The Winning of the West Volume IV Part 5

Among these wilderness warriors who served under Wayne were some who became known far and wide along the border for their feats of reckless personal prowess and their strange adventures. They were of course all men of remarkable bodily strength and agility, with almost unlimited power of endurance, and the keenest eyesight; and they were masters in the use of their weapons. Several had been captured by the Indians when children, and had lived for years with them before rejoining the whites; so that they knew well the speech and customs of the different tribes.

Feats of the Scouts.

One of these men was the captain of the spies, William Wells. When a boy of twelve he had been captured by the Miamis, and had grown to manhood among them, living like any other young warrior; his Indian name was Black Snake, and he married a sister of the great war-chief, Little Turtle. He fought with the rest of the Miamis, and by the side of Little Turtle, in the victories the Northwestern Indians gained over Harmar and St. Clair, and during the last battle he killed several soldiers with his own hand. Afterwards, by some wayward freak of mind, he became hara.s.sed by the thought that perhaps he had slain some of his own kinsmen; dim memories of his childhood came back to him; and he resolved to leave his Indian wife and half-breed children and rejoin the people of his own color. Tradition relates that on the eve of his departure he made his purpose known to Little Turtle, and added, "We have long been friends; we are friends yet, until the sun stands so high [indicating the place] in the heavens; from that time we are enemies and may kill one another." Be this as it may, he came to Wayne, was taken into high favor, and made chief of scouts, and served loyally and with signal success until the end of the campaign. After the campaign he was joined by his Indian wife and his children; the latter grew up and married well in the community, so that their blood now flows in the veins of many of the descendants of the old pioneers. Wells himself was slain by the Indians long afterwards, in 1812, at the Chicago ma.s.sacre.

Surprise of an Indian Party.

One of Wells' fellow spies was William Miller. Miller, like Wells, had been captured by the Indians when a boy, together with his brother Christopher. When he grew to manhood he longed to rejoin his own people, and finally did so, but he could not persuade his brother to come with him, for Christopher had become an Indian at heart. In June, 1794, Wells, Miller, and a third spy, Robert McClellan, were sent out by Wayne with special instructions to bring in a live Indian. McClellan, who a number of years afterwards became a famous plainsman and Rocky Mountain man, was remarkably swift of foot. Near the Glaize River they found three Indians roasting venison by a fire, on a high open piece of ground, clear of brushwood. By taking advantage of the cover yielded by a fallen treetop the three scouts crawled within seventy yards of the camp fire; and Wells and Miller agreed to fire at the two outermost Indians, while McClellan, as soon as they had fired, was to dash in and run down the third. As the rifles cracked the two doomed warriors fell dead in their tracks; while McClellan bounded forward at full speed, tomahawk in hand. The Indian had no time to pick up his gun; fleeing for his life he reached the bank of the river, where the bluffs were twenty feet high, and sprang over into the stream-bed. He struck a miry place, and while he was floundering McClellan came to the top of the bluff and instantly sprang down full on him, and overpowered him. The others came up and secured the prisoner, whom they found to be a white man; and to Miller's astonishment it proved to be his brother Christopher. The scouts brought their prisoner, and the scalps of the two slain warriors, back to Wayne. At first Christopher was sulky and refused to join the whites; so at Greeneville he was put in the guard house. After a few days he grew more cheerful, and said he had changed his mind. Wayne set him at liberty, and he not only served valiantly as a scout through the campaign, but acted as Wayne's interpreter. Early in July he showed his good faith by a.s.sisting McClellan in the capture of a Pottawatamie chief.

An Unexpected Act of Mercy.

On one of Wells' scouts he and his companions came across a family of Indians in a canoe by the river bank. The white wood rangers were as ruthless as their red foes, sparing neither s.e.x nor age; and the scouts were c.o.c.king rifles when Wells recognized the Indians as being the family into which he had been adopted, and by which he had been treated as a son and brother. Springing forward he swore immediate death to the first man who fired; and then told his companions who the Indians were.

The scouts at once dropped their weapons, shook hands with the Miamis, and sent them off unharmed.

Last Scouting Trip before the Battle.

