Archer Butler Hulbert

“ 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. ”

“ WAYNE AND FALLEN TIMBER
THE defeat of St. Clair's army cast a nation into gloom. As the terrible tidings sped eastward a thousand frontier cabins were filled with dismayed men, women, and children. The passion into which it is said the patient Washington was thrown, upon hearing the melancholy story, was typical of the feeling of a whole people. There could be no doubt, now, what the future would bring forth; a deluge of raiding savages, such as had never overrun the frontiers since Braddock's defeat in 1755, would certainly come ”

“ Leaving the Indian commissioners going slowly on their way to a conference with the hostile tribes at "Auglaize"—the mouth of the Auglaize River where Defiance, Ohio, now stands—and Putnam waiting for the Weas and Kickapoos to assemble at Vincennes, let us look back to the gathering "Legion of the United States" into whose ready hands the matter of peace would go when the Indians got courage enough to throw off the mask.
It was one thing to plan an army on paper but a far more serious task to raise and organize it. And first and foremost arose the trebly difficult task of choosing a leader. ”

“ The Indians were quick to recognize and describe, in their figurative way, the two chief characteristics of Wayne as a frontier commander—he was both the “Black Snake” and the “Whirlwind.” When in motion, he swept through the forests like a cyclone; the record of no pioneer army in America equals the marching records of Wayne’s Legion. It was a standing order that every march should be under high pressure and that no break or interruption should in any case delay the movement of the main body a single moment. This impressed the savages tremendously ”

“ The army was fatally weak in two particulars: many undisciplined old men and boys had volunteered as substitutes; and the arms, furnished by the volunteers themselves, were in lamentably poor condition. Taken all in all, with the exception of armament, which was somewhat bettered at Fort Washington, this first little American army that now began an invasion of the Maumee Valley was in no better or no worse condition than the ordinary militia forces formerly put into the field by Pennsylvania or Kentucky. ”

“ Wayne's Road, like Forbes's route across the Alleghenies, led to victory; the dark winding tracks of the armies of Braddock and St. Clair possess a romantic element that is fascinating in the extreme, but wholly unsatisfactory. There is an inspiration in following the rough tracks of men who won which is not found in the paths of men who, after struggles perhaps more heroic because facing greater odds, failed. Wayne was a thousand times better equipped for his campaign than was St. Clair. Before his campaign, the savage war was not taken very seriously. ”

“ Trotter moved hither and thither with apparent aimlessness until nightfall when he returned to camp—to Harmar's disgust. The militia in camp had scattered in various directions searching for corn and other plunder which the savages had buried. The gun fired to call these into camp, Trotter affirmed, was thought to be an alarm signal for him to return. The men under Trotter displayed no more military characteristics than the prowling militia left at the encampment. Such men, it was sure, would suffer at the hands of the fierce, watchful enemy, if ever their turn should come. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To persuade them to this effect is the object of your mission. Insinuate, upon all favorable occasions, the humane disposition of the United States; and, if you can by any means ripen their judgement, so as to break forth openly [disclose yourselves] , and declare the readiness of the United States to receive, with open arms, the Indians, . . do it. . . You might persuade some of the most influential chiefs to repair to our posts on the Ohio, and so, from post to post, to this place." [1] Perhaps never in warfare were spies sent amongst an enemy on so remarkable a mission. ”

“ The route passed over the best course between the points, as proved by the railway surveyors and engineers. But many rivers blocked the way; the first of these from Vincennes was the Embarras—so called, as in the case of many streams, because the great floods left deposits of driftwood which seriously impeded navigation. West of the Embarras came the petulant Little Wabash and the Big Muddy, draining thousands of square miles of swamp and prairie, and, in rainy seasons, uniting and spreading out five miles in width. West of the tributaries of the Little Wabash come those of the Kaskaskia. ”

“ All the story of its other days is forgotten for those hard fifteen during which that daring youth drew his comrades “insensibly” onward, amid jests and raillery, to the British stronghold from which thousands of savages had been urged to war upon the feeble Kentucky stations. Boone’s Wilderness Road meant much, but if Fort Sackville and the other Wabash Valley centers had been a trifle more potent than they were, it would have become as overgrown as was Braddock’s Road when Forbes marched to Fort Duquesne three years after Braddock. ”

