[275] Roosevelt, op. cit., IV, 47.
Fighting with the victors were two men whom we shall meet again in the annals of early Chicago. The one was Little Turtle, the famous Miami chieftain, who is generally supposed to have been the leader of the Indians this day; the other, his son-in-law, Captain William Wells, member of a prominent Kentucky family, who had been taken prisoner by the Indians in boyhood and adopted into the tribe. In this battle he is said to have slain several of the Americans with his own hand.[276] Soon after this he abandoned the Indians, and henceforth fought valiantly in behalf of his native race until he fell gloriously, over twenty years later, in the Fort Dearborn massacre.
[276] Ibid., 79.
The overthrow of St. Clair's army made necessary another campaign against the triumphant tribesmen unless the United States was to surrender her pretensions to that sovereignty over the Northwest which had been recognized in the treaty of 1783. Yet three years now elapsed before the final blow was struck against the Indian power in this region. Their easy triumph over St. Clair resulted in a great accession both to the number and spirit of the warring bands. Encouraged by the British, whose attitude toward the Americans during this period, as manifested by such officials as Simcoe and Lord Dorchester, became increasingly hostile, they maintained the attitude that they had not by any valid treaty surrendered any portion of the territory north of the Ohio, and continued to send their war parties in ever-increasing numbers against the "deluded settlers" of the northwestern frontier. The United States again tried vainly to secure peace by negotiation. The sanctity which hedges an ambassador about, familiar even to savages, was violated in the murder of Colonel Hardin and Major Trueman, who were sent as envoys to the hostile tribes in the spring of 1792. Despite this, the effort to bring about a peace was vainly continued throughout the year 1792 and the spring of 1793.[277] At last, there being no other alternative, the government made definite plans for a new campaign.
[277] Ibid., 52 ff.
The preparations had already been begun and Anthony Wayne had been chosen by Washington, though with great reluctance, to succeed St. Clair as commander.[278] In Washington's opinion he was vain, open to flattery, easily imposed upon, and "liable to be drawn into scrapes." In spite of this he was considered the best man available, and his conduct following his appointment brilliantly refuted the prevalent opinion of his lack of judgment. If there ever had been ground for Washington's low opinion of Wayne's prudence, certain it is that he afforded none by his measures in this crisis in the history of the Northwest. His bravery was questioned by no one, and he had long been recognized as the most active and enterprising officer in the army.
[278] On the selection of Wayne to succeed St. Clair see Winsor, Westward Movement, 439-40.
In the autumn of 1792 Wayne established a camp on the Ohio about seven miles below Pittsburgh, and began the difficult task of organizing the remnant of St. Clair's army and the new recruits that were being enlisted into an efficient "legion," which should be able to face the red foe with some prospect of success.[279] During the winter his troops, which by springtime numbered twenty-five hundred men, were drilled incessantly. In May, 1793, he moved down the Ohio to Fort Washington, near which place he established a camp and called on the Kentucky volunteers to come to his assistance. The government was still carrying on futile negotiations with the hostile tribes, and not until October was Wayne given permission to launch the campaign. He then advanced about eighty miles north of Cincinnati to a place six miles beyond Fort Jefferson, where a second winter camp was established to which he gave the name of Greenville. From this place a detachment was sent forward to occupy the site of St. Clair's defeat and there build a post, to which the significant name of Fort Recovery was given.
[279] For standard secondary accounts of Wayne's campaign see Winsor, op. cit., chap. xx; Roosevelt, op. cit., IV, chap. ii. Original documents pertaining to the campaign, including Wayne's report of the attack on Fort Recovery and the battle of Fallen Timbers, are printed in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 487-95. Wayne's Orderly Book, covering the period from 1792 to 1797, is printed in the Michigan Pioneer Collections, xxxiv, 341-734.
The winter was spent in further drill, and in perfecting the preparations for a decisive conflict in the spring. The Indians harassed the posts, attacking convoys, and killing the commander of Fort Jefferson within three hundred yards of the fort. Ere spring the regular troops had developed into a finely drilled army, with confidence in their leader and in themselves. The natural contempt of the frontiersman for a regular force, heightened as it was by the disasters of the army in the last few years, gave way to genuine admiration for Wayne's troops. The cavalry had been trained to maneuver over any ground, and the infantry to load while on the run. By constant practice the soldiers had become as good marksmen as were the frontier hunters themselves, and Wayne, who had become famous in the Revolution for his reliance on the bayonet, had imbued his men with his own zeal for coming to close quarters with the enemy.