Historic Highways of America/Volume 8/Chapter 2

by Archer Butler Hulbert

CHAPTER II

MIAMI VALLEY CAMPAIGNS

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.

The point of vantage was well chosen, as the bloody years of 1780–1795 proved. The forests were divided by large stretches of open land, which were easily cultivated and exceedingly rich. To the northward flowed the Auglaize River affording a highway to the great Maumee Valley and Lake Erie. The St. Mary offered a roundabout water route to the same goal—a goal fortified by the line of British forts on the Lakes. Here encouragement of every description was to be had at all times—at the price of steadily resisting and ravaging the advancing American frontier line.

The three rivers, the Scioto and the two Miamis, offered thoroughfare from this vantage ground southward toward the Kentucky stations. The important Indian towns were located on the upper waters of the Little Miami, the Auglaize, and Maumee, with other villages on the portages between these streams and in the lower valleys of the Auglaize and Maumee. The largest Indian villages were the settlements at the junctions of the Maumee and Auglaize and the St. Mary and St. Joseph. The key of the region was the junction of the St. Mary with the St. Joseph—four water avenues, leading east (Maumee), west (Wabash), south (St. Mary), and north (St. Joseph), and each filled with Indian clearings and villages.

The land was covered with a network of Indian trails running in every direction, of which surprisingly little can be definitely stated. Considering how numerous are the old-time maps which show the roads of the red-men in eastern and central Ohio and in Kentucky, it is remarkable that almost none give the routes in western Ohio and eastern Indiana. By comparison of contemporaneous authorities it is certain there were three important landward thoroughfares leading northward from the Ohio River into the region here under view. In general terms, the most easterly of these ascended the valley of the Little Miami; another passed northward on the watershed between the two Miamis; the third ran north from the present site of Cincinnati on the watershed to the west of the Great Miami, with branches running into and up the river valley itself. All of these routes led to the strategic portages which connected the two Miamis and the Scioto with the St. Mary and Auglaize tributaries of the Maumee.^[1]

The unfortunate Bowman expedition of 1779^[2] went up the Little Miami to the Shawanese villages along that river. In the year following George Rogers Clark waged his campaign against the celebrated Shawanese town of Piqua on the Mad River tributary of the Little Miami, cutting a road for his packhorses and mounted six-pounder on the east side of the Little Miami.^[3] Two years later Clark executed one of the most successful campaigns yet made into the region north of the Ohio. Moving from near the mouth of the Licking (the usual place of rendezvous of all the Kentucky expeditions into Ohio) it is believed the expedition took the central track between the Miamis, reaching the Great Miami near the site of Dayton. From thence the route was up that river to the portage. "The British trading-post," wrote Clark to the governor of Virginia,^[4] "at the head of the Miami and carrying-place to the waters of the lake shared the same fate [as the towns Clark attacked in person] at the hands of a party of one hundred and fifty horse, commanded by Colonel Benjamin Logan." This post was, undoubtedly, historic Loramie's Store, the trading-post on Loramie's Creek, Shelby County, Ohio, at the southern end of the portage to the St. Mary River.

Thus after a number of years of fighting, the Kentuckians had at last struck at the vital spot. This blow ended the Revolutionary warfare in the West. The British having lost, some time ago, the war in the East, had until now assisted the Indians in an attempt to retrieve the situation by ousting the brave pioneers from the West. The presence of the hero of Vincennes so far north as the portage to the St. Mary and Auglaize was proof enough that their hope of conquest in the West was idle.

But hope would not down, and much of the hard story to which these pages are to be devoted would never have had a part in American history had the British now, once for all, given up the design of countenancing the Indians in an attempt to hem in and push back the frontiers of expanding America. The contest until now, 1783, had been one solely of retaliation on the part of the Kentuckians; by treaties, oft confirmed, the Indians had given up all title and claim to the lands south of the Ohio River. From 1785, when the treaty of Fort McIntosh was made with the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa nations, and 1786, when the treaty of Fort Finney was made with the Shawanese, the United States ceded to these Indians all the lands lying between the Muskingum and Wabash Rivers north of a line drawn from Fort Laurens to the Miami–St. Mary portage and thence to the mouth of River de la Panse on the Wabash.

