LITTLE TURTLE, OR MICHIKINIQUA: THE MIAMI CONQUEROR OF HARMAR AND ST. CLAIR
Very few Indian warriors have ever defeated the forces of whites sent against them more than once. Nor have many of them exhibited the same talent for warfare that the English have shown. The red man has never cared for discipline or tactics, and has usually fought his battles in a haphazard manner. But there has been one chieftain who has the distinction of having defeated two separate armies of Colonists, with numbers about equal to his own braves. Judged from these successes in battle, and from his sagacity in the council chamber, Little Turtle, a Miami warrior, deserves a position of particular prominence among the American red men of distinction.
When the American Revolution came to an end, the Mississippi River was the western boundary of the United States. Long after the conclusion of peace, the British retained possession of several posts within the limits of the property ceded to the Colonists in the northern portion of the State of New York, and in Ohio and Illinois. These log fortresses became rallying points for the Indians who disliked the Americans, and who, as the tide of emigration swept westward, determined to check it. Although the British no longer fought against the Colonists, they sometimes supplied the hungry savages with rations, and sustained by these the Indians were aggressive, insolent, and sullen. The newly formed Government of the United States made strenuous attempts to pacify the wild tribes, and, for the most part, was successful. But the Miami and Wabash braves, under the leadership of Little Turtle, Blue Jacket and Buckongahelas, formed a strong confederation of Wyandots, Pottawattamies, Chippewas, Ottawas, Shawnees, Delawares and Miamis, who resolved to stop all white men from coming into their territory. Thirty years before, these same tribes had united under the leadership of Pontiac, and, although having a temporary success against the whites, had finally been defeated, as we have seen.
Exposed cabins and small settlements of the whites were continually burned by the red men, and the adventurous pioneers were slain whenever there was no assistance near by. Flatboats upon the Ohio River were never safe from Indian attacks, and had to run by hidden redskins on the banks. Frequently they were sunk by the enemy, although they had bullet-proof sides.... Attempts to conciliate the savages were met with insults, and, so in September, 1791, the President of the United States directed an army to march into the country of the Indians and defeat them.
In command of the American troops was General Harmar, an able leader and an aggressive campaigner. At Fort Washington, where Cincinnati now stands, he gathered a force of three hundred and twenty regulars and about twelve hundred militiamen, mostly untrained woodsmen with little experience in border warfare. Little Turtle was the most active leader among those who opposed the invasion of the Ohio territory. He won his position of chief at an early age by his skill and bravery, for he possessed both in a marked degree. His intelligence was very similar to that of his white adversaries. His knowledge of the proper way to fight in the tangled underbrush of the Ohio woodland was supreme. His portrait exhibits a face in which quickness and keenness of intellect are strongly marked. His piercing black eyes look defiantly at the spectator and burn with the fire of ambition and resolution. He possessed every qualification for a leader of the wild denizens of the Ohio country, and indulging in the gloomy apprehension that the whites would overtop and finally uproot his race, he was strong in his denunciation of the Americans, and in his desire to annihilate them.
On September 13, 1791, the troops under General Harmar pushed into the Indian country, and soon reached the villages of the Miamis. These were deserted, so they were burned, the cornfields were cut down, and the army camped upon the ground. On the next day an Indian trail was discovered, so Harmar ordered one hundred and fifty militiamen and thirty regulars, with their officers, to push on ahead and defeat the hostiles.
LITTLE TURTLE, OR MICHIKINIQUA.
Captain Armstrong, in charge of this expedition, was a man of experience in border warfare, but he allowed his entire command to walk into an ambush. The troops were hot upon the Indian trail, when a sudden wail from the forest was followed by the loud report of a rifle on the right of the skirmish line. Immediately a chorus of horrible yells arose from every quarter, and before the Americans fully realized it they were surrounded by a ring of spitting rifles. Men fell over each other in confusion, and terrified by the suddenness of the onslaught the militia broke ranks and fled. Armstrong, himself, was knocked into a mire, and sinking up to his neck in the bog was unable to take part in the fighting. He could only see the terrible slaughter among the regulars, all of whom were either killed or disabled. And later on he saw the Indians holding a savage war dance among the bodies of the slain.
