Chapter V: The Fight for the Northwest

Long before the issue of the military struggle a contest of another sort for the possession of the Northwest had begun. France and Spain had entered into the conflict between Great Britain and her American colonies from no love of the latter, but rather from a desire on the one hand to humble Great Britain, on the other to advance their own interests. With the opening of the peace negotiations, therefore, an effort was made by these countries to limit the boundary of the new nation on the west to the Allegheny Mountains, and to give the dominant influence over the vast territory stretching thence to the Mississippi, together with the exclusive navigation of that stream, to Spain. That the project failed, and the Mississippi was made the western boundary of the new nation, was due in part to the shrewdness and persistence of the American diplomats, in part to the complaisance of Great Britain herself. Her representatives did not hesitate to reject the temptation offered of an alliance with the two continental monarchies for the purpose of advancing their own projects at the expense of her former colonies, in favor of such a settlement with the latter as would, by making possible their future development, secure their friendship and good will. By the terms of the treaty, therefore, the Northwest was secured to the United States, its boundaries being a middle line through the Great Lakes, and on the west the Mississippi River.

The prospect thus opened for an early reconciliation between the mother country and her revolted colonies did not, unfortunately, materialize. The war had left Great Britain burdened with a vast debt, her dominion curtailed by more than a million square miles of her finest territory, her prestige no less seriously damaged, and her ancient foe across the Channel glorying in the humiliation which had overtaken her. It was, perhaps, too much to expect, in view of all these things, that the mother country should at once receive the disobedient daughter to her bosom, without attempting in any way to manifest her resentment for the humiliation she had suffered.

Furthermore, conditions in America at the close of the war were such as to breed irritation and hostility between the two countries. The Revolution had been in a very real sense a civil war. Upward of one-third of the American colonists had sided with the British, and in their ranks were to be found the major portion of the colonists who were endowed with wealth, good birth, and education. Between these loyalists, or "Tories," and the "patriots," whose cause had now triumphed, the most intense feeling of bitterness existed. Even as wise and conservative a man as Franklin shared the general feeling of resentment toward the loyalists and was ready to justify the confiscation of their estates. Yet they had risked their all for the sake of the mother country, and Great Britain's honor was involved in securing them against being punished for their loyalty and devotion to her interests. A futile attempt was made during the peace negotiations to insure their protection, and its total failure, while natural enough in view of the circumstances, furnished one of the elements making for discord later on between the two countries.

There were other causes of discord and, in fact, neither the United States nor Great Britain honestly tried to fulfil all the obligations they had entered into. One of the leading sources of trouble pertained to the situation in the Northwest. Great Britain had agreed to withdraw her armies from all places in the United States "with all convenient speed." This obligation was kept elsewhere, but it was calmly and deliberately broken as far as the northwestern posts were concerned.[255] The demands of the American government for evacuation were met by evasion and, later, by open refusal, and even an explanation of the reasons for this course was long withheld. Finally the pretense was urged that the posts were being held as a guaranty of the fulfilment by the Americans of their own treaty obligations. That we were justly chargeable with failure in this respect is clear; but it is equally clear that the British determination to retain the posts antedated our infractions of the treaty, and that the claim that they were being held because of American violations of the treaty was a mere afterthought, put forward by way of excuse for a policy in itself indefensible.

[Footnote 255: The standard study of this subject is McLaughlin's "Western Posts and the British Debts," in _American Historical Association, Annual Report_, 1894, 413 ff. See also Roosevelt, _Winning of the West_, Vol. IV.]

The real reasons for the British policy with reference to the Northwest were the desire to retain control of the fur trade and of the Indian tribes of that region. In one sense these two reasons coalesce, but to some extent they may be distinguished. The fur trade constituted Canada's chief commercial asset, and the Canadians had looked upon the concessions contained in the treaty of 1783 as needlessly generous to the Americans and fatal to their own prosperity. To retain this trade the Americans must be shut out of the Northwest, and to this end the posts must be retained. Further than this, it was an obvious fact that in time of war the Indian would side with the party with whom he traded in time of peace. By her control of the Indian trade and the exclusion of the Americans from the Northwest Great Britain assured herself that in case of a future war with America or Spain the tomahawk and scalping knife might once more be called into requisition against her enemy.[256]

[Footnote 256: McLaughlin, _op. cit._, 430.]

