.s.semble "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 northward movement. 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 a.s.sured," 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 have missed 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 pa.s.sed 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 and turns 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 pa.s.ses 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 indisputable marks of wagon wheels or of the heavy ordinance trains."[150]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. BELKNAP'S MAP OF WAYNE'S ROUTE IN THE MAUMEE VALLEY, 1794 [_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 quant.i.ties 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 acc.u.mulated, the official personnel sifted down; and as the "Legion of the United States" went swiftly forward in the October sunlight of that 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 in the 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 manoeuvering 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 Col^o Boon first discovered Kentucky," wrote Posey; "'Col^o Boon 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 be found. 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 role. Deceived by Wayne's att.i.tude, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y skirmish had taken place near the walls of Fort Recovery in which near a thousand Indians had partic.i.p.ated. Large quant.i.ties 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]