Chapter II (2)

With his advance effectually covered by his scouts, and his army guarded by his own ceaseless vigilance, Wayne marched without opposition to the confluence of the Glaize and the Maumee, where the hostile Indian villages began, and whence they stretched to below the British fort. The savages were taken by surprise and fled without offering opposition; while Wayne halted, on August 8th, and spent a week in building a strong log stockade, with four good blockhouses as bastions; he christened the work Fort Defiance. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 490, Wayne to Secretary of War, Aug. 14, 1794.] The Indians had cleared and tilled immense fields, and the troops revelled in the fresh vegetables and ears of roasted corn, and enjoyed the rest; [Footnote: Bradley MSS. Letter of Captain Daniel Bradley to Ebenezer Banks, Grand Glaize, August 28, 1794.] for during the march the labor of cutting a road through the thick forest had been very severe, while the water was bad and the mosquitoes were exceedingly troublesome. At one place a tree fell on Wayne and nearly killed him; but though somewhat crippled he continued as active and vigilant as ever. [Footnote: American Pioneer, I., 317, Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign. By Lieutenant Boyer. Reprinted separately in Cincinnati in 1866.]

The Indians Decline to Make Peace.

From Fort Defiance Wayne sent a final offer of peace to the Indians, summoning them at once to send deputies to meet him. The letter was carried by Christopher Miller, and a Shawnee prisoner; and in it Wayne explained that Miller was a Shawnee by adoption, whom his soldiers had captured "six month since," while the Shawnee warrior had been taken but a couple of days before; and he warned the Indians that he had seven Indian prisoners, who had been well treated, but who would be put to death if Miller were harmed. The Indians did not molest Miller, but sought to obtain delay, and would give no definite answer; whereupon Wayne advanced against them, having laid waste and destroyed all their villages and fields.

Wayne Marches Forward.

His army marched on the 15th, and on the 18th reached Roche du Bout, by the Maumee Rapids, only a few miles from the British fort. Next day was spent in building rough breastwork to protect the stores and baggage, and in reconnoitring the Indian position. [Footnote: American State Papers, 491, Wayne's Report to Secretary of War, August 28, 1794.]

The Indians--Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Pottawatamies, Chippewas, and Iroquois--were camped closed to the British. There were between fifteen hundred and two thousand warriors; and in addition there were seventy rangers from Detroit, French, English, and refugee Americans, under Captain Caldwell, who fought with them in the battle. The British agent McKee was with them; and so was Simon Girty, the "white renegade," and another partisan leader, Elliott. But McKee, Girty, and Elliott did not actually fight in the battle. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, August 27, 1794. McKee says there were 1300 Indians, and omits all allusion to Caldwell's rangers. He always underestimates the Indian numbers and loss. In the battle one of Caldwell's rangers, Antoine Lasselle, was captured. He gave in detail the numbers of the Indians engaged; they footed up to over 1500. A deserter from the fort, a British drummer of the 24th Regiment, named John Bevin, testified that he had heard both McKee and Elliott report the number of Indians as 2000, in talking to Major Campbell, the commandant of the fort, after the battle. He and Lasselle agree as to Caldwell's rangers. See their depositions, American State Papers, IV., 494.]

The Indians' Stand at the Fallen Timbers.

On August 20, 1794, Wayne marched to battle against the Indians. [Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, August 28, 1794. McBride, II., 129; "Life of Paxton." Many of the regulars and volunteers were left in Fort Defiance and the breastworks on the Maumee as garrisons.] They lay about six miles down the river, near the British fort, in a place known as the Fallen Timbers, because there the thick forest had been overturned by a whirlwind, and the dead trees lay piled across one another in rows. All the baggage was left behind in the breastwork, with a sufficient guard. The army numbered about three thousand men; two thousand were regulars, and there were a thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky under General Scott.

March of the Army.

