WAYNE AND FALLEN TIMBERS
—Final triumph of the Government over Indians and British.
The great soul of Washington was sorely tried, but he did not falter. The first thing to do was to raise an efficient army, and that was done. Early in the year 1792, the forces of the United States were put on a new footing. The military establishment was now to consist of "five thousand one hundred and sixty-eight non-commissioned officers, privates and musicians." Enlistments were to be made for a period of three years, and the pay of the soldiers increased. General Anthony Wayne was appointed commander and instructed by Washington to spare neither powder nor ball, 'so that his men be made marksmen.'
Wayne was a fighter of fearless courage and daring brilliancy. He was now forty-seven years of age and had entered the revolution as a Colonel in the Continental Army. He had fought with Washington at Brandywine and Germantown, and had driven the Hessians at the point of the bayonet. "At Monmouth he turned the fortunes of the day by his stubborn and successful resistance to the repeated bayonet charges of the Guards and Grenadiers." The storming of Stony Point is ranked by Lossing as one of the most brilliant achievements of the Revolutionary war. He fought at Yorktown and later drove the English out of Georgia. His favorite weapon of offense was the bayonet. General William Henry Harrison, who was aide to Wayne at the battle of Fallen Timbers, said to him: "General Wayne, I am afraid you will get into the fight yourself, and forget to give me the necessary field orders." "Perhaps I may," replied Wayne, "and if I do, recollect the standing order of the day is, 'Charge the damned rascals with the bayonets!'"
In the month of June, 1792, Wayne arrived at Pittsburgh to take charge of his new command. Most of the new army were ignorant of military tactics, and without discipline, but the General at once entered vigorously upon his great task. On the twenty-eighth of November, the army left Pittsburgh and encamped at Legionville, twenty-two miles to the south. Here the great work of training the raw recruits proceeded. "By the salutary measures adopted to introduce order and discipline, the army soon began to assume its proper character. The troops were daily exercised in all the evolutions necessary to render them efficient soldiers, and more especially in those maneuvers proper in a campaign against savages. Firing at a mark was constantly practiced, and rewards given to the best marksmen. To inspire emulation, the riflemen and the infantry strove to excel, and the men soon attained to an accuracy that gave them confidence in their own prowess. On the artillery the General impressed the importance of that arm of the service. The dragoons he taught to rely on the broadsword, as all important to victory. The riflemen were made to see how much success must depend on their coolness, quickness and accuracy; while the infantry were led to place entire confidence in the bayonet, as the certain and irresistible weapon before which the savages could not stand. The men were instructed to charge in open order; each to rely on himself, and to prepare for a personal contest with the enemy." The orders and admonitions of Wayne fell not on deaf ears. The Legion of the United States became a thing of life. In the battle at the Miami Rapids a soldier of the Legion met a single warrior in the woods and they attacked each other, "the soldier with his bayonet, the Indian with his tomahawk. Two days after, they were found dead; the soldier with his bayonet in the body of the Indian—the Indian with his tomahawk in the head of the soldier."
About the first of May, 1793, the army moved down the Ohio in boats and encamped near Fort Washington, Cincinnati, at a place which was named "Hobson's Choice." At this place the main body of the troops was halted until about the seventh of October, to await the outcome of the repeated attempts of the government to make peace with the Indian tribes.
The difficulties that beset the pathway of President Washington at the opening of the year 1792, seemed insurmountable. On the one hand, the people of the east regarded the westerners as the real aggressors in the border conflicts, and were extremely loath to grant aid to the government. The debates in Congress reflected their attitude. On the other hand, the people of Kentucky regarded the efforts of the government to secure to them the navigation of the Mississippi, as procrastinating and futile. They even suspected the good faith of Washington himself, but in this they erred, for negotiations were on foot that finally secured to them the desired end. Moreover the failure of Harmar and the disaster of St. Clair had filled the backwoodsmen with misgivings and they had no faith in the regular army or its generals. The extreme poverty of the government, the utter lack of support from all sections, would have brought dismay to the heart of any man but Washington. He, however, remained firm. Forced by what Roosevelt has termed as the "supine indifference of the people at large," he determined to make one more effort to secure peace, but failing in that, the army of Anthony Wayne should be made ready for the final appeal to arms.