The northern valley of the Ohio River, for a long distance into the interior, now coming into the possession of the United States, the inevitable struggle to hold it drew on apace. The tribes of the Miamis nation, Twightwees or Miamis proper, Weas or Ouiatenons, Piankeshaws, and Shockeys, on the upper Wabash, being troublesome, George Rogers Clark moved northward from Vincennes with nearly a thousand troops in the fall of 1786; but Clark's deportment was demoralizing and his campaign was a practical failure. However, before starting on the Wabash campaign, Clark had ordered Colonel Logan to strike again at the towns at the head of the Great Miami. With four or five hundred mounted riflemen Logan accomplished the task of destroying eight Indian villages and taking several score of prisoners.

The foregoing details form a necessary introduction to the new era in the West, heralded by the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 and the forming of the government of the Territory Northwest of the Ohio River at Marietta July 16, 1788. Until this time the question of western defense had been a problem for Pennsylvania and Virginia to solve by means of their frontier militia. Now the United States Government took up the tangled problem, by empowering President Washington, on September 29, 1789, to call out the militia of the frontier states to repel the incursions of the savages.

From the time of the organization of the Northwest Territory until 1790, the Indians of the Maumee region steadily increased their marauding expeditions, striking at every point along the Ohio River from the mouth of the Scioto to the mouth of the Wabash. The Government was overwhelmed with petitions and remonstrances from citizens of all classes in Kentucky. Judge Innes addressed the Secretary of War from Kentucky: "I have been intimately acquainted with this district from November 1783. . . I can venture to say, that above 1500 souls have been killed and taken in the district, and migrating to it; that upwards of 20,000 horses have been taken . . and other property . . carried off and destroyed by these barbarians, to at least £15,000."^[5]

The ringleaders of these marauding bands were the Miami tribes of the upper Wabash and Miami Rivers, and Shawanese who dwelt with them. The Delawares and Wyandots, who now, in 1789, signed the Treaty of Fort Harmar (which only confirmed the previous treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh) were not, at first, guilty of connivance; though soon they joined the Indian confederacy regardless of their promises.

It is interesting to note at the outset that the savages to whom the attention of the nation was now about to be attracted were styled, generally, the "Northwestern Indians." The significance of this is that now, when at last run to bay, the final campaigns in that long series of conflicts begun by Washington and Braddock and Forbes on the heads of the Ohio (1754–58), continued by Bouquet on the Muskingum (1764), Dunmore on the Scioto (1774), Crawford on the Sandusky (1781), and Clark on the Miami (1782), were to be fought to a triumphant conclusion in the region of the Wabash. These savages were the same that had ever fought the advancing fire-line of civilization—the Miamis, Delawares, Shawanese, Wyandots, and their confederates. Driven westward for nearly half a century, they made a final stand at the western extremity of Lake Erie, almost under the guns of the British forts, and are known collectively now in 1790 as the "Northwestern Indians." The story of our actual conquest of the interior of America from the aboriginal inhabitants is practically the story of the campaigns which resulted in the acquisition successively of the Allegheny, Beaver, Muskingum, Scioto, Miami, Maumee, and Wabash river valleys. Fallen Timber sealed the doom of the Indian and ended a struggle begun at Fort Necessity in 1754. The conquest would not have taken one-half the time it did had the Indian not become allied now to France and now to England, alliances which introduced perplexing and delicate international questions which prolonged the pitiful struggle.