Dragging himself out of the swamp at dark, the mud-bespattered leader crept back to Harmar's camp, while the doleful wails of the savages sounded loud in the inky blackness. And when he arrived he found that the American General had enough of Turtle's tactics to suit him, apparently for all time. At any rate he broke camp and retreated towards the settlements, until he arrived near the ruined villages of the Miamis. Here he ordered a halt and sent Colonel Hardin back towards the Indians with only sixty regulars and three hundred militiamen. These last were pretty poor specimens of soldiers, as they had, for the most part, been recruited in the Eastern states from men of no experience whatever in woodland fighting. They were undisciplined, untrained, and unaccustomed to the frontier. Many had gone out to fight in order to escape from legal difficulties at home. Their ability to cope with the watchful enemy was about equal to that of General Braddock's troops at Fort Duquesne, and they met with about the same fate.
Hardin had no sooner arrived at the place he had been directed to go to, when a small body of Miami Indians advanced to meet his troops. These, by yelling and firing, soon attracted the volleys of his own men. As the militiamen advanced, the redskins broke into several bands, and, appearing to be panic-stricken, fled down a long gulley. In a twinkling the militia started in pursuit, and were hurrying after the yelping braves, when suddenly a vast number of warriors beset the sixty regulars on all sides. Little Turtle directed the fighting, and, realizing that his greater number could soon annihilate the entire command, ordered a rush upon the soldiers of the new Republic, who had now formed a hollow square back to back, with bayonets at the ends of their long muskets. But the Indians fought like demons; rushed headlong against the glittering steel; and throwing their tomahawks at the soldiers, struck down those in front, while the others were soon overpowered by the vastly superior forces of the enemy. The militia, meanwhile, came straggling back from their pursuit of the decoy Indians, and for a short while made a fierce attack upon the savages. But now realizing that the regulars were all killed, and being unaccustomed to frontier fighting, they lost heart completely and retreated. Ten regulars got away with the mass of fugitives, and the dead were left as a prey to the wolves and other animals of the wild wood.
Elated by their success, the Indians, under Little Turtle and the other leaders, now continued their depredations upon the frontier with greater audacity than ever. Harmar retreated to Fort Washington, was courtmartialed, and was honorably acquitted, but immediately resigned his commission. His personal conduct in the battles had been brave, and he claimed a victory, because the warriors of Little Turtle had not followed him up after the fight. Certainly he had made the campaign in an extraordinary manner, for never had he met the Indians with his entire force intact. By splitting his command he had weakened it badly, and thus the savages had been able to overpower the separate detachments of his army. To the sagacity of Little Turtle can be laid the Indian victory, for his was the mind that had planned the ambuscade, and he was the one who had given personal direction to the annihilation of the regulars.
George Washington, who was then President of the Republic, was mortified by this series of defeats to his army, and the situation was now so grave that Congress ordered the organization of a new force to punish the savages. The Governor of the Northwest Territory, General Arthur St. Clair, was put in command of fully two thousand men and was directed to wipe out the defeat of Harmar, by administering a crushing blow to the followers of Little Turtle. Before he set out upon his journey into the wilderness, President Washington called him to Philadelphia and warned him to guard against surprise by the Indians. "You have," said he, "your instructions from the Secretary of War. The Indians have a leader of great bravery in Little Turtle, and have proven that they can fight with great strength. You know that they lay many ambuscades. Beware of a surprise! I repeat it. Beware of a surprise!" With these words of counsel ringing in his ears, St. Clair left for Fort Washington, arriving there in May, 1791.
