# Historic Highways of America/Volume 8/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III
ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN
HARMAR wrought wide destruction but of the kind that made the Indians of the Maumee irrevocably and bitterly angry. The main boast of the returning campaigners was that the enemy did not pursue them—which, after all, was more significant than we can realize today. It illustrates in a word the exact effect of the raid; the Indians were dumbfounded at the arrival of a white army so far within their forests. They knew as well as the whites that the punishment administered to the frontiersmen was almost wholly due to the rash boldness of the latter, who, rushing heedlessly after the scurrying savages, made ambuscades possible. Yet Harmar's actual success was only in burning villages and crops, and sending crowds of old men and women and children fleeing to the swamps and forest ​fastnesses. Practically, it was the old story of a score of Kentucky raids into the "Indian side" of the Ohio over again. "You are the 'town-destroyer,'" was the cry of an old chieftain to President Washington, "and when that name is heard our women look quickly behind them and turn pale." But there was something more to be done on the Maumee than to make squaws turn pale! That would not keep back the murdering bands from the infant settlements along and below the Ohio.
This became plain so suddenly that the shock was felt throughout the East. In no way could the Northwestern Indians have struck home more quickly than by perpetrating the terrible Big Bottom Massacre. The New England colony which, led by Rufus Putnam, founded Marietta at the mouth of the Muskingum had, by January 1790, expanded in all directions. One company of pioneers had ascended the Muskingum to Big Bottom, Morgan County, Ohio. At dusk, on the second night in January, 1791, a band of savages crossed the river at Silverheels Riffle above the ​unprotected blockhouse, and entered the settlement feigning friendship. The pioneers offered them a portion of the evening meal, when a sudden burst of flame swept the room. Several whites fell straight forward into the fireplace before which they were eating; others, to the number of fourteen, were instantly put to death. But one blow was struck by the whites at Big Bottom. The goodwife of the woodsman Meeks, uninjured by the first fire that swept the cabin, took advantage of the cloud of smoke to seize a broad-ax standing by the wall. As an Indian strode forward to the bloody finale, the glittering blade sank deeply into his shoulder. It was but one blow—but it was a token of a Nation's anger; it meant as much as the blood-red battle-ax the departing murderers left beside the smouldering ruins of Big Bottom blockhouse.
The message of that war-club sped eastward. The blow at the New England colony was sure to attract unusual attention, and no doubt played an important part in deciding the great question of the hour. This was a question of war or peace. As ​in the year previous, so now in 1791 (as well as in later times) there were many who opposed Indian warfare from humanitarian principles. Suffice it to say these opponents of war did not live on the Muskingum or Licking Rivers! Yet peace, for all concerned, if it could be secured at an honorable price, was most desirable, and the United States faced the question fairly and with energy. As early as December, 1790, the famous Seneca chieftain Cornplanter, being in Philadelphia, was urged not only to present the exact feeling of the Government to the Six Nations in New York and on the Allegheny, but was asked to visit the hostile western nations as a peace messenger. The declaration of war by the savages at Big Bottom in no wise deterred the United States from this purpose of obtaining peace at the least price in blood and treasure. In March, 1791, Colonel Thomas Proctor was sent to the Senecas to urge the young men of that tribe not to take the war path, and then was ordered to go with Cornplanter to the Maumee River. The task was dangerous and laborious, but Proctor pushed his way through the forests ​of Pennsylvania and New York to the Senecas who kept so well the western door of the "Long House of the Iroquois." It was a fruitless mission. "The people at the setting sun are bad people," said an old warrior to the intrepid herald; "you must look when it is light in the morning until the setting sun, and you must reach your neck over the land, and take all the light you can, to show the danger."
The Senecas were right and the further Proctor "reached his neck out" over the land the more plainly was this seen to be true. Gordon, the British commander at Niagara, forbade him taking ship for the Maumee; "the unfriendly denial," he wrote the Secretary of War, "puts a stop to the further attempting to go to the Miamies." Another item in his letter was of significance: Joseph Brant with forty warriors had gone westward to the confederated tribes on an unknown mission.
In April, Colonel Timothy Pickering was also sent to the Senecas, and, meeting them in convention at Painted Post, urged the chieftains to hold back the young men from joining the hostile tribes. Governor St. ​Clair likewise sent messages, especially to the western tribes urging that hostile bands be withdrawn from the frontier ere the United States should be compelled to bring heavy chastisement. But peace is sometimes as costly, and more so, than war; such proved to be the case now. It was early believed by the most farsighted that a crushing defeat of the northwestern confederacy would be a great saving of blood. And so while peaceful efforts were being forwarded as effectually as the situation of the distant tribes and the hostility of English agents permitted, warlike preparations were likewise being made. As the spring of 1791 opened, the frontiers were overrun with murderous bands and the cry from the infant West to the central government could not be unheeded. "I most earnestly implore the protection of government," wrote the brave Putnam to Washington, "for myself and friends inhabiting these wilds of America." The cry from Kentucky and the lower Ohio was equally piercing.