Wells' last scouting trip was made just before the final battle of the campaign. As it was the eve of the decisive struggle, Wayne was anxious to get a prisoner. Wells went off with three companions--McClellan, a man named Mahaffy, and a man named May. May, like Wells and Miller, had lived long with the Indians, first as a prisoner, and afterwards as an adopted member of their tribe, but had finally made his escape. The four scouts succeeded in capturing an Indian man and woman, whom they bound securely. Instead of returning at once with their captives, the champions, in sheer dare-devil, ferocious love of adventure, determined, as it was already nightfall, to leave the two bound Indians where they could find them again, and go into one of the Indian camps to do some killing. The camp they selected was but a couple of miles from the British fort. They were dressed and painted like Indians, and spoke the Indian tongues; so, riding boldly forward, they came right among the warriors who stood grouped around the camp fires. They were at arm's-length before their disguise was discovered. Immediately each of them, choosing his man, fired into an Indian, and then they fled, pursued by a hail of bullets. May's horse slipped and fell in the bed of a stream, and he was captured. The other three, spurring hard and leaning forward in their saddles to avoid the bullets, escaped, though both Wells and McClellan were wounded; and they brought their Indian prisoners into Wayne's camp that night. May was recognized by the Indians as their former prisoner; and next day they tied him up, made a mark on his breast for a target, and shot him to death. [Footnote: McBride collects or reprints a number of narratives dealing with these border heroes; some of them are by contemporaries who took part in their deeds. Brickell's narrative corroborates these stories; the differences are such as would naturally be explained by the fact that different observers were writing of the same facts from memory after a lapse of several years. In their essentials the narratives are undoubtedly trustworthy. In the Draper collection there are scores of MS. narratives of similar kind, written down from what the pioneers said in their old age; unfortunately it is difficult to sift out the true from the false, unless the stories are corroborated from outside sources; and most of the tales in the Draper MSS. are evidently hopelessly distorted. Wells'

daring attack on the Indian camp is alluded to in the Bradley MSS.; the journal, under date of August 12th, recites how four white spies went down almost to Lake Erie, captured two Indians, and then attacked the Indians in their tents, three of the spies being wounded.]

Wayne Reaches the Maumee and Builds Fort Defiance.

With his advance effectually covered by his scouts, and his army guarded by his own ceaseless vigilance, Wayne marched without opposition to the confluence of the Glaize and the Maumee, where the hostile Indian villages began, and whence they stretched to below the British fort. The savages were taken by surprise and fled without offering opposition; while Wayne halted, on August 8th, and spent a week in building a strong log stockade, with four good blockhouses as bastions; he christened the work Fort Defiance. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 490, Wayne to Secretary of War, Aug. 14, 1794.] The Indians had cleared and tilled immense fields, and the troops revelled in the fresh vegetables and ears of roasted corn, and enjoyed the rest; [Footnote: Bradley MSS. Letter of Captain Daniel Bradley to Ebenezer Banks, Grand Glaize, August 28, 1794.] for during the march the labor of cutting a road through the thick forest had been very severe, while the water was bad and the mosquitoes were exceedingly troublesome. At one place a tree fell on Wayne and nearly killed him; but though somewhat crippled he continued as active and vigilant as ever. [Footnote: American Pioneer, I., 317, Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign. By Lieutenant Boyer. Reprinted separately in Cincinnati in 1866.]

The Indians Decline to Make Peace.

From Fort Defiance Wayne sent a final offer of peace to the Indians, summoning them at once to send deputies to meet him. The letter was carried by Christopher Miller, and a Shawnee prisoner; and in it Wayne explained that Miller was a Shawnee by adoption, whom his soldiers had captured "six month since," while the Shawnee warrior had been taken but a couple of days before; and he warned the Indians that he had seven Indian prisoners, who had been well treated, but who would be put to death if Miller were harmed. The Indians did not molest Miller, but sought to obtain delay, and would give no definite answer; whereupon Wayne advanced against them, having laid waste and destroyed all their villages and fields.

Wayne Marches Forward.

His army marched on the 15th, and on the 18th reached Roche du Bout, by the Maumee Rapids, only a few miles from the British fort. Next day was spent in building rough breastwork to protect the stores and baggage, and in reconnoitring the Indian position. [Footnote: American State Papers, 491, Wayne's Report to Secretary of War, August 28, 1794.]

