[270] Winsor, op. cit., 428.
[271] Roosevelt, op. cit., IV, 30.
[272] Winsor, op. cit., 426.
Early in October the advance began.[273] St. Clair's instructions required him to establish a permanent fort at the Miami village and to maintain such a garrison in it as would enable him to detach five or six hundred men for special service as occasion should require. He advanced at a snail's pace, the army marching but five or six miles a day. In this way, stopping now and then to build a fort or delayed by lack of food, the commander sick, the troops disorderly and demoralized, with almost no effort to prevent surprise, the army stumbled northward through the wilderness. At the end of October, with the enemy in striking distance, some sixty of the militia deserted in a body, and the unfortunate commander made the fatal blunder of sending back one of his two regiments of regulars after them.
[273] Roosevelt (Winning of the West, IV, 30-52) gives a detailed and graphic account of St. Clair's campaign, with references to much of the important source material. For St. Clair's official reports see American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 136-38.
Perhaps it was just as well, for a larger force would have resulted only in a greater slaughter. On November 3 the army encamped on a branch of the Wabash near the middle point of the western boundary of Ohio. The main body of the army huddled together on the eastern bank of the stream, while the militia camped on the opposite side. Shortly after sunrise the next morning the Indians fell in fury upon this exposed detachment, and a battle ensued similar in character and in magnitude of horror and disaster to the defeat of the ill-fated Braddock. Concealed behind logs and trees the savages poured a steady fire upon the doomed army. The troops drawn up in close array, unable even to see their foe, fired vain volleys into the forest. A heavy pall of smoke soon overhung the army, under cover of which the agile savages darted again and again into the lines of the troops, tomahawking their chosen victims and slipping deftly away before the enraged but slower soldiers could retaliate. The officers displayed conspicuous bravery, encouraging their men and leading them again and again in bayonet charges against their tormenters. But the savages only retired before their advance to fall upon them the moment they turned; and at times the charging parties, isolated from the main body, fought their way back with difficulty.
A more terrible scene can scarcely be pictured. The bravery and exertions of the troops were all in vain against such a foe. For two hours the slaughter went on, while the wounded were gathered to the center and the officers strove to keep the lines intact. At last the men became demoralized. In ever larger numbers they deserted their posts to huddle terror stricken among the wounded. Seeing that all was lost and that the army could be saved from complete destruction only by an immediate retreat, St. Clair gathered such fragments of battalions as he could and ordered a charge to regain the road by which the army had advanced.
A vigorous charge drove the Indians back beyond the road, and through the opening the demoralized troops pressed, to use the expressive phrase of an eye-witness, "like a drove of bullocks."[274] The pursuit was delayed for a short time, apparently because the Indians failed at once to grasp the significance of the new movement; they soon fell upon the rear, however, and slaughtered without hindrance the terror-stricken fugitives, whose only thought was to get away. In the mad rout the soldiers, crazed by fear, threw away their weapons as they ran; the stronger and swifter rode down the weak; while the slower and the wounded fell to the rear, and by furnishing occupation for the tomahawk and the scalping knife purchased temporary respite for their more fortunate comrades. The savages drew off after they had followed the fleeing mob in this way for about four miles, possibly because for once they were satiated with slaughter, more probably because lured by the plunder of the camp. The soldiers continued their flight for twenty-five miles pursued only by the terrors evoked by their superheated imagination. At nightfall they streamed into Fort Jefferson; here some of the wounded who had escaped were left, and the army continued to flee till Fort Washington, the starting-point of the campaign, was reached.
[274] Roosevelt, op. cit., IV, 44.
Thus terminated the most disastrous campaign ever waged by an American army against the Indians. St. Clair had lost in killed and wounded over nine hundred men. There were no prisoners, practically, for the savages slew all but a few of those who fell into their hands. Only about one-third of St. Clair's men actually engaged in the battle of the fatal fourth of November escaped uninjured. Yet during the battle the Americans had scarcely seen the foe. St. Clair, judging from the destructive rifle fire poured in upon his ranks, reported that he had been overwhelmed by numbers, but this may well be doubted. Neither the number nor the loss of the red men is known with any certainty; that the latter was slight is, however, apparent, and Roosevelt's estimate that it may not have amounted to one-twentieth that of the whites seems not at all improbable.[275]