The Land of the Miamis

On the sixteenth of May, the American prisoner, Thomas Rhea, captured by a party of Delawares and "Munsees" arrives at Sandusky. An Indian captain is there with one hundred and fifty warriors. Parties are coming in daily with prisoners and scalps. Alarm comes in on the twenty-fourth of May that a large body of American troops in three columns are moving towards the Miami towns. The Indians burn their houses and move to Roche de Bout, on the Maumee. Here are Colonels Joseph Brant and Alexander McKee, with Captains Bunbury and Silvie, of the British troops. They are living in clever cabins built by the Potawatomi and other Indians, eighteen miles above Lake Erie. They have great stores of corn, pork, peas and other provisions, which, together with arms and ammunition, they are daily issuing to the Indians. Savages are coming in in parties of one, two, three, four and five hundred at a time, and receiving supplies from McKee, and going up the Maumee to the Miami villages. Pirogues, loaded with the munitions of war are being rowed up the same stream by French-Canadians. They are preparing for an American attack.

Rhea hears some things. While he is on the Maumee he tells Colonel McKee and other British officers that he has seen Colonel Thomas Proctor on his way to the Senecas and has talked with him. That Proctor told him he was on his way to Sandusky and the Miami villages, and that he expected the Cornplanter to accompany him and bring about peace; that he (Proctor), expected to get shipping at Fort Erie, The British officers who hear these things, say that if they were at Lake Erie, Proctor would get no shipping. The Mohawks and other Indians declare that if Proctor, or any other Yankee messenger, arrives, he will not carry back any message. Simon Girty and one Pat Hill assert, that Proctor should never return, even if he had a hundred Senecas with him.

On the ninth of March, 1791, the secretary of war issued orders to General Charles Scott of Kentucky, to lead an expedition against the Wea or Ouiatenon towns on the Wabash. The expedition was not to proceed until the tenth day of May, as hopes were entertained that Proctor might negotiate a peace. The force to be employed was to consist of seven hundred and fifty mounted volunteers, including officers. All Indians who ceased to resist were to be spared. Women and children, and as many warriors as possible, were to be taken prisoners, but treated with humanity.

The tenth day of May arrived, but Proctor was not heard from. The hostility of the savages was daily increasing. Scott was delayed a few days longer in the hope that intelligence might arrive, but on the twenty-third of May he crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Kentucky and plunged into the wilderness. Before him lay one hundred and fifty-five miles of forest, swamp and stream. The rain fell in torrents and every river was beyond its banks. His horses were soon worn down and his provisions spoiled, but he pressed on. On the morning of the first of June, he was entering the prairies south of the Wea plain and approaching the hills of High Gap. He now saw a lone Indian horseman to his right and tried to intercept him, but failed. He pushed on rapidly to the Indian towns.

On the morning of June first, 1791, the landscape of the Wea is a thing of beauty. To the north lies the long range of the Indian Hills, crowned with forest trees, and scarped with many a sharp ravine. At the southern edge of these hills flows the Wabash, winding in and out with graceful curves, and marked in its courses by a narrow fringe of woodland. To the east lies Wea creek, jutting out into the plain with a sharp turn, and then gliding on again to the river. Within this enclosure of wood and stream lie the meadows of the Ouiatenons, dotted here and there with pleasant groves, and filled with the aroma of countless blossoms.

"Awake from dreams! The scene changes. The morning breath of the first day of summer has kissed the grass and flowers, but it brings no evil omen to the Kickapoo villages on this shore, nor to the five Wea towns on the adjacent plain. High noon has come, but still birds and grass and flowers bask in the meridian splendor of a June sunshine, unconscious of danger or the trampling of hostile feet. One o'clock! And over High Gap hostile horsemen are galloping. They separate; one division wheels to the left led by the relentless Colonel Hardin, still smarting from the defeat of the last year by the great Miami, Little Turtle. But the main division, led by the noble Colonel Scott, afterward the distinguished soldier and governor of Kentucky, moves straight forward on to Ouiatenon."

Scott's advance since the morning has been swift and steady. He fears that the Indian horseman will give the alarm. At one o'clock he comes over High Gap, a high pass through the hills to the southwest of the present town of Shadeland. To the left he perceives two Indian villages. One is at a distance of two miles and the other at four. They were probably situated in the prairie groves. He now detaches Colonel John Hardin with sixty mounted infantry and a troop of light horse under Captain McCoy, and they swing to the left. Scott moves briskly forward with the main body for the villages of the Weas, at the mouth of Wea creek. The smoke of the camp fires is plainly discernible.

