by Gerald Therrien.
The Unveiling of Canadian History, Volume 3.
The Storming of Hell – the War for the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, 1786 – 1796.
During the American Revolution, when General Washington had asked General Wayne to undertake an extremely perilous enterprise – the storming of Stony Point, Wayne replied : “General, I will storm Hell, if you will only plan it.”
Part 3 – Peace on the Frontier
Chapter 22 – The Battle of Fallen Timbers, August 1794
General Wayne received his instructions to establish at post at the Miami villages, and his army proceeded with hope for peace, but prepared for war against the western Indian nations and their British allies. The two sides would meet at a place called ‘Fallen Timbers’, and the result of this battle would change everything!
The Fallen Timbers Battlefield Monument – an Indian scout, General Wayne, and a frontiersman, by Bruce Saville (1929)
On March 31st 1794, Secretary of War Knox sent to General Wayne the proceedings of the Indian council at Buffaloe creek in October 1793, President Washington’s answer of December 24th, the reply of the Indians on February 7th, and also Dorchester’s speech to the Indians on February 10th, and wrote to him of his own discouraging outlook, that ‘on mature consideration, to be of a nature not to encourage the hopes of a peace, excepting on principles of relinquishments, which are utterly inadmissible …’
Know instructed General Wayne of the government plans, that:
In the events of either peace or war the President of the United States considers it of great importance that you should proceed as far into the country as shall in your own judgement be consistent with the security of your force and the certainty of supplies. The establishment of posts at the Miami Villages and perhaps at the Au Glaize and combining a communication down the Wabash is considered of such importance as to justify your calling for an adequate number of mounted militia from Kentucky … with a well calculated assurance of being able to maintain the advance posts you may assume. A retrograde movement would be attended with very ill effects.”
Knox further instructed General Wayne that:
“the late intention of some restless people of the frontier settlements to make hostile inroads into the dominions of Spain, renders it indispensible that you should immediately order as respectable a detachment as you can to take post at fort Massac and to erect a strong redoubt and block house with some suitable cannon from fort Washington.”
Note: Unknown to General Wayne, his subordinate, General James Wilkinson, had been on the Spanish payroll since 1792 – receiving a $2000 annual pension, while helping in their plan to induce Kentucky to separate from the United States and seek an alliance with Spain! Wilkinson even claimed to have spent $8,640 in breaking up the proposed expedition of General George Clark against New Orleans, and was reimbursed! Wilkinson also sent letters to Knox, accusing Wayne of high crimes!!!
On June 7th, Knox again wrote to General Wayne that:
“[it is] the anxious desire of the President of the United States to terminate, if possible, the Indian war in your scene in the course of the present year. It is however to be apprehended that the establishment which it is understood has been made by British troops at the rapids of the Miami may be giving new confidence and support to your Indian enemies, require more force and greater exertions than otherwise would have been necessary … you are to proportion your force so as to effect the end intended with as little risque as circumstances will admit … If therefore in the course of your operations against the Indian enemy, it should become necessary to dislodge the party at the rapids of the Miami, you are hereby authorized in the name of the President of the United States to do it … But no attempt ought to be made unless it shall promise complete success – an unsuccessful attempt would be attended with pernicious consequences.”
On June 10th, General Wayne replied to Knox that:
“hence I am placed in a very delicate & disagreeable situation; the very point at which I had premeditated a severe stroke, ie. the centre of the hostile tribes, the British are now in possession of – probably with a view to provoke what they would with avidity declare an aggression upon our part were we now to make an attempt against that quarter, although not in their occupancy until surreptitiously & nefariously obtained the other day.”
Wayne’s plans were complicated by the slowness and inadequate supply by the private contractors of the surplus rations needed for any offensive action – that was being sabotaged by Wilkinson, who maintained a secret correspondence with one of the contractors on what, when and how to supply the army! The convoys were also under attack by Indian raids. The patience and persistence of Wayne would now be put to the test.
Note: Wayne’s aide-de-camp was Lieutenant William Henry Harrison.
Meanwhile, Blue Jacket had gone forth to bring the northern-area Indians, along with the lake-area Indians to the great Indian council that was gathering at the Glaize. On June 16th, with 1,600 warriors at the Glaize, the council assembled to formulate a plan of action – to move against Wayne’s convoys, and to drive the Americans out of the country. While leaving behind a group of Delawares to guard against a sudden American attack against the villages, almost 1200 warriors, along with a detachment of British Indian Department agents, British traders and a few British regulars – all disguised and dressed as Indians, left the Glaize on June 19th and marched toward the frontier posts. On observing a large convoy of packhorses laden with supplies headed for fort Recovery, the Indian forces moved to lay in ambush near the fort.
