CHAPTER planter, a friendly chief of the Senecas, who had visited IV. Philadelphia during the winter, undertook to act as a 1791. mediator with the hostile tribes. But this project en June. countered many obstacles on the part of Brant and Red Jacket, two other leading chiefs of the Six Nations, who, though pretending to be friendly, were believed to be acting under British influence. The British commander at Fort Erie, unwilling, apparently, that peace should be made except by British interference, would not allow the charter of a schooner in which to proceed to Sandusky to open a communication with the hostile tribes; and so Cornplanter's mediation became unavailable. There was, indeed, reason to fear that even the Senecas themselves might be led to take part in the pending hostilities. Already they repented of the vast cessions made to Phelps and other purchasers of pre-emption rights under Massachusetts, upon which settlements were beginning to be formed. Attempts by Morris and Ogden to obtain additional cessions aggravated these discontents; and uneasiness was still further increased by the leases which they had been induced to make of parts of their reservations. Timothy Pickering, appointed commissioner for that purpose, met the Senecas and other tribes of the Six Nations at Painted Post, now Corning, on the Chemung, a northwest branch of the Susquehanna; and this interview had a good effect toward appeasing the discontents of those tribes, and preventing them from co-operating with the hostile Indians. A new attempt at mediation was even promised by Hendricks, a chief of the Stockbridge Indians, who were now settled among the Six Nations; but this, too, failed, like the for mer one. Fears were even entertained that the Southern tribes might be led to take part in the war. Projects were on IV. foot, based on the late purchases made from Georgia, for CHAPTER two settlements, one near the Muscle Shoals of the Tennessee, the other further west, on the lands of the Choc- 1791. taws, both of which were likely to give great offense to the Indians. The Cherokees still complained of encroach- July. ments on their lands, but were quieted for the present by a treaty negotiated by Blount, the governor of the Territory south of the Ohio, by which an annuity was secured to them of $1000 as a compensation for the lands occupied by white intruders. In his private correspondence, Washington expressed the opinion that there was little hope of settled peace with the Indians so long as the spirit of land-jobbing prevailed, and the frontier inhabitants entertained the opinion that it was a less crime to kill an Indian than a white man, or, rather, no crime at all. A second expedition of Kentucky mounted volunteers, Aug. led by Wilkinson against the tribes on the Wabash, had nearly the same results as the former one. Another village was burned, a few warriors were killed, some thirty prisoners were taken, and several hundred acres of growing corn were destroyed. But it was not by such desultory efforts that the Indians could be brought to submission. The season was already advanced before St. Clair's army was ready to take the field. The whole force of regulars and levies able to march from Fort Washington Sept. 17. did not much exceed two thousand men; but some re-en- J forcements of Kentucky militia were expected to join. The object of the campaign was to establish a line of posts sufficient to maintain a communication from the Ohio to the Maumee, the intention being to build a strong fort on that river, and to leave in it a garrison of a thousand men, large enough to send out detachments and to CHAPTER keep the neighboring Indians in awe. Twenty-four miles IV. north of Fort Washington, under whose guns the infant 1791. city of Cincinnati was slowly rising, Fort Hamilton was built on the Miami; and forty-four miles further north, Fort Jefferson, near the present dividing line between the states of Ohio and Indiana. Several hundred KenOct. 24. tucky militia having joined the army, the march for the Maumee was presently resumed. These militia, composed mostly of substitutes, were regardless of discipline and totally ungovernable. The levies also, who had been supplied with very inferior clothing, were in a discontented state, and the term of that part of them who had been earliest enlisted was just about to expire. As a road had to be opened, and as supplies of provisions were very irregularly furnished by the contractors, the progress of the army was exceedingly slow. A week Oct. 31. after the advance from Fort Jefferson, sixty of the militia deserted in a body. Lest these deserters might plunder the approaching trains of provision wagons, and thus still further delay the march, that part of the first regiment employed in the expedition was detached to meet the wagons and escort them to the camp. Piamingo, the Mountain Leader, with a band of Chickasaw warriors, had hitherto attended the army; but these auxiliaries now withdrew, as if foreseeing the probable result. Reduced by garrisons and detachments to fourteen hundred effective men, after two weeks spent in an advance of twenty-nine miles from Fort Jefferson, the expedition reached at length the southwesternmost head waters of the Wabash, which St. Clair seems to have mistaken for those of the St. Mary's, a tributary of the Maumee. A few Indians were seen, but they fled with precipitation, and the day being nearly spent, the troops encamped, the regulars and levies in two lines, covered by the stream, the militia about a quarter of a mile in advance on the CHAPTER other side of it. IV. Early the next morning, about sunrise, just as the 1791. troops were dismissed from parade, the camp of the mi- Nov. 4. litia was suddenly attacked. The regulars who composed the first line on the other side of the stream formed at the first alarm; but the flying militia, rushing pellmell upon them, threw them into disorder. Closely following up the fugitives, and taking advantage of this confusion, firing from the ground or the shelter afforded by the scattered trees and bushes, and scarcely seen except when springing from one covert to another, the Indians advanced in front and on either flank close upon the American lines, and up to the very mouths of the field-pieces, from which the men were repeatedly driven with slaughter. The front line of regulars never recovered from its first confusion. The second line made several charges with the bayonet, before which the Indians gave way; but they soon rallied, and renewed the attack as fiercely as ever. In these charges many officers fellGeneral Butler, among the rest, with a mortal wound. The Indians had gained the left flank of the encampment. Half the force had already been killed or disabled. The survivors flocked together in crowded confusion, and were shot down almost without resistance. was left without a man to work the guns. The artillery A large pro St. Clair lay helpless in his tent, suffering from severe disease, and not able to mount his horse without assistance. portion of the officers had already fallen in their attempts to rally and lead on their men. It was apparent that nothing but instant retreat could save the remnant of the army from total destruction. The shattered troops were collected toward the right of the encampment; a charge was made, as if to turn the right flank of the en IV. CHAPTER emy; the road was gained; the militia took the lead; and Major Clarke, with his battalion of regulars, cov1791. ered the rear. The retreat was most disorderly; in fact, a precipitate flight. Not only were the baggage and artillery abandoned, but the greater part of the men threw away their arms and accouterments. The Indians soon gave over the pursuit; but the flying troops did not stop till they reached Fort Jefferson, where they arrived about sunset completely exhausted, one day's flight having carried them over the space of a fortnight's advance. Here the first regiment was found about three hundred strong. Its presence in the field, in St. Clair's opinion, would not have altered the fortune of the day, as the troops possessed too little discipline to recover from their first confusion, while its destruction would have completed the triumph of the enemy, and left the frontier without any organized defense. There was no sufficient supply of provisions at Fort Jefferson, and, leaving the wounded there, the army fell back to Fort Washington, its point of departure. The loss in this disastrous enterprise amounted to upward of nine hundred men, including fifty-nine officers. The killed reached the unusual proportion of six hundred. Of the force and loss of the Indians no very distinct account was ever obtained. They were supposed to have numbered from a thousand to fifteen hundred, including a proportion of half-breeds and refugees, among them the notorious Simon Girty, active, for many years past, in the war against Kentucky. The principal leader was said to have been Little Turtle, a chief of the Miamis, who had led in the attack on Harmer the year before. The repulse of St. Clair produced the greatest alarm on the whole northwestern frontier, extending even to Pittsburg; but the Indians failed to follow up their ad |