To these considerations was joined another, which proved potent to fill the Northwest with strife and bloodshed for a dozen years after the close of the Revolution. It shortly became the aim of Great Britain to secure to the powerful tribes in western New York and in the territory west and north of the Ohio River the retention of their lands. They would thus serve the purpose of a buffer state between the United States and Canada, and would, by proper management of the Indians, render permanent the grip which the Canadian merchants had on the fur trade. To secure these ends the British sought to keep the Indians united and to influence them not to yield too readily to the blandishments or threats of the Americans. The attempt was made to establish a sort of guardianship over the Indian tribes and to require that interviews between them and the Americans be held in the presence of Canadian officials or in places where the British influence might be made manifest. In all this the home government refrained from instigating the Indians to war upon the Americans, and steadily instructed its representatives to encourage them to keep the peace. But it is none the less true that its attitude toward them was productive of a state of affairs and an attitude of mind on the part of the Indians which made war with the Americans inevitable.[257] At last the British officials lost their earlier solicitude for the preservation of peace, and in the period immediately preceding Wayne's victory of 1794 they openly encouraged the Indians to make war on the Americans, and supplied them with the guns, ammunition, and other provisions which made their long resistance possible.[258]

[Footnote 257: McLaughlin, _op. cit._, 435.]

[Footnote 258: _Ibid._, 436; Roosevelt, _Winning of the West_, Vol. IV, _passim_.]

We may now turn to a consideration of the relations between the Americans and the Indians on the northwestern frontier in the period which falls between the close of the Revolution and the Treaty of Greenville of 1795. By the close of the Revolution two important steps had been taken in the direction of opening the Northwest to settlement. The claims of the various states to a portion or all of this region had been ceded to the national government, and by the Treaty of Paris the sovereignty of the United States as against foreign nations had been recognized. It remained to quiet the Indian title to the lands in question, and, in this connection, to overcome their opposition to their settlement by the whites.

Encouraged by the British officials, the Indians at first strenuously resisted the American claim to sovereignty north and west of the Ohio River. In the course of a few years, however, various treaties were entered into between the United States and the different tribes providing for the cession to the former of lands beyond the Ohio.[259] Such treaties were made at Fort Mcintosh, January 21, 1785, and at Fort Finney, January 31, 1786. But only a portion of the tribes concerned participated in these treaties; those who opposed the cessions saw in them only an incitement to hostilities. In the summer of 1786 the disaffected ones gathered in council at Niagara, and an ineffectual effort was made to unite them in a war upon the Americans. Meanwhile raiding went on along the border, and Congress was impotent to protect it by waging war upon the hostile tribes.[260] Thereupon the Kentuckians to the number of twelve hundred gathered under the leadership of George Rogers Clark to chastise the tribes on their own account. But the force was poorly organized. Clark had lost the qualities of dauntless leadership for which he had been distinguished a few years before, and the expedition accomplished little or nothing.[261]

[Footnote 259: For an account of these treaties see Winsor, _Westward Movement_, 267 ff. The treaties themselves are printed in _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, Vol. I, and in the various collections of treaties between the United States and the Indian tribes.]

[Footnote 260: Winsor, _Westward Movement_, 274.]

[Footnote 261: _Ibid._, 275.]

Meanwhile the rush of settlers into the lands west of the Alleghenies went on apace. Owing to the Indian menace north of the Ohio, for the first few years following the close of the Revolution this settlement was practically confined to the region south of that river. It was only a question of time, however, when the Indian barrier would be broken down. The famous ordinance of 1787 made provision for civil government and for the ultimate formation of states in the Northwest. In the same year Congress sold to the Ohio Company five million acres of land, and provision was made for a territorial government, of which General St. Clair was to become the first chief executive. In 1788 the Ohio Company formally inaugurated its enterprise by founding Marietta at the mouth of the Muskingum, and the tide of immigration into the Northwest may be said to have fairly begun.[262] The opposition of the Indians was, naturally, not conciliated by these developments. In 1789 St. Clair negotiated a treaty with certain of the tribes at Fort Harmar, which, in effect, confirmed the grants to the United States north of the Ohio which had been made by the treaties of Fort Mcintosh and Fort Finney.[263] But a large portion of the tribes affected held aloof and took no part in the treaty.

[Footnote 262: For a description of this movement see _ibid._, chap. xiv.]

[Footnote 263: Winsor, _op. cit._, 308-10.]

It is clear today, as it was to those actually on the frontier at the time, that with both parties determined to possess the Northwest war in earnest between the red men and the white was inevitable. When once the issue was fairly joined the ultimate outcome could hardly remain a matter of doubt, yet the government entered upon the war with extreme reluctance, and only after a flood of appeals from the frontier for protection had been poured upon it.[264] Several causes operated to produce this hesitation. The new government, feeble and lacking in resources, dreaded the expense. The hostile tribes were more numerous and formidable than any combination the red race had ever yet brought into the field against the white. They gathered in bodies so large as fairly to deserve the name of armies, and fought pitched battles with American armies as large as those commanded by Washington at Trenton or by Greene at Eutaw Springs.[265] Finally the government was actuated by an honest desire to promote the welfare of the Indians and to discharge scrupulously all of its treaty obligations toward them.[266]

[Footnote 264: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 9, 18, 27 _et passim_.]