On the sixth of October, 1789, President Washington, acting under the new powers conferred upon him, addressed a communication to Governor St. Clair requesting accurate information as to whether or not "the Wabash and Illinois Indians are most inclined for war or peace."^[6] If found to favor the former course the governor was empowered "to call on the lieutenants of the nearest counties of Virginia and Pennsylvania, for such detachments of militia as you may judge proper, not exceeding, however, one thousand from Virginia and five hundred from Pennsylvania."^[7] With the prophetic foresight which so frequently marked Washington's estimate of the future he added: "As it may be of high importance to obtain a precise and accurate knowledge of the several waters which empty into the Ohio, on the northwest, and of those which discharge themselves in the lakes Erie and Michigan, the length of the portage between, and nature of the ground, an early and pointed attention thereto is earnestly recommended."^[8] Anthony Gamelin, a trusty scout, was sent up the Wabash River to test the sentiments of the Wabash and Miami Indians in April 1790; the gist of his report was that the young men of the nations could not be restrained from war, that the majority of the savages had "a bad heart." The influence of McKee and Girty was in absolute authority.^[9] "I now enclose the proceedings of Mr. Gamelin," wrote Major Hamtramck to Governor St. Clair from Vincennes, May 22, 1790, "by which your excellency can have no great hopes of bringing the Indians to a peace with the United States."^[10] The reasons are thus stated by Governor St. Clair to the Secretary of War: "The confidence these [Indians] have in their situation, the vicinity of many other nations, either much under their influence, or hostilely disposed towards the United States, and pernicious councils of the British traders, joined to the immense booties obtained by their depredations on the Ohio."^[11]

By July 16 Governor St. Clair was ready to put in motion the campaign which was voted by all concerned to be inevitable. There was a double danger in further delay; the Indians were growing more bold each day, and the people along the western frontier were beginning to distrust the strength of the Government which, while claiming them, failed utterly to protect them. Only a week before (July 7) Judge Innes wrote these startling words to the Secretary of War: "I will, sir, be candid on this subject. . . The people say they have long groaned under their misfortunes, they see no prospect of relief. . . They begin to want faith in the Government, and appear determined to revenge themselves: for this purpose a meeting was lately held in this place, by a number of respectable characters, to determine on the propriety of carrying on three expeditions this fall."^[12]

Accordingly by circular letters to the county lieutenants dated Fort Washington, July 16, 1790, St. Clair called upon three hundred men from Nelson, Lincoln, and Jefferson Counties, Virginia, to rendezvous at Fort Steuben (Steubenville, Ohio) September 12; seven hundred men from Madison, Mercer, Fayette, Bourbon, Woodford, and Mason Counties to rendezvous at Fort Washington September 15; and five hundred men from Washington, Fayette, Westmoreland, and Allegheny Counties, Pennsylvania, to rendezvous four miles below Wheeling on September 3. From this on affairs moved swiftly. On July 14—the day before the circular letters were sent off—General Harmar contracted with Elliott and Williams of Kentucky for one hundred and eighty thousand rations of flour, two hundred thousand rations of meat, eight hundred and sixty-eight horses equipped, one horse-master general, eighteen horse-masters, one hundred and thirty drivers, to be delivered at Fort Washington by October 1. On August 23, Secretary of War Knox wrote Governor St. Clair that he had ordered two tons of best rifle and musket powder, four tons of lead bullets, cartridge paper, case shot for five and a half inch howitzers and for three- and six-pounders to be hurried on from Philadelphia to the Ohio River. A thousand dollars was forwarded to Fort Washington for contingent expenses. Knox hurried a letter on to the governor of Virginia asking him to use his influence to induce the veteran Kentucky colonels Logan and Shelby to join the army at Fort Washington as volunteers for "the accomplishment of the public good," and a letter to Harmar requesting him to invite "those characters," and to treat them with "the greatest cordiality." St. Clair wrote immediately to the British commander at Detroit explaining candidly the nature of the campaign now on foot, explicitly stating its object and asking that the enemy should receive no assistance from British traders "from whose instigation," he made bold to add, "there is good reason to believe, much of the injuries committed by the savages has proceeded."