The plan of the United States at this juncture was wholly in keeping with its dignity and its power. Failing in an ​attempt of reconciliation, it was determined to throw into the Indian land several raiding bands of horsemen "to demonstrate that they [the savages] were within our reach, and lying at our mercy." In case these strokes did not awe the offenders, a grand campaign on an extensive scale was to be inaugurated. Fearing the worst, though hopeful of the better, preparations for all these movements were put on foot, to be countermanded if peaceful measures sufficed. The attitude of the Government at this serious crisis of its first Indian war must be judged humane and generous. The Indians protested that they had never ceded an inch of territory northwest of the Ohio; yet at four treaties supposed representatives of all the nations concerned had received from American commissioners payment for all lands now (1791) occupied or claimed by the white men. In each case the nations had been formally invited to each treaty; they now averred that only irresponsible chieftains had signed these treaties. In a single instance it is possible ​to believe that unscrupulous Indians might have so deceived the government officials and wronged the Indians, but that this could have occurred on three occasions was manifestly absurd. The Ohio Company purchase and the Symmes purchase had been made, the pioneers had emigrated and settled the lands. The Government had given no white man right to cross the treaty line. Those settlements could not be uprooted without great injustice. The war seemed, therefore, an imperative necessity, and the Government had no honorable alternative if peace efforts failed. We have had many dealings with the Indians since 1790, and it is of some comfort to rest assured that our first Indian war was eminently just and right.
Unless otherwise ordered, Brigadier-general Scott of Kentucky was to make a dash at the Indian villages on the upper Wabash in the early summer. A little later General Wilkinson was scheduled to lead another raiding band to the populous settlement on the Eel River, a northern tributary of the Wabash. These swift strokes, it was hoped, would compel the Indians to confer con​cerning peace. No rift in the dark war-clouds occurred, despite the efforts of Knox and St. Clair to establish an armistice, and Scott marched northward in May and Wilkinson in August. Like similar raids, these two were successful failures. Villages and crops were ruined and captives were taken. Many squaws "looked behind them and turned pale" perhaps, but in effect they had an opposite influence from that hoped: they undid whatever little good the efforts to secure peace had accomplished. There was now utmost need for the final "grand campaign."
A Part of Arrowsmith's Map of the United States, 1796
[Showing the region in which Wilkinson, Scott, Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne operated]
​at Fort Pitt. Governor Arthur St. Clair was created Major-general and placed in command of the new army. Brigadier-general Richard Butler was appointed second in command. The object of the campaign was to establish a line of military posts from Fort Washington on the Ohio to the Maumee, where, at the Miami village at the junction of the St. Mary and St. Joseph, a strong fort was to be built, "for the purpose of awing and curbing the Indians in that quarter, and as the only preventative of future hostilities." In present day terms the army was to march from Cincinnati, Ohio, and erect a fort on the site of Fort Wayne, Indiana. In every order the underlying theory of the Government is plain—the one end sought was peace. "This [peace] is of more value than millions of uncultivated acres," were the words of the Secretary of War in St. Clair's instructions. It was a war of self-defense, not a war of conquest.
​The business dragged at every point. In the hope that the Indians would come to reason, Scott's raid was delayed a week at the start. Wilkinson, who was to move northward June 10, did not march until August 1. The continued anticipation of good results from these expeditions, which would render the grand campaign unnecessary, tended to lessen the energies of the preparations. General Butler was assigned the duty of raising the recruits in the East—a discouraging task. The pay offered did not equal an average day's wage. The campaign was not entirely popular and promised innumerable hardships. Enlistments came in slowly, and, in many instances, only the unfit and unworthy offered. As late as April 28 the Secretary of War wrote General Butler: "None of the companies of the Eastern States are yet nearly completed." As early as May 12 he wrote St. Clair: "It will at least be the latter end of July, or the beginning of August before your force shall be assembled." Originally the army was to march from Fort Washington on July 10.
​General St. Clair left Philadelphia March 28 for the Ohio, to superintend affairs at the point of rendezvous. With "a degree of pain and difficulty that cannot well be imagined," St. Clair, already a sick man, pushed on to Pittsburg and Lexington, Kentucky, reaching Fort Washington on the fifteenth of May. One week later (May 22) General Butler reached Pittsburg, to receive the army and the stores and ammunition and hurry all on to Fort Washington. But every rod became a mile and every hundredweight a ton. It was not until the fifth of June that the troops from the East reached Fort Pitt—eight hundred and forty-two soldiers of the twelve hundred Secretary Knox had promised May 19. And yet, few as they were, no boats had been prepared to carry them south, and indeed very few in which to transport the slowly accumulating stores and ammunition. Contractor Duer and Quartermaster Samuel Hodgdon seemingly believed that barges grew on the rich banks of the Ohio and flat-boats were to be picked from the trees. The congestion of troops and stores which now resulted at Pittsburg was quite ​as appalling as the former scarcity of every needful thing. As rapidly as conditions permitted, General Butler wrought a certain kind of order out of the chaos, but not a kind that augured well for the future. That could hardly have been expected. In one way or another various craft were knocked together, filled, and set afloat in good hope of reaching Fort Washington. June dragged by, and July. August found Butler and Quartermaster-general Hodgdon still at Pittsburg, and it was not until the twenty-sixth of that month that the last of the army began the voyage southward—sixty precious days late.
On July 21 Secretary Knox wrote St. Clair at Fort Washington: "The president is greatly anxious that the campaign be distinguished by decisive measures." A letter of August 4 reads: "The president still continues anxious that you should, at the earliest moment, commence your operations;" and another under the date of September 1 reads: "[The president] therefore enjoins you, by every principle that is sacred, to stimulate your operations in the highest degree, and to move as rapidly as ​the lateness of the season, and the nature of the case will possibly admit." It is a matter of record that at the time this letter was written neither General Butler or Quartermaster-general Hodgdon had so much as reached the rendezvous. The latter's delay was never explained and General Butler was utterly dependent upon quartermaster and contractor. Butler was at last ordered to Fort Washington by Secretary Knox in the following peremptory words, which implied neglect and carelessness—a rebuke which was, perhaps, as undeserved as it was sharp: "I have received your letter of the 18th instant, which has been submitted to the President of the United States, and I am commanded to inform you that he is by no means satisfied with the long detention of the troops on the upper parts of the Ohio, which he considers unnecessary and improper. And it is his opinion, unless the highest exertions be made by all parts of the army, to repair the loss of the season, that the expenses which have been made for the campaign, will be altogether lost, and that the measures, from which so much has been ​expected, will issue in disgrace." However the quartermaster-general had been ordered as early as June 9 to "consult Major General Butler upon all objects of the preparations and as soon as possible repair to headquarters."
