The battle was now fiercely contested on both sides, but it was almost a hopeless struggle for the Americans from the beginning, as it was impossible for the gunners to hit an enemy they could not see, as they crept from tree to tree, and log to log. The soldiers stood in close order in the center, where their ranks were steadily thinned by the rapid fire or hurtling tomahawk of the Indians.
The Indians fought with great courage and ferocity, and slaughtered the bewildered soldiers like sheep, as they vainly fired through the dense smoke into the surrounding woods.
The best description of this battle we have seen is given in Roosevelt's "Winning of the West," volume IV, chapter 1, in which he says: "The officers behaved very well, cheering and encouraging their men: but they were the special targets of the Indians, and fell rapidly. St. Clair and Butler, by their cool fearlessness in the hour of extreme peril, made some amends for their shortcomings as commanders. They walked up and down the lines from flank to flank, passing and repassing each other; for the two lines of battle were facing outward, and each general was busy trying to keep his wing from falling back. St. Clair's clothes were pierced by eight bullets, but he was himself untouched. He wore a blanket coat with a hood; he had a long queue, and his thick gray hair flowed from under his three-cornered hat; a lock of his hair was carried off by a bullet. Several times he headed the charges, sword in hand. General Butler had his arm broken early in the fight, but he continued to walk to and fro along the line, his coat off and the wounded arm in a sling. Another bullet struck him in the side, inflicting a mortal wound; and he was carried to the middle of the camp, where he sat propped up by knapsacks. Men and horses were falling around him at every moment. St. Clair sent an aide, Lieut. Ebenezer Denny, to ask how he was; he displayed no anxiety, and answered that he felt well. While speaking, a young cadet, who stood near by, was hit on the knee-cap by a spent ball, and at the shock cried aloud; whereat the general laughed so that his wounded side shook. The aide left him and there is no further certain record of his fate except that he was slain; but it is said that in one of the Indian rushes a warrior bounded toward him and sunk the tomahawk in his brain before any one could interfere.
"Instead of being awed by the bellowing artillery, the Indians made the gunners a special object of attack. Man after man was picked off, until every officer was killed but one, who was wounded; and most of the privates were slain or disabled. The artillery was thus almost silenced, and the Indians, emboldened by success, swarmed forward and seized the guns, while at the same time a part of the left wing of the army began to shrink back. But the Indians were now on comparatively open ground, where the regulars could see them and get at them; and under St. Clair's own leadership the troops rushed fiercely at the savages, with fixed bayonets, and drove them back to cover. By this time the confusion and disorder were great; while from every hollow and grass patch, from behind every stump and tree and fallen log, the Indians continued their fire. Again and again the officers led forward the troops in bayonet charges; and at first the men followed them with a will. Each charge seemed for a moment to be successful, the Indians rising in swarms and running in headlong flight from the bayonets. In one of these charges Colonel Darke's battalion drove the Indians several hundred yards, across the branch of the Wabash; but when the colonel halted and rallied his men, he found the savages had closed in behind him, and he had to fight his way back, while the foe he had been chasing at once turned and harrassed his rear. He was himself wounded, and lost most of his command. On reentering camp he found the Indians again in possession of the artillery and baggage, from which they were again driven; they had already scalped the slain, who lay about the guns. Major Thomas Butler had his thigh broken by a bullet; but continued on horseback in command of his battalion until the end of the fight. The only regular regiment present lost every officer killed or wounded. The commander of the Kentucky militia, Colonel Oldham, was killed early in the action, while trying to rally his men and berating them for cowards.
"The charging troops could accomplish nothing permanent. The men were too clumsy and ill-trained in forest warfare to overtake their fleet, half-naked antagonists. The latter never received the shock; but though they fled they were nothing daunted, for they turned the instant the battalion did and followed firing, and, indeed, were only visible when raised by a charge.
"The Indian attack was relentless, and could neither be avoided, parried nor met by counter assault. For two hours the soldiers kept up a slowly lessening resistance; but by degrees their hearts failed. In vain the officers tried, by encouragement, by jeers, and even blows, to drive them back to the fight. They were unnerved.
"There was but one thing to do. If possible the remnant of the army must be saved, and it could only be done by instant flight, even at the cost of abandoning the wounded. The broad road by which the army had advanced was the only line of retreat. The artillery had already been spiked and abandoned. Most of the horses had been killed, but a few were still left, and on one of these St. Clair mounted. He gathered together those fragments of the different battalions which contained the few men who still kept heart and head, and ordered them to charge and regain the road from which the savages had cut them off. Repeated orders were necessary before some of the men could be roused from their stupor sufficiently to follow the charging party; and they were only induced to move when told that it was a retreat.
"Colonel Darke and a few officers placed themselves at the head of the column, the coolest and boldest men drew up behind them, and they fell on the Indians with such fury as to force them back well beyond the road. This made an opening through which the rest of the troops pressed 'like a drove of bullocks.'" {FN}
{FN} Van Cleve's Journal.