Everything considered, the young government responded nobly to the call of its western citizens. This was its first war, and one has to know only a little of the struggles for mere equipoise and maintenance since the close of the Revolution to realize that a war at this time, of any proportions, was a most trying and exhausting undertaking. This has never been sufficiently emphasized. His first inauguration now two years past, the labors of his new honors were already bearing heavily upon the first president. If greater trials had ever been his portion, even in the struggle for independence, they had in a measure been anticipated and borne with a patience commensurate with the great interests at stake. He had been able to manœuver his armies from red-coat generals' grasp, and the fretful complainings of the "times that tried men's souls" were alternately hushed in the presence of gloom and scattered in the hour of victory. But now the clash of personal interest and state pride rose loud about the chief executive, and advisers, who had once lost all thought of self in the common danger, now became uncertain quantities in the struggle for personal advancement, and bickered spitefully over matters of preferment and policy. The country which Washington loved never needed his services more than now when these untried problems of currency, debt, and policy—and now of war—came rapidly to the front.

The President's call for militia was answered with too great alacrity. A motley collection of Kentucky militia was assembling by the middle of September, and those from Pennsylvania reached Fort Washington on the twenty-fourth. The Kentuckians were formed into three battalions under Majors Hall, M'Mullen, and Bay, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Trotter—under whom they were anxious to serve. The Pennsylvanians were formed in one battalion under Lieutenant-colonel Trubley and Major Pond, the whole commanded by Colonel John Hardin, subject to General Harmar's orders. The regulars were formed in two battalions under Major John P. Wyllys and Major John Doughty. The company of artillery, having three pieces of ordnance, was under the command of Captain William Ferguson. A battalion of flying militia or light mounted troops was commanded by Major James Fontaine. The entire army numbered one thousand four hundred and fifty-three, of which three hundred and twenty were regulars. The "army" had assembled quickly; the stores had been forwarded to the place of rendezvous with exceeding despatch and faithfulness. 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.

On the twenty-sixth of September the militia, eleven hundred strong, under Colonel Hardin, set forth from Fort Washington, striking in a northwesterly direction toward the valley of the Little Miami, on General Clark's route of 1780. David H. Morris, making a slight error in dates, leaves this account, which gives, as the first day's march of the militia, four miles: "On the 29th of September, we took up our march for the Maumee Villages, near where Fort Wayne now stands, and proceeded four miles."^[13]

Of the start from Fort Washington Thomas Irwin leaves record: "My Second visit to Said Cincinnati was as a volunteer from Washington, Pa. on Harmars Campaign about the first week in October 1790. . . Fort Washington was Built, not finished, in my absence. The Militia from Kentucky and Pennsylvania Rendezvoused There at the same time Marched from Thence for the Indian Towns Between the 10th and 15th of october 1790 on the Trace made By General Clark from Kentucky in october 1782^[14] which crossed the river hill^[15] north of Fort Washington passed Mcmillins^[16] Spring as it was afterwards Called Encamped at reading until Harmar came up with the regular Troops."

At the beginning of the last century Harmar's route was easily traced through Warren County, running north of Mason and west of Lebanon.^[17] On September 30 the regulars under General Harmar left Fort Washington, by way of the same route, it would seem, as the militia. Captain Armstrong's record for the day reads: "The army moved from Fort Washington, at halfpast ten o'clock, A. M.,—marched about seven miles N. E. course—hilly, rich land. Encamped on a branch of Mill creek." How one can understand from this record that Harmar's route followed what later became known as the "old Wayne Road" or "old Hamilton Road" up Mill Creek Valley is beyond the ken of the present writer. Encamping on the night of September 2 on Muddy Creek, Warren County, General Harmar lay one mile south of the militia encampment.^[18] On the day following he moved through Hardin's camp, which was located a few miles southwest of Lebanon, and rested one mile in advance on Turtle Creek. Here the divisions of the army united, and here the line of march was formed, according to Armstrong's journal, on September 3.

