On the journey back to Vincennes, every indication along the way was threatening. At L'Anguille, Gamelin was told that one of the Eel river chieftains had gone to war with the Americans; that a few days before his arrival a band of seventy Indians, Chippewas and Ottawas from Michillimacinac, and some Potawatomi, had passed through the village on the way to the American frontier. At Ouiatenon, the Weas said that the English commandant was their father, and that they could do nothing without his approbation. "On the eighth day of May, Gamelin returned to Fort Knox, and on the eleventh, some traders arrived from the upper Wabash, bringing the intelligence that war parties from the north had joined the Wabash Indians; that the whole force of the savages had gone to make an attack on the settlements, and that three days after Gamelin left the Miamis, an American captive had been burned in their village."
Drawing by Heaton
Map of the Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne Campaigns.[ToList]
Reluctant as was the government of the United States to engage in war with the Wabash Indians, no doubt now remained of their warlike intentions. Every savage town from the Vermilion Piankeshaws to ancient Kekionga, was under British control. On the first of May, 1790, Governor Arthur St. Clair transmitted to the war department a part of the report of Antoine Gamelin, written from Tippecanoe, and observed as follows: "By this letter, you will perceive that everything seems to be referred to the Miamis, which does not promise a peaceable issue. The confidence they have in their situation, the vicinity of many other nations not very well disposed, and the pernicious counsels of the English traders, joined to the immense booty obtained by the depredations upon the Ohio, will most probably prevent them from listening to any reasonable terms of accommodation, so that it is to be feared the United States must prepare effectually to chastise them." Shortly afterwards, St. Clair hastened to Fort Washington at Cincinnati, and there held a military conference with General Josiah Harmar. Being empowered to call upon Virginia, then including Kentucky, for one thousand militia, and upon the State of Pennsylvania for five hundred more, it was resolved to concentrate three hundred of the Kentucky troops at Fort Steuben (Clarksville), to march from that place to Post Vincennes. From thence an expedition under Major John F. Hamtramck was to be directed against the villages on the lower Wabash, so as to prevent them from aiding the Miamis higher up. The remaining twelve hundred militiamen were to join the regulars at Fort Washington and strike directly across the country to the principal Miami village at Kekionga. No permanent military post was to be established, however, at the forks of the Maumee. Secretary of War Knox was fearful of results. While admitting that the Miami village presented itself "as superior to any other position," for the purpose of fixing a garrison to overawe the Indians at the west end of Lake Erie, on the Wabash and the Illinois, still, he was apprehensive that the establishment of a post at this place would be so opposed to the inclinations of the Indians generally as to bring on a war of some duration, and at the same time render the British garrisons "so uneasy with such a force impending over them, as not only to occasion a considerable reinforcement of their upper posts, but to occasion their fomenting, secretly, at least, the opposition of the Indians." How any official of the government with the report of Antoine Gamelin in his hands, could hope to soften the animosity of the tribes by the taking of half measures, or to propitiate the British by a display of timidity, is hard to conceive. Four months later the hesitating secretary changed his course.
The army with which General Harmar marched out of Fort Washington in the latter days of September, 1790, to strike the Indian towns, was a motley array. Pennsylvania had only partly filled her quota. She had sent forth substitutes, old and infirm men, and boys. The troops from Kentucky had seemingly brought into camp every old musket and rifle in the district to be repaired. There was a scarcity of camp kettles and axes. The commissariat was miserably deficient. To add to the confusion, the Kentucky militia were divided in their allegiance between a certain Colonel William Trotter and Colonel John Hardin. Hardin was fearless, but extremely rash; Trotter was wholly incompetent. In two or three days the Kentuckians were formed into three battalions, under Majors Hall, McMullen, and Ray, with Trotter at their head. Harmar, an old army officer of the revolution, who felt a contempt for all militia, was in sore dismay, for the hasty muster was totally lacking in discipline, and impatient of restraint.
In numbers, as Colonel Roosevelt observes, this army was amply sufficient to do its work. It consisted of three battalions of Kentucky militia, one battalion of Pennsylvania militia, one battalion of light troops, mounted, and two battalions of the regular army under Major John Plasgrave Wyllys, and Major John Doughty; in all, fourteen hundred and fifty-three men. There was also a small company of artillery, with three small brass field pieces, under Captain William Ferguson. But to fight the hardy and experienced warriors of the wilderness in their native woods, required something more than hasty levies, loose discipline, and inexperienced Indian fighters. Harmar was not a Wayne. The expedition was doomed to failure from the very beginning.
The details of the march along Harmar's trace to the site of the present city of Fort Wayne it is not necessary to give. The army moved slowly, and gave the British agents under Alexander McKee plenty of time to furnish the redskins with arms and ammunition. The star of the Little Turtle was in the ascendant. He was now thirty-eight years of age, and while not a hereditary chieftain of the Miamis, his prowess and cunning had given him fame. The Indians never made a mistake in choosing a military leader. He watched the Americans from the very time of their leaving Fort Washington and purposed to destroy them at the Indian town.
On the fourteenth of October the army reached the River St. Marys, described by Captain John Armstrong as a pretty stream, and Hardin was sent forward with a company of regulars and six hundred militia to occupy Miamitown. He found the villages on both banks of the St. Joseph deserted by the foe. The English and French traders had fled from the main Indian town on what is now known as the Lakeside shore of the St. Joseph, and had carried away most of their valuables. John Kinzie and Antoine Laselle were among the refugees. The savages had burned the houses in their main village to prevent their occupation by the Americans, and had buried vast quantities of corn and vegetables in Indian caches. One hundred and eighty-five houses of the Delawares, Shawnees and Miamis, were still left standing in the neighboring villages. All of these were destroyed by the torch after Harmar's arrival.