Yet, had the army been assembled at Fort Washington July 15 instead of September 5, there would have been no such thing as moving northward for weeks. No sooner had the first of the troops reached St. Clair than it was clear that he had made no mistake in hurrying to the point of rendezvous. For instance the carriages of the guns used in Harmar's campaign were ruined and had not been replaced. There was no corps of artificers and drafting was resorted to in order to secure smiths, carpenters, harness-makers, wheelwrights, etc. With the arrival of Major Ferguson, June 20, it became clear that nearly all the am​munition had yet to be properly prepared; a laboratory had to be built; the shells had to be filled with powder, likewise the artillery cartridges, the shells for howitzers and musket cartridges. Not only did enough of this work have to be done for the immediate use of the army, but a sufficient supply had to be prepared for each of the posts to be erected between Fort Washington and the Maumee, and to supply the main fort on the Maumee and its defenders until spring. The carriages of the guns that arrived from Philadelphia were rendered useless and new ones had to be made. Almost all arms which the troops brought to Fort Washington were out of repair. An armory had to be built, and, says General St. Clair, "so fast did the work of that kind increase upon our hands, that at one time it appeared as if it would never be got through with."
An indeterminate amount of powder shipped from Philadelphia was practically ruined before it reached Fort Washington; one boatload was entirely submerged on the way from Fort Pitt. The officers ​attempted to keep this from the men but the news leaked out. "The powder was very bad," records Ensign Pope of the militia, "I fired at a tree several times and hit but seldom; it would not force the ball." Such of the powder as was good stood little chance of remaining so in the wretched tents that were palmed off on the quartermaster-general. Colonel Mentgetz, inspector, is our authority for the fact that, with the exception of two companies, the tents would not keep out rain at either front or back. General Harmar said the flanks of the tents were of Russian sheeting and the ends were of crocus or osnaburg and would not, in his opinion, keep out rain. According to Major Zeigler the tents were infamous and "many hundred dozen of cartridges were destroyed, and the troops, not being kept dry were sick in great numbers." The packsaddles were too big—"big enough for elephants," said an officer; the axes sent from Philadelphia were useless—"would bend up like a dumpling," according to Major Zeigler. In fact Fort Washington was ​transformed into a manufacturing city, and there was almost no kind of work that was not done—though often the necessary tools had first to be made. Two traveling forges had been sent west of which only the anvils were missing!
It is not to be wondered that St. Clair, as General Harmar afterward said, was often the first up in the morning and went the rounds of the shops and laboratories greatly disturbed over the vast amount of work to be done, the difficulty in the doing of it, and the ominous delay. For, with the heat of the summer's end, the grass was fast withering, which meant that feed for the horses must be transported—an item of great magnitude.
The failure of the quartermaster-general to come forward, even when ordered to do so, compelled St. Clair to bear the brunt of all the results of mismanagement and delay. As noted, the delay of the quartermaster was never explained. His very appointment occasioned an outcry among officers who had known him; the soldiers laughed many of his measures to scorn. One of his employees who arrived at Fort ​Washington in charge of horses had, seemingly, no knowledge whatever of frontier life. The horses were not provided with hopples or bells; released from their long confinement in the barges they broke for the woods and many were never again secured. St. Clair facetiously hinted that their master would have had to wear a bell, had he gone to seek them, in order to be secure from becoming lost. It was found later that the horses had been fed, not from troughs, as ordered, but from the sandy river beach, where their grain was strewn and much wasted, the horses also injuring each other in an attempt to eat it.
But patience is exhausted before one half of the miserable story is told. More than enough has been suggested to show the condition of the "grand army" that had gathered and was now about to march northward. It is almost needless to add that an eternal jealousy between militia and regulars existed; that the troops were wretchedly clad; that nothing was known of the country through which the march was to be made, and less than nothing of the foe that was to be met and conquered. ​The camp of the army (except artificers) was moved by St. Clair on August 7 six miles northward from Fort Washington to Ludlow's Station, where the pasturage was better and where the troops were not under the influence of the dramshops at the little settlement about the fort.
On the arrival of General Butler and Quartermaster Hodgdon, September 7, a slight delay occurred through Butler's being appointed president of a court-martial which General Harmar had demanded and by which he was honorably acquitted. It was September 17 before the advance was begun from Ludlow's Station northward.
When the army, twenty-three hundred strong, at last filed out from Ludlow's Station, the plan seems to have been to build two forts between Fort Washington and the proposed fort on the Maumee, the first at the ford, twenty-three miles north, on the Great Miami, and the second about the same distance in advance and twice as far from the Maumee.
​The army marched from Ludlow's Station under the command of General Butler and reached the Miami September 17. St. Clair returned to Fort Washington to hurry up the contractor's agents and muster in the militia he had called from Kentucky. From September 17 to October 4 the army was busy building a fort at "Camp Miami," which St. Clair named Fort Hamilton.
On October 3 Butler made the last preparations for the march, Fort Hamilton being nearly completed. All the artillery cartridges (except sixty rounds) were distributed, and one half of the stock of musket cartridges. A body of contractor's stores was thrown across the Miami, under cover, to join the army on its march.
