When they reached the fort they found camped close to the walls a party of fifty dragoons and ninety riflemen. These dragoons and riflemen had escorted a brigade of packhorses from Greeneville the day before, and having left the supplies in the fort were about to return with the unladen packhorses. But soon after daybreak the Indians rushed their camp. Against such overwhelming numbers no effective resistance could be made. After a few moments' fight the men broke and ran to the fort. The officers, as usual, showed no fear, and were the last to retreat, half of them being killed or wounded,—one of the honorably noteworthy features of all these Indian fights was the large relative loss among the officers. Most of the dragoons and riflemen reached the fort, including nineteen who were wounded; nineteen officers and privates were killed, and two of the packhorsemen were killed and three captured. Two hundred packhorses were captured. The Indians, flushed with success and rendered over-confident by their immense superiority in numbers, made a rush at the fort, hoping to carry it by storm. They were beaten back at once with severe loss; for in such work they were no match for their foes. They then surrounded the fort, kept up a harmless fire all day, and renewed it the following morning. In the night they bore off their dead, finding them with the help of torches; eight or ten of those nearest the fort they could not get. They then drew off and marched back to the Miami towns. At least twenty-five [Footnote: Canadian Archives, G. La Mothe to Joseph Chew, Michilimackinac, July 19, 1794. McKee says, "17 men killed"; evidently he either wilfully understated the truth, or else referred only to the particular tribes with which he was associated. La Mothe says, "they have lost twenty-five people amongst different nations," but as he was only speaking of the Upper Lake Indians, it may be that the total Indian loss was 25 plus 17, or 42. McKee always understates the British force and loss, and greatly overstates the loss and force of the Americans. In this letter he says that the Americans had 50 men killed, instead of 22; and that 60 "drivers" (packhorsemen) were taken and killed; whereas in reality 3 were taken and 2 killed.] of them had been killed, and a great number wounded; whereas they had only succeeded in killing one and wounding eleven of the garrison. They were much disheartened at the check, and the Upper Lake Indians began to go home. The savages were as fickle as they were ferocious: and though terrible antagonists when fighting on their own ground and in their own manner, they lacked the stability necessary for undertaking a formidable offensive movement in mass. This army of two thousand warriors, the largest they had ever assembled, was repulsed with loss in an attack on a wooden fort with a garrison not one sixth their strength, and then dissolved without accomplishing anything at all.
Wayne Starts on his March.
Severity of Wayne's Discipline.
Three weeks after the successful defence of Fort Recovery, Wayne was joined by a large force of mounted volunteers from Kentucky, under General Scott; and on July 27th he set out towards the Miami towns. The Indians who watched his march brought word to the British that his army went twice as far in a day as St. Clair's, that he kept his scouts well out and his troops always in open order and ready for battle; that he exercised the greatest precaution to avoid an ambush or surprise, and that every night the camps of the different regiments were surrounded by breastworks of fallen trees so as to render a sudden assault hopeless. Wayne was determined to avoid the fates of Braddock and St. Clair. His "legion" of regular troops, was over two thousand strong. His discipline was very severe, yet he kept the loyal affection of his men. He had made the officers devote much of their time to training the infantry in marksmanship and the use of the bayonet and the cavalry in the use of the sabre. He impressed upon the cavalry and infantry alike that their safety lay in charging home with the utmost resolution. By steady drill he had turned his force, which was originally not of a promising character, into as fine an army, for its size, as a general could wish to command.
Excellence of his Troops.
The perfection of fighting capacity to which he had brought his forces caused much talk among the frontiersmen themselves. One of the contingent of Tennessee militia wrote home in the highest praise of the horsemanship and swordsmanship of the cavalry, who galloped their horses at speed over any ground, and leaped them over formidable obstacles, and of the bayonet practice, and especially of the marksmanship, of the infantry. He remarked that hunters were apt to undervalue the soldiers as marksmen, but that Wayne's riflemen were as good shots as any hunters he had ever seen at any of the many matches he had attended in the backwoods. [Footnote: Knoxville Gazette, August 27, 1793.]
Wayne's Scouts.
Wayne showed his capacity as a commander by the use he made of his spies or scouts. A few of these were Chickasaw or Choctaw Indians; the rest, twenty or thirty in number, were drawn from the ranks of the wild white Indian-fighters, the men who plied their trade of warfare and the chase right on the hunting grounds of the hostile tribes. They were far more dangerous to the Indians, and far more useful to the army, than the like number of regular soldiers or ordinary rangers.
Efficiency of the Scouts.
It was on these fierce backwoods riflemen that Wayne chiefly relied for news of the Indians, and they served him well. In small parties, or singly, they threaded the forest scores of miles in advance or to one side of the marching army, and kept close watch on the Indians' movements. As skilful and hardy as the red warriors, much better marksmen, and even more daring, they took many scalps, harrying the hunting parties, and hanging on the outskirts of the big wigwam villages. They captured and brought in Indian after Indian; from whom Wayne got valuable information. The use of scouts, and the consequent knowledge gained by the examination of Indian prisoners, emphasized the difference between St. Clair and Wayne. Wayne's reports are accompanied by many examinations of Indian captives. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 489, 94. Examination of two Pottawatamies captured on the 5th of June; of two Shawnees captured on the 22d of June; of a Shawnee captured on Aug. 11th, etc., etc.]
Among these wilderness warriors who served under Wayne were some who became known far and wide along the border for their feats of reckless personal prowess and their strange adventures. They were of course all men of remarkable bodily strength and agility, with almost unlimited power of endurance, and the keenest eyesight; and they were masters in the use of their weapons. Several had been captured by the Indians when children, and had lived for years with them before rejoining the whites; so that they knew well the speech and customs of the different tribes.