The leader of the American forces was a man of considerable age, and was afflicted with gout and rheumatism. In the war of the Revolution he had exhibited no particular talent, but he possessed undoubted courage. He had soon collected two small regiments of regular infantrymen and some six months' levies of militia, whose pay was two dollars and ten cents a month for privates, and thirty dollars for captains. The militiamen were utterly untrained in border warfare, and their officers had had little experience, but the regular troops were well used to Indian campaigns. There were two small batteries of light guns and a few cavalrymen to swell the fighting force, which amounted in all to about two thousand warriors.
The levies of raw troops were gathered together at Fort Hamilton, twenty-five miles north from Fort Washington, and from this place an advance was begun into the Indian country on October 4th. The little army stumbled slowly through the deep woods and across the open places, cutting out its own road and making about five or six miles a day. As the wild beasts of the forest were plentiful, frequently both deer and bear were slaughtered, and venison helped to sustain the strength of the men. Halting to build another fort, christened in honor of Thomas Jefferson, the army again pressed into the country of the hostiles, while the scouts occasionally interchanged shots with parties of skulking braves. Now and again a militiaman would disappear, showing that the savages were closely watching the movements of the column, while numerous desertions cut the force down from its original numbers to fourteen hundred men. Snow was on the ground, the wintry woods surrounded the Americans with a bleak and awful silence, the sickness of St. Clair made it impossible for him to command in person, and had it not been for the efforts of the Adjutant General, Colonel Winthrop Sargent, an old Revolutionary officer, the expedition would have failed ingloriously, even before the Indians had been reached.
But now the army of invasion neared the Miami settlements, where the redskins were making busy preparation to give the Americans a warm reception. They had met in a grand war council, at which the plan of attack had been decided upon, and various tribes had been given positions in the line. Little Turtle was to be Commander-in-Chief, so he made a rousing speech, telling the Indians to fight to the last ditch, to attack the militia in preference to the regular troops, and to rush the enemy in such masses that they would be overwhelmed. An ambuscade was decided upon where the ground was most favorable to the savages, and here Little Turtle pointed out the proper positions which he wished the various warlike bands to assume. The intelligent Miami chief was not to take any position in the line of battle, but was to direct the operations from the rear, like a white general, and thus the Indians displayed more foresight than usual; foresight which was to tell with tremendous effect upon the illy disciplined frontier detachments under St. Clair.
On November 3rd, the army of invasion camped upon the eastern fork of the Wabash River, upon a narrow hillock, where the troops were somewhat crowded together, with the artillery and cavalrymen in the centre. Around them was boggy, swampy ground, while all about the wintry woods in frozen silence gave no warning of the savage foe, lurking beneath the underbrush in vindictive anger.
The militiamen were marched well to the front, nearly a quarter of a mile beyond the rest of the troops, and there went into camp, while several bands of savages seen in the gloomy woods made them fully aware that they were in touch with the foe.
At sunrise, next morning, the soldiers were up and doing, and, as they were dismissed from parade, St. Clair sent orders that some entrenchments should be thrown up before they marched against the Miami towns, which he knew to be not far distant. Just as these orders reached the commander of this advance guard, a blood-curdling yell sounded from the woodland in front. Another and another followed, and then a volley of musketry flashed from the dense underbrush. A second volley followed the first, the militiamen could see no foe, while many of their comrades were soon writhing upon the ground in mortal agony. Some endeavored to fight, but the majority, terrified by the sudden and unexpected onslaught, turned and rushed in a wild panic back to the camp of the regulars. In vain the officers tried to stop the retreat; the men dashed past them like cowards, and precipitating themselves among the regular troops, spread dismay and confusion among them. The veterans sprang to arms, while the drums rolled the call to quarters. As the painted braves came bounding through the underbrush, they were met with a crashing volley from the old campaigners, which halted their mad career. They stopped, crouched down behind the brush and fallen timber, and soon surrounded the camp on all sides. The pickets were either killed or driven in upon the centre; while wild yells, cries of defiance, and savage catcalls issued from the followers of Little Turtle.
