CHAPTER XI. Frontier Difficulties with the Indians. General Harmer's Expedition against them. Ambuscade of Colonel Hardin's Detachment.-Escape of Captain Armstrong. A Second Detachment of Colonel Hardin compelled to retreat.Washington's long Anxiety as to the Result of the Enterprise. Final Tidings. REQUENT depredations had of late been made on our frontier settlements by what Washington termed "certain banditti of Indians" from the northwest side of the Ohio. Some of our people had been massacred and others carried into deplorable captivity. Strict justice and equity had always formed the basis of Washington's dealings with the Indian tribes, and he had endeavored to convince them that such was the general policy of our government; but his efforts were often thwarted by the conduct of our own people; the encroachments of land speculators and the lawless conduct of our frontiersmen; and jealousies thus excited were fomented by the intrigues of foreign agents. The Indians of the Wabash and the Miami rivers, who were the present aggressors, were numerous, warlike, and not deficient in discipline. They were well armed also, obtaining weapons and ammunition from the posts which the British still retained within the territories of the United States, contrary to the treaty of peace. Washington had deprecated a war with these savages, whom he considered acting under delusion; but finding all pacific overtures unavailing, and rather productive of more daring atrocities, he felt compelled to resort to it, alike by motives of policy, humanity, and justice. An act had been provided for emergencies, by which the President was empowered to call out the militia for the protection of the frontier; this act he put in force in the interval of Congress; and under it an expedition was set on foot, which began its march on the 30th of September from Fort Washington (which stood on the site of the present city of Cincinnati). Brigadier General Harmer, a veteran of the Revolution, led the expedition, having under him three hundred and twenty regulars, with militia detachments from Pennsylvania and Virginia (or Kentucky), making in all fourteen hundred and fifty-three men. After a march of seventeen days, they approached the principal village of the Miamis. The Indians did not await an attack, but set fire to the village and fled to the woods. The destruction of the place, with that of large quantities of provisions, was completed. An Indian trail being discovered, Colonel Hardin, a continental officer who commanded the Kentucky militia, was detached to follow it, at the head of one hundred and fifty of his mer, and about thirty regulars, under Captair Armstrong and Ensign Hartshorn. They followed the trail for about six miles, and were crossing a plɛin covered by thickets, when suddenly there were volleys of rifles on each side, from unseen marksmen, accompanied by the horrid war-whoop. The trail had, in fact, decoyed them into an ambush of seven hundred savages, under the famous warrior Little Turtle. The militia fled, without firing a musket. The savages now turned upon the little handful of regulars, who stood their ground, and made a brave resistance with the bayonet until all were slain, excepting Captain Armstrong, Ensign Hartshorn, and five privates. The ensign was saved by falling behind a log, which screened him from his pursuers. Armstrong plunged into a swamp, where he sank up to his neck, and remained for several hours of the night, within two hundred yards of the field of action, a spectator of the war-dance of the savages over the slain. The two officers who escaped thus narrowly, found their way back to the camp about six miles distant.1 The army, notwithstanding, effected the main purpose of the expedition in laying waste the Indian villages and destroying their winter's stock of provisions, after which it commenced its march back to Fort Washington. On the 21st of October, when it was halted about ten miles to the west of Chillicothe, an opportunity was given Colonel Hardin to wipe out the late disgrace of his arms. He was detached with a larger body of militia than before, and sixty regulars, under Major Willys, to seek and bring the savages to 1 Butler's Hist of Kentucky, 192. action. The accounts of these Indian wars are very confused. It appears, however, that he had another encounter with Little Turtle and his braves. It was a bloody battle, fought well on both sides. The militia behaved bravely, and lost many men and officers, as did the regulars; Major Willys fell at the commencement of the action. Colonel Hardin was at length compelled to retreat, leaving the dead and wounded in the hands of the enemy. After he had rejoined the main force, the whole expedition made its way back to Fort Washington, on the banks of the Ohio. During all this time, Washington had been rusticating at Mount Vernon, in utter ignorance of this expedition. Week after week elapsed without any tidings of its issue, progress, or even commencement. On the 2d of November he wrote to the Secretary of War (General Knox), expressing his surprise at this lack of information, and his anxiety as to the result of the enterprise, and requesting him to forward any official or other accounts that he might have relating to it. "This matter," observed he, "favorable or otherwise in the issue, will require to be laid before Congress, that the motives which induced the expedition may appear." Nearly another month elapsed; the time for the reassembling of Congress was at hand, yet Washington was still without the desired information. It was not until the last of November that he received a letter from Governor George Clinton of New York, communicating particulars of the affair related to him by Brant, the celebrated Indian chief. |