A. H. Dunlevy, a pioneer in this neighborhood west of Lebanon in 1798, left record that near his home on the old route was the site of one of Harmar's camps—possibly that of Colonel Hardin. A half acre was cleared and several graves were then visible there. "The brush," he wrote, "was piled in heaps around the camp. These brush heaps were decayed in 1798 but made fine harbors for snakes and as the warm sun of spring came out, I think hundreds of them could be seen in an hour passing from one brush heap to another. I used to amuse myself in watching their movements and noting their peculiar colors. Every kind of snake seemed to nestle together in those brush heaps."^[19]

On the fourth the combined army moved in a northwesterly direction through the Turtle Creek Valley and, continuing over the hilly region northeast of Lebanon, crossed the Little Miami at what has long been known as Fish-pot Ford about six miles northeast of Lebanon.^[20] Moving up the east bank of the river, camp was pitched one mile north of the crossing-place on Cæsar's Creek.^[21] The route the day following was up the river on the famous war path toward the Indian Chillicothe and Piqua towns in the valleys of that and the Mad River, along the general alignment of the Little Miami Railroad. Marching ten miles, according to Captain Armstrong, the army encamped "at five o'clock on Glade creek, a very lively, clear stream."

On the sixth, the site of old Chillicothe was reached; "recrossed the Little Miami," says Armstrong, "at half past one o'clock, halted one hour, and encamped at four o'clock on a branch." Morris's account from the thirtieth of September reads: "Thirtieth, we moved forward on the old Indian trail leading to the old Chilcothie town, on the little Miami, and after several days marching, arrived at the place where the town once stood. Here we fired off our guns; and in the evening, having recrossed the river, encamped about a mile above, near where James Galloway now lives."

The old Indian trail ran from Chillicothe to Old Piqua across Mad River Township, Clark County, where, five miles west of Springfield, Tecumseh was born. After Clark's destruction of this village in 1780, its inhabitants moved across to the Great Miami where New Piqua was built, and which was destroyed by Clark in 1782. The path Harmar now followed bore toward the northwest, taking him to the site of the later Piqua on the Great Miami. Armstrong's journal reads: "7^th . . Passed through several low praries, and crossed the Pickaway fork of Mad river. . . Encamped on a small branch, one mile from the former. Our course the first four miles north, then northwest.—Nine miles."

The Irwin MS., from the point of union of Harmar and Harding, reads: "formed the Line of march there which was in Two Lines one on the right and one on the Left of s^d Trace a strong front and Rear guard on Said Trace the Baggage in the Center Passed near where the Town of Lebanon Stands in Warren County west of Waynesville and Xenia Crossed Mad river perhaps 10 miles from Dayton Struck the great Miami near the old Piqua Towns that was Detroyed By s^d Gen^l. Clark Crossed the Miami some Distance above Them."

For the journey between the two Miamis the Morris journal is perhaps most definite: "On the day following, we crossed Mad river, and camped near New Carlisle,^[22] in Clark county, and within one mile of Epee town, located precisely where Elnathan Cory now lives. This town gave name to the creek on which it stood, now called Honey-creek. . . Here we killed 20 cows intended for beef. . . The next day we crossed Indian creek . . and same day crossed Lost Creek in Miami county. . . On this evening, we encamped at a spring, on the farm formerly owned by Nathaniel Gerrard, and about two miles from the town of Troy. Gen. Harmar gave to this spring, the name Tea Spring, as he and his officers refreshed themselves there, on that beverage."

Armstrong's record for the eighth and ninth is: "The army moved at halfpast nine o'clock. Passed over rich land, in some places a little broken: passed several ponds, and through one small prarie, a N. W. course.—Seven miles. 9th—The army moved at halfpast nine o'clock. Passed through a level, rich country, well watered: course N. W.,—halted halfpast four o'clock, two miles south of the Great Miami.—Ten miles."