[Footnote 265: _Ibid._, IV, 17-18.]

[Footnote 266: _Ibid._, 9, 17; see, also, documents pertaining to the establishment by the government of Indian trading houses, in _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, Vols. I and II, _passim_.]

In 1790 the hovering war cloud burst. The Indians forced the issue by intercepting and plundering the boats conveying settlers down the Ohio, the main avenue of travel into the western country. In July St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, called upon the state of Kentucky for troops, authorized the raising of the militia of the western counties of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and set his own forces in motion. The main expedition was sent from Fort Washington against the Miamis, under command of General Harmar.[267] In October he set out with fourteen hundred men for the hostile villages. Rumor going in advance multiplied the numbers of his little army, so that the Indians made no attempt at resistance. The towns at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph rivers were found deserted and were destroyed. At this point Harmar divided his force, sending out detachments in various directions. These were severely handled, though they inflicted perhaps an equal loss upon the Indians. The whole body shortly made a disorderly retreat, and the campaign was ended. No great disaster had been suffered, but the army had lost two hundred men and the net result had been a "mortifying failure."

[Footnote 267: For Harmar's expedition see Winsor, _op. cit._, 417-20; Roosevelt, _op. cit._, 111, 304-10.]

That the Indians were not cowed by Harmar was shown by the prompt renewal of their marauding expeditions. Early in the year 1791 they raided the New England settlements near Marietta, killing a dozen persons and carrying half as many more into captivity.[268] This is but typical of further raids which continued throughout the winter. Meanwhile the Americans were preparing another expedition. Washington asked and received permission from Congress to raise three thousand troops to be placed under St. Clair's command. To protect the frontier while this army was being made ready, bodies of rangers composed of the more capable and daring bordermen were employed.[269] Moving in small parties and fighting the Indian in his own fashion, they performed much effective service. In addition to this measure the Kentuckians were authorized to conduct two raids upon the enemy. Each expedition consisted of several hundred mounted volunteers under experienced leaders. Each succeeded in harrying a number of villages, with almost no loss to the raiders themselves.

[Footnote 268: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 19-20.]

[Footnote 269: _Ibid._, 28-30.]

The gathering-place for St. Clair's expedition was, as in the case of Harmar, Fort Washington. According to the plan adopted he was to have here three thousand effective troops by July 10, 1791. But not until July 15 did the first regiment of three hundred men arrive, and it was October before he could count two thousand effective men.[270] From beginning to end, this first great military enterprise of the new government was woefully mismanaged. The supplies provided were poor, the commissary department was both inefficient and corrupt, the commander was sick and incapable, and the troops themselves were "wretched stuff."[271] Aside from two small regiments of infantry, the army was composed of six months' levies, and of militia enrolled for this particular campaign. In its desire to economize Congress had fixed the net pay of the soldiers at two dollars and ten cents a month. The judgment passed by one who observed the force that "men who are to be purchased from prisons, wheelbarrows, and brothels at two dollars a month will never answer for fighting Indians" was amply justified by the sequel.[272]

[Footnote 270: Winsor, _op. cit._, 428.]

[Footnote 271: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 30.]

[Footnote 272: Winsor, _op. cit._, 426.]

Early in October the advance began.[273] St. Clair's instructions required him to establish a permanent fort at the Miami village and to maintain such a garrison in it as would enable him to detach five or six hundred men for special service as occasion should require. He advanced at a snail's pace, the army marching but five or six miles a day. In this way, stopping now and then to build a fort or delayed by lack of food, the commander sick, the troops disorderly and demoralized, with almost no effort to prevent surprise, the army stumbled northward through the wilderness. At the end of October, with the enemy in striking distance, some sixty of the militia deserted in a body, and the unfortunate commander made the fatal blunder of sending back one of his two regiments of regulars after them.

[Footnote 273: Roosevelt (_Winning of the West_, IV, 30-52) gives a detailed and graphic account of St. Clair's campaign, with references to much of the important source material. For St. Clair's official reports see _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 136-38.]

Perhaps it was just as well, for a larger force would have resulted only in a greater slaughter. On November 3 the army encamped on a branch of the Wabash near the middle point of the western boundary of Ohio. The main body of the army huddled together on the eastern bank of the stream, while the militia camped on the opposite side. Shortly after sunrise the next morning the Indians fell in fury upon this exposed detachment, and a battle ensued similar in character and in magnitude of horror and disaster to the defeat of the ill-fated Braddock. Concealed behind logs and trees the savages poured a steady fire upon the doomed army. The troops drawn up in close array, unable even to see their foe, fired vain volleys into the forest. A heavy pall of smoke soon overhung the army, under cover of which the agile savages darted again and again into the lines of the troops, tomahawking their chosen victims and slipping deftly away before the enraged but slower soldiers could retaliate. The officers displayed conspicuous bravery, encouraging their men and leading them again and again in bayonet charges against their tormenters. But the savages only retired before their advance to fall upon them the moment they turned; and at times the charging parties, isolated from the main body, fought their way back with difficulty.

A more terrible scene can scarcely be pictured. The bravery and exertions of the troops were all in vain against such a foe. For two hours the slaughter went on, while the wounded were gathered to the center and the officers strove to keep the lines intact. At last the men became demoralized. In ever larger numbers they deserted their posts to huddle terror stricken among the wounded. Seeing that all was lost and that the army could be saved from complete destruction only by an immediate retreat, St. Clair gathered such fragments of battalions as he could and ordered a charge to regain the road by which the army had advanced.

A vigorous charge drove the Indians back beyond the road, and through the opening the demoralized troops pressed, to use the expressive phrase of an eye-witness, "like a drove of bullocks."[274] The pursuit was delayed for a short time, apparently because the Indians failed at once to grasp the significance of the new movement; they soon fell upon the rear, however, and slaughtered without hindrance the terror-stricken fugitives, whose only thought was to get away. In the mad rout the soldiers, crazed by fear, threw away their weapons as they ran; the stronger and swifter rode down the weak; while the slower and the wounded fell to the rear, and by furnishing occupation for the tomahawk and the scalping knife purchased temporary respite for their more fortunate comrades. The savages drew off after they had followed the fleeing mob in this way for about four miles, possibly because for once they were satiated with slaughter, more probably because lured by the plunder of the camp. The soldiers continued their flight for twenty-five miles pursued only by the terrors evoked by their superheated imagination. At nightfall they streamed into Fort Jefferson; here some of the wounded who had escaped were left, and the army continued to flee till Fort Washington, the starting-point of the campaign, was reached.

[Footnote 274: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 44.]

Thus terminated the most disastrous campaign ever waged by an American army against the Indians. St. Clair had lost in killed and wounded over nine hundred men. There were no prisoners, practically, for the savages slew all but a few of those who fell into their hands. Only about one-third of St. Clair's men actually engaged in the battle of the fatal fourth of November escaped uninjured. Yet during the battle the Americans had scarcely seen the foe. St. Clair, judging from the destructive rifle fire poured in upon his ranks, reported that he had been overwhelmed by numbers, but this may well be doubted. Neither the number nor the loss of the red men is known with any certainty; that the latter was slight is, however, apparent, and Roosevelt's estimate that it may not have amounted to one-twentieth that of the whites seems not at all improbable.[275]

[Footnote 275: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 47.]

Fighting with the victors were two men whom we shall meet again in the annals of early Chicago. The one was Little Turtle, the famous Miami chieftain, who is generally supposed to have been the leader of the Indians this day; the other, his son-in-law, Captain William Wells, member of a prominent Kentucky family, who had been taken prisoner by the Indians in boyhood and adopted into the tribe. In this battle he is said to have slain several of the Americans with his own hand.[276] Soon after this he abandoned the Indians, and henceforth fought valiantly in behalf of his native race until he fell gloriously, over twenty years later, in the Fort Dearborn massacre.

[Footnote 276: _Ibid._, 79.]

The overthrow of St. Clair's army made necessary another campaign against the triumphant tribesmen unless the United States was to surrender her pretensions to that sovereignty over the Northwest which had been recognized in the treaty of 1783. Yet three years now elapsed before the final blow was struck against the Indian power in this region. Their easy triumph over St. Clair resulted in a great accession both to the number and spirit of the warring bands. Encouraged by the British, whose attitude toward the Americans during this period, as manifested by such officials as Simcoe and Lord Dorchester, became increasingly hostile, they maintained the attitude that they had not by any valid treaty surrendered any portion of the territory north of the Ohio, and continued to send their war parties in ever-increasing numbers against the "deluded settlers" of the northwestern frontier. The United States again tried vainly to secure peace by negotiation. The sanctity which hedges an ambassador about, familiar even to savages, was violated in the murder of Colonel Hardin and Major Trueman, who were sent as envoys to the hostile tribes in the spring of 1792. Despite this, the effort to bring about a peace was vainly continued throughout the year 1792 and the spring of 1793.[277] At last, there being no other alternative, the government made definite plans for a new campaign.

[Footnote 277: _Ibid._, 52 ff.]