But now the battle was on in earnest, and the Indians ceased their cries to creep from log to log, from tree to tree, and closer to the American line. The deep boom of the cannon reverberated through the forest, as the regulars turned their pieces against the foe. The soldiers foolishly stood in close order, and, as they were in the open, they were a shining mark for the balls of the Indians. Men fell dead and wounded upon every side; the lines began to waver and break, while St. Clair and Butler walked behind their men, urging them to be cool, and to hold their own without flinching. St. Clair's blanket, coat and leggins were pierced by eight bullets; a lock of his gray hair was clipped off by a ball; yet he came through the battle unscathed. Butler had less good fortune. His arm was broken by a leaden missile; another struck him in the side, so that he had to be carried to the centre of the line. Here, propped up upon knapsacks, he directed the fighting with grim good humor until, in one of the Indian charges, a painted warrior broke through the American line and buried his tomahawk in his brain.
The cannon kept up their fire, but the savages turned their unerring rifles upon the gunners, and soon had killed nearly every one of them. When they saw the men lying upon the ground, they took courage, and with a wild yelping made a charge from the woodland in the endeavor to capture the pieces. But now the Americans could see the skulking foe, and with bayonets fixed, made a dash into the oncoming horde of painted braves. The Indians did not wait to receive the blow, but, turning about, scurried helter-skelter to the protection of the forest, into which the victorious rangers ran in great enthusiasm. This was shortlived, for the redskins quickly surrounded them in the rear, poured in a galling fire from behind the protection of stumps and logs, and, before they could get back to their own line, had killed one-half of those who had charged them. One detachment rushed across the Wabash in pursuit of the Indians, and, before the men returned to the American line, nearly all had been slaughtered. The dead were lying about in heaps; the tomahawks of the Indians dispatched every man who was breathing; while, as one of the packers has written in his memoirs, "the bleeding heads of the scalped artillerymen and rangers looked like pumpkins in a December cornfield on the farm in Pennsylvania."
The fight had now lasted all day, and the American army had begun to realize that it was impossible to defeat the bloodthirsty followers of Little Turtle, who, emboldened by the disorganization in the ranks of the white men, now pushed in upon them from every quarter. It was five o'clock in the evening when the ranks began to give away. The camp and artillery were abandoned. Most of the militia threw away their arms and accoutrements. St. Clair in vain endeavored to stem the torrent of the rout. Horses, soldiers, and the few camp followers and women who had accompanied the army were all mixed together in a confusion of panic-stricken uselessness. But out of the rabble St. Clair managed to get enough men together to charge the savages, who held the roadway in the rear, to push them aside, and make room for the torrent of fugitives who now ran for their lives towards Fort Jefferson. The troops pressed on like a drove of bullocks. They stampeded; they fled ignominiously; while in their rear the wild wail of jubilation from the victorious red men sounded harshly from the dark background of the frozen forest. St. Clair, like Braddock, had been overwhelmingly repulsed.
From the moment of retreat until sunset the yelping redskins followed the panic-stricken Americans. Thirty-eight officers and five hundred and ninety-three men were slain or missing, while twenty-one officers and two hundred and forty-two men were wounded, many of whom died soon afterwards, so that practically two-thirds of the entire force of fourteen hundred were either lost or disabled. What a terrible defeat! What a humiliating blow! And all through the sagacity and ability of Little Turtle, Chief of the Miamis, the man with a red skin who organized and led an Indian army in a manner equal to the best of white leaders. Fortunate, indeed, was it that the Indians stopped to plunder the camp of the Americans, for, had they kept on, it is probable that only a few stragglers would have lived to tell the tale of the awful butchery. "Five hundred skull bones lay in the space of three hundred and fifty yards," said an American general, who visited the battle ground not many months after the defeat. "From thence, five miles on, the woods were strewn with skeletons, muskets, broken wagons, knapsacks and other debris." The loss to Little Turtle's men has never been ascertained, but it is certain that his dead and missing were not proportionate to those of St. Clair.
