The Indians Decline to Make Peace.
From Fort Defiance Wayne sent a final offer of peace to the Indians, summoning them at once to send deputies to meet him. The letter was carried by Christopher Miller, and a Shawnee prisoner; and in it Wayne explained that Miller was a Shawnee by adoption, whom his soldiers had captured "six month since," while the Shawnee warrior had been taken but a couple of days before; and he warned the Indians that he had seven Indian prisoners, who had been well treated, but who would be put to death if Miller were harmed. The Indians did not molest Miller, but sought to obtain delay, and would give no definite answer; whereupon Wayne advanced against them, having laid waste and destroyed all their villages and fields.
Wayne Marches Forward.
His army marched on the 15th, and on the 18th reached Roche du Bout, by the Maumee Rapids, only a few miles from the British fort. Next day was spent in building rough breastwork to protect the stores and baggage, and in reconnoitring the Indian position. [Footnote: American State Papers, 491, Wayne's Report to Secretary of War, August 28, 1794.]
The Indians—Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Pottawatamies, Chippewas, and Iroquois—were camped closed to the British. There were between fifteen hundred and two thousand warriors; and in addition there were seventy rangers from Detroit, French, English, and refugee Americans, under Captain Caldwell, who fought with them in the battle. The British agent McKee was with them; and so was Simon Girty, the "white renegade," and another partisan leader, Elliott. But McKee, Girty, and Elliott did not actually fight in the battle. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, August 27, 1794. McKee says there were 1300 Indians, and omits all allusion to Caldwell's rangers. He always underestimates the Indian numbers and loss. In the battle one of Caldwell's rangers, Antoine Lasselle, was captured. He gave in detail the numbers of the Indians engaged; they footed up to over 1500. A deserter from the fort, a British drummer of the 24th Regiment, named John Bevin, testified that he had heard both McKee and Elliott report the number of Indians as 2000, in talking to Major Campbell, the commandant of the fort, after the battle. He and Lasselle agree as to Caldwell's rangers. See their depositions, American State Papers, IV., 494.]
The Indians' Stand at the Fallen Timbers.
On August 20, 1794, Wayne marched to battle against the Indians. [Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, August 28, 1794. McBride, II., 129; "Life of Paxton." Many of the regulars and volunteers were left in Fort Defiance and the breastworks on the Maumee as garrisons.] They lay about six miles down the river, near the British fort, in a place known as the Fallen Timbers, because there the thick forest had been overturned by a whirlwind, and the dead trees lay piled across one another in rows. All the baggage was left behind in the breastwork, with a sufficient guard. The army numbered about three thousand men; two thousand were regulars, and there were a thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky under General Scott.
March of the Army.
The army marched down the left or north branch of the Maumee. A small force of mounted volunteers—Kentucky militia—were in front. On the right flank the squadron of dragoons, the regular cavalry, marched next to the river. The infantry, armed with musket and bayonet, were formed in two long lines, the second some little distance behind the first; the left of the first line being continued by the companies of regular riflemen and light troops. Scott, with the body of the mounted volunteers, was thrown out on the left with instructions to turn the flank of the Indians, thus effectually preventing them from performing a similar feat at the expense of the Americans. There could be no greater contrast than that between Wayne's carefully trained troops, marching in open order to the attack, and St. Clair's huddled mass of raw soldiers receiving an assault they were powerless to repel.
Heavy Skirmishing,