The preparations had already been begun and Anthony Wayne had been chosen by Washington, though with great reluctance, to succeed St. Clair as commander.[278] In Washington's opinion he was vain, open to flattery, easily imposed upon, and "liable to be drawn into scrapes." In spite of this he was considered the best man available, and his conduct following his appointment brilliantly refuted the prevalent opinion of his lack of judgment. If there ever had been ground for Washington's low opinion of Wayne's prudence, certain it is that he afforded none by his measures in this crisis in the history of the Northwest. His bravery was questioned by no one, and he had long been recognized as the most active and enterprising officer in the army.

[Footnote 278: On the selection of Wayne to succeed St. Clair see Winsor, _Westward Movement_, 439-40.]

In the autumn of 1792 Wayne established a camp on the Ohio about seven miles below Pittsburgh, and began the difficult task of organizing the remnant of St. Clair's army and the new recruits that were being enlisted into an efficient "legion," which should be able to face the red foe with some prospect of success.[279] During the winter his troops, which by springtime numbered twenty-five hundred men, were drilled incessantly. In May, 1793, he moved down the Ohio to Fort Washington, near which place he established a camp and called on the Kentucky volunteers to come to his assistance. The government was still carrying on futile negotiations with the hostile tribes, and not until October was Wayne given permission to launch the campaign. He then advanced about eighty miles north of Cincinnati to a place six miles beyond Fort Jefferson, where a second winter camp was established to which he gave the name of Greenville. From this place a detachment was sent forward to occupy the site of St. Clair's defeat and there build a post, to which the significant name of Fort Recovery was given.

[Footnote 279: For standard secondary accounts of Wayne's campaign see Winsor, _op. cit._, chap. xx; Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, chap. ii. Original documents pertaining to the campaign, including Wayne's report of the attack on Fort Recovery and the battle of Fallen Timbers, are printed in _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 487-95. Wayne's Orderly Book, covering the period from 1792 to 1797, is printed in the _Michigan Pioneer Collections_, xxxiv, 341-734.]

The winter was spent in further drill, and in perfecting the preparations for a decisive conflict in the spring. The Indians harassed the posts, attacking convoys, and killing the commander of Fort Jefferson within three hundred yards of the fort. Ere spring the regular troops had developed into a finely drilled army, with confidence in their leader and in themselves. The natural contempt of the frontiersman for a regular force, heightened as it was by the disasters of the army in the last few years, gave way to genuine admiration for Wayne's troops. The cavalry had been trained to maneuver over any ground, and the infantry to load while on the run. By constant practice the soldiers had become as good marksmen as were the frontier hunters themselves, and Wayne, who had become famous in the Revolution for his reliance on the bayonet, had imbued his men with his own zeal for coming to close quarters with the enemy.

Prominent among the causes which had contributed to St. Clair's overthrow was the absence of an efficient corps of scouts to bring him information of the enemy's movements and protect his own army against surprise. The preparation of Wayne in this respect, and the skilful use which he made of his force of scouts, was in marked contrast to the course of his unfortunate predecessor. One of the leaders of this force was William Wells, the son-in-law of Little Turtle, who three years before had assisted his dusky relative to overthrow St. Clair. Since then he had rejoined the whites, to whom by reason of his long life on the frontier, and his intimate acquaintance with the very Indians against whom Wayne was marching, his services were invaluable. His scouts covered Wayne's front so effectively that the Indians were unable to obtain any correct information concerning his numbers or movements.

On June 30 an assault was made on Fort Recovery by two thousand Indians, but they were beaten off with considerable loss, which caused some of them to leave for their homes in despair.[280] On the other hand, Wayne's forces were augmented by the arrival of General Scott at the head of sixteen hundred Kentucky mounted volunteers. Having further deceived the enemy as to his intentions by making demonstrations to right and left, Wayne marched by a devious route to the Indian villages at the junction of the Glaize and the Maumee rivers, in the heart of the hostile country.[281] Here he had hoped to strike a telling blow, but the timely information of a deserter enabled the Indians to flee before his arrival. But their villages, stretching for several miles up and down the river, with cornfields more extensive than Wayne had ever seen before, "from Canada to Florida," fell into his hands without striking a blow. He spent some time in building here a strong stockade fort, which he grimly named Defiance, and in sending a last futile overture to the Indians for peace. It was now the middle of August, and on learning of the failure of his embassy, Wayne set forth on the final stage of his campaign.

[Footnote 280: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XVIII, 444-45.]

[Footnote 281: Wayne to the Secretary of War, August 14, 1794; _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 490.]