At Fort Jefferson the most severely wounded were left, while the rest of the troops, in fear and utter disorganization, hurried forward to Fort Washington and the log huts of Cincinnati. Here they huddled in security, cursing their ill fortune, their losses, and the Indians. An American officer who ran into a party of thirty braves near the battle ground a day or two after the defeat (and who was held by them until he persuaded them that he was an Englishman from Canada), was told that the troops under Little Turtle numbered but fifteen hundred, and that the number of killed was fifty-six. One of these warriors dangled one hundred and twenty-seven American scalps on a pole before his eyes, while they had three pack horses laden with as much wine and kegs of brandy as could be strapped to their backs. The savages were all much emboldened by their great victory, and numerous raids upon the border showed that they were more unfriendly to the whites than ever.
It was six weeks before the Federal authorities and General Washington knew of this catastrophe. Denny, a young Lieutenant, carried word of the defeat by horse to Philadelphia, where was then the seat of Federal Government. Washington was at dinner with company when the news of the disaster reached him, and, with an apology to his guests, left the table to receive it. He shortly returned and resumed his chair without any allusion to the incident. At ten o'clock the guests departed and left the President alone with his secretary, Mr. Lear. The General walked slowly backward and forward for a considerable length of time in silence; then taking a seat on the sofa near the fire, he told Mr. Lear to sit down. The latter had not noticed that the great man was extremely agitated, when he suddenly broke out with: "It's all over! St. Clair is defeated! routed, the officers nearly all killed, the men by wholesale, the rout complete, too shocking to think of, and a surprise into the bargain!" He made these remarks with great vehemence; then pausing and rising from the sofa, he walked up and down the room in silence, violently agitated, but saying nothing. When near the door he stopped short, stood still for a few moments, and then again exploded with wrath:
"Yes," he thundered. "Here, on this very spot, I took leave of him; I wished him success and honor. 'You have your instructions from the Secretary of War,' said I, 'I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word, Beware of a Surprise! You know how the Indians fight us. I repeat it, Beware of a Surprise!' He went off with that, my last warning, thrown into his ears. And yet! To suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked by a surprise, the very thing I guarded him against. O God! O God!" exclaimed the agitated President, throwing up his hands, while his very frame shook with emotion. "He's worse than a murderer! How can he answer to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him, the curse of widows and orphans, the curse of heaven!"
Mr. Lear remained speechless; awed into breathless silence by the appalling tone in which the torrent of invective was poured forth. The paroxysm passed by, and Washington sank down upon the sofa, silent, with bowed head, as if conscious of the ungovernable burst of passion which had overcome him. "This must not go beyond this room," said he, at length, in a subdued and altered tone. Then in a quiet, low voice he added: "General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked hastily through the dispatches; saw the whole disaster; but not all the particulars. I will receive him with displeasure; I will hear him without prejudice; he shall have full justice!"
Thus, in due time, St. Clair presented himself before Washington, and, although fearful of the reception which he would receive, he was earnestly and respectfully listened to by the President. The overwhelming nature of his defeat had been due to his incompetence, to his inability to teach the raw troops how to fight, Indian-fashion, before he began his march against the followers of Little Turtle, and to his failure to send out proper scouts.
Although deeply chagrined by the defeat, Congress did not sit idle, and soon made preparations for another army of Indian fighters. The chief command this time was intrusted to "Mad Anthony" Wayne, the hero of Stony Point, and a man to whom the smell of burning powder was as champagne. He not only loved a good fight, but he knew how to handle men, how to gain their confidence, and how to whip raw levies into excellent fighting material. He accepted the command only on condition that he be given plenty of time to drill and equip his troops. The Indians, themselves, appreciated his worth. He was called "The Black Snake" by them, because he was supposed to possess the superior cunning of this reptile, and to be able to creep through the forest like the moccasin. His choice to the chief command of the army was soon to be justified by results. Yet two years elapsed from the time of St. Clair's dreadful defeat before Wayne attempted to press through the wilderness into the land of the Miamis.