The Indians--Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Pottawatamies, Chippewas, and Iroquois--were camped closed to the British. There were between fifteen hundred and two thousand warriors; and in addition there were seventy rangers from Detroit, French, English, and refugee Americans, under Captain Caldwell, who fought with them in the battle. The British agent McKee was with them; and so was Simon Girty, the "white renegade," and another partisan leader, Elliott.

But McKee, Girty, and Elliott did not actually fight in the battle.

[Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, August 27, 1794. McKee says there were 1300 Indians, and omits all allusion to Caldwell's rangers.

He always underestimates the Indian numbers and loss. In the battle one of Caldwell's rangers, Antoine La.s.selle, was captured. He gave in detail the numbers of the Indians engaged; they footed up to over 1500. A deserter from the fort, a British drummer of the 24th Regiment, named John Bevin, testified that he had heard both McKee and Elliott report the number of Indians as 2000, in talking to Major Campbell, the commandant of the fort, after the battle. He and La.s.selle agree as to Caldwell's rangers. See their depositions, American State Papers, IV., 494.]

The Indians' Stand at the Fallen Timbers.

On August 20, 1794, Wayne marched to battle against the Indians.

[Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, August 28, 1794. McBride, II., 129; "Life of Paxton." Many of the regulars and volunteers were left in Fort Defiance and the breastworks on the Maumee as garrisons.] They lay about six miles down the river, near the British fort, in a place known as the Fallen Timbers, because there the thick forest had been overturned by a whirlwind, and the dead trees lay piled across one another in rows. All the baggage was left behind in the breastwork, with a sufficient guard. The army numbered about three thousand men; two thousand were regulars, and there were a thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky under General Scott.

March of the Army.

The army marched down the left or north branch of the Maumee. A small force of mounted volunteers--Kentucky militia--were in front. On the right flank the squadron of dragoons, the regular cavalry, marched next to the river. The infantry, armed with musket and bayonet, were formed in two long lines, the second some little distance behind the first; the left of the first line being continued by the companies of regular riflemen and light troops. Scott, with the body of the mounted volunteers, was thrown out on the left with instructions to turn the flank of the Indians, thus effectually preventing them from performing a similar feat at the expense of the Americans. There could be no greater contrast than that between Wayne's carefully trained troops, marching in open order to the attack, and St. Clair's huddled ma.s.s of raw soldiers receiving an a.s.sault they were powerless to repel.

Heavy Skirmishing,

The Indians stretched in a line nearly two miles long at right angles to the river, and began the battle confidently enough. They attacked and drove in the volunteers who were in advance and the firing then began along the entire front. But their success was momentary. Wayne ordered the first line of the infantry to advance with trailed arms, so as to rouse the savages from their cover, then to fire into their backs at close range, and to follow them hard with the bayonet, so as to give them no time to load. The regular cavalry were directed to charge the left flank of the enemy; for Wayne had determined "to put the horse hoof on the moccasin." Both orders were executed with spirit and vigor.

Charge of the Dragoons.

It would have been difficult to find more unfavorable ground for cavalry; nevertheless the dragoons rode against their foes at a gallop, with broad-swords swinging, the horses dodging in and out among the trees and jumping the fallen logs. They received a fire at close quarters which emptied a dozen saddles, both captains being shot down.

One, the commander of the squadron, Captain Mis Campbell [Footnote: A curious name, but so given in all the reports.], was killed; the other, Captain Van Rensselaer, a representative of one of the old Knickerbocker families of New York, who had joined the army from pure love of adventure, was wounded. The command devolved on Lieutenant Covington, who led forward the troopers, with Lieutenant Webb alongside him; and the dragoons burst among the savages at full speed, and routed them in a moment. Covington cut down two of the Indians with his own hand, and Webb one.

Successful Bayonet Charge.

At the same time the first line of the infantry charged with equal impetuosity and success. The Indians delivered one volley and were then roused from their hiding places with the bayonet; as they fled they were shot down, and if they attempted to halt they were at once a.s.sailed and again driven with the bayonet. They could make no stand at all, and the battle was won with ease. So complete was the success that only the first line of regulars was able to take part in the fighting; the second line, and Scott's horse-riflemen, on the left, in spite of their exertions were unable to reach the battle-field until the Indians were driven from it; "there not being a sufficiency of the enemy for the Legion to play on," wrote Clark. The entire action lasted under forty minutes. [Footnote: Bradley MSS., entry in the journal for August 20th.]