The defiance to which his fortress gave expression was not directed against the Indians alone, for the British officials in the Northwest were now co-operating almost openly with the natives. In February, 1794, in the course of a speech to an Indian delegation. Lord Dorchester asserted that he would not be surprised if war between his country and the United States should begin during the year. This speech caused an immediate furore at Montreal, where it was construed to indicate that Dorchester had private intelligence which rendered him confident that such a war would shortly begin.[282] During the ensuing weeks it was actively circulated among the western tribes,[283] who were incited to collect their forces and assured that in the event of war they would have an opportunity to make a new boundary line. At the same time Simcoe, acting under Dorchester's orders, proceeded from Detroit to the Rapids of the Maumee, a few miles above the modern city of Toledo, with three companies of British regulars, and constructed a fort to serve as an outpost for the defense of Detroit against Wayne's advance. There is nothing improbable in the assertion that the Indians were given to understand that its gates would be open to shelter them, in case of need, from Wayne's army, and it is clear that both the Indians and the Americans believed that the British were to all intents and purposes co-operating with the former. Wayne had learned of Simcoe's advance early in June, and since then he had received information from his scouts that the British had participated in the attack on Fort Recovery. It was therefore with the expectation of having a double foe to deal with that he planted and named Fort Defiance, preparatory to beginning the descent of the Maumee to the Rapids, where the British fort was located and near which the Indians had taken their stand.

[Footnote 282: Michigan Pioneer Collections, XX, 331. For an account of Dorchester's speech and its results see Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 57-60, 62.]

[Footnote 283: See, for example, Lieutenant-colonel Butler's speech to the chiefs of the Six Nations at Buffalo Creek, in April, 1794, printed in Michigan Pioneer Collections, XX, 342-43.]

The advance from Fort Defiance was begun on August 15, and three days later Wayne's army was within striking distance of the enemy. Here a halt was made and a temporary fortification thrown up. The savages had elected to defend a place known as Fallen Timbers, where the ground was thickly strewn with tree trunks as the result of a former tornado. This furnished an ideal covert for their mode of warfare, and at the same time, as they believed, rendered it impossible for Wayne's dreaded cavalry to act. Behind this shelter about two thousand warriors lay on the morning of August 20 awaiting Wayne's approach. The Indians were far from confident of repeating their success of three years before against St. Clair. Little Turtle, the leader on that occasion, had urged the acceptance of the peace overtures of "the chief who never sleeps," but in this he was overruled. Already some of the northern tribes had slunk away, disheartened by their discomfiture at Fort Recovery. The southern Indians had sent encouraging messages, but had failed to back them up with their warriors, and the sole hope of assistance rested with the British, who in similar crises in times gone by had failed them.[284]

[Footnote 284: Winsor, _Westward Movement_, 457.]

In the ranks of the two armies, about to join combat, were a number of men who are famous in the history of the Northwest. General Wayne had acquired fame in the Revolution as a daring leader of men, but this campaign furnishes the climax of his military career and his surest claim upon the grateful remembrance of posterity. From the most unpromising of raw material he had fashioned an army fit to cope with the red man in his lair, and had imbued it with his own dauntless confidence and enthusiasm. He had transformed such men as St. Clair had with difficulty held together in the absence of the enemy, and who had proved so helpless in his presence, into the peers of the frontiersmen themselves in marksmanship and dexterity in the saddle; and had made them submissive to an iron discipline which rendered them immeasurably superior to the latter for the conduct of a campaign or battle.

On the other side were a score or more of chieftains of varying degrees of importance and influence. If Little Turtle had favored a fight his rank and reputation would probably have given him the position of chief importance. Blue Jacket's advice had prevailed in the council before the battle, however, and as the result he occupied the position of commander. Two young men, one in either army, possess a peculiar interest for us by reason of their later careers. The one, a lieutenant in Wayne's army and aide-de-camp to the General, William Henry Harrison; the other, the warrior Tecumseh. Each distinguished himself according to the fashion of his race for bravery in the battle; each rose shortly to the position of leader of his race in the Northwest, and this leadership involved them in a deadly rivalry. In the long contest between them the red man went down to defeat; his projects for the resuscitation of his people were forever blasted at Tippecanoe, and two years later the battle of the Thames marked another victory for Harrison and Tecumseh's final defeat. For the one the reward was the Presidency, for the other a ruined people and a nameless grave. Yet who shall say that, measured by the standards of his race, Tecumseh was not the equal in greatness and ability of his victorious rival?

At eight o'clock on the morning of August 20 Wayne's legion advanced in columns in open order, its front, flanks, and rear protected by detachments of the Kentucky mounted volunteers and of Indians. After traveling a distance of five miles the mounted battalion in advance encountered the Indians, disposed in three lines stretching a distance of two miles at right angles to the river. The Kentuckians were driven back and the firing became general, but they had accomplished their purpose of giving the army timely notice of the position of the savages. Wayne's dispositions were quickly made. The infantry was drawn up in two lines. The whole force of mounted volunteers was sent by a circuitous path to turn the right flank of the savages, and the legionary cavalry under Captain Campbell was ordered to fall upon their left. At the same time the infantry moved forward with trailed arms to a bayonet charge, with orders to deliver their fire at close range after the Indians had been roused from their coverts, and then continue the charge, so as to give them no opportunity to reload.