As he turns the point of timber fringing the Wea, and in the vicinity of what is now the Shadeland Farm, he sees a cabin to the right. Captain Price is ordered to assault it with forty men. Two warriors are killed. Scott now gains the summit of the eminence crowning the south bank of the Wabash. The Wea villages are below him and scattered along the river. All is in confusion and the Indians are trying to escape. On the opposite shore is a town of the Kickapoos. He instantly orders his lieutenant-commandant, James Wilkinson, to charge the Weas with the first battalion, and the eager Kentuckians rush to the river's edge, just as the last of five canoes loaded with warriors, has pushed from the shore. With deadly and terrible aim the riflemen empty the boats to the last man.

In the meantime, a brisk fire has been kept up from the Kickapoo camp. Scott now determines to cross the river and capture the town, but the recent rains have swelled the stream and he cannot ford it. He orders Wilkinson to cross at a ford two miles above, and detaches King's and Logsdon's companies, under conduct of Major Barbee, to cross the river below. Wilkinson fails, for the river is swift and very high. Barbee is more successful. Many of the hardy frontiersmen breast the stream, and others pass in a small canoe. But the instant the Kentuckians foot the opposite shore, the Indians discover them and flee.

About this time Scott hears from Colonel Hardin. The redoubtable old Indian fighter who was saved to die in the service of his country, has pushed on and captured the two villages observed from High Gap, and is encumbered with many prisoners. He now discovers a stronger village farther to the left, and proceeds to attack. This latter village is probably in the neighborhood of the present site of Granville, and opposite the point where the Riviere De Bois Rouge, or Indian creek, enters the Wabash. Scott at once detaches Captain Brown and his company to support the Colonel, but nothing can stop the impetuous Kentuckian, and before Brown arrives, "the business is done," and Hardin joins the main body before sunset, having killed six warriors and taken fifty-two prisoners. "Captain Bull," says Scott, "the warrior who discovered me in the morning, had gained the main town, and given the alarm a short time before me; but the villages to my left were uninformed of my approach, and had no retreat."

The first day of fighting had been very encouraging. The next morning Scott determined to destroy Kethtipecanunck, or Tippecanoe, eighteen miles up the river. His knowledge of geography was poor, for he talks about Kethtipecanunck being at the mouth of the Eel river, but his fighting qualities were perfect. On examination, however, he discovers that his men and horses are greatly worn down and crippled by the long march and the fighting of the day before. Three hundred and sixty men are at last selected to make the march on foot. At half after five in the evening they start out under the command of lieutenant-commandant Wilkinson and at one o'clock the next day they have returned, having completely burned and destroyed what Scott denominated as "the most important settlement of the enemy in that quarter of the federal territory." Wilkinson's detachment had reached the village near daybreak. The advance columns of the Kentuckians charged impetuously into the town just as the Indians were crossing the Wabash, and a brief skirmish ensued from the opposite shores, during which several Indian warriors were killed and two Americans wounded. Many of the inhabitants of Kethtipecanunck were French traders and lived in a state of semi-civilization. "By the books, letters, and other documents found there," says Scott, "it is evident that place was in close connection with, and dependent upon, Detroit; a large quantity of corn, a variety of household goods, peltry, and other articles, were burned with this village, which consisted of about seventy houses, many of them well furnished." Scott lamented that the condition of his troops prevented him from sweeping to the head of the Wabash. He says he had the kind of men to do it, but he lacked fresh horses and provisions and was forced to return to Kentucky. On the fourth of June, he released sixteen of the weakest and most infirm of his prisoners and gave them a written address of peace to the Wabash tribes. It was written in a firm, manly tone, but without grandiloquence. He now destroyed the villages at Ouiatenon, the growing corn and pulse, and on the same day of the fourth, set out for Kentucky. The grand old man, who was to fight with Wayne at Fallen Timbers, had done well. Without the loss of a single man, and having only five wounded, he had killed thirty-two warriors "of size and figure," and taken fifty-eight prisoners. He took a receipt from Captain Joseph Asheton of the First United States Regiment at Fort Steuben, for forty-one prisoners.