The army marched down the left or north branch of the Maumee. A small force of mounted volunteers--Kentucky militia--were in front. On the right flank the squadron of dragoons, the regular cavalry, marched next to the river. The infantry, armed with musket and bayonet, were formed in two long lines, the second some little distance behind the first; the left of the first line being continued by the companies of regular riflemen and light troops. Scott, with the body of the mounted volunteers, was thrown out on the left with instructions to turn the flank of the Indians, thus effectually preventing them from performing a similar feat at the expense of the Americans. There could be no greater contrast than that between Wayne's carefully trained troops, marching in open order to the attack, and St. Clair's huddled mass of raw soldiers receiving an assault they were powerless to repel.

Heavy Skirmishing,

The Indians stretched in a line nearly two miles long at right angles to the river, and began the battle confidently enough. They attacked and drove in the volunteers who were in advance and the firing then began along the entire front. But their success was momentary. Wayne ordered the first line of the infantry to advance with trailed arms, so as to rouse the savages from their cover, then to fire into their backs at close range, and to follow them hard with the bayonet, so as to give them no time to load. The regular cavalry were directed to charge the left flank of the enemy; for Wayne had determined "to put the horse hoof on the moccasin." Both orders were executed with spirit and vigor.

Charge of the Dragoons.

It would have been difficult to find more unfavorable ground for cavalry; nevertheless the dragoons rode against their foes at a gallop, with broad-swords swinging, the horses dodging in and out among the trees and jumping the fallen logs. They received a fire at close quarters which emptied a dozen saddles, both captains being shot down. One, the commander of the squadron, Captain Mis Campbell [Footnote: A curious name, but so given in all the reports.], was killed; the other, Captain Van Rensselaer, a representative of one of the old Knickerbocker families of New York, who had joined the army from pure love of adventure, was wounded. The command devolved on Lieutenant Covington, who led forward the troopers, with Lieutenant Webb alongside him; and the dragoons burst among the savages at full speed, and routed them in a moment. Covington cut down two of the Indians with his own hand, and Webb one.

Successful Bayonet Charge.

At the same time the first line of the infantry charged with equal impetuosity and success. The Indians delivered one volley and were then roused from their hiding places with the bayonet; as they fled they were shot down, and if they attempted to halt they were at once assailed and again driven with the bayonet. They could make no stand at all, and the battle was won with ease. So complete was the success that only the first line of regulars was able to take part in the fighting; the second line, and Scott's horse-riflemen, on the left, in spite of their exertions were unable to reach the battle-field until the Indians were driven from it; "there not being a sufficiency of the enemy for the Legion to play on," wrote Clark. The entire action lasted under forty minutes. [Footnote: Bradley MSS., entry in the journal for August 20th.] Less than a thousand of the Americans were actually engaged. They pursued the beaten and fleeing Indians for two miles, the cavalry halting only when under the walls of the British fort.

A Complete and Easy Victory.

Thirty-three of the Americans were killed and one hundred wounded. [Footnote: Wayne's report; of the wounded 11 afterwards died. He gives an itemized statement. Clark in his letter makes the dead 34 (including 8 militia instead of 7) and the wounded only 70. Wayne reports the Indian loss as twice as great as that of the whites; and says the woods were strewn with their dead bodies and those of their white auxiliaries. Clark says 100 Indians were killed. The Englishman, Thomas Duggan, writing from Detroit to Joseph Chew, Secretary of the Indian Office, says officially that "great numbers" of the Indians were slain. The journal of Wayne's campaign says 40 dead were left on the field, and that there was considerable additional, but unascertained, loss in the rapid two miles pursuit. The member of Caldwell's company who was captured was a French Canadian; his deposition is given by Wayne. McKee says the Indians lost but 19 men, and that but 400 were engaged, specifying the Wyandots and Ottawas as being those who did the fighting and suffered the loss; and he puts the loss of the Americans, although he admits that they won, at between 300 and 400. He was furious at the defeat, and was endeavoring to minimize it in every way. He does not mention the presence of Caldwell's white company; he makes the mistake of putting the American cavalry on the wrong wing, in trying to show that only the Ottawas and Wyandots were engaged; and if his figures, 19 dead, have any value at all, they refer only to those two tribes; above I have repeatedly shown that he invariably underestimated the Indian losses, usually giving the losses suffered by the band he was with as being the entire loss. In this case he speaks of the fighting and loss as being confined to the Ottawas and Wyandots; but Brickell, who was with the Delawares, states that "many of the Delawares were killed and wounded." All the Indians were engaged; and doubtless all the tribes suffered proportionately; and much more than the Americans. Captain Daniel Bradley in his above quoted letter of Aug. 28th to Ebenezer Banks (Bradley MSS.) says that between 50 and 100 Indians were killed.] It was an easy victory. The Indians suffered much more heavily than the Americans; in killed they probably lost two or three times as many. Among the dead were white men from Caldwell's company; and one white ranger was captured. It was the most complete and important victory ever gained over the Northwestern Indians, during the forty years' warfare to which, it put an end; and it was the only considerable pitched battle in which they lost more than their foes. They suffered heavily among their leaders; no less than eight Wyandot chiefs were slain.