“ Louis Trace Road on one of the northeastern tributaries of the Fox. The day after, an early start was made in order that the famed Embarras might be reached before nightfall. It can well be believed that an intense, hushed excitement prevailed. The success of the invasion must depend on a swift surprise; it was probable that all would be lost if the approach was discovered; for, the Wabash being out of banks, the enemy, doubtless well supplied with boats, would have Clark’s band at their mercy. The provisions were fast giving out; surrender or starvation stared Clark in the face if discovered. ”

“ The scene presented to Clark’s Virginians and Frenchmen in February 1779 cannot by any means be pictured by one to whom these swamps are unknown; to such as know them, the picture, though probably imperfect, is one of horror. To row a boat where the current is swift is fatiguing labor, and to walk in the water, when each step [Pg 65] may find one in a sink-hole and where the rank grasses, growing from heavy tufts, hold one’s feet as a cord, is all that the strongest man can endure for even a short period. ”

“ The next act of Secretary Knox is peculiarly significant and interesting. Captain Peter Pond, a trader, and one William Steedman were ordered to proceed westward to the hostile tribes on the Maumee, feigning to be traders. "No doubt can exist," wrote Knox, "that our strength and our resources are abundant to conquer, and even extirpate the Indians. . . But this is not our object. We wish to be at peace with those Indians—to be their friends and protectors—to perpetuate them on the land. The desire, therefore, that we have for peace, must not be inconsistent with the national reputation. ”

“ The various campaigns directed from Kentucky and western Pennsylvania had, by 1779, comparatively freed what is now eastern and central Ohio of red-men. Little by little they had been pushed in a northwesterly direction until the headwaters of the Great and Little Miami and Scioto were reached. Here on the backbone of Ohio, near the headwaters of the St. Mary and Auglaize Rivers—a pleasant country which the Indians always loved—the most heroic stand was yet to be made against the encroaching white men. ”

“ In June a premature report came that the peace commissioners had failed in their mission. "We now have but one alternative left," wrote Posey, "and this is We must meet the Savage foe, The Emortal Washington at the Head of our Government, and the Old hero Genl Wayne and His well disciplined Legion, we have little to fear accept our god and fear him in love." The summer wore on with little or no definite tidings from the north. The troops were exercised daily and the necessities of the possible campaign were pushed on up the line of forts from the Ohio River to Fort Jefferson. ”

“ He was first to assure the hostile nations that the United States did not in the least desire any of the Indian’s land, but rather solemnly pledged itself to “guaranty all that remain, and take the Indians under our protection.” In turn the Indians were to agree to a truce and call in all war-parties. The most prominent chiefs were to be invited to Philadelphia to make a treaty; on his way westward General Putnam was empowered to release all Indian prisoners retained at Fort Washington and give the women presents to carry home with them in token of the Government’s pacific intentions. ”

“ From all the western settlements in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania a cry, anxious and often piteous, was hurried over the mountains to Philadelphia for aid and protection.
The young government now faced a problem difficult in the extreme with fine courage, fully conscious of its own dignity and its own latent power. Within six weeks of St. Clair's annihilation, the Secretary of War submitted a statement to Congress which summed up the situation briefly and clearly. The former treaties with the Indians, the efforts for peace, the sorry details of the campaign were all described. ”

“ 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. [26] In vain St. Clair beseeched Hodgdon to hurry on provisions. [27] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That winding line of a road from the Ohio to Roche de Bout, and the five new forts that sprang up on it in 1793 and 1794, have left their impress strongly upon western history. The Indians never forgot the "Whirlwind," who was also a "Black Snake." Since that road was built, the Indian race has never been a national menace. Bloody battles there have been, but at no time has the expansion of the United States been seriously jeopardized by Indian hostility.
Clark's conquest of Vincennes was now made good by the conquest of the Maumee Valley ”

“ 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. ”