On the twenty-fifth of June, governor St. Clair wrote to the Kentucky Board of War to send a second expedition against the Wabash towns. On the fifth day of July the Board appointed James Wilkinson as the commander. The troops were ordered to rendezvous at Fort Washington, by the twentieth of July, "well mounted on horseback, well armed, and provided with thirty days' provisions." In certain instructions from Governor St. Clair to General Wilkinson, of date July thirty-first, Wilkinson's attention is called to a Kickapoo town "in the prairie, northward and westward of L'Anguille," about sixty miles. This town will be mentioned later. Wilkinson was directed also to restrain his command from "scalping the dead." With a Kentuckian, the only good Indian was a dead one.

On the first day of August, Wilkinson rode out of Cincinnati with five hundred and twenty-five men. His destined point of attack was the Eel river towns, about six miles above the present city of Logansport. The country he had to pass through was mostly unknown, full of quagmires and marshes, and extremely hard on his horses. He made a feint for the Miami village at Kekionga, but on the morning of the fourth, he turned directly northwest and headed for Kenapacomaqua, or L'Anguille, as the Eel river towns were known. After some brief skirmishes, with small parties of warriors and much plunging and sinking in the bogs, he crossed the Wabash about four and one half miles above the mouth of the Eel river, and striking an Indian path, was soon in front of the Indian towns. He now dismounted and planned an attack. The second battalion was to cross the river, detour, and come in on the rear of the villages. The first battalion was to lie perdue until the maneuver was executed, when a simultaneous charge was to be made on all quarters of the town. Before the plan could be executed, however, the troops were discovered, whereupon an instant charge was made by plunging into the river and attacking the town on the front. Six warriors were killed, "and in the hurry and confusion of the charge, two squaws and a child."

Wilkinson found the towns of the Eel river tribes scattered along Eel river for a distance of three miles. These villages were separated by almost impassable bogs, and "impervious thickets of plum, hazel and black-jack." The head chief of the tribe, with his prisoners and a number of families were out digging a root, which the Indians substituted for the potato. A short time before Wilkinson arrived, most of the warriors had gone up the river to a French store to purchase ammunition. This ammunition had come from Kekionga on the same day. Several acres of green corn with the ears in the milk were about the town. All of this was destroyed. Thirty-four prisoners were taken and a captive released.

After encamping in the town for the night, Wilkinson started the next morning for the Kickapoo town "in the prairie." He considered his position as one of danger, for he says he was in the "bosom of the Ouiatenon country," one hundred and eighty miles from succor, and not more than one and a half days' forced march from the Potawatomi, Shawnees and Delawares. This was, of course, largely matter of conjecture.

The Kickapoo town that Wilkinson was headed for was in fact about sixty miles from Kenapacomaqua and in the prairie. But it was south and west of the Eel river villages instead of north and west. The imperfect geographical knowledge of the times led Wilkinson to believe it was on the Illinois river, but it was in fact on Big Pine creek, near the present town of Oxford, in Benton County, Indiana. Wilkinson was right in one regard, however, for he knew that the village he sought was on the great Potawatomi trail leading south from Lake Michigan. This trail passed down from the neighborhood of what is now Blue Island, in Chicago, south through Momence and Iroquois, Illinois, south and east again through Parish Grove, in Benton County, across Big Pine Creek and on to Ouiatenon and Kethtipecanunck, or Tippecanoe. It was a great fur trading route and of great commercial importance in that day. This Kickapoo village "in the prairie," was about twenty miles west of the present city of Lafayette, and about two and one-half miles from the present site of Oxford, at a place known in later years as "Indian Hill." It was well known to Gurdon S. Hubbard, who visited it in the early part of the last century and had an interesting talk with the Kickapoos there about the battle of Tippecanoe. Jesse S. Birch, of Oxford, an accurate local historian, has preserved an interesting account of this village as seen by the early settlers in the years from 1830 to 1840. The Kickapoos had, at that time, moved on to other places, but bands of the Potawatomi were still on the ground. "Pits," says Birch, "in which the Indians stored their corn, were to be seen until a few years ago. The burying grounds were about half a mile northwest of the village and only a short distance west of the Stembel gravel pit. The Potawatomi were peaceful, John Wattles, who describes their winter habitations, visited them often in his boyhood days. Pits, the sides of which were lined with furs, were dug four or five feet deep, and their tents, with holes at the top to permit the escape of smoke, were put over them. By keeping a fire on the ground in the center of the pit, they lived in comparative comfort, so far as heat and Indian luxuries were concerned, during the coldest weather. There are evidences of white men having camped near this village. Isaac W. Lewis found an English sovereign while at play on his father's farm, but a short distance from the site of the village. In the early 30's, his father and eldest brother, while plowing, found several pieces of English money." The glittering coins of "the great father," had easily found their way into savage hands.