Concerning the route and the road, little was known. At the outset of the campaign St. Clair in his instructions was ordered "to appoint some skillful person to make actual surveys of your march, to be corrected, if the case will admit of it, by ​proper astronomical observations, and of all posts you may occupy." The first settlers in the Miami purchase had spread inland a few miles at this time; one settlement, Ludlow's Station, was made five miles up Mill Creek and another twelve miles up the Great Miami. Butler's route from Ludlow's Station to the site of Fort Hamilton was undoubtedly already an open trail that far. The day before he advanced from Fort Hamilton, Butler wrote St. Clair: "I have just received a verbal report from Captain Ginnon, the surveyor, who is returned. He has been seven miles, and says the face of the country is level but very brushy, and in his opinion it is impracticable for loaded horses to get on without a road. Of this I will be a better judge as I advance and try the present order of march, &c. Should I find it impracticable to execute, I feel confident that any directions that may be necessary to facilitate the move​ments will meet your approval. The road is cut one and a-half miles to a good stream of water and ground to encamp on. Five miles advanced of that is a large creek, which is three feet deep at the place he crossed, but a little below is a ford, . ."
On the fourth of October, with enough provisions to last a few days, without its commander, who was at Fort Washington hurrying on three hundred militia, the army under Butler crossed the Miami River and entered the shadows of the Indian land. We have no definite record of the first days' marches. It would not seem that more than five miles a day were accomplished. The route was in alignment with the Eaton Road between Hamilton and Eaton, Preble County. Four Mile (from Hamilton) Creek—then known as Joseph's Creek—was crossed near the old "Fearnot Mill," and the first encampment was made near what was afterward known as Scott's tanyard on Seven Mile Creek—then called St. Clair's Creek. The line of march was up Seven Mile Creek, west of Eaton, where the creek was forded. "The trace cannot now be ​definitely located," wrote a Preble County annalist, a generation ago. "It was not cut to as great width as most of the military roads, and the line has been almost wholly obscured by the growth of the forest and the action of the weather upon the soil."
Narrow as the road here was, it was cut wider than St. Clair intended. After the first day or two General Butler, as he suggested in his letter of October 3, decided that St. Clair's tri-track plan of march was impracticable, and gave orders that but one road should be cut, and that the army march in a body.
On the seventh St. Clair came hurrying on from Fort Washington to join his army. The militia had gone on on the fifth, but in bad temper. Several deserted even upon arriving at Fort Washington. A sergeant and twenty-five men deserted on the night of the third. A score of men deserted from Fort Hamilton the night before the army marched. The anxiety of the officers, and the herculean efforts to get the army into fighting trim, had not created a very loyal spirit in the men who marched. ​A little more chicanery and misjudgment and the entire army would have mutinied. St. Clair, before mounting his horse, wrote Knox that his troops amounted in all to twenty-three hundred. "I trust I shall find them sufficient," he added. The words remind one of Braddock's last letter to the British Ministry before leaving Fort Cumberland for the death-trap on the Monongahela in 1755. Major Ebenezer Denny traveled with St. Clair as aide-de-camp and has left us the official account of the army's march. Denny was not anxious to serve. "You must go," General Harmar declared, "some will escape and you may be among the number."
St. Clair and Denny reached Fort Hamilton on the seventh, and on the day following pushed on after the army over the narrow course it had made; this was running "north sixteen degrees." Four encampments were passed and the militia, and St. Clair reached his army that evening. There was full need of him. The army was making but five miles a day; and at that disastrously slow pace the stores ​were not keeping up. Tonight (the eighth) St. Clair wrote a stinging letter to Israel Ludlow. Instead of having ninety thousand rations, as was promised, St. Clair had to write "by day after tomorrow I shall not have an ounce unless some arrives. . . If you found the transportation impracticable, you ought to have informed me, that I might have taken means to have got supplies forward, or not have committed my army to the wilderness. . . No disappointment should have happened which was in the power of money to prevent; and money could certainly have prevented any here. . . Want of drivers will be no excuse to a starving army and a disappointed people."
Another exceedingly unfortunate affair demanded St. Clair's attention, in his opinion, that night. He had given carefully studied and explicit orders by which the army should march. As noted, General Butler changed the order of march as he threatened to do in his letter to St. Clair from Fort Hamilton. The reasons for the ​change did not appeal to the commander-in-chief; Butler was called to account for his action, apologized, and stated his reasons. St. Clair had ordered that the army march in three lines, contending that it was far more easy to cut three roads, ten feet in width each, than to cut one road of thirty or forty. St. Clair's method was that pursued by the wisest and most successful generals—Forbes and Bouquet—in hewing the first roads across the Alleghenies. "The quantity of timber," St. Clair records, "increases in a surprising proportion, as the width of the road is increased;" the veteran conqueror of Fort Duquesne, General Forbes, wrote his right-hand man Colonel Bouquet under the same circumstances, urging the cutting of several paths, saying, "I don't mean here to cut down any large trees, only to clear away the Brushwood and saplins. . ." Temporarily, St. Clair allowed Butler's alteration to stand, but ​insisted that it should soon be corrected as the army pushed on.
The result was that Butler conceived an intense dislike for St. Clair. The latter has placed it on record that, upon Butler's arrival at Fort Washington, "he was soured and disgusted, and I suppose it was occasioned by the fault that had been found with the detention of the Troops up the river;" Knox's rebuke, previously quoted, would make plain the reason of any disinterest on the part of General Butler. St. Clair's reproof here and now seemed to increase it; "from that moment," St. Clair said, "his coolness and distance increased, and he seldom came near me. I was concerned at it, but as I had given no cause, I could apply no cure." As the half mutinous, because half fed, army blundered on, it might seem that lack of provisions was its most serious menace; yet it becomes pretty clear that the estrangement of Butler and St. Clair was even more serious.
