The enemy had apparently anticipated a movement of this kind. The chieftains had collected a force of from one thousand to fifteen hundred men, upon the Miami territories; and for several days previous to the halt, numbers of them had been hovering round and evidently watching the movements of the troops. During the night of the 3d, shots were occasionally exchanged between them and the American sentries, and small parties were sent out in different directions to prevent their too near approach.
Meanwhile the Indians were holding a grand council of war. The plan of attack was agreed upon, and the order and rank of the various tribes settled with a precision as punctilious as that of the ancient Greeks. The Wyandots stretched to the west; the Delawares were stationed next to them; the Senecas third, and so on. The Turtle, acting as commander-in-chief, superintended and stimulated the whole, but headed no particular detachment; the arm of the warrior was to do much, but the eye and voice of the chieftain, much more. Nothing happened during the night to alarm the Americans, and indeed the noise and stir of the outskirts in the early part of the evening gradually subsided. All at length was silent, and it might well be supposed, as it probably was, that the enemy had taken advantage of the darkness of the night to make good a precipitate retreat, or that their whole force as yet consisted only of a few scouting and scalping parties. But the mistake was of short duration. The militia were violently attacked between dawn and sunrise of the fourth, by a powerful body of the Indians, who, with a terrific yell, poured in a volume of musketry along the entire length of the two lines. Never was surprise more complete. The ranks of the militia were thrown into confusion at once; and although the battle was hotly contested for three hours at least, no efforts of the officers, or of the regular troops of the main body, proved sufficient to recover the lost ground. The former, indeed, were picked off by the enemy's sharp-shooters so rapidly, that very little could be expected from the aggregate of their exertions.
Besides, the savages generally fought under shelter of the woods. "The Indians were very numerous," we are informed by one who was present, "but we found it out more from their incessant heavy fire, than from what we could otherwise discover of them. They fought under cover, though they would frequently advance very close under the smoke of the cannon; and as soon as it began to clear away, the fire became very fatal." [FN] Emboldened, however, by success, they sometimes charged the Americans tomahawk in hand, drove them back on their lines, kept possession of their tents for some minutes, and though repulsed, continually returned to the contest with redoubled fury.
[FN] New-York and other news-papers of December, 1791.
The Americans were at length compelled to retreat; and this retreat,—as St. Clair himself confessed, in his despatches, "was a precipitate one, in fact a flight." The camp and artillery were abandoned. Most of the militia threw away their arms and accoutrements. All were closely pursued by the savages from half-past nine, when the route commenced, until after sunset, when they gained Fort Jefferson, at a distance of twenty-nine miles. Thirty-eight officers, and five hundred and ninety-three men, were slain or missing; and twenty-one officers and two hundred and forty-two men wounded, many of whom died afterwards; so that no fewer than eight hundred and ninety-four were lost or disabled, out of an army of fourteen hundred. General Butler, second in command, was among the slain.
General St. Clair says he was overpowered by numbers; but as no English historian makes the enemy more numerous than the Americans, some credit should be given to them upon other grounds than the pretext of numerical superiority. Indeed, their attack was conducted with astonishing intrepidity. After a single volley of fire-arms they fought every inch of the field, hand to hand. There is no other instance in the history of the continent, of a slaughter to be compared to this, with the exception of the memorable defeat of Braddock. "Nearly in the space of three hundred and fifty yards,"—said General Scott, who visited the battle-field soon after,—"lay five hundred skull-bones, three hundred of which were buried by my men. From thence five miles on, the woods were strewed with skeletons, muskets," &c. [FN-1] The loss of the Turtle's army was never ascertained upon indisputable authority, but no account makes it at all proportionable to that of St. Clair. The Mississaga chief, mentioned above, who visited Montreal a few months after the action, rated the American loss at several hundreds more than the official bulletin just cited, and that of the Indians at only nine; [FN-2] but some allowance ought probably to be made for extenuation in the latter case, as for exaggeration in the former. An American officer, who encountered a party of thirty Indians near the battle-ground, a day or two after the defeat, (and was detained by them till they were made to believe him a friend to their cause, from Canada,) was informed that the number of killed was fifty-six. These savages were returning home with their share of the plunder. One of them had a hundred and twenty-seven American scalps, strung on a pole, and the rest were laden with various other articles, of different values. They had also three pack-horses, carrying as many kegs of wine and spirits as could be piled on their backs. According to their statement, there were twelve hundred Indians in the battle, the larger proportion of whom were Miamies. [FN-3]
[FN-1] Metcalf's Indian Wars.
[FN-2] Montreal papers.