These commonplace records do not in any way represent the real state of affairs; perhaps they suggest only the topics of conversation of the vanguard of scouts and guides that led the army. The little band of troops was now in the heart of the enemy's country. The face of the land was covered with forests, broken here and there by patches of bush and prairie. That the Indians knew of their advance, there was little doubt. When, where, or how they would oppose that advance, no one knew. The Great Miami was now reached and soon the strategic portage of the St. Mary would be taken possession of. The course would then be down grade to the Miami towns on the Maumee. Would the enemy rally here on the watershed crest near the old French fort on the Loramie? Such speculations as these occupied many more minds, it may confidently be believed, than thoughts of the streams or prairies crossed. The records left us tell only of the commonplaces, leaving the human element to the imagination. Yet this can be better conceived if the route is correctly outlined.

On the tenth of September Harmar crossed the Great Miami River. "At the crossing," wrote Armstrong, "there is a handsome high prairie on the S. E. side." "On the following day," reads the Morris record, "we crossed the big Miami, a little above the town of Piqua, near Manning's old mill. . . This evening we encamped not far from upper Piqua." This agrees with the Irwin MS. previously quoted.

On the eleventh the army moved to and crossed Loramie's Creek, seven miles from its camping-place of the preceding night (ten miles from the camp near the Great Miami of September 9). Of the route from the Great Miami onward, Irwin states: "Crossed Loirimous Creek a short Distance from its mouth into the great Miami river had a pretty good Indian Trace from there to what was Called the old french store or Trading house at St marys had a good Trace from there to the Maumee towns." The Morris record reads: "Next day, we took up our march for Lorrimiers, a French trader at St. Marys— . . We crossed Lorrimie creek on the next morning, at a village that had been burned by Clark or Logan, some ten years before. From here, we passed over the summit level for St. Marys, where we encamped. . . Having crossed St. Marys we encamped on its eastern bank."^[23]

On September 12, by Armstrong's journal, the army "crossed a stream at seven miles and a half running N. E. on which there are several old camps, much deadened timber, which continues to the river Auglaize, about a mile. Here has been a considerable village—some houses still standing. This stream is a branch of the Omi [Maumee] river, and is about twenty yards wide."

From this on the route was along the old trace which followed the St. Mary, some distance to the northward of the immediate bank, to its junction with the Maumee, where the army arrived on the seventeenth of September, having accomplished the hard march of over one hundred and sixty miles in eighteen days by the regulars and twenty by the militia.

On the thirteenth, "I think the 1^st or 2^d morning after we Left St Marys," according to Mr. Irwin, "8 or 10 mounted men went out in Search of some horses that had Been Lost or missing over night Started a Smart young Indian without a gun in the open woods—Took him prisoner Brought him into Camp . . he give Every information respecting the movements of the Indians Stated they had Determined to move Their families and property out of the Towns and Burn Them. Six hundred men was Detached or Drafted from the army placed under the Command of Col. Hardin he Being the 2^d in Command with orders to proceed as quick as possible to the Towns. When We arrived found what the prisoner Stated was True 2 Indians happened to Be under the Bank of the river when the army came up they tried to Escape the Troops Discovered them and about 100 guns was Discharged at them one was found Dead the Next Day in the Brush, The Ballance of the army arriv'd at the Towns two Days after the first got there I was with the rear."^[24]

Signs that the Indians had retreated in a northwesterly direction being discovered, General Harmar, on the eighteenth, ordered Colonel Trotter of the militia to follow and attack them with a force of three hundred men. The detachment was provided with three days rations. About one mile from camp an Indian was pursued and killed. A little later a second solitary Indian scout was killed—after wounding one of his assailants. 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.