On the ninth of October, the army pushed on nine miles, and the horses being tied up ​at night an eight o'clock start was achieved on the morning of the tenth, but only eight miles were traversed. At two o'clock on the afternoon of the eleventh the army drew out into the low prairie land which lies six miles south of Fort Jefferson, Darke County, Ohio, and halted for the night to search for a safe path through it. On the day after, a party led by General Butler found a "deep-beaten" Indian trail which skirted the lower levels "avoiding the wet land," and this was followed for five and a half miles. There is no record that St. Clair followed an Indian trail until near the center of Darke County. The course heretofore had been run by the compass.
From this night's encampment St. Clair rode forward a short mile and chose the site for the next fort on the line from the Ohio River to the Maumee. The spot chosen was near the present site of Fort Jefferson, Ohio—latitude 50° 4′ 22″ N. The work of erecting the new post was undertaken with alacrity by many of the soldiers and officers—the latter working in the mud with the men. Major Ferguson ​found the lack of axes a serious handicap, there being but one ax to three workmen. Yet these discouragements were not as disheartening as the continual dearth of provisions. This undermined discipline, perseverance, loyalty, and honor. Desertions became more alarmingly frequent, but men who were not fed could not work and would not march. As half-rations, and those exceedingly poor, became the necessary order of the day, the army slowly melted from under the discouraged St. Clair. Every night found the army smaller and yet more discouraged. In vain St. Clair beseeched Hodgdon to hurry on provisions. But the contractor's horses were ​lacking and those to be had were unfit for the heavy loads bound to them.
And here at Fort Jefferson another and ​more pitiful estrangement between St. Clair and Butler occurred. While the fort was being erected, the latter officer came to St. Clair's tent and, in view of the slow advance of the army and the lateness of the season, asked St. Clair for a thousand picked men with permission to hurry on by a forced march to the Maumee and begin the erection of the fort there to be built. "I received the proposal," records St. Clair, "with an astonishment that, I doubt not, was depicted in my countenance, and, in truth, had liked to have laughed in his face, which he probably discovered. I composed my features, however, as well as I could, told him, though it did not appear to me, at first view, as a feasible project, nevertheless, it deserved to be considered; that I would consider it attentively, and give him an answer in the morning, which I accordingly did, with great gravity: and from that moment, his distance and reserve increased still more sensibly." Butler seems to have considered himself treated with contempt in this instance. It cannot be supposed that such a brave veteran ​officer as Butler could have asked a thing which it was out of St. Clair's power to grant; yet from the records of the condition of affairs it is difficult to see how St. Clair could have risked dividing his army which, for the whole week following, was on half-rations, and men deserting by twos and threes and even scores every night. Passing the question—which in no way can be decided—of the propriety of Butler's plan, the circumstance seems to have deeply embittered a brave and good man with whom Fate had been dealing most unkindly since the very beginning of the present campaign. As will be seen, it were a kindness to Butler to believe that continued untoward fortune rendered him mentally incapable of acting henceforward in a sane manner toward General St. Clair.
Explorations were carried on throughout the twenty-third and the line of march on the Indian trail, previously discovered, was renewed on the twenty-fourth; the army stumbled helplessly on to Greenville Creek, where the city of Greenville, Ohio, now stands. This small effort to advance was more than the hungry army could endure ​and one whole dark week was spent here waiting for provisions. The condition of army discipline was probably indescribable. The Kentuckians, who formed the large portion of the militia, were not afraid of the savages but the lack of food completely demoralized them. On the last day of October a large party numbering at least sixty deserted, and, hastening down the roadway which the army had cut, threatened to seize the provision train that was supposed to be slowly nearing the sorry army. The threat cast a gloom over the army and St. Clair was compelled to order out the First Regiment, not so much in pursuit of the deserters, as for the protection of the needed provisions. The army, weakened by the absence of this regiment, marched on—following an Indian trail that ran north from Greenville on the general alignment of the present Fort Recovery Road. St. Clair states the direction of the path as "north 25° west."
Added to St. Clair's many discourage​ments and Butler's disaffection, was physical ailment. The touch of gout experienced on the journey over the Alleghenies did not leave him. In his meager Journal he records on October 24: "So ill this day that I had much difficulty in keeping with the army." November dawned wet and cold but on the first his "friendly fit of gout" was growing better.
On the third of November the army made its last day's march—little dreaming that it was the last or that just ahead lay the bloodiest battlefield in American pioneer history. The Thomas Irwin manuscript, previously quoted, gives us a glimpse of the day that is of singularly pathetic interest. "In the afternoon of the 3$^d$ Something Broke which Caused a general halt Nearly one hour the Day was Cold us waggoners in front had a very handy way of making fire we made up a Large fire Several of the officers Collected around to warm themselves Gen$^l$ St Clair was Brought and took a Seat he not Being able to walk they Discoursed on Different Subjects one was ​where they thought we were the general oppinion was that we had passed over the Dividing ridge Between the Miamie waters and was then on the waters of St. Marys Col Serjant Came up at the time Stated the advance gard had Chased 4 or 5 Indians from a fire out of a thicket & got part of a venison at it he Likewise stated there had Been more Indians Seen that Day than any Day previous The General observed that he Did not think the Indians was watching the motions of the army with a view to attack them other than Steal horses or Catch a person if they had a Chance We all Coincided [?] in that oppinion." Poor St. Clair! Was ever a general more terribly mistaken? Just beyond lay Little Turtle, now closing swiftly in on the doomed army.