The value of the months of careful drilling was now quickly manifested. Campbell's dragoons plunged forward over the difficult ground and fell upon the astonished savages, who delivered a single volley and fled. Campbell was slain and a dozen of his men killed or wounded, but the cavalry swept on, Lieutenant Covington, who succeeded to the command, cutting down two of the red men with his own hand. The infantry moved forward with equal impetuosity, driving the dismayed savages before them through the thick woods a distance of two miles in less than an hour. So quickly was the combat over that the second line of infantry and the Kentucky volunteers, despite their "anxiety" for action, were unable to reach their positions in time to share in the fight. The surviving savages and their Canadian allies scattered in flight, the Americans pursuing them as far as the walls of the British fort. Wayne reported a loss of one hundred and thirty-three in killed and wounded and estimated the loss of the enemy at more than double his own. The woods were strewn for some distance with the dead bodies of the Indians and their white auxiliaries, the latter armed with British muskets and bayonets.

The battle over, three days were spent in ravaging the surrounding fields and villages. The houses and stores of the British traders and agents shared the fate of the Indian villages, while the garrison looked on in impotent rage. Fortunately a conflict between the two armies, the danger of which was very real, was averted, the commanders contenting themselves with an exchange of verbal hostilities. A week after the battle the victorious army moved leisurely back to Fort Defiance, laying waste the villages and cornfields of the savages for a distance of fifty miles on either side of the Maumee. After two weeks spent in strengthening the fort, while waiting for supplies from Fort Recovery, the army moved up the river to the Miami villages at the mouth of the St. Mary's where Harmar's force had been rebuffed four years before. Here some weeks were spent in destroying the surrounding villages and fields and in building a fort which was named for the commander, Fort Wayne. At the end of October the army retired to Greenville where it went into winter quarters. Since the opening of the campaign it had performed "one of the most weighty and important feats in the winning of the West."[285]

[Footnote 285: Roosevelt, _Winning of the West_, IV, 91.]

The Indians were discouraged by their defeat and their abandonment by the British. The agents of the latter strove to reanimate them and prolong hostilities,[286] and for some time the issue was doubtful. Some of the savages were in favor of continuing the war, but the majority finally inclined to peace, and in February, 1795, Wayne entered into a preliminary agreement with a number of the tribes for the negotiation of a permanent peace on the basis of the terms of the treaty of Fort Harmar of January, 1789. The tawny diplomats straggled slowly in to the place appointed for the council. The council fire was kindled on June 16,[287] but owing to the tardiness of the various delegations a month elapsed before the formal negotiations were begun. Three weeks later, on August 10, the treaty was concluded. In all eleven hundred and thirty warriors had assembled. To the torrent of savage oratory which their spokesmen poured forth during the weeks of discussion Wayne replied in kind, showing himself as much at home in the council chamber as when on the field of battle.

[Footnote 286: Winsor, _op. cit._, 460-61; _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 547-58, 568].

[Footnote 287: For Wayne's report of the proceedings attending the negotiation of the treaty see _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 562-83.]

On July 3 Wayne called the chiefs together to explain to them the significance of the impending celebration of Independence Day, so that they might not be alarmed when the roar of the big guns should "ascend into the heavens." Twelve days later the council was formally opened. Wayne displayed his credentials to the assembled chiefs, explained the occasion of the meeting, and closed by suggesting an adjournment of two or three days "to have a little drink" and consider the situation. The chief issue of the conference was immediately raised by Little Turtle, who professed ignorance of the treaty of Fort Harmar and denied that the Miamis had had any part in it. As the negotiations proceeded this chief strenuously opposed the cessions demanded by Wayne. In a speech delivered July 22 he expressed his regret over the division of opinion manifested by the assembled Indians, and claimed for his tribe all of the territory bounded on the east by a line from Detroit to and down the Scioto River to its mouth, on the south by the Ohio from this point to the mouth of the Wabash, and on the west by a line from the mouth of the Wabash to Chicago. He questioned the good faith of the Americans, saying they claimed the land in dispute now by cession by the British in 1783, now by that of the tribes who took part in the treaty of Fort Harmar. When, five days later, Wayne read the list of reservations which he proposed to embody in the treaty, including a tract six miles square "at the Mouth of Chikago River ... where a Fort formerly stood," Little Turtle answered that his people had never heard of it. On this particular point the facts of history favored the red man, for there is no satisfactory evidence that the French had ever had a fort here. But force and the logic of events favored the white leader, and in the final draft of the treaty was included the cession of "One piece of Land Six Miles square at the Mouth of Chickago River emptying into the Southwest end of Lake Michigan where a fort formerly stood."