It came on the very next day! It was now Colonel Hardin's turn to strike a blow, and he was ordered out on the Indian path which ran northwest toward the Kickapoo towns. Proceeding about eleven miles from camp (Fort Wayne, Indiana) to near the point where the Goshen state road crosses the Eel River, the keen scouter John Armstrong saw important "signs" and heard an alarm gun in front. Hardin did not act on the advice and made no disposition of his troops for battle. Soon after, Armstrong discovered the fires of the Indian camp—but Hardin, scorning the enemy, pushed straight on. The Indian commander—the famous Miami warrior, Little Turtle—based his plans on just such recklessness. Deep in the brush and grass on either side of the trail his dogs of war crouched silent as cougars. The army had walked well into the trap before two crimson streaks of fire flashed out in the very faces of the troopers. The militia bolted at breakneck speed—some never stopping in their flight until they reached the Ohio River. A small band of regulars under Armstrong retired slightly and held their ground temporarily; then they retreated to Harmar's camp. This savage stroke cost heavily, the Indians killing almost an average of a white man apiece—the loss, about one hundred, equalling, probably, the number of the waylaying savage force. It was one of the bloodiest ambuscades in western history. Armstrong's journal for the nineteenth reads: "Attacked about one hundred Indians fifteen miles west of the Miami village; and from the dastardly conduct of the militia, the troops were obliged to retreat. I lost one sergeant, and twenty-one out of thirty men of my command. The Indians on this occasion gained a complete victory—having killed, in the whole, near one hundred men, which was about their number. Many of the militia threw away their arms without firing a shot, ran through the federal troops and threw them in disorder." Of the Indians Armstrong adds "they fought and died hard."

When Hardin's troops returned, they found that Harmar had moved two miles down the Maumee in the work of destroying the Indian villages and crops. From this camp, an old Shawanese village, various companies were sent out in different directions to finish the work of destroying the Indian settlements. On the night of the twenty-first, when seven miles distant from the Miami village, Colonel Hardin proposed to Harmar that he be allowed his pick of the militia with which to return secretly upon the Indians. It was believed, and spies no doubt so reported, that the Indians had returned to their central villages at the junction of the St. Mary and St. Joseph. Harmar acquiesced, feeling that another blow would undoubtedly prevent the savages from following the army.

The force was composed of three hundred and forty militia, under Majors Hall and McMullen, Major Fontaine's mounted militia, and sixty regulars under Major Wyllys. The Miami town was reached after sunrise. Hardin's plan was to surround secretly the village and make a simultaneous attack from all sides. Major Hall's battalion was sent to cross the St. Mary and hold themselves in readiness to attack from the rear when the main body, which would cross the Maumee at the common ford, fell upon the village in front. Hall's men wantonly fired on a fugitive Indian before the signal for attack was given; to make matters worse the militia under McMullen and Fontaine began pursuing the various parties of flying redskins, leaving Major Wyllys and the regulars unsupported. The latter crossed the Maumee, according to the fixed scheme, but were suddenly assailed by an overpowering force led by Little Turtle and were compelled to return with loss of many men, including Major Wyllys himself. The militia then hastened back to the main army. Miserable as had been the deportment of the militia, their muskets had done severe execution, and Harmar had no fear now of an Indian attack—nor the slightest remnant of confidence in any but the fragment of regular troops left to him.

On the twenty-third the army took up the line of outward march for Fort Washington and reached the Ohio on the fourth day of November, having lost one hundred and eighty-three killed and thirty-one wounded. Major Wyllys and Lieutenant Frothingham of the regulars, and Major Fontaine and Captains Thorp, McMurtrey, and Scott, and Lieutenants Clark and Rogers of the militia were the principal officers sacrificed.

On the other hand there is ground for partly agreeing with Irwin that Harmar's campaign was not wholly a defeat. The Indian loss was as large as the American—and this was a great deal accomplished. Few armies before had entered the Indian land and not been followed by the Indians on the return with distinct losses. Harmar's repeated though costly operations on the Maumee had given the Indians all the battle they wished; indeed it is not too much to say that they were stunned.