During these two years numerous petty forays were made by the Indians against the border settlements. Little Turtle was in some of these, and in November, 1792, made a violent attack upon a detachment of Kentucky volunteers near Fort St. Clair on the frontier. A stubborn battle was waged all day, at the end of which, Major Marshall (who commanded the American rangers) was driven pellmell into the fort (about half a mile) with the loss of six killed, the camp equipage taken, and one hundred and forty pack horses secured by the Miami and Shawnee braves. The Indians lost but two men. Again in June, 1794, this now much-dreaded Little Turtle was in an attack upon Fort Recovery, in which he exhibited masterful strategy, and in which a large detachment of American rangers, under Major McMahon, was cut to pieces and stampeded. Repeated efforts were made by the American Government to secure a treaty of peace with the Miami warrior, but to all overtures he turned a deaf ear. "We will hold our own country for our own people," said he. "Indian land is for the Indian. The white man must go away."
But the white man, as usual, would not go away. Instead, he came on with renewed courage, resources, and determination. Little Turtle warned his warriors that they must prepare for another struggle, and counselled them to practice evolutions and warfare. They paid little attention to these commands. "There are more long knives under the Great Snake than have ever come against us before," said he. "They are led by the best general of all the palefaces. Would it not be well if we made a treaty of peace and lived in friendly relations to these invaders?"
"No, no," shouted his hearers. "We will fight! Lead us again into battle, let your heart not shrink at the numbers of the long knives. We can defeat them! We will leave them for the wolves to feast on, even as we left the men of St. Clair's army. We will fight!" So the far-seeing chieftain of the Miamis had to again lead his supposedly invincible warriors against the foe.
When the bleaching skeletons of St. Clair's men had been buried in the dense forest, Wayne erected the fort, called Fort Recovery, and then, pressing onward through the Indian country, he built another big fortress, called Fort Defiance, at the confluence of the Au-Glaize and Miami rivers. He had two thousand regulars and eleven hundred Kentucky horsemen with him, the latter being well used to border warfare, and excellent woodsmen. Then, the soldiers all liked the Commander-in-Chief and had full confidence in his ability, which gave them an esprit de corps, without which no army can accomplish anything. Wayne, himself, was at the furthermost post when the attack was made upon Fort Recovery by the savages, under Little Turtle, and three weeks after this he pressed forward against the Miami towns. Determined to avoid the fate of Braddock and St. Clair, he kept his force always in open order and ready for the fray, while scouts hovered continually on his flanks and front. Every night breastworks of fallen trees were thrown up around his camps so that the savages could not "rush" the soldiers. "The paleface takes his army twice as far in a day as did St. Clair," said the Indian scouts who watched his advance. "He has men out on every side and it will be impossible to ambush him. We must fight and fight hard against this Big Serpent, for he means to win." Small parties of friendly Chickasaw or Choctaw Indians threaded the forest miles in advance of the marching army. White Indian fighters assisted them in watching the Miami and other hostiles, and thus, like a huge wolf of the woods, the army of "Mad Anthony" Wayne crept silently, stealthily, and ominously towards the villages of the unfriendly redskins.
Wayne had sent an offer of peace to the followers of Little Turtle from Fort Defiance, and had summoned them to dispatch deputies to meet him. The letter was carried by Christopher Miller and a Shawnee prisoner, and in it the American general said: "Miller is a Shawnee by adoption whom my soldiers captured six months ago, and the Shawnee warrior was taken two days ago. I have taken several Indians prisoner and they have been treated well. They will be put to death if Miller is harmed." When, therefore, these envoys arrived at the camp of Little Turtle, the Indians were afraid to kill them, but they endeavored to delay their answer and would not send back a reply. So the now determined "Mad Anthony" advanced against them immediately and laid waste the cornfields which the Miamis had planted, and which lay in the route of his troops.