Among those most disposed to accept the terms offered by Wayne were the Wyandots, to whom was intrusted one of the two copies of the treaty that were engrossed on parchment. Their leader, Tarke, responded to Little Turtle's reflections upon the cession made at Fort Harmar and upon those who disagreed with him, with a burst of eloquence characteristic of Indian oratory and of the figurative language which it habitually employed. Addressing his "Elder Brother," General Wayne, he said:

"Now listen to us: The Great Spirit above has appointed this day for us to meet together. I shall now deliver my sentiments to you, the Fifteen Fires. I view you lying in a gore of blood; it is me, an Indian, who has caused it. Our tomahawk yet remains in your head; the English gave it to me to place there.

"Elder Brother: I now take the tomahawk out of your head; but with so much care, that you shall not feel pain or injury. I will now tear a big tree up by the roots, and throw the hatchet into the cavity which they occupied, where the waters will wash it away where it can never be found. Now I have buried the hatchet and I expect that none of my color will ever again find it out....

"Brothers: Listen! I now wipe your body clean from all blood with this white soft linen [white wampum], and I do it with as much tenderness as I am capable of. You have appointed this house for the chiefs of the different tribes to sit in with you, and none but good words ought to be spoken in it. I swept it clean; nothing impure remains in it....

"Brother: I clear away yon hovering clouds, that we may enjoy a clear, bright day, and easily see the sun, which the Great Spirit has bestowed on us, rise and set continually"

The negotiations were at length satisfactorily concluded, and all professed themselves satisfied with Wayne's demands. The treaty recognized the American title to the lands north of the Ohio bounded by a line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky River to Fort Recovery, thence in a general easterly direction to the Muskingum, and along this river and the Cuyahoga to Lake Erie; in addition various reservations, aside from the one at Chicago, were made, most of them for the establishment of forts, and the free passage of the rivers and portages connecting the proposed chain of forts was guaranteed. In Illinois the grant included reservations at Chicago, at Lake Peoria, and at the mouth of the Illinois, and the free use of the Chicago Harbor, River, and Portage, and the Illinois River. On the other hand the Indian title to the soil was recognized, some twenty thousand dollars worth of presents were distributed, and the payment to the Indians of annuities aggregating nine thousand five hundred dollars was promised.

The treaty brought to an end forty years of warfare in the valley of the Ohio, during which it is estimated five thousand whites were killed or captured.[288] For three years past the war had cost the government of the United States over a million dollars a year. The peace which Wayne brought to the frontier endured for fifteen years, being broken only by Tecumseh's war, which shortly merged into the greater struggle between Great Britain and the United States in 1812. By that time the in-rush of settlers and the passing away of the older generation had wrought a material change in the condition of the Northwest; so that the Treaty of Greenville may fairly be said to have endured until the conditions which called it forth had passed away.

[Footnote 288: Winsor, _op. cit._, 494.]

While Wayne was pushing his campaign against the northwestern Indians, which the British officials feared would end in their overthrow at Detroit, Washington dispatched John Jay on a diplomatic mission to England which was to result in the peaceable surrender of the northwestern posts. The differences between the two countries which had arisen from the unfulfilled treaty of 1783 had now become so serious that there was grave danger of a warlike termination. In the hope of preventing this calamity, therefore, Washington appointed Jay, in the spring of 1794, as a special envoy to England to treat of the matters in dispute.

During the summer the negotiations with the British government went slowly forward and in November a treaty was concluded. By the Americans its terms were received with bitter disgust, and there is even yet a difference of opinion among students over the question of the wisdom of Jay's conduct of the negotiations. The western Americans were especially loud in their denunciation of Jay and the treaty.[289] Yet they obtained by it the surrender of the British posts in the Northwest, a measure which constituted the logical completion of Wayne's work and was absolutely essential to the permanence of the peace so recently established on the frontier. It was stipulated that the posts should be evacuated on June 1, 1796, and Washington appropriately appointed Wayne to superintend the taking possession of them by the United States. As the appointed time drew near the British were more ready to make the surrender than were the Americans to receive it. At our own request, therefore, possession was retained until the arrival of the relieving forces at the various posts. During the summer and fall the transfers were made, the last post which was taken over by the Americans being Mackinac in October. Our boundaries in the Northwest, nominally established by the Treaty of Paris of 1783, were at last achieved in reality. The Indians had been conquered and Great Britain had retired; the Northwest was won for the United States.

[Footnote 289: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 194-97.]