But Wilkinson was not destined to strike this main Kickapoo town. He encamped the first night six miles from Kenapacomaqua, and the next day he marched west and then northwest passing between what are now the points of Royal Center and Logansport, and "launched into the boundless prairies of the west with the intention to pursue that course until I could strike a road which leads from the Potawatomi of Lake Michigan immediately to the town I sought." Here for eight hours he floundered about in an endless succession of sloughs and swamps, wearing out his horses and exhausting his men. "A chain of thin groves extending in the direction of the Wabash at this time presented to my left." Wilkinson now extricated himself from the swamps and gained the Tippecanoe trail, and camped at seven o'clock in the evening. He had marched a distance of about thirty miles, and several of his horses were completely broken down.

At four o'clock the next morning this little army was in motion again. At eight o'clock signs were discovered of the proximity of an Indian town. At twelve o'clock noon, he entered Kethtipecanunck, but the savages had fled at his approach. They had returned since the expedition of June and cultivated their corn and pulse. These were in a flourishing condition. Having refreshed his horses and cut down the corn, he resumed his march for the Kickapoo town "in the prairie, by the road which leads from Ouiatenon to that place." After proceeding some distance he discovered some "murmurings" among the Kentuckians, and found on examination that two hundred and seventy of his horses were lame, and that only five days' provisions were left for his men. Under these circumstances, he abandoned the contemplated assault on the main Kickapoo town, and "marched forward to a town of the same nation, situated about three leagues west of Ouiatenon." He destroyed the town of thirty houses and "a considerable quantity of corn in the hills," and the same day moved on to Ouiatenon, forded the Wabash, and encamped on the margin of the Wea plains. At all the villages destroyed by Scott he found the corn re-planted and in a state of high cultivation. He destroyed it all, and on the twelfth of August he fell in with General Scott's return trace and marched to the Ohio, where he arrived on the twenty-first day of the month. He had traveled a distance of four hundred and fifty-one miles in twenty-one days; a feat of horsemanship, considering the wild and difficult nature of the country, of no small degree of merit.

The expedition had in all things been a success. He had captured a number of prisoners, cut down four hundred and thirty acres of corn in the milk, and destroyed at least two Indian towns.

Some of the historians who have commented on these campaigns of Scott and Wilkinson and the Kentucky militia, have sought to minimize and even to discredit these expeditions. Says Albach: "The expeditions of Harmar, Scott and Wilkinson were directed against the Miamis and Shawnees, and served only to exasperate them. The burning of their towns, the destruction of their corn, and the captivity of their women and children, only aroused them to more desperate efforts to defend their country, and to harass their invaders." The review of Secretary of War Knox, communicated to President Washington on the twenty-sixth of December, 1791, however, contains the following: "The effect of such desultory operations upon the Indians, will, by occupying them for their own safety and that of their families, prevent them spreading terror and destruction along the frontiers. These sort of expeditions had that precise effect during the last season, and Kentucky enjoyed more repose and sustained less injury, than for any year since the war with Great Britain. This single effect, independent of the injury done to the force of the Indians, is worth greatly more than the actual expense of such expeditions."

Other effects produced were equally important. The brave Kentuckians, for the first time, were acting in conjunction with, and under the direction and control of the federal authorities. The cement of a common interest, as Washington would say, was binding state and nation together. Not only were the soil and the long suffering people of Kentucky rendered more secure against Indian attack, but the hardy descendants of the pioneers were being trained for the eventful conflict of 1812, when seven thousand of the valorous sons of that commonwealth should take the field in the defense of their country.

CHAPTER XIII

ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT

– The first great disaster to the Federal armies brought about by the Miamis.

The objectives of General St. Clair have already been mentioned. He was now to take the village of Kekionga, establish a garrison there, and erect a chain of posts stretching from the new establishment to Fort Washington at Cincinnati.