"The army moved about two miles," continues Irwin, "from there Halted to Encamp at a good place But Scarce of Water an Express Came up from the advance gard give information that they had arrived at a fine running Stream of water and a good place to Encamp the army moved to S$^d$ Creek got there a Little after Sunset. it ​was Between 8 & 9 oclock Before the army got fixed to Rest." Then follows the ominous sentence: "this was on the 3$^d$ of November 1791."
Happy it is that the bloody promontory to which St. Clair's army hobbled late on that cold November night can forever bear the cheerful name which another and more successful campaigner—whose soldiers were not always half-famished—gave it. And still no thoughtful student can look upon the slow-moving Little Wabash from the present site of Fort Recovery, Ohio, without remembering that here Camp Destruction was pitched before ever Fort Recovery was erected. A fine high plateau or promontory thrusts itself out into the lower flats through which the river curves. At its extreme point the river approaches on the left and in front. On the right are extensive fields where the sunlight plays so tenderly that it is difficult to picture the rank swamp which lay there a century ago. Beyond the river, level flats extend half a mile and more to the foothills beyond.
Major Denny had accompanied the ​advance guard and quartermaster to this spot, and though "it was farther than could have been wished," word was sent back to the army advising that the march be continued to that point. It being "later than usual when the army reached the ground this evening," records Denny, "and the men much fatigued prevented the General from having some works of defense immediately erected." The army camped in a hollow square on the summit of the promontory; General Butler commanded the right and front and his troops under Majors Butler, Clarke, and Patterson lay in two lines along the edge of the high ground near the Wabash. The left was composed of the battalions under Bedinger and Gaither, in the first line, and Lieutenant-colonel Darke's troops in the second. "The army was Encamped in a hollow Square," says Irwin, "allong the Bank of s$^d$ Creek perhaps 50 yards Between the Lines so that the rear Could go to the Creek for water." The militia was sent forward across the Wabash and encamped about one-fourth of a mile in the bottoms. The tired men fell to work gathering wood, and soon two rows ​of fires were brightly blazing in the narrow avenue between the troops of Butler on the left and Darke on the right. The rain had turned to snow. Many of the exhausted men sank instantly to sleep.
As if half conscious of the doom hanging over the army, certain of the officers were given to pondering on the number of Indians seen that day. "Fresh signs," writes Denny, " . . appeared today in several places; parties of riflemen detached after them, but without success." The Irwin MS. reads: "The advance gard Seen they Supposed about 30 Indians in the Bottom on the other Side of s$^d$ Creek [Wabash] when they arrived at it in the Evening and had Seen Considerable Sign that Day." The premonition of disaster intensified as the camp became quiet and the blazing fires were brightly reflected in the light snow. Among certain officers the premonition took shape, and it was determined to send out a party to reconnoiter. Captain Butler at first resolved to lead the party, but soon thought it improper to leave the camp. Accordingly, Colonel Gibson went to Captain Slough of the first battalion of levies ​carrying a raccoon in his hand; finding Slough, he invited him to his tent to see "how to dress a racoon Indian fashion." Captain Butler joined them, and the three went to General Butler's tent where wine was served. Slough agreed to go out with a party of volunteers, nominally to catch "some of the rascals who might attempt to steal horses." It is plain, whatever the officers may have given as a reason for the scouting expedition, that Slough was sent to feel of the woods—to guard against surprise. His line of men paraded in the firelight before Butler's tent before stealing out beyond the lines. Passing Colonel Oldham's tent, Slough stopped and informed that officer of the detachment and its mission. Colonel Oldham "was lying down with his clothes on" and "requested me not to go, as he was sure my party would be cut off, for, says he, I expect the army will be attacked in the morning; I replied, that as I had received my orders I must go."
Slough led his party through the militia camp and onward about a mile on the ​Indian trail. Here they were divided, each party hiding on opposite sides of the path. Soon a party of Indians passed each hiding company; one company opened fire. It was not long before the men realized that something extraordinary was on hand. A larger body of Indians soon came near Slough's band on the left of the trace, paused, and coughed as if to attract another volley, and then passed on. The scouting party came together on the trail and agreed that an Indian army was advancing; a hurried march to camp followed. On the way "every fifteen or twenty yards we heard something moving in the woods on both sides of the path, but could not see what it was," wrote Slough. It was a thrilling moment when these men heard Little Turtle's quiet lines worming their way through the underbrush—an army making so strange a noise in the night that even frontiersmen could not recognize it. Yet an unrecognized sound brought utmost alarm; "we pushed on," said Slough, "and gained the militia camp as soon as possible."
Slough's first thought was to send word ​immediately to St. Clair. He hurried to Colonel Oldham's tent. "I was just going to dress myself," says Oldham, "and go and inform the commander in chief about it; I will thank you [Slough] to inform the general that I think the army will be attacked in the morning."
Slough hastened to General Butler's tent, but, seeing no one but the sentry, passed on to Colonel Gibson's tent. Here he aroused Gibson and Doctor M'Croskey, and repeated his alarming story. He asked Gibson to go with him to General Butler. Colonel Gibson was not dressed, and urged Slough to go alone and arouse Butler. He obeyed, and as he returned to General Butler's tent the latter walked out of it and went to the fire. Calling Butler aside, that the sentry should not overhear the news, "I told him what colonel Oldham had said, and that, if he thought proper, I would go and make the report to general St. Clair. He stood some time, and after a pause, thanked me for my attention and vigilance, and said, as I must be fatigued I had better go and lie down. I went from him and lay down. . ." It was five days before ​General St. Clair heard of Slough's scouting episode of the night of November 3.
