No other officers are named as possible candidates for a position no one could possibly desire. As the list stands, it forms a startling refutation of the oft repeated saying that though drinking was common in the old days it was not carried to excess. The problem with Washington seems to have been, speaking mildly, to find a responsible man with a clear head. His decision at first seems to have wavered between Lincoln and Moultrie; under these men as major-generals, Wayne, Morgan, and Wilkinson might serve as brigadiers. What may have induced the final decision cannot be stated definitely, but the command was at last offered to Brevet Major-general “Mad” Anthony Wayne and it was accepted. Brevet Brigadier-generals Wilkinson and Thomas Posey were second in active command. Major-general Scott was to command fifteen hundred mounted Kentucky militia.
As with Washington, so with Wayne, the most serious task was to choose his officers from the recruits which early in 1792 were hurried on to Pittsburg to defend the frontier under the dashing hero of Stony Point—Wayne’s appointment having been well received everywhere save in Virginia and Kentucky. If the army was to be disciplined “according to the nature of the service”—Indian-fighting—Indian-fighters must do the training. “We will be under the necessity,” wrote Wayne to Knox from Pittsburg, “of discharging many of the men—who never were—nor never will be fit for service, they are at present a nuisance to the Legion & a useless expense to the publick.... You may rest assured I will carefully guard against improper appointments or recommendations—we shall have some difficulty before we can purge the Legion of Characters who never were fit for Officers.”[129] Such administrative ability as this was the very thing needed on the frontier; it drove from the gathering army many useless characters and made possible the encouragement and promotion of such valuable men as Lieutenant William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame), Eaton, and William Henry Harrison. The fine spirit of Wayne infused courage throughout the frontier and made men eager to serve and win promotion, though sometimes “without shoez or shirts called upon to do the hardest duty & 7 mo. pay due—while they have not money to buy a chew of tobacco.”[130]
One of the most interesting manuscripts now extant of Wayne, his army, its marches and battles, is preserved in the library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Its author was no less a personage than Brigadier-general Thomas Posey, associated with General Wilkinson as second in command of the army. General Posey’s journal continually emphasizes the human element in the scenes through which he passed, and frequent side-lights from this hitherto unused source will be introduced in this narrative.[131] Posey reached Pittsburg on August 2. “As we passed through the upper part of Virginia,” he leaves record of the journey across the mountains, “the people would often say what a pitty, such a likely parcel of young men were Going to be Slaughtered by the indians as Genl St Clair’s army was.” One of the most striking observations of Pittsburg was the ominous statement, “at least one half of the People of Pittsburg are in mourning for Genl Richard Butler.” Throughout the summer the gathering troops remained at Pittsburg while rigid examinations and drilling exercises were begun. On November 28 the army moved down the Ohio to a distance of seven miles above Fort McIntosh at the mouth of Beaver Creek and twenty-two miles below Pittsburg; this place was accordingly named Legionville. Here, “out of the reach of whisky, which baneful poison is prohibited from entering this camp,” as Wayne wrote the Secretary of War,[132] winter quarters were established, houses for the soldiers being erected first and those for officers afterward. Severe daily drilling was the order of the day at Legionville, the result of which, though delayed, was sure.
While Wayne was whipping an army into shape on the upper Ohio two events were on the tapis at opposite corners of the Black Forest of the West to which the officials at Philadelphia were paying much heed. At Vincennes, on the twentieth of September, Putnam was scheduled to meet the delegates of the Wabash Nations for a treaty of peace, and early in October the commissioners from the Six Nations were to meet the chiefs of the disaffected northwestern tribes at the mouth of the Auglaize on the broad Maumee. At Vincennes Putnam accomplished all that could have been expected, and a treaty was signed by thirty-one Wabash chiefs on September 27. The treaty, finally, was not ratified by the United States Senate because of an objectionable clause which was not compatible with the law of eminent domain.[133]
Where Defiance, Ohio, now stands, flanked by its two rivers, one of the most unique conventions in our history assembled as the autumn winds stirred the forests. From the east, Cornplanter and a stately retinue of forty-eight chiefs of the Six Nations proceeded to “Au Glaize.” From even the far-away Canadian Nations emissaries arrived. When at last the famous convention assembled, and the pipe passed from chieftain to chieftain, two speakers, only, addressed the assembly. Red Jacket spoke for the Senecas and the delegation from the Iroquois land. A Shawanese chieftain, whose name was not recorded, answered on the part of the hostile tribes. His words were a bold rebuke to the Six Nations for maintaining friendship with the United States. “... although you consider us your younger brothers,” sneered the Shawanese, “your seats are not at such a distance, but what we can see your conduct plainly; these are the reasons why we consider you to speak from the outside of your lips; for whenever you hear the voice of the United States, you immediately take your packs and attend their councils.... We see plainly folded under your arm the voice of the United States—wish you to unfold it to us, that we may see it freely and consult on it.” So saying he threw a triple string of wampum across the fire to the Senecas rather than handing it across in a friendly way. That Philadelphia conference of last March did not please the western tribes.