On the seventh of April, 1792, Freeman and Gerrard, two messengers of peace, were sent forward to the Maumee, but both were killed. About the twentieth of May, Major Alexander Trueman, of the First United States Regiment, and Colonel John Hardin, of Kentucky, left Fort Washington with copies of a speech from President Washington to the Indians. The President expressed his desire to impart to the tribes all the blessings of civilized life; to teach them to cultivate the earth and to raise corn and domestic animals; to build comfortable houses and to educate their children. He expressly disaffirmed any intention to seize any additional lands, and promised that compensation should be made to all tribes who had not received full satisfaction. The threat of Simon Girty against Proctor, was now made good as against both Hardin and Trueman. Hardin was to go among the Wyandots at Sandusky, while Trueman proceeded to the Rapids of the Maumee. Months after they had departed, one William May, who had been captured by the Indians, testified that he saw the scalp of Trueman dangling on a stick, and that Trueman's papers fell into the hands of Alexander McKee, who forwarded them to Detroit. Later he saw another scalp said to be the brave Colonel Hardin's, and Hardin's papers fell into the hands of Matthew Elliott. This was the answer of the savage allies to the flag of truce.
In May, 1792, General Rufus Putnam, of Ohio, and the Reverend John Heckewelder, of the Moravian missions, were sent to the Wabash tribes to make a treaty. The instructions to Putman were of the most pacific nature. He was told to renounce on the part of the United States, "all claim to any Indian land which shall not have been ceded by fair treaties, made with the Indian nations." "You will make it clearly understood, that we want not a foot of their land, and that it is theirs, and theirs only; that they have the right to sell, and the right to refuse to sell, and the United States will guarantee to them the said just right." Putnam carried forward with him about one hundred women and children captured by Scott and Wilkinson, and a number of presents for the Wea and other chiefs. A treaty was finally made with a small number of Weas, Kickapoos, and other Wabash and Illinois tribes at Vincennes on the twenty-seventh of September, but all attempts to induce the Miamis to join in the negotiations were unavailing. Pricked on by Elliott, the Girtys and McKee, the chiefs at Kekionga were threatening the Potawatomi and the tribes of the lower Wabash with the destruction of their villages, if they failed to oppose the advances of the Americans. The treaty at Vincennes had little, if any, effect, upon the posture of affairs.
Still other efforts were made by the government. Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chieftain, was induced to come to Philadelphia in June, 1792, and he received the most "marked attention," at the hands of the government officials. He remained at the capital some ten or twelve days, and it was sincerely hoped that he could be persuaded to undertake the office of a messenger of peace, but he was a pensioner of the British and thoroughly under their control. The next summer we find him urging the northwestern tribes to arms, and offering the aid of his tomahawk to Alexander McKee. The government next turned to Cornplanter and the chiefs of the more friendly Iroquois. In March, 1792, about fifty headmen of these tribes visited the city of Philadelphia and communed on terms of amity with the American officers. The Cornplanter, with forty-eight chiefs of the Six Nations, were now deputed to a grand council of the Miami confederates held at Au Glaize on the Maumee in the fall of 1792. "There were so many nations," says the Cornplanter, "that we cannot tell the names of them. There were three men from the Gora Nations; it took them a whole season to come, and twenty-seven nations from beyond Canada." Joseph Brant, who detested the Cornplanter, was not present, but Blue Jacket and the Shawnees were there filled with hate. They accused the Iroquois with speaking 'from the outside of their lips,' and told their chiefs that they came with the 'voice of the United States folded under their arm.' Every word was haughty, proud and defiant, but in the end the Iroquois wrung a promise from them to suspend hostilities until the ensuing spring, when a council of peace should be held with the Americans. This promise was not kept. War parties of Shawnees constantly prowled along the Ohio stealing horses and cattle, burning cabins, and leading away captives to the Indian towns. On the morning of the sixth of November, an army of three hundred Indians composed of Miamis, Delawares, Shawnees and Potawatomi, commanded by the Little Turtle, attacked a party of about one hundred Kentucky militia under the walls of Fort St. Clair, situated on the line of march from Fort Washington to the Miami villages. They were under the command of Major John Adair, afterwards governor of the State of Kentucky. Little Turtle's object was to wipe out a white settlement at the mouth of the Little Miami, but capturing two men near Fort Hamilton, he learned that the Kentuckians were escorting a brigade of packhorses on their way to Fort Jefferson, and he determined to waylay them. The attack occurred just before daybreak and was opened by a hideous chorus of Indian yells, but the Kentuckians bravely stood their ground and repelled the assault. Six men were killed, including Lieutenant Job Hale, and five men wounded. The camp equipment and about one hundred and forty horses were lost. The Indians had two killed.