Less than a thousand of the Americans were actually engaged. They pursued the beaten and fleeing Indians for two miles, the cavalry halting only when under the walls of the British fort.

A Complete and Easy Victory.

Thirty-three of the Americans were killed and one hundred wounded.

[Footnote: Wayne's report; of the wounded 11 afterwards died. He gives an itemized statement. Clark in his letter makes the dead 34 (including 8 militia instead of 7) and the wounded only 70. Wayne reports the Indian loss as twice as great as that of the whites; and says the woods were strewn with their dead bodies and those of their white auxiliaries.

Clark says 100 Indians were killed. The Englishman, Thomas Duggan, writing from Detroit to Joseph Chew, Secretary of the Indian Office, says officially that "great numbers" of the Indians were slain. The journal of Wayne's campaign says 40 dead were left on the field, and that there was considerable additional, but unascertained, loss in the rapid two miles pursuit. The member of Caldwell's company who was captured was a French Canadian; his deposition is given by Wayne. McKee says the Indians lost but 19 men, and that but 400 were engaged, specifying the Wyandots and Ottawas as being those who did the fighting and suffered the loss; and he puts the loss of the Americans, although he admits that they won, at between 300 and 400. He was furious at the defeat, and was endeavoring to minimize it in every way. He does not mention the presence of Caldwell's white company; he makes the mistake of putting the American cavalry on the wrong wing, in trying to show that only the Ottawas and Wyandots were engaged; and if his figures, 19 dead, have any value at all, they refer only to those two tribes; above I have repeatedly shown that he invariably underestimated the Indian losses, usually giving the losses suffered by the band he was with as being the entire loss. In this case he speaks of the fighting and loss as being confined to the Ottawas and Wyandots; but Brickell, who was with the Delawares, states that "many of the Delawares were killed and wounded." All the Indians were engaged; and doubtless all the tribes suffered proportionately; and much more than the Americans. Captain Daniel Bradley in his above quoted letter of Aug. 28th to Ebenezer Banks (Bradley MSS.) says that between 50 and 100 Indians were killed.] It was an easy victory. The Indians suffered much more heavily than the Americans; in killed they probably lost two or three times as many.

Among the dead were white men from Caldwell's company; and one white ranger was captured. It was the most complete and important victory ever gained over the Northwestern Indians, during the forty years' warfare to which, it put an end; and it was the only considerable pitched battle in which they lost more than their foes. They suffered heavily among their leaders; no less than eight Wyandot chiefs were slain.

The British in the Fort.

From the fort the British had seen, with shame and anger, the rout of their Indian allies. Their commander wrote to Wayne to demand his intentions; Wayne responded that he thought they were made sufficiently evident by his successful battle with the savages. The Englishman wrote in resentment of this curt reply, complaining that Wayne's soldiers had approached within pistol shot of the fort, and threatening to fire upon them if the offence was repeated. Wayne responded by summoning him to abandon the fort; a summons which he of course refused to heed. Wayne then gave orders to destroy everything up to the very walls of the fort, and his commands were carried out to the letter; not only were the Indian villages burned and their crops cut down, but all the houses and buildings of the British agents and traders, including McKee's, were levelled to the ground. The British commander did not dare to interfere or make good his threats: nor, on the other hand, did Wayne dare to storm the fort, which was well built and heavily armed.

The Army Marches Back.

After completing his work of destruction Wayne marched his army back to Fort Defiance. Here he was obliged to halt for over a fortnight while he sent back to Fort Recovery for provisions. He employed the time in work on the fort, which he strengthened so that it would stand an attack by a regular army. The mounted volunteers were turned to account in a new manner, being employed not only to escort the pack-animals but themselves to transport the flour on their horses. There was much sickness among the soldiers, especially from fever and ague, and but for the corn and vegetables they obtained from the Indian towns which were scattered thickly along the Maumee they would have suffered from hunger.

They were especially disturbed because all the whiskey was used up. [Footnote: Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign, "American Pioneer," I., 351]

On September 14th the legion started westward towards the Miami Towns at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers, the scene of Harmar's disaster. In four days the towns were reached, the Indians being too cowed to offer resistance. Here the army spent six weeks, burned the towns and destroyed the fields and stores of the hostile tribes, and built a fort which was christened Fort Wayne. British deserters came in from time to time; some of the Canadian traders made overtures to the army and agreed to furnish provisions at a moderate price; and of the savages only straggling parties were seen. The mounted volunteers grew mutinous, but were kept in order by their commander Scott, a rough, capable backwoods soldier. Their term of service at length expired and they were sent home; and the regulars of the Legion, leaving a garrison at Fort Wayne, marched back to Greeneville, and reached it on November 2d, just three months and six days after they started from it on their memorable and successful expedition. Wayne had shown himself the best general ever sent to war with the Northwestern Indians; and his victorious campaign was the most noteworthy ever carried on against them, for it brought about the first lasting peace on the border, and put an end to the b.l.o.o.d.y turmoil of forty years'

fighting. It was one of the most striking and weighty feats in the winning of the West.

Winter Quarters at Greeneville.

The army went into winter quarters at Greeneville. There was sickness among the troops, and there were occasional desertions; the discipline was severe, and the work so hard and dangerous that the men generally refused to re-enlist. [Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, November 23, 1794.] The officers were uneasy lest there should be need of a further campaign. But their fears were groundless. Before winter set in heralds arrived from the hostile tribes to say that they wished peace.

The Indians Utterly Downcast.

The Indians were utterly downcast over their defeat. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, William Johnson Chew to Joseph Chew, December 7. 1794.] The destruction of their crops, homes, and stores of provisions was complete, and they were put to sore shifts to live through the winter.

Their few cattle, and many even of their dogs, died; they could not get much food from the British; and as winter wore on they sent envoy after envoy to the Americans, exchanged prisoners, and agreed to make a permanent peace in the spring. They were exasperated with the British, who, they said, had not fulfilled a single promise they had made. [Footnote: Brickell's Narrative.]

Their Anger with the British.

The anger of the Indians against the British was as just as it was general. They had been lured and goaded into war by direct material aid, and by indirect promises of armed a.s.sistance; and they were abandoned as soon as the fortune of war went against them. Brant, the Iroquois chief, was sorely angered by the action of the British in deserting the Indians whom they had encouraged by such delusive hopes; and in his letter to the British officials [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Joseph Brant to Joseph Chew, Oct. 22, 1794; William J. Chew to J. Chew, Oct. 24, 1794.]

he reminded them of the fact that but for their interference the Indians would have concluded "an equitable and honorable peace in June 1793"--thus offering conclusive proof that the American commissioners, in their efforts to make peace with the Indians in that year, had been foiled by the secret machinations of the British agents, as Wayne had always thought. Brant blamed the British agent McKee for ever having interfered in the Indian councils, and misled the tribes to their hurt; and in writing to the Secretary of the Indian Office for Canada he reminded him in plain terms of the treachery with which the British had behaved to the Indians at the close of the Revolutionary War, and expressed the hope that it would not be repeated; saying:[Footnote: Canadian Archives, Brant to Joseph Chew, Feb. 24, and March 17, 1795.]

"If there is a treaty between Great Britain and the Yankees I hope our Father the King will not forget the Indians as he did in the year '83."

When his forebodings came true and the British, in a.s.senting to Jay's treaty, abandoned their Indian allies, Brant again wrote to the Secretary of the Indian Office, in repressed but bitter anger at the conduct of the King's agents in preventing the Indians from making peace with the Americans while they could have made it on advantageous terms, and then in deserting them. He wrote: "This is the second time the poor Indians have been left in the lurch & I cannot avoid lamenting that they were prevented at a time when they had it in their power to make an Honorable and Advantageous Peace." [Footnote: _Do_., Brant to Chew, Jan.

19, 1796.]

Wrath of the British Indian Agents.

McKee, the British Indian agent, was nearly as frank as Brant in expressing his views of the conduct of the British towards their allies; he doubtless felt peculiar bitterness as he had been made the active instrument in carrying out the policy of his chiefs, and had then seen that policy abandoned and even disavowed. In fact he suffered the usual fate of those who are chosen to do some piece of work which unscrupulous men in power wish to have done, but wish also to avoid the responsibility of doing. He foretold evil results from the policy adopted, a policy under which, as he put it, "the distressed situation of the poor Indians who have long fought for us and bled farely for us [is] no bar to a Peaceable accommodation with America and ... they [are]

left to shift for themselves." [Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, March 27, 1795.] That a sentence of this kind could be truthfully written by one British official to another was a sufficiently biting comment on the conduct of the British Government.