"The Indians were surprised by the vigor of the charge and puzzled as to its object. They opened out on both sides and half the soldiers had gone through before they tired more than a chance shot or two. They then fell on the rear and began a hot pursuit. St. Clair sent his aide, Denny, to the front to try to keep order, but neither he nor any one else could check the flight. Major Clark tried to rally his battalion to cover the retreat, but he was killed and the effort abandoned."
As soon as the men realized that in flight there lay some hope of safety they broke into a stampede which soon became uncontrollable. Even St. Clair admitted in his dispatches that this retreat "was a precipitate one, in fact, a flight." Most of the militia threw away their arms and accoutrements, and in their headlong flight the weak and wounded, and even some of the women who were with the army, were knocked down and ruthlessly trampled by the terrified men.
The pursuit continued about four miles, when the Indian commander, Little Turtle, restrained his dusky warriors, saying they had killed enough and should now divide the spoils. The natural greediness of the savage appetite for plunder made the red men willing to obey this command, otherwise hardly a man would have escaped.
General St. Clair tried to stay behind and stem the torrent of fugitives, but failed utterly, being swept along in the mad stampede. He now attempted to ride to the front to rally the troops, but the clumsy pack-horse which he rode could not be pricked out of a walk. The flight continued from half-past nine until after sunset, when the routed troops reached Fort Jefferson, some thirty miles distant, completely exhausted.
One day's hurried flight had carried them over a space which covered a fortnight's advance. Here they met the detached regiment, three hundred strong, which had been sent by St. Clair after the deserters. Leaving their wounded at Fort Jefferson, the retreat was continued until the half-armed rabble reached Fort Washington and the log huts of the infant city of Cincinnati. {FN}
{FN} Washington was called "the Cincinnati of the West." Hence it was an easy and natural change from Fort Washington to Cincinnati.
The loss in this disastrous expedition amounted to upward of nine hundred men, including fifty-nine officers. Of these six hundred and thirty were killed, and two hundred and eighty wounded. Only one or two were taken prisoners, as the savages killed every one who fell into their hands. It is said that the influence of Little Turtle prevented any captives being tortured, but he could not prevent one case of cannibalism.
In Brickell's Narrative it is stated that the savage Chippewas from the far-off North devoured one of the slain soldiers, {FN} probably in a spirit of ferocious bravado; the other tribes expressed horror at the deed.