The British in the Fort.

From the fort the British had seen, with shame and anger, the rout of their Indian allies. Their commander wrote to Wayne to demand his intentions; Wayne responded that he thought they were made sufficiently evident by his successful battle with the savages. The Englishman wrote in resentment of this curt reply, complaining that Wayne's soldiers had approached within pistol shot of the fort, and threatening to fire upon them if the offence was repeated. Wayne responded by summoning him to abandon the fort; a summons which he of course refused to heed. Wayne then gave orders to destroy everything up to the very walls of the fort, and his commands were carried out to the letter; not only were the Indian villages burned and their crops cut down, but all the houses and buildings of the British agents and traders, including McKee's, were levelled to the ground. The British commander did not dare to interfere or make good his threats: nor, on the other hand, did Wayne dare to storm the fort, which was well built and heavily armed.

The Army Marches Back.

After completing his work of destruction Wayne marched his army back to Fort Defiance. Here he was obliged to halt for over a fortnight while he sent back to Fort Recovery for provisions. He employed the time in work on the fort, which he strengthened so that it would stand an attack by a regular army. The mounted volunteers were turned to account in a new manner, being employed not only to escort the pack-animals but themselves to transport the flour on their horses. There was much sickness among the soldiers, especially from fever and ague, and but for the corn and vegetables they obtained from the Indian towns which were scattered thickly along the Maumee they would have suffered from hunger. They were especially disturbed because all the whiskey was used up. [Footnote: Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign, "American Pioneer," I., 351]

On September 14th the legion started westward towards the Miami Towns at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers, the scene of Harmar's disaster. In four days the towns were reached, the Indians being too cowed to offer resistance. Here the army spent six weeks, burned the towns and destroyed the fields and stores of the hostile tribes, and built a fort which was christened Fort Wayne. British deserters came in from time to time; some of the Canadian traders made overtures to the army and agreed to furnish provisions at a moderate price; and of the savages only straggling parties were seen. The mounted volunteers grew mutinous, but were kept in order by their commander Scott, a rough, capable backwoods soldier. Their term of service at length expired and they were sent home; and the regulars of the Legion, leaving a garrison at Fort Wayne, marched back to Greeneville, and reached it on November 2d, just three months and six days after they started from it on their memorable and successful expedition. Wayne had shown himself the best general ever sent to war with the Northwestern Indians; and his victorious campaign was the most noteworthy ever carried on against them, for it brought about the first lasting peace on the border, and put an end to the bloody turmoil of forty years' fighting. It was one of the most striking and weighty feats in the winning of the West.

Winter Quarters at Greeneville.

The army went into winter quarters at Greeneville. There was sickness among the troops, and there were occasional desertions; the discipline was severe, and the work so hard and dangerous that the men generally refused to re-enlist. [Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, November 23, 1794.] The officers were uneasy lest there should be need of a further campaign. But their fears were groundless. Before winter set in heralds arrived from the hostile tribes to say that they wished peace.

The Indians Utterly Downcast.

The Indians were utterly downcast over their defeat. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, William Johnson Chew to Joseph Chew, December 7. 1794.] The destruction of their crops, homes, and stores of provisions was complete, and they were put to sore shifts to live through the winter. Their few cattle, and many even of their dogs, died; they could not get much food from the British; and as winter wore on they sent envoy after envoy to the Americans, exchanged prisoners, and agreed to make a permanent peace in the spring. They were exasperated with the British, who, they said, had not fulfilled a single promise they had made. [Footnote: Brickell's Narrative.]

Their Anger with the British.

The anger of the Indians against the British was as just as it was general. They had been lured and goaded into war by direct material aid, and by indirect promises of armed assistance; and they were abandoned as soon as the fortune of war went against them. Brant, the Iroquois chief, was sorely angered by the action of the British in deserting the Indians whom they had encouraged by such delusive hopes; and in his letter to the British officials [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Joseph Brant to Joseph Chew, Oct. 22, 1794; William J. Chew to J. Chew, Oct. 24, 1794.] he reminded them of the fact that but for their interference the Indians would have concluded "an equitable and honorable peace in June 1793"--thus offering conclusive proof that the American commissioners, in their efforts to make peace with the Indians in that year, had been foiled by the secret machinations of the British agents, as Wayne had always thought. Brant blamed the British agent McKee for ever having interfered in the Indian councils, and misled the tribes to their hurt; and in writing to the Secretary of the Indian Office for Canada he reminded him in plain terms of the treachery with which the British had behaved to the Indians at the close of the Revolutionary War, and expressed the hope that it would not be repeated; saying:[Footnote: Canadian Archives, Brant to Joseph Chew, Feb. 24, and March 17, 1795.] "If there is a treaty between Great Britain and the Yankees I hope our Father the King will not forget the Indians as he did in the year '83." When his forebodings came true and the British, in assenting to Jay's treaty, abandoned their Indian allies, Brant again wrote to the Secretary of the Indian Office, in repressed but bitter anger at the conduct of the King's agents in preventing the Indians from making peace with the Americans while they could have made it on advantageous terms, and then in deserting them. He wrote: "This is the second time the poor Indians have been left in the lurch & I cannot avoid lamenting that they were prevented at a time when they had it in their power to make an Honorable and Advantageous Peace." [Footnote: _Do_., Brant to Chew, Jan. 19, 1796.]

Wrath of the British Indian Agents.

McKee, the British Indian agent, was nearly as frank as Brant in expressing his views of the conduct of the British towards their allies; he doubtless felt peculiar bitterness as he had been made the active instrument in carrying out the policy of his chiefs, and had then seen that policy abandoned and even disavowed. In fact he suffered the usual fate of those who are chosen to do some piece of work which unscrupulous men in power wish to have done, but wish also to avoid the responsibility of doing. He foretold evil results from the policy adopted, a policy under which, as he put it, "the distressed situation of the poor Indians who have long fought for us and bled farely for us [is] no bar to a Peaceable accommodation with America and ... they [are] left to shift for themselves." [Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, March 27, 1795.] That a sentence of this kind could be truthfully written by one British official to another was a sufficiently biting comment on the conduct of the British Government.

The Indians Resolve to Treat.

The battle of the Fallen Timbers opened the eyes of the Indians to more facts than one. They saw that they could not stand against the Americans unassisted. Furthermore, they saw that though the British would urge them to fight, and would secretly aid them, yet that in the last resort the King's troops would not come to their help by proceeding to actual war. All their leaders recognized that it was time to make peace. The Americans found an active ally in the French Canadian, Antoine Lasselle, whom they had captured in the battle. He worked hard to bring about a peace, inducing the Canadian traders to come over to the American side, and making every effort to get the Indians to agree to terms. Being a thrifty soul, he drove a good trade with the savages at the councils, selling them quantities of liquor.

They Send Ambassadors to Wayne.