Layout 2

1. Evans's History of Scioto County and Pioneer Record of Southern Ohio contains the best map of western Ohio extant.
2. Historic Highways of America, vol. vi, p. 166.
3. Josiah Morrow, to whom the author is indebted for much help in the study of Harmar's route, affirms that in the land records of Warren County he has found reference to this as "Clark's old war-road."
4. November 27, 1782.
5. American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 88.
6. American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i), p. 97.
7. Id.
8. Id.
9. Id., pp. 93, 94; St. Clair to Knox, Id., p. 87.
10. Id.
11. Id.
12. Id., p. 88.
13. The authorities used in connection with Harmar's route and march are: the Journal of Captain John Armstrong, of the Regulars (Dillon's History of Indiana, pp. 245–248); Thomas Irwin's account of Harmar's and St. Clair's campaigns, in the Draper MSS., iv U, fols. 3–17; Hugh Scott's Narrative, Id., fol. 99, and David H. Morris's Narrative, in the Troy (Ohio) Times of January 29, 1840. Hereafter these will be referred to by name only. Harmar's route out of Cincinnati is thus described by J. G. Olden in his Historical Sketches and Early Reminiscences of Hamilton County, Ohio: "Moved from Ft. Washington up the little ravine that runs into Deer Creek near what is now the head of Sycamore street, Cincinnati, thence through Mt. Auburn and along the general course of what is now the Reading turnpike to the little stream since known as Ross run where he encamped for the night in what is now Section 4 Mill creek township near where Four Mile tavern was built. The next day he moved, still on Clark's old trace, now Reading turnpike, passing near where the schoolhouse now stands in Reading, thence on to the little run east of where Sharonville now is, where he encamped for the [second] night."
14. An error for 1780. As noted, three well-known expeditions had gone northward from the present site of Cincinnati before Harmar's: Bowman in 1779, Clark in 1780, and Clark again in 1782. In 1782 Clark passed northward on the watershed between the Miamis. It was therefore Clark's route of 1780 which Harmar's militia followed.
15. Mt. Auburn. Dr. Daniel Drake, writing in 1801, says: "Main street, beyond Seventh, was a mere road nearly impassable in muddy weather which, at the foot of the hills, divided into two, called the Hamilton and the Mad-river road. The former took the course of the Brighton House; the latter made a steep ascent over Mount Auburn."
    
    Of a later road on Harmar's Trace we have this record: "1795 Road laid out from Main Street, Cincinnati, northeast nearly on Harmar's trace (six miles) to the road connecting Columbia and White's Station [Upper Carthage]" (History of Hamilton County, p. 223).
16. Lick Schoolhouse, Deerfield Township, Warren County?
17. History of Warren County (Chicago, 1882), p. 410.
18. Josiah Morrow offers this correction for future editions of Armstrong's Journal: "The printed journal of Armstrong's makes the first ten miles of the third day in a northwest course. Even if this be understood as meaning west of north, it would take the army to the west of West Chester in Butler County. If we assume northwest to be an error for northeast, 'the first five miles over a dry ridge to a lick' would bring the army to the lick at Lick School-house in Deerfield township, Warren county; and the next 'five miles through a low swampy country to a branch of the waters of the Little Miami' would be over the swampy land of early times in the vicinity of Mason, and there is a tradition that the army stopped for a time on Little Muddy creek, on the farm formerly owned by Joseph McClung, north of Mason."
19. MSS. in possession of Josiah Morrow, Lebanon, Ohio.
20. A western tributary of the Little Miami, down which Harmar is supposed to have marched to Fish-pot Ford, was formerly known as Harmar's Run.
21. Armstrong's printed Journal reads Sugar Creek for Cæsar's Creek. Either this was an older name or the result of a typographical error. As the name Cæsar comes from a negro who resided here with the Indians, it is probable that, as Josiah Morrow assumes, "the soldier wrote Seezar or Seizar, which the printer mistook for Sugar."
22. A station on the Big Four Railway, twelve miles northeast of Troy.
23. In General Wayne's campaign in 1794 a trace known as "Harmar's Trace" was crossed just south of the St. Mary River in Mercer County (see p. 207). If Harmar recrossed the St. Mary and proceeded south of the river to "Shane's Crossing" (Rockford, Mercer County) this is the only record of it.
24. The Irwin MS. account of the operations of the army on the Maumee is intensely vivid, and, though incomplete, should be preserved in lasting form. It will be found in Appendix C.