All that Slough and Oldham suspected was true and more. All night long the Indians crept around the army, ready for an attack at sunrise. The army began stirring at an early hour; some there were, it is sure, who anxiously awaited the dawn. The troops paraded under arms, as usual, before sunrise. Ranks had just been broken when a scattering fire was heard in the militia camp, and soon the Indian yell. The militia stood a moment and then fell back to the river, crossed it, and were upon Major Butler's and Clark's battalions, throwing the latter into a confusion that was never remedied despite the energy of those officers. The Indians were upon the heels of the militia, but were repulsed by the fire of the first line. With well-timed accuracy the Indians charged the opposite side of the square, where, too, they were at first repulsed. The American army was now practically surrounded—the savages lying hidden in the brush, forests, and ​high grass on the low ground which surrounded the promontory on three sides and in front. The artillery was placed at the center of the two sides of the square and here the battle raged most fiercely. For some time, it would seem, the honors of the conflict were evenly divided. But from the position of the two armies it can readily be seen that the American fire was not so effective as that of the savages whose firmness and audacity was unparalleled. From their concealed position it required little marksmanship to pick men off rapidly on the high ground just beyond and hidden only by a low-lying cloud of smoke from their own guns. The officers, hurrying back and forth, offered conspicuous targets. From St. Clair (who had to be assisted to mount his horse) down, the officers were brave and efficient. As St. Clair passed down one line, Butler passed up the other. They never met, though St. Clair frequently asked for Butler as the battle wore away.
At last it was agreed that things were going badly and that a bayonet charge, only, would dislodge the enemy, who were rapidly cutting down the efficient strength ​of the army—making particular havoc among the officers. Colonel Darke was thereupon ordered to turn the left flank of the enemy, which he accomplished with firmness and success—driving the savages several hundred yards. Yet soon they swarmed back, not being held where they were, and, in turn drove the troops backward. About the cannon, which the Indians were taught to dread, the battle ebbed and flowed bloodily. As fast as the gunners were shot down others took their places. Now and again the red line swept up to the guns and the piles of slain were scalped, amid the smoke, in the very face of the army. On the left flank, too, the savages were beginning to overpower and gain the summit of the promontory and enter the lines. They were charged fiercely but after each charge there was a sudden dearth of officers, and the lines returned very thin. The army was now attacked from every side, though not until late in the long three hours of conflict did the Indians take the initiative. Their settled plan was to get the troops in range, lie low, make no noise save with their guns, retire ​when assaulted, but follow back eagerly. Such tactics were all that were necessary. As in Braddock's battle beside the Monongahela, so here, the white array on higher ground in plain sight could not do such fatal execution, by any means, as the Indian army strewn among the standing and fallen trees, the brush and rank grasses of the lower ground, and on the sloping sides of the promontory.
By nine o'clock the army had been exposed for three hours to the merciless Indian fire. Hundreds had fallen; the ground was literally covered with dead and dying. The only question was, Could the remainder escape? The army was cut off from the road. Benjamin Van Cleve, a young man, has left record of this memorable break for the road when order to retreat was at last given: "I found," he says, "the troops pressing like a drove of bullocks to the right. I saw an officer . . with six or eight men start on a run a little to the left of where I was. I immediately ran and fell in with them. In a short distance we were so suddenly among the Indians, who were not apprised of our ​object, that they opened to us and ran to the right and left without firing. I think about two hundred of our men passed through them before they fired." An opening being made, the army poured heedlessly along. No order or semblance of order existed, save in a remnant of Clark's command which essayed to cover the rear. In the very rear, on a horse which could not be pricked out of a walk, came St. Clair, unmindful of the bloody tumult behind him where the old men and wounded were being killed.
This awful battle was a fitting close for such a campaign. In almost every sense it was the greatest defeat suffered by white men on this continent at the hands of aborigines. St. Clair's army numbered on the eve of November 3 one thousand four hundred and eighty-six men and eighty-six officers. Of these, eight hundred and ninety men and sixteen officers were killed or wounded. The army poured back to Fort Jefferson and then on to Fort Washington. The path hewn northward became, like ​Braddock's Road, a route for the hordes of Indians toward the frontiers. Their victory, so bloody, so overwhelming, gave confidence. Perhaps never before nor afterward did any battlefield present a scene equal to that Wabash slaughter field. The dying were tortured and the dead frightfully mutilated. On the theory that the army sought to conquer the Indian land, sand was crushed into the eyes of the dead in cruel mockery. Several scores of women followed the army—though contemporary records are singularly silent on this point. Many of them, it is sure, fell into the hands of the savages and the first white visitors to the battleground found great stakes driven through many corpses.
The two underlying causes for this terrible reverse of American arms were the long delay in getting the army on its feet, properly supplied; and the undisciplined condition of the troops. The immediate cause of the defeat was, without question, the failure of all the officers who knew of ​Captain Slough's discoveries on the night of November 3 to communicate them to General St. Clair. Colonel Oldham ordered Slough to St. Clair; he went only to General Butler who dismissed him without acceding to his spoken request to be allowed to take the news to the commander-in-chief. The words of the standard authority on St. Clair's defeat are perhaps severe, but no new information has come in half a century to give ground for altering them; Albach says: "The circumstances under which the omission occurred, would favor an inference that he [Butler] sacrificed the safety of the army to the gratification of his animosity against St. Clair. The evidence given before the committee of Congress is conclusive that he failed, at least to perform his whole duty in the premises." Butler's side of the story could never be told; fatally wounded while heroically exhorting his men, the poor man was carried to his marquee under an oak, by his brother, Captain Edward Butler. Propped up on his mattress, a loaded revolver placed in each hand, the old veteran was left to his fate. ​As his friends left the tent by the rear, the Indians surged in at the front.