In November the Wyandots from Sandusky sent ambassadors to Wayne at Greeneville. Wayne spoke to them with his usual force and frankness. He told them he pitied them for their folly in listening to the British, who were very glad to urge them to fight and to give them ammunition, but who had neither the power nor the inclination to help them when the time of trial came; that hitherto the Indians had felt only the weight of his little finger, but that he would surely destroy all the tribes in the near future if they did not make peace. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Geo. Ironside to McKee, Dec. 13, 1794.]

The Hurons went away much surprised, and resolved on peace; and the other tribes followed their example. In January, 1795, the Miamis, Chippewas, Sacs, Delawares, Pottawatomies, and Ottawas sent ambassadors to Greeneville and agreed to treat. [Footnote: _Do_., Antoine Lasselle to Jacques Lasselle, Jan. 31, 1795.] The Shawnees were bent on continuing the war; but when their allies deserted them they too sent to Greeneville and asked to be included in the peace. [Footnote: _Do_., Letter of Lt.-Col. England, Jan. 30, 1795; also copy of treaty of peace of Feb. 11th.] On February 11th the Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis formally entered into a preliminary treaty.

Treaty of Greeneville.

This was followed in the summer of 1795 by the formal Treaty of Greeneville, at which Wayne, on behalf of the United States, made a definite peace with all the Northwestern tribes. The sachems, war chiefs, and warriors of the different tribes began to gather early in June; and formal proceedings for a treaty were opened on June 17th. But many of the tribes were slow in coming to the treaty ground, others vacillated in their course, and unforeseen delays arose; so that it was not until August 7th that it was possible to come to a unanimous agreement and ratify the treaty. No less than eleven hundred and thirty Indians were present at the treaty grounds, including a full delegation from every hostile tribe. All solemnly covenanted to keep the peace; and they agreed to surrender to the whites all of what is now southern Ohio and south eastern Indiana, and various reservations elsewhere, as at Fort Wayne, Fort Defiance, Detroit, and Michilimackinac, the lands around the French towns, and the hundred and fifty thousand acres near the Falls of the Ohio which had been allotted to Clark and his soldiers. The Government, in its turn, acknowledged the Indian title to the remaining territory, and agreed to pay the tribes annuities aggregating nine thousand five hundred dollars. All prisoners on both sides were restored. There were interminable harangues and councils while the treaty was pending, the Indians invariably addressing Wayne as Elder Brother, and Wayne in response styling them Younger Brothers. In one speech a Chippewa chief put into terse form the reasons for making the treaty, and for giving the Americans title to the land, saying, "Elder Brother, you asked who were the true owners of the land now ceded to the United States. In answer I tell you, if any nations should call themselves the owners of it they would be guilty of falsehood; our claim to it is equal; our Elder Brother has conquered it." [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 562-583.]

Wayne's Great Achievement.

Wayne had brought peace by the sword. It was the first time the border had been quiet for over a generation; and for fifteen years the quiet lasted unbroken. The credit belongs to Wayne and his army, and to the Government which stood behind both. Because it thus finally stood behind them we can forgive its manifold shortcomings and vacillations, its futile efforts to beg a peace, and its reluctance to go to war. We can forgive all this; but we should not forget it. Americans need to keep in mind the fact that as a nation they have erred far more often in not being willing enough to fight than in being too willing. Once roused, they have always been dangerous and hard-fighting foes; but they have been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated classes, in particular, need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, helpless to avenge an injury.

The Misconduct of the British.

