On the other side were a score or more of chieftains of varying degrees of importance and influence. If Little Turtle had favored a fight his rank and reputation would probably have given him the position of chief importance. Blue Jacket's advice had prevailed in the council before the battle, however, and as the result he occupied the position of commander. Two young men, one in either army, possess a peculiar interest for us by reason of their later careers. The one, a lieutenant in Wayne's army and aide-de-camp to the General, William Henry Harrison; the other, the warrior Tecumseh. Each distinguished himself according to the fashion of his race for bravery in the battle; each rose shortly to the position of leader of his race in the Northwest, and this leadership involved them in a deadly rivalry. In the long contest between them the red man went down to defeat; his projects for the resuscitation of his people were forever blasted at Tippecanoe, and two years later the battle of the Thames marked another victory for Harrison and Tecumseh's final defeat. For the one the reward was the Presidency, for the other a ruined people and a nameless grave. Yet who shall say that, measured by the standards of his race, Tecumseh was not the equal in greatness and ability of his victorious rival?
At eight o'clock on the morning of August 20 Wayne's legion advanced in columns in open order, its front, flanks, and rear protected by detachments of the Kentucky mounted volunteers and of Indians. After traveling a distance of five miles the mounted battalion in advance encountered the Indians, disposed in three lines stretching a distance of two miles at right angles to the river. The Kentuckians were driven back and the firing became general, but they had accomplished their purpose of giving the army timely notice of the position of the savages. Wayne's dispositions were quickly made. The infantry was drawn up in two lines. The whole force of mounted volunteers was sent by a circuitous path to turn the right flank of the savages, and the legionary cavalry under Captain Campbell was ordered to fall upon their left. At the same time the infantry moved forward with trailed arms to a bayonet charge, with orders to deliver their fire at close range after the Indians had been roused from their coverts, and then continue the charge, so as to give them no opportunity to reload.
The value of the months of careful drilling was now quickly manifested. Campbell's dragoons plunged forward over the difficult ground and fell upon the astonished savages, who delivered a single volley and fled. Campbell was slain and a dozen of his men killed or wounded, but the cavalry swept on, Lieutenant Covington, who succeeded to the command, cutting down two of the red men with his own hand. The infantry moved forward with equal impetuosity, driving the dismayed savages before them through the thick woods a distance of two miles in less than an hour. So quickly was the combat over that the second line of infantry and the Kentucky volunteers, despite their "anxiety" for action, were unable to reach their positions in time to share in the fight. The surviving savages and their Canadian allies scattered in flight, the Americans pursuing them as far as the walls of the British fort. Wayne reported a loss of one hundred and thirty-three in killed and wounded and estimated the loss of the enemy at more than double his own. The woods were strewn for some distance with the dead bodies of the Indians and their white auxiliaries, the latter armed with British muskets and bayonets.
The battle over, three days were spent in ravaging the surrounding fields and villages. The houses and stores of the British traders and agents shared the fate of the Indian villages, while the garrison looked on in impotent rage. Fortunately a conflict between the two armies, the danger of which was very real, was averted, the commanders contenting themselves with an exchange of verbal hostilities. A week after the battle the victorious army moved leisurely back to Fort Defiance, laying waste the villages and cornfields of the savages for a distance of fifty miles on either side of the Maumee. After two weeks spent in strengthening the fort, while waiting for supplies from Fort Recovery, the army moved up the river to the Miami villages at the mouth of the St. Mary's where Harmar's force had been rebuffed four years before. Here some weeks were spent in destroying the surrounding villages and fields and in building a fort which was named for the commander, Fort Wayne. At the end of October the army retired to Greenville where it went into winter quarters. Since the opening of the campaign it had performed "one of the most weighty and important feats in the winning of the West."[285]
[285] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, IV, 91.
The Indians were discouraged by their defeat and their abandonment by the British. The agents of the latter strove to reanimate them and prolong hostilities,[286] and for some time the issue was doubtful. Some of the savages were in favor of continuing the war, but the majority finally inclined to peace, and in February, 1795, Wayne entered into a preliminary agreement with a number of the tribes for the negotiation of a permanent peace on the basis of the terms of the treaty of Fort Harmar of January, 1789. The tawny diplomats straggled slowly in to the place appointed for the council. The council fire was kindled on June 16,[287] but owing to the tardiness of the various delegations a month elapsed before the formal negotiations were begun. Three weeks later, on August 10, the treaty was concluded. In all eleven hundred and thirty warriors had assembled. To the torrent of savage oratory which their spokesmen poured forth during the weeks of discussion Wayne replied in kind, showing himself as much at home in the council chamber as when on the field of battle.
[286] Winsor, op. cit., 460-61; American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 547-58, 568
[287] For Wayne's report of the proceedings attending the negotiation of the treaty see American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 562-83.
On July 3 Wayne called the chiefs together to explain to them the significance of the impending celebration of Independence Day, so that they might not be alarmed when the roar of the big guns should "ascend into the heavens." Twelve days later the council was formally opened. Wayne displayed his credentials to the assembled chiefs, explained the occasion of the meeting, and closed by suggesting an adjournment of two or three days "to have a little drink" and consider the situation. The chief issue of the conference was immediately raised by Little Turtle, who professed ignorance of the treaty of Fort Harmar and denied that the Miamis had had any part in it. As the negotiations proceeded this chief strenuously opposed the cessions demanded by Wayne. In a speech delivered July 22 he expressed his regret over the division of opinion manifested by the assembled Indians, and claimed for his tribe all of the territory bounded on the east by a line from Detroit to and down the Scioto River to its mouth, on the south by the Ohio from this point to the mouth of the Wabash, and on the west by a line from the mouth of the Wabash to Chicago. He questioned the good faith of the Americans, saying they claimed the land in dispute now by cession by the British in 1783, now by that of the tribes who took part in the treaty of Fort Harmar. When, five days later, Wayne read the list of reservations which he proposed to embody in the treaty, including a tract six miles square "at the Mouth of Chikago River ... where a Fort formerly stood," Little Turtle answered that his people had never heard of it. On this particular point the facts of history favored the red man, for there is no satisfactory evidence that the French had ever had a fort here. But force and the logic of events favored the white leader, and in the final draft of the treaty was included the cession of "One piece of Land Six Miles square at the Mouth of Chickago River emptying into the Southwest end of Lake Michigan where a fort formerly stood."
Among those most disposed to accept the terms offered by Wayne were the Wyandots, to whom was intrusted one of the two copies of the treaty that were engrossed on parchment. Their leader, Tarke, responded to Little Turtle's reflections upon the cession made at Fort Harmar and upon those who disagreed with him, with a burst of eloquence characteristic of Indian oratory and of the figurative language which it habitually employed. Addressing his "Elder Brother," General Wayne, he said: