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."