In turn the Seneca sketched the story of the French and English domination and of the birth of the United States, which, he said, desired peace with the confederated Indians. The Shawanese repeated the story of St. Clair’s disaster of the year before and asserted that the Indians claimed certain lands east of the Ohio and all lands west of that river. Those to the eastward would be given up for proper compensation. In reply to the Seneca’s desire to bring about a treaty with the hostile nations, the Shawanese replied: “Inform General Washington we will treat with him, at the Rapids of Miami, next spring, or at the time when the leaves are fully out.... We will lay the bloody tomahawk aside, until we hear from the President of the United States....”[134] Cornplanter returned eastward with his delegation and the reports of the convention were hurried on to Philadelphia with the ominous hint that no boundary would ever be consented to by the northwestern Indians save only the Ohio River. The message as it spread across the Alleghenies brought dark days and anxious nights to cabins on the thin fringe of pioneer settlements from the Muskingum to the Miami.
As the winter winds came down from the north, two of the spies sent out from Fort Washington came in from the forests—May from Niagara and Reynolds from Montreal. Leaving Fort Hamilton, May crossed St. Clair’s battlefield; beyond, in Harmar’s trail, he found Trueman and two other men killed and scalped; captured, he was saved from death by Simon Girty and sold to Matthew Elliott, in whose employ he labored on the lakes. In numerous instances he identified scalps of friends, in particular that of Colonel Hardin. In September Girty had gone on a raiding expedition to “Fallentimber” between Forts St. Clair and Hamilton to capture horses, saying that he would “do every mischief in his power” and “raise hell to prevent a peace.”[135] Reuben Reynolds, after varied experiences, came down from Montreal through the Vermont forests to Philadelphia, where his deposition was taken by Washington’s secretary, Lear, October 19. The Lake Superior Indians had joined the confederacy and “they expected to have three thousand or three thousand five hundred Indians in the field against the Americans.”[136] May, with equally exaggerated reports, affirmed that there were “3,600 warriors” at the Auglaize River.[137] Not long after this Wayne entertained at his camp at Legionville several of the chiefs of the Allegheny, Cornplanter, New Arrow, Big Tree, and Guasutha. Pointing to the Ohio from where he sat, one of them—according to Posey’s journal—said: “My Heart & mind is fixed on that River & may that water Continue to run & remain the boundary of everlasting Peice, between the white & Red People on its opposite shores.”
Few who had been watching the western situation believed but that spring would bring war. The Indians did not even keep the promised truce. Major Adair, encamped beside the “Bloody Way” within sight of Fort St. Clair, was murderously attacked by Indians early in the morning of November 6. Six whites were killed and five wounded and a large number of packhorses purloined. However few attacks such as this occurred along the frontier. In March, President Washington appointed the commissioners who were to treat with the Indians at the rapids of the Maumee “when the leaves are fully out.” Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph, and Timothy Pickering were appointed, and received their commissions April 26. General Lincoln left on the twenty-seventh with the baggage for Niagara by way of the Mohawk Valley; Pickering and Randolph left Philadelphia by way of the Susquehanna on April 30.
On the same day another delegation departed from the upper Ohio for the West but not altogether on a peaceful mission; it was Wayne’s army, disciplined, hardened, and eager for the long-anticipated conflict. To Wayne, war seemed inevitable; when informed that the commissioners were to be sent to the Maumee according to agreement, he playfully expressed a desire to be present “with 2500 of his commissioners in company, with not a single Quaker among them!” Before leaving Legionville he had ordered a number of color flags for the sub-legions of the Secretary of War saying, with the confidence of a man who could not but win, “they shall never be lost.”
Thus the third army of the United States floated down the winding Ohio in April, 1793. No other army on the Ohio, since the day Forbes’s and Bouquet’s British regulars left Fort Pitt, could be compared with it in discipline and trustworthiness. Harmar’s and St. Clair’s armies were rabbles beside it. Yet there had been a great struggle to secure proper subordination of officers and proper loyalty on the part of the rank and file. Liberty meant license on the frontier, and here lay Wayne’s heaviest task and greatest victory. With a trained, sober army victory was a matter of time only. However, the Government still looked for a happy outcome of the convention at the rapids of the Maumee; and Wayne was strictly ordered to make no hostile movement until the result of that meeting was known. It was expected that, by August 1, the question of war or peace would have been decided. Wayne landed, and encamped about a mile below Fort Washington, where the high waters left only one convenient spot, which was accordingly dubbed “Hobson’s Choice.” The encampment extended to within four hundred yards of the village of Cincinnati, according to the Posey journal. From this village and its stock “of ardent spirit and caitiff wretches to dispose of it” Wayne was anxious to be separated.