Volume IV Part 3 (1/2)

Story of Van Cleve the Packer.

St. Clair was himself in much danger, for he tried to stay behind and stem the torrent of fugitives; but he failed, being swept forward by the crowd, and when he attempted to ride to the front to rally them, he failed again, for his horse could not be p.r.i.c.ked out of a walk. The packer, Van Cleve, in his journal, gives a picture of the flight. He was himself one of the few who lost neither courage nor generosity in the rout.

Among his fellow packers were his uncle and a young man named Bonham, who was his close and dear friend. The uncle was shot in the wrist, the ball lodging near his shoulder; but he escaped. Bonham, just before the retreat began, was shot through both hips, so that he could not walk.

Young Van Cleve got him a horse, on which he was with difficulty mounted; then, as the flight began, Bonham bade Van Cleve look to his safety, as he was on foot, and the two separated. Bonham rode until the pursuit had almost ceased; then, weak and crippled, he was thrown off his horse and slain. Meanwhile Van Cleve ran steadily on foot. By the time he had gone two miles most of the mounted men had pa.s.sed him. A boy, on the point of falling from exhaustion, now begged his help; and the kind-hearted backwoodsman seized the lad and pulled him along nearly two miles farther, when he himself became so worn-out that he nearly fell. There were still two horses in the rear, one carrying three men, and one two; and behind the latter Van Cleve, summoning his strength, threw the boy, who escaped. Nor did Van Cleve's pity for his fellows cease with this; for he stopped to tie his handkerchief around the knee of a wounded man. His violent exertions gave him a cramp in both thighs, so that he could barely walk; and in consequence the strong and active pa.s.sed him until he was within a hundred yards of the rear, where the Indians were tomahawking the old and wounded men. So close were they that for a moment his heart sunk in despair; but he threw off his shoes, the touch of the cold ground seemed to revive him, and he again began to trot forward. He got around a bend in the road, pa.s.sing half a dozen other fugitives; and long afterwards he told how well he remembered thinking that it would be some time before they would all be ma.s.sacred and his own turn came. However, at this point the pursuit ceased, and a few miles farther on he had gained the middle of the flying troops, and like them came to a walk. He fell in with a queer group, consisting of the sole remaining officer of the artillery, an infantry corporal, and a woman called Red-headed Nance. Both of the latter were crying, the corporal for the loss of his wife, the woman for the loss of her child.

The worn-out officer hung on the corporal's arm, while Van Cleve ”carried his fusee and accoutrements and led Nance; and in this sociable way arrived at Fort Jefferson a little after sunset.”

The Remnant of the Army Reaches Cincinnati.

Exultation of the Victors.

Before reaching Fort Jefferson the wretched army encountered the regular regiment which had been so unfortunately detached a couple of days before the battle. The most severely wounded were left in the fort; [Footnote: Bradley MSS. The addition of two hundred sick and wounded brought the garrison to such short commons that they had to slaughter the pack-horses for food.] and then the flight was renewed, until the disorganized and half-armed rabble reached Fort Was.h.i.+ngton, and the mean log huts of Cincinnati. Six hundred and thirty men had been killed and over two hundred and eighty wounded; less than five hundred, only about a third of the whole number engaged in the battle, remained unhurt. But one or two were taken prisoners, for the Indians butchered everybody, wounded or unwounded, who fell into their hands. There is no record of the torture of any of the captives, but there was one singular instance of cannibalism. The savage Chippewas from the far-off north devoured one of the slain soldiers, probably in a spirit of ferocious bravado; the other tribes expressed horror at the deed. [Footnote: Brickell's Narrative.] The Indians were rich with the spoil. They got horses, tents, guns, axes, powder, clothing, and blankets--in short everything their hearts prized. Their loss was comparatively slight; it may not have been one twentieth that of the whites. They did not at the moment follow up their victory, each band going off with its own share of the booty. But the triumph was so overwhelming, and the reward so great, that the war spirit received a great impetus in all the tribes. The bands of warriors that marched against the frontier were more numerous, more formidable, and bolder than ever.

In the following January Wilkinson with a hundred and fifty mounted volunteers marched to the battle-field to bury the slain. The weather was bitterly cold, snow lay deep on the ground, and some of the volunteers were frost bitten. [Footnote: McBride's ”Pioneer Biography,”

John Reily's narrative. This expedition, in which not a single hostile Indian was encountered, has been trans.m.u.ted by Withers and one or two other border historians into a purely fict.i.tious expedition of revenge in which hundreds of Indians were slain on the field of St. Clair's disaster.]

Kentucky Volunteers Visit the Battle-field and Bury the Dead.

Four miles from the scene of the battle, where the pursuit had ended, they began to find the bodies on the road, and close alongside, in the woods, whither some of the hunted creatures had turned at the last, to s.n.a.t.c.h one more moment of life. Many had been dragged from under the snow and devoured by wolves. The others lay where they had fallen, showing as mounds through the smooth white mantle that covered them. On the battle-field itself the slain lay thick, scalped, and stripped of all their clothing which the conquerors deemed worth taking. The bodies, blackened by frost and exposure, could not be identified; and they were buried in a shallow trench in the frozen ground. The volunteers then marched home.