Soon the ever-ready frontiersmen burst through the woodland near the Maumee rapids, only a few miles below a British fort, called Fort Maumee, well garrisoned and well supplied. A rough breastwork was constructed to protect the American stores and baggage, and scouts were sent forward to view the position of the followers of Little Turtle. Between fifteen hundred and two thousand warriors with seventy rangers from Detroit, composed of French, English and refugee Americans, were in force near the walls of the English stockade. The Indians were Shawnees, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Pottawattamies, Chippewas and Iroquois. They lay in a place called Fallen Timbers, because the wind had here blown down the trees of the forest and had piled them up in dense rows. It was an excellent place for defense, and Little Turtle had shown his sagacity in selecting it. With confidence the painted warriors waited for the attack, as they knew that their position was a good one, and despised the Americans, whom they had so signally routed under St. Clair. Their line was about two miles in length and all were well armed.
As General Wayne scanned the Indian position, he quickly made up his mind how to attack it. "The dragoons will advance upon the right flank," he directed. "The regular cavalry will move up on the left flank near the river. The infantry will form in two lines in the centre, and will first fire, and then charge the red vermin with the bayonet. The mounted volunteers will move over far to the left and will turn the right flank of the savages. As soon as all are ready, attack and wipe out St. Clair's ignominious rout!" The subordinate officers received his orders with enthusiasm and when all were prepared, in extended order, the whole line moved out for the fray.
In the centre of Wayne's troops was a small force of mounted volunteers—Kentucky militiamen—and they were well in advance of the two lines of infantrymen. With a wild yell, a mass of savages jumped up from the protection of the fallen trees, rushed upon the oncoming riflemen, and soon drove them back into the advancing infantry. But this success was not lasting. A volley of well-aimed bullets checked their howling advance, and, with a dogged persistence, the rangers crept on upon the savages, reserving their fire by strict orders from their beloved "Mad Anthony." As they came forward, the Indians leaped up to deliver their fire, and, when they did so, the Americans poured a galling volley into their ranks, then, fixing bayonets, rushed precipitously upon them before they had time to load. As they charged, the cavalrymen, with hoarse cheers, galloped their rawboned steeds into the left flank of the Indian line. Their horses jumped across the fallen logs, and in an instant they were in the midst of the naked braves, slashing to the right and left with their keen swords, and cutting down all who stood in their way.
"Hah!" exclaimed General Wayne, rubbing his hands. "They give! They fall back! They run! The day is ours!" As he spoke a galloping aide came panting to his side. "Captain Campbell is killed," said he, "and Captain Van Rensselaer is down, but Lieutenant Covington is leading the dragoons, and they are driving the redskins before them like a crowd of sheep."
He spoke only too truthfully, for unable to stand up against the slashing charge, the red men broke and fled before the enthusiastic troopers of "Mad Anthony" Wayne. When the painted and half-naked braves attempted to make a stand, they were knocked down with ease. The second line of infantrymen did not cross the fallen timber in time to get a shot at the disappearing warriors of Little Turtle. On the left flank, the horse-riflemen had nothing to charge when they galloped into the thickets, for the unvaliant red warriors had vanished. About a hundred braves lay dead and dying upon the field. Mixed in among them were a few of the white renegades who had joined them. The action had lasted but forty minutes, and the defeats of Harmar and St. Clair had been forever vindicated.
For two miles the now excited Americans rushed after the vaunted warriors of the frontier, who had adopted the ancient motto: "He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day." The fugitives dashed up to the walls of the British fort and implored admittance, but the garrison greeted their request with curses, and bolted the doorway in their faces. So they were forced to rush off into the dense woodland. "Burn everything up to the walls of the fort," commanded General Wayne. "Cut down the crops of the Indians, destroy their villages, level the houses of the British agents and traders to the sod. I want to give this Little Turtle and his men a lesson which they will never cease to remember!" The British commander in Fort Maumee vigorously protested against this, but Wayne summoned him to abandon his stockades, which he, of course, refused, and, not daring to interfere, saw the homes of his Indian allies soon blazing and covered with a pall of thick, black vapor. The work of destruction was quickly over, and the victorious American army was on its way back to Fort Defiance.
