Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-28

nAu Degun, ana lnoeed, they were approach
ing what might we'll be called villages, and
passing along by the magnificent eornfelds,
such as have been described. Everything
that could be of use was burned, but the
scouts brought in such accounts of gather
ing OF the clans as might have been brought
In had great army of Napoleon's been
concentrating.
And Harmar himself was affected by re-
ports SO terrible. He came as far as what
he chose to call the capital of the Miami
towns, and burned that, DESTROYED some TO-
600 bushels of corn, he thought, and then
ordered a retreat. II he had not ordered it,
the greater part of his men would have gone
back without orders. But this was not the
end. After two or three days of this excit-
ing, provoking and disgusting work, when
they were eight miles back on their way to
Fort Washington, it seemed to Harmar that
he must recover some reputation if he could,
and he, therefore, ordered from his very best
force parties amounting to 400 men, to 90
back to the ruins of the town, thinking to
ind there the savages assembled to see what
had been left. With this party were ZapoIy
and Curwen. They marched about mid
night, having been divided into different
parties, in the hope of entrapDing a consid-
cradle number of the Indians together. This
scientific plan was unfortunately unfit for
the woods, and the result was, in brief, that
every division had to fight the enemy alone,
and that the end of it was a virtual mas
sacre-for some 200 men were killed and
wounded or carried into captivity by the
Indians. On the extreme right wing had
been Harry and Clendenin, with Zapoly.
This is no place to describe the miserable
carnage which followed. Little does the
traveller of to-day, who takes cup of coffee
at Fort Wayne, or changes a train there,
understand or indeed remember the intrica-
cies of what happened there Just century
ago Enough, that each wing of the little
company finding little opposition pushed
too far. The centre, unsupported, met the
whole force of the savages. The troops at
last broke and fled several miles. 1t was
not till the St. Joseph river parted pursuers
aud pursued, that the whites made a rally.
Thus was it, that when Curwen and a few
men who had been detached on the extreme
right, returned, they found no Major
Wyllys to report to. The army had fled
and between Curwen and his command were
the triumphant savages.
Thus cut off from his own general, and
from any possibility of rendering assistance
Harry found that he must find his way back
to the Ohio, if he could, by his own resour-
ces. Zapoly, brave enough, was utterly
confused. He was no woodsman, and as
Harry said afterwards, did not know his
right hand from his left. Glen
denim had the instincts of a
Western scout, and useful indeed these
proved in the days which followed; but he
knew nothing OF the country in which he
was, and was even confused. in ways which
Harry could not understand, by the vege-
tation, the flow of the streams and every-
thing which ought to teach the way, but
which varied strangely from what the boy
was used to in the valley of the Allie
gheny Mountains Poor Harry Curwen
had to exercise his own "horse sense if he
were to get home at all, and in that country
he had two difficulties A heavy mist or
cloud, which seemed almost like smoke,
hung over the whole sky for days, and made
it difficult even to see where was the sun
in the heavens. If it did not rain there
was fog or smoke so thick that one could
not make out north or south, unless he had
q compass.
The boy was wholly unused to the
prairies, and was worse off than he
would have been at sea. He was
equally unused to Western forests;
while had some knack as woodsman in
New Hampshire or in Maine, he did not |
know the indications which surrounded him |
in Ohio. By some wIetched misfortune they |
had all gone out from camp without the or
dinary pocket compass, which every sur
veyor carried in those days. And now they |
had to work home to the Ohio by such indi- |
cations as nature and natures god would |
give them. The traveller who flies across |
at the rate Of 40 miles an hour, sleeping as
be rides perhaps-does not we'll or easily |
Imagine what the journey was As the |
bird fies-it is 200 miles; as these poor fell |
lows had to march-ohl how much more.
His whole party was but six men. OF the |
the type from which novelists have made !
their Pathfnders. One Of them was one Of |