The army with which St. Clair was expected to accomplish this task consisted of "two small regiments of regulars, two of six months' levies, a number of Kentucky militia, a few cavalry, and a couple of small batteries of light guns." In all there were fourteen hundred men and eighty-six officers. The Kentucky militia were under the command of Colonel Oldham, a brave officer who afterwards fell on the field of battle. The levies were "men collected from the streets and prisons of the city, hurried out into the enemy's country and with the officers commanding them, totally unacquainted with the business in which they were engaged." Their pay was miserable. Each private received two dollars and ten cents a month; the sergeants three dollars and sixty cents. Being recruited at various times and places, their terms of enlistment were expiring daily, and they wanted to go home. As they were reckless and intemperate, St. Clair, in order to preserve some semblance of order, removed them to Ludlow's Station, about six miles from Fort Washington. Major Ebenezer Denny, aide to St. Clair, says that they were "far inferior to the militia." On the morning of October twenty-ninth, when St. Clair's army was penetrating the heart of the Indian country, this disorderly element was keeping up a constant firing about the camp, contrary to the positive orders of the day.

In the quartermaster's department everything "went on slowly and badly; tents, pack-saddles, kettles, knapsacks and cartridge boxes, were all 'deficient in quantity and quality.'" The army contractors were positively dishonest, and the war department seems to have been fearfully negligent in all of its work. Judge Jacob Burnet records that "it is a well authenticated fact, that boxes and packages were so carelessly put up and marked, that during the action a box was opened marked 'flints,' which was found to contain gun-locks. Several mistakes of the same character were discovered, as for example, a keg of powder marked 'for the infantry,' was found to contain damaged cannon-powder, that could scarcely be ignited."

St. Clair was sick, and so afflicted with the gout that he was unable to mount or dismount a horse without assistance. On the night before his great disaster he was confined to his camp bed and unable to get up. Born in Edinburgh, in Scotland, in 1734, he was now fifty-seven years of age, and too old and infirm to take command of an army in a hazardous Indian campaign. Besides, he had had no experience in such a contest. He was, however, a man of sterling courage. He had been a lieutenant in the army of General Wolfe at Quebec. He espoused the cause of the colonies, and had fought with distinguished valor at Trenton and Princeton. Under him, and second in command, was General Richard Butler, of Pennsylvania. Butler was a man of jealous and irritable temperament and had had a bitter controversy with Harmar over the campaign of the year before. A coolness now sprang up between him and St. Clair, which, as we shall see, led to lamentable results. The mind of General Harmar was filled with gloomy forebodings. Taking into consideration the material of which the army was composed and the total inefficiency of the quartermaster and the contractors, "it was a matter of astonishment to him," says Denny, "that the commanding general * * * * should think of hazarding, with such people, and under such circumstances, his reputation and life, and the lives of so many others, knowing, too, as both did, the enemy with whom he was going to contend; an enemy brought up from infancy to war, and perhaps superior to an equal number of the best men that could be taken against them."

Owing to delays the army which was to rendezvous at Fort Washington not later than July tenth, did not actually start into the wilderness until the fourth day of October. On the seventeenth of September, a halt had been made on the Great Miami, and Fort Hamilton erected. Twenty miles north of this place, a light fortification known as Fort St. Clair, was built. About six miles south of the present town of Greenville, in Darke county, Ohio, the army threw up the works of Fort Jefferson, and then moved forward at a snail's pace into the forests and prairies. Every foot of the road through the heavy timber had to be cleared. Rains were constant. The troops were on half rations and terribly impatient. Parties of militia were daily deserting. On the twenty-seventh of October, Major Denny entered in his diary the following: "The season so far advanced it will be impracticable to continue the campaign. Forage entirely destroyed; horses failing and cannot be kept up; provisions from hand to mouth." The Little Turtle was again on the watch. A hostile army was entering the sacred domain of the Miamis. Indian scouts and runners were constantly lurking on the skirts of the army. In after years, a woman heard the great chief say of a fallen enemy: "We met; I cut him down; and his shade as it passes on the wind, shuns my walk!" This terrible foe, like a tiger in his jungle, was waiting for the moment to spring on his prey. It soon came. On the thirty-first of October, a party of militia, sixty or seventy in number, deserted the camp and swore that they would stop the packhorses in the rear, laden with provisions. St. Clair sent back after them the First United States Regiment under Major John Hamtramck, the most experienced Indian fighters in the whole army. These were the men the Indians most feared. The savage chieftain determined to strike.