On Sunday, January 2, 1791, a war party of thirty Delaware and Wyandots attacked the settlers on donation lands at Big Bottom. Thirteen people, including a woman and two children, were gathered in a two-story blockhouse of beech logs. Four men were eating supper in a cabin a hundred yards above the blockhouse, and two men were preparing their meal in another cabin below the main building. A light snow covered the ground, and the ice on the Muskingum was strong enough to hold the Indians who crossed from the trail on the opposite side. While a few of their number tied the four men in the upper cabin, the main body of Indians surrounded the blockhouse. One of them pushed open the door, and his companions fired at the men around the fireplace. Then the Indians rushed in and massacred the settlers before they could reach their weapons. Twelve people were killed, five were made captives, and the two men in the lower cabin escaped to carry the news to the lower settlements.
Many of the men from Belpre and Waterford were attending the Court of Quarter Sessions in Marietta when the news of the massacre arrived. Hurrying back to their homes, they prepared to defend themselves if other attacks should be made. Several smaller settlements were abandoned, and the fortifications at Marietta, Belpre, and Waterford were strengthened. On January 8 Putnam wrote to Washington:
“The garrison at Fort Harmar, consisting at this time of little more than twenty men, can afford no protection to our settlements; and the whole number of men in all our settlements, capable of bearing arms, including all civil and military officers, do not exceed 287; and these badly armed. We are in the utmost danger of being swallowed up, should the enemy push the war with vigor during the winter.”
INDIAN CHIEFS BEING ENTERTAINED BY RUFUS PUTNAM AT CAMPUS MARTIUS
During the following summer a company of United States troops under Major Jonathan Haskell was stationed at the Ohio Company settlements. The roofs of Campus Martius were covered with four inches of clay as a protection against flaming arrows. Picketed Point was strengthened and another blockhouse built for quartering troops. Colonel Ebenezer Sproat commanded a detail of 60 men from the militia in building fortifications. Six scouts, two from each of the settlements, started each morning on a circuit of 15 miles to discover the approach of Indians and give the alarm. For this defense the Ohio Company paid a total of $11,350.90, which was never repaid by the government. During the war the Indians killed 38 settlers in the vicinity of Marietta.
Coming soon after Harmar’s tragic defeat, the Big Bottom massacre seemed to justify the boast of the Indians that they would drive the white men out of the Ohio Valley. Washington commissioned St. Clair to lead an army of 2,000 men to punish the tribes. Starting from Fort Washington in October, 1791, they reached the eastern fork of the Wabash at present Fort Recovery, Ohio, on November 3, and encamped without suspicion of danger. At dawn they were surprised by a large body of Indians and forced to retreat with a loss of 900 men. As a result of the bitter criticism directed against St. Clair, a committee of Congress investigated the battle and found that the blame rested not upon St. Clair, but upon the incompetence of the troops and the inadequacy of the equipment. This has been before referred to as a besetting evil of early western campaigns.
The situation had become of serious national consequence. One of the traits of Indian warriors was a desire to be on the winning side. Under the impetus of two crushing defeats administered in quick succession to the American troops, even those tribes which had been peaceable and inoffensive began joining with the war-mad tribes and all white settlements were endangered. There was strong reason to believe, as was later substantiated, that the British who had not evacuated posts in Michigan despite the Treaty of Paris, were aiding and abetting the red man.
Washington realized that decisive steps must be taken if the Northwest was to be saved to the United States, and appointed General “Mad” Anthony Wayne of Revolutionary fame to lead the next expedition against the Indians and their allies.
