The First White Man of the West / Life and Exploits of Col. Dan'l. Boone, the First Settler of Kentucky; / Interspersed with Incidents in the Early Annals of the Country.

by Timothy Flint

The commanding general, though he had been for some time enfeebled with severe disease, acted with personal bravery, and delivered his orders with judgment and self-possession. A charge was made upon the savages with the bayonet: and they were driven from their covert with some loss, a distance of four hundred yards. But as soon as the charge was suspended, they returned to the attack. General Butler was mortally wounded; the left of the right wing broken, and the artillerists killed almost to a man. The guns were seized and the camp penetrated by the enemy. A desperate charge was headed by Colonel Butler, although he was severely wounded, and the Indians were again driven from the camp, and the artillery recovered. Several charges were repeated with partial success. The enemy only retreated, to return to the charge, flashed with new ardor. The ranks of the troops were broken, and the men pressed together in crowds, and were shot down without resistance. A retreat was all that remained, to save the remnant of the army. Colonel Darke was ordered to charge a body of savages that intercepted their retreat. Major Clark, with his battalion, was directed to cover the rear. These orders were carried into effect, and a most disorderly retreat commenced. A pursuit was kept up four miles, when, fortunately for the surviving Americans, the natural greediness of the savage appetite for plunder, called back the victorious Indians to the camp, to divide the spoils. The routed troops continued their flight to fort Jefferson, throwing away their arms on the road. The wounded were left here, and the army retired upon fort Washington.

In this fatal battle, fell thirty-eight commissioned officers, and five hundred and ninety-three non-commissioned officers and privates. Twenty-one commissioned officers, many of whom afterwards died of their wounds, and two hundred and forty-two non-commissioned officers and privates were wounded.

The savage force, in this fatal engagement, was led by a Mississago chief, who had been trained to war under the British, during the revolution. So superior was his knowledge of tactics, that the Indian chiefs, though extremely jealous of him, yielded the entire command to him; and he arranged and fought the battle with great combination of military skill. Their force amounted to four thousand; and they stated the Americans killed, at six hundred and twenty, and their own at sixty-five; but it was undoubtedly much greater. They took seven pieces of cannon and two hundred oxen, and many horses. The chief, at the close of the battle, bade the Indians forbear the pursuit of the Americans, as he said they had killed enough.

General Scott, with one thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky, soon after marched against a party of the victors, at St. Clair's fatal field. He found the Indians rioting in their plunder, riding the oxen in the glee of triumph, and acting as if the whole body was intoxicated. General Scott immediately attacked them. The contest was short but decisive. The Indians had two hundred killed on the spot. The cannon and military stores remaining, were retaken, and the savages completely routed. The loss of the Kentuckians was inconsiderable.

The reputation of the government was now committed in the fortunes of the war. Three additional regiments were directed to be raised. On the motion in congress for raising these regiments, there was an animated, and even a bitter debate. It was urged on one hand, that the expense of such a force would involve the necessity of severe taxation; that too much power was thrown into the hands of the president; that the war had been badly managed, and ought to have been entrusted to the militia of the west, under their own officers; and with more force they urged that no success could be of any avail, so long as the British held those posts within our acknowledged limits, from which the savages were supplied with protection, shelter, arms, advice, and instigation to the war.

On the other hand, the justice of the cause, as a war of defence, and not of conquest, was unquestionable. It was proved, that between 1783 and 1790, no less than one thousand five hundred people of Kentucky had been massacred by the savages, or dragged into a horrid captivity; and that the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia had suffered a loss not much less. It was proved that every effort had been made to pacify the savages without effect. They showed that in 1790, when a treaty was proposed to the savages at the Miami, they first refused to treat, and then asked thirty days for deliberation. It was granted. In the interim, they stated that not less than one hundred and twenty persons had been killed and captured, and several prisoners roasted alive; at the term of which horrors, they refused any answer at all to the proposition to treat. Various other remarks were made in defence of the bill. It tried the strength of parties in congress, and was finally carried.

General St. Clair resigned, and Major General Anthony Wayne was appointed to succeed him. This officer commanded the confidence of the western people, who confided in that reckless bravery, which had long before procured him the appellation of "Mad Anthony." There was a powerful party who still affected to consider this war unnecessary, and every impediment was placed in the way of its success, which that party could devise. To prove to them that the government was still disposed to peace, two excellent officers and valuable men, Col. Hardin, and Major Truman, were severally despatched with propositions of peace. They were both murdered by the savages. These unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, and the difficulties and delays naturally incident to the preparation of such a force, together with the attempts that had been made in congress, to render the war unpopular, had worn away so much time that the season for operations for the year had almost elapsed. But as soon as the negotiations had wholly failed, the campaign was opened with as much vigor as the nature of the case would admit. The general was able, however, to do no more this autumn, than to advance into the forest towards the country of the savages, six miles in advance of fort Jefferson. He took possession of the ground on which the fatal defeat of St. Clair had taken place, in 1792. He here erected a fortification, with the appropriate name of Fort Recovery. His principal camp was called Greenville.

In Kentucky, meanwhile, many of the people clamored against these measures, and loudly insisted that the war ought to be carried on by militia, to be commanded by an officer taken from their state. It was believed, too, by the executive, that the British government, by retaining their posts within our limits, and by various other measures, at least countenanced the Indians in their hostilities. That government took a more decisive measure early in the spring. A British detachment from Detroit, advanced near fifty miles south of that place, and fortified themselves on the Miami of the lakes. In one of the numerous skirmishes which took place between the savages and the advance of General Wayne, it was affirmed, that the British were mingled with the Indians.

On the 8th of August, 1794, General Wayne reached the confluence of the Au Glaize, and the Miami of the lakes. The richest and most extensive settlements of the western Indians were at this place. It was distant only about thirty miles from the post on the Miami, which the British; had recently occupied. The whole strength of the enemy, amounting to nearly two thousand warriors, was collected in the vicinity of that post. The regulars of General Wayne were not much inferior in numbers. A reinforcement of one thousand one hundred mounted Kentucky militia, commanded by General Scott, gave a decided superiority to the American force. The general was well aware that the enemy were ready to give him battle, and he ardently desired it. But in pursuance of the settled policy of the United States, another effort was made for the attainment of peace, without the shedding of blood. The savages were exhorted by those who were sent to them, no longer to follow the counsels of the bad men at the foot of the Rapids, who urged them on to the war, but had neither the power nor the inclination to protect them; that to listen to the propositions of the government of the United States, would restore them to their homes, and rescue them from famine. To these propositions they returned only an evasive answer.

On the 20th of August, the army of General Wayne marched in columns. A select battalion, under Major Price, moved as a reconnoitering force in front. After marching five miles, he received so heavy a fire from the savages, concealed as usual, that he was compelled to retreat. The savages had chosen their ground with great judgment. They had moved into a thick wood, in advance of the British works, and had taken a position behind fallen timber, prostrated by a tornado. This rendered their position almost inaccessible to horse. They were formed in three regular lines, according to Indian custom, very much extended in front. Their first effort was to turn the left flank of the American army.