The conduct of the Americans in the years which closed with Wayne's treaty did not shine very brightly; but the conduct of the British was black, indeed. On the Northwestern frontier they behaved in a way which can scarcely be too harshly stigmatized. This does not apply to the British civil and military officers at the Lake Posts; for they were merely doing their duty as they saw it, and were fronting their foes bravely, while with loyal zeal they strove to carry out what they understood to be the policy of their superiors. The ultimate responsibility rested with these superiors, the Crown's high advisers, and the King and Parliament they represented. Their treatment both of the Indians, whom they professed to protect, and of the Americans, with whom they professed to be friendly, forms one of the darkest pages in the annals of the British in America. Yet they have been much less severely blamed for their behaviour in this matter, than for far more excusable offences. American historians, for example, usually condemn them without stint because in 1814 the army of Ross and Cockburn burned and looted the public buildings of Washington; but by rights they should keep all their condemnation for their own country, so far as the taking of Washington is concerned; for the sin of burning a few public buildings is as nothing compared with the cowardly infamy of which the politicians of the stripe of Jefferson and Madison, and the people whom they represented, were guilty in not making ready, by sea and land, to protect their Capital and in not exacting full revenge for its destruction. These facts may with advantage be pondered by those men of the present day who are either so ignorant or of such lukewarm patriotism that they do not wish to see the United States keep prepared for war and show herself willing and able to adopt a vigorous foreign policy whenever there is need of furthering American interests or upholding the honor of the American flag. America is bound scrupulously to respect the rights of the weak; but she is no less bound to make stalwart insistance on her own rights as against the strong.

Their Treachery towards Both the Indians and the Americans.

The count against the British on the Northwestern frontier is, not that they insisted on their rights, but that they were guilty of treachery to both friend and foe. The success of the British was incompatible with the good of mankind in general, and of the English-speaking races in particular; for they strove to prop up savagery, and to bar the westward march of the settler-folk whose destiny it was to make ready the continent for civilization. But the British cannot be seriously blamed because they failed to see this. Their fault lay in their aiding and encouraging savages in a warfare which was necessarily horrible; and still more in their repeated breaches of faith. The horror and the treachery were the inevitable outcome of the policy on which they had embarked; it can never be otherwise when a civilized government endeavors to use, as allies in war, savages whose acts it cannot control and for whose welfare it has no real concern.

Doubtless the statesmen who shaped the policy of Great Britain never deliberately intended to break faith, and never fully realized the awful nature of the Indian warfare for which they were in part responsible; they thought very little of the matter at all in the years which saw the beginning of their stupendous struggle with France. But the acts of their obscure agents on the far interior frontier were rendered necessary and inevitable by their policy. To encourage the Indians to hold their own against the Americans, and to keep back the settlers, meant to encourage a war of savagery against the border vanguard of white civilization; and such a war was sure to teem with fearful deeds. Moreover, where the interests of the British Crown were so manifold it was idle to expect that the Crown's advisers would treat as of much weight the welfare of the scarcely-known tribes whom their agents had urged to enter a contest which was hopeless except for British assistance. The British statesmen were engaged in gigantic schemes of warfare and diplomacy; and to them the Indians and the frontiersmen alike were pawns on a great chessboard, to be sacrificed whenever necessary. When the British authorities deemed it likely that there would be war with America, the tribes were incited to take up the hatchet; when there seemed a chance of peace with America the deeds of the tribes were disowned; and peace was finally assured by a cynical abandonment of their red allies. In short, the British, while professing peace with the Americans, treacherously incited the Indians to war against them; and, when it suited their own interests, they treacherously abandoned their Indian allies to the impending ruin. [Footnote: The ordinary American histories, often so absurdly unjust to England, are right in their treatment of the British actions on the frontier in 1793-94. The ordinary British historians simply ignore the whole affair. As a type of their class, Mr. Percy Gregg may be instanced. His "History of the United States" is a silly book; he is often intentionally untruthful, but his chief fault is his complete ignorance of the facts about which he is writing. It is, of course, needless to criticise such writers as Mr. Gregg and his fellows. But it is worth while calling attention to Mr. Goldwin Smith's "The United States," for Mr. Goldwin Smith is a student, and must be taken seriously. He says: "That the British government or anybody by its authority was intriguing with the Indians against the Americans is an assertion of which there seems to be no proof." If he will examine the Canadian Archives, from which I have quoted, and the authorities which I cite, he will find the proof ready to hand. Prof. A. C. McLaughlin has made a capital study of this question in his pamphlet on "The Western Posts and the British Debts." What he says cannot well be controverted.]