The troops went into winter quarters at Greenville, while the Indians were severely disheartened by their defeat. Their anger was intense against the British, for these people had goaded them on to war, had given them material aid, and, as soon as the fortune of battle went against them, had abandoned them to their fate. Starvation and hunger were rampant, as their homes, crop and stores of provisions had been completely destroyed. Their cattle, and even their dogs, had died, and, as the British in Fort Maumee would give them no food, they sent envoy after envoy to the Americans to exchange prisoners, and to promise that, in the spring, they would make peace. All the leaders now recognized that it was time to make terms with Wayne, and many now appreciated that they should have listened to the counsel of Little Turtle, before the exasperating defeat at the Fallen Timbers. On February 11th, the Shawnees, Delawares and Miamis entered into a preliminary treaty with General Wayne, and in the summer of 1795 made a definite peace at Greenville. "Elder Brother," said a Chippewa chief, "you asked me 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 had conquered it."
Thus another step westward was made by the whites, and another war had added thousands of square miles of territory to the people of the United States. The survival of the most fit was evident, for, had the red men possessed the same mental characteristics which the whites possessed, they would have beaten not two armies, but three armies. This small difference of ability had made them the submitting nation, while the powerful Anglo-Saxons now pushed their civilization into the unbroken forest, soon killed off all the game, built smoky cities, railroads, and steamboats; cut down all the timber, grew corn, oats and potatoes, and utilized the resources of the soil to its utmost capacity.
Little Turtle settled on Eel River about twenty miles from Fort Wayne, where the American troops built him a comfortable house. He made frequent visits to Philadelphia and Washington, and was made much of by the agents, who appreciated his worth. But this destroyed, for a time, at least, his influence among the people of his own color, who suspected his honesty and envied his good fortune. He, therefore, often opposed the desires of the United States Government in order to regain his popularity with his red brethren. No prisoner had ever been tortured by his warriors, as he opposed this brutal practice. Nor would he allow captives to be burned at the stake. With energy he devoted himself to the spread of temperance among the members of his own tribe, for he saw the awful results which bad whiskey had upon the once warlike braves. "These white traders strip the poor Indians of skins, gun, blanket, everything, while his squaw and the children dependent upon him be starving in his wigwam," said he. "My people barter away their best treasures for the white man's miserable firewater."
Greatly respected and deeply interested in the problems among his own people, Little Turtle spent his declining years. When asked one day why he did not live in Philadelphia instead of in his cabin on the Wabash, he replied: "I admit that you whites live better than do we red men, but I could not live with you because I am as a deaf and dumb man. I cannot talk your language. When I walk through the city streets I see every person in his shop employed at something. One makes shoes, another makes hats, a third sells cloth, and everyone lives by his labor. I say to myself, 'Which of these things can you do?' Not one. I can make a bow or an arrow, catch fish, kill game, and go to war, but none of these are any good here. To learn what is done in Philadelphia would require a long time. Old age is coming on me; I should be a piece of furniture among the whites, useless to them, useless to myself. I must return to my own country."
What he said of old age coming on was only too true. Not long afterwards he came to his death on the turf of the open camp, and with the composure which characterizes his race. He was buried at Fort Wayne with all the honors of war, and, it is said, was about seventy years of age at the time of his departure to the Happy Hunting Grounds: those fields of elysian bliss of which the old Indian poets have told in song and story. Courageous, kind, far-seeing, eloquent, well-balanced, the memory of Little Turtle yet stirs the hearts of his few descendants, who look back upon his career with satisfaction and high regard.
Courtesy of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institute.
TECUMSEH.