St. Clair's road northward was the main thoroughfare to Fort Hamilton and Fort Jefferson from the Ohio and, though superseded by another route soon built parallel to it, was ever of importance in the burst of population from Pennsylvania and Kentucky into the Old Northwest. But the soldiers of St. Clair's successor were too superstitious to follow that ill-starred track. And, as Forbes came successfully to Fort Duquesne over a new route built parallel to Braddock's, so the second conqueror of the Old Northwest cut a new road parallel to St. Clair's.
* ↑ Historic Highways of America, vol. ix, ch. 2.
* ↑ American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 129.
* ↑ Id., p. 171.
* ↑ Id., p. 172. This project was suggested by General St. Clair the year previous, but was not countenanced by the Government. American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 100.
* ↑ Id., p. 172.
* ↑ American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 192. Officers who had orders from Butler to march were, in some instances, delayed nearly a week before they received the necessary provisions with which to do so.—St. Clair's Narrative of the Campaign against the Indians (1812), p. 228.
* ↑ Id., p. 193.
* ↑ St. Clair's Narrative, p. 12.
* ↑ Id., p. 207.
* ↑ Cummingsville—"six miles from the fort [Washington], along what is now 'Mad Anthony Street.'"—History of Hamilton County, (Cleveland, 1881), p. 78.
* ↑ Knox to Washington, October 1, 1791, American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 244.
* ↑ The site of Fort Hamilton was in the present city of Hamilton, Ohio, and was described in 1875 as located on the ground reaching from Stable Street to the United Presbyterian Church, and stretching from the Miami River eastward to the site of the Universalist Church.
* ↑ American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 173.
* ↑ Historic Highways of America, vol. ix, ch. 2.
* ↑ American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 245. St. Clair had ordered Butler to proceed in three parallel paths each ten feet in width.
* ↑ Everts's Atlas of Butler County, Ohio, p. 23.
* ↑ History of Preble County, Ohio (1881), p. 19.
* ↑ St. Clair Papers, vol. ii, p. 252.
* ↑ St. Clair Papers, vol. ii, p. 247. This letter may have been written at Fort Hamilton.
* ↑ St. Clair's Narrative, p. 32. It is difficult to harmonize St. Clair's own words concerning the width of the roadway with those of the editor of The St. Clair Papers, vol. ii, p. 292, note.
* ↑ Historic Highways of America, vol. v, p. 144. Cf. Harmar's order of march p. 96.
* ↑ St. Clair's Narrative, p. 31.
* ↑ Id., p. 32.
* ↑ The St. Clair Papers, vol. ii, pp. 251, 262.
* ↑ St. Clair's Narrative, p. 210.
* ↑ The St. Clair Papers, pp. 254, 255.
* ↑ St. Clair wrote Hodgdon regarding supplies as follows: "Forty-five thousand rations of provisions should move with the army; . . twice in every ten days forty-five thousand rations should move from Fort Washington to the next post, until three hundred and sixty thousand rations were sent forward; . . forty-five thousand rations should again move with the army from the first post to a second, and an equal number twice in every ten days until the residue of the three hundred and sixty thousand were carried forward, and so on from post to post, still moving with forty-five thousand rations. They have failed entirely in enabling me to move with forty-five thousand rations, and from the letter above mentioned, the agent seems not to expect to move any beyond this place; for he says: 'If you move from thence (meaning this place) shortly, and take ten days' provisions with you, it will deprive us of the means to transport what may be necessary after that is exhausted.' After, then, that you know exactly what the contractors can do as to transportation, (for so far as they can do it, it is their business, and must not be taken out of their hands) you will take your measures so, as that, on the 27th instant, I may be able to move with three hundred horse-loads of flour, and that one hundred and fifty horse-loads succeed that every seven days; one hundred and fifty horses being sent back every seven days. For whatever expense may attend the arrangement, this shall be your warrant; and I am certain, from your personal character, as well as from your zeal for the public good, that no unnecessary expense will be incurred. It is to be observed, that our beef will be expended about the 5th or 6th of next month. When I left Fort Washington, the agent of the contractors informed me that he expected a drove of cattle very soon; whether they are arrived or not I am not informed. I have written to him on this occasion; but I request you to inform yourself, and, if necessary, to make provision there also; and, indeed, there is not a moment to lose about it, and to provide for any deficiency. He writes me that the measures he has taken will give a supply to the last of December or a month longer, but nothing must be left to hazard."—The St. Clair Papers, vol. ii, pp. 248–249.
* ↑ St. Clair's Narrative, p. 33.
* ↑ The St. Clair Papers, vol. ii, p. 257.
* ↑ American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 137.
* ↑ Id., p. 137.
* ↑ See p. 89.
* ↑ St. Clair's Narrative, pp. 213–219.
* ↑ American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 138; St. Clair's Narrative, p. 55.
* ↑ Albach's Annals of the West, p. 584.
* ↑ Atwater's History of Ohio, p. 142.
* ↑ Captain Robert Buntin to Governor St. Clair, February 13, 1792 (Dillon's History of Indiana, p. 283).
* ↑ Annals of the West, p. 590.
* ↑ MS. of Thos. Posey, Draper MSS., xvi U, vol. 3. Cf. page 203.
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