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.