News of the Disaster is Sent to Was.h.i.+ngton.

When the remnant of the defeated army reached the banks of the Ohio, St.

Clair sent his aide, Denny, to carry the news to Philadelphia, at that time the national capital. The river was swollen, there were incessant snowstorms, and ice formed heavily, so that it took twenty days of toil and cold before Denny reached Wheeling and got horses. For ten days more he rode over the bad winter roads, reaching Philadelphia with the evil tidings on the evening of December 19th. It was thus six weeks after the defeat of the army before the news was brought to the anxious Federal authorities.

The young officer called first on the Secretary of War; but as soon as the Secretary realized the importance of the information he had it conveyed to the President. Was.h.i.+ngton was at dinner, with some guests, and was called from the table to listen to the tidings of ill fortune.

He returned with unmoved face, and at the dinner, and at the reception which followed, he behaved with his usual stately courtesy to those whom he was entertaining, not so much as hinting at what he had heard.

Was.h.i.+ngton's Wrath.

But when the last guest had gone, his pent-up wrath broke forth in one of those fits of volcanic fury which sometimes shattered his iron outward calm. Walking up and down the room he burst out in wild regret for the rout and disaster, and bitter invective against St. Clair, reciting how, in that very room, he had wished the unfortunate commander success and honor and had bidden him above all things beware of a surprise. [Footnote: Tobias Lear, Was.h.i.+ngton's Private Secretary as quoted by both Custis and Rush. The report of an eyewitness. See also Lodge's ”Was.h.i.+ngton,” p. 94. Denny, in his journal, merely mentions that he went at once to the Secretary of War's office on the evening of the 19th, and does not speak of seeing Was.h.i.+ngton until the following morning. On the strength of this omission one or two of St. Clair's apologists have striven to represent the whole account of Was.h.i.+ngton's wrath as apocryphal; but the attempt is puerile; the relation comes from an eyewitness who had no possible motive to distort the facts. The Secretary of War, Knox, was certain to inform Was.h.i.+ngton of the disaster the very evening he heard of it; and whether he sent Denny, or another messenger, or went himself is unimportant. Lear might very well have been mistaken as to the messenger who brought the news; but he could not have been mistaken about Was.h.i.+ngton's speech.] ”He went off with that last solemn warning thrown into his ears,” spoke Was.h.i.+ngton, as he strode to and fro, ”and yet to suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a surprise, the very thing I guarded him against! O G.o.d, O G.o.d, he's worse than a murderer! How can he answer it to his country!” Then, calming himself by a mighty effort: ”General St. Clair shall have justice ... he shall have full justice.” And St.

Clair did receive full justice, and mercy too, from both Was.h.i.+ngton and Congress. For the sake of his courage and honorable character they held him guiltless of the disaster for which his lack of capacity as a general was so largely accountable.

The Blame for the Disaster.

Was.h.i.+ngton and his administration were not free from blame. It was foolish to attempt the campaign the Northwestern Indians with men who had only been trained for six months, and who were enlisted at the absurd price of two dollars a month. Moreover, there were needless delays in forwarding the troops to Fort Was.h.i.+ngton; and the commissary department was badly managed. Was.h.i.+ngton was not directly responsible for any of these shortcomings; he very wisely left to the Secretary of War, Knox, the immediate control of the whole matter, seeking to avoid all interference with him, so that there might be no clas.h.i.+ng or conflict of authority [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., Was.h.i.+ngton Papers. War Dept. Ex. C., Was.h.i.+ngton to Knox, April 1, 1791.]; but he was of course ultimately responsible for the little evil, no less than for the great good, done by his administration.

Incompetence of St. Clair.

The chief blunder was the selection of St. Clair. As a commander he erred in many ways. He did not, or could not, train his troops; and he had no business to challenge a death fight with raw levies. It was unpardonable of him to send back one of his two regular regiments, the only trustworthy portion of his force, on the eve of the battle. He should never have posted the militia, his poorest troops, in the most exposed situation. Above all he should have seen that the patrols and pickets were so numerous, and performed their duty so faithfully, as to preclude the possibility of surprise. With the kind of army furnished him he could hardly have won a victory under any circ.u.mstances; but the overwhelming nature of the defeat was mainly due to his incompetence.

CHAPTER II.

MAD ANTHONY WAYNE; AND THE FIGHT OF THE FALLEN TIMBERS, 1792-1795.

Demoralization Caused by St. Clair's Defeat.

The United States Government was almost as much demoralized by St.

Clair's defeat as was St. Clair's own army. The loosely-knit nation was very poor, and very loath to undertake any work which involved sustained effort and pecuniary sacrifice; while each section was jealous of every other and was unwilling to embark in any enterprise unlikely to inure to its own immediate benefit. There was little national glory or reputation to be won by even a successful Indian war; while another defeat might prove a serious disaster to a government which was as yet far from firm in its seat. The Eastern people were lukewarm about a war in which they had no direct interest; and the foolish frontiersmen, instead of backing up the administration, railed at it and persistently supported the party which desired so to limit the powers and energies of the National Government as to produce mere paralysis. Under such conditions the national administration, instead of at once redoubling its efforts to ensure success by shock of arms, was driven to the ign.o.ble necessity of yet again striving for a hopeless peace.