Fort Recovery was commanded by Captain Alexander Gibson and garrisoned by 200 men, and defended by 6 recovered cannons (of the 8 cannons that had been captured and buried there by the Indians after the battle and defeat of St. Clair’s army in November 1791). Major McMahon, with an escort of 50 dragoons and 90 riflemen were escorting 360 packhorses with 1200 kegs of flour from Greene Ville and arrived at fort Recovery on the evening of June 29th.
In the morning the herd of packhorses had been moved forward a half-mile from the fort to graze, before beginning the return journey to Greene Ville, when the Indians discovered the vanguard of the herd and attacked, capturing 3 drivers and quickly scattering the horses.
Upon hearing the shots, McMahon quickly led the 50 dragoons to protect the valuable herd and charged into the Indian attack, but were soon driven back, past the advancing 90 riflemen, who were soon overwhelmed and also forced to retreat by the pursuing Indians. Gibson now sent forward every man he could to support McMahon’s troops, and after firing a volley at the charging Indians, retreated back to the fort with the dragoons. While only 3 Indians had been killed, the Americans had suffered 40 casualties and were now surrounded on all sides, by an overwhelming force.
A group of Indians ran toward the fort in an attempt to storm the walls, but the riflemen fired back from their loopholes and also fired their six-pounders. The Indians kept up the attack on the fort until nightfall, with another dozen Indians killed and an equal number injured. By the next morning, due to deficiencies of ammunition and want of provisions, the siege ended and the Indians retreated back north. Disarray among the Indian ranks caused 800 of the lake-area Indians to leave to return home.
When a division of 720 Kentucky mounted militia volunteers arrived at Greene Ville on July 25th with another division of 800 to follow with the heavy ordnance, General Wayne began to prepare his 2,000-man legion to move forward, and on July 28th he started his decisive trek northward to the Grand Glaize, in anticipation that ‘the issue may probably be tried in the course of a few days.’ Marching 10 to 12 miles a day, the legion reached the Saint Marys river on August 1st where they stopped and built a small two-blockhouse fortification, named fort Adams.
On the afternoon of August 3rd, while he was resting, a large beech tree crashed onto his tent, landing mere inches from where he lay!!! General Wayne considered his escape incredible, but ‘probably premeditated’ – perhaps someone of the Wilkinson faction had planned to murder him.
That evening, the second division of the Kentucky volunteers arrived with a large supply of provisions. Leaving behind a 40-man garrison, on August 4th the legion moved on. Upon arriving at the Upper Delaware creek, an Indian war party’s camp was discovered nearby but a detachment was not allowed to be sent after it. Learning the lesson of St. Clair’s defeat, Wayne would only commit his legion as a single unit.
On August 7th, they arrived at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize rivers, to find that the extensive villages had been totally abandoned, leaving vast cultivated fields of corn, beans and vegetables. The Indians of those villages had fled, with whatever they could carry, to the British fort Miami, and were now in need of more ammunition and fresh provisions. General Wayne ordered the construction of a four-blockhouse fortification, to be named fort Defiance.
In the absence of any Indian resistance, having only discovered a few scouts reconnoitring his army, General Wayne estimated that the Indians must be in great disarray and on August 13th he sent a messenger with an offer for peace to the Indians that:
“actuated by the purest principles of humanity and urged by pity for the errors into which bad and designing men have led you … invite each and every of the hostile tribes of Indians to appoint deputies to meet me and my army without delay … in order to settle the preliminaries of a lasting peace … the arm of the United States is strong and powerful but they love mercy and kindness more than war and desolation … Brothers, be no longer deceived or led astray by the false promises and language of the bad white men at the foot of the rapids, they have neither the power nor the inclination to protect you.”
Indian runners had been again sent to the lake-area Indians to ask their assistance with the advance of Wayne’s army, and more than 600 began to arrive. On August 12th, Colonel England sent 100 unarmed Canadian militia from Detroit to fort Miami, to serve as workmen to complete the defences before Wayne arrived, and sent an additional 50 armed Canadian militia to assist the Indians.
Note: At the first alarm of Wayne’s approach, all 100 Canadians would desert and flee back to Detroit.
On the night of August 14th a grand council met to discuss the offer of Wayne. Little Turtle, a Miami war chief, feared the lack of British commitment and was sceptical of any direct British military involvement, and proposed sending a delegation to talk to Wayne. This was contrary to the advice and demands of McKee, Elliott, Girty and the other British agents. Blue Jacket, the Shawnee war chief, spoke next, belittling Little Turtle, and appealing to the war spirit of the other Indians, telling them how Wayne’s army was rich in everything that the Indians desired – horses, blankets, clothing, guns and ammunition, and how the British were close at hand to assist them. In order to deceive the Americans and ‘to gain a few days time in hopes that the Indians about Detroit may increase their strength so as to enable them to meet him [Wayne] with a prospect of advantage’, they sent a message to Wayne to propose a truce – that he should stay where he was for 10 days and to build no forts in their towns, and that they would stay where they were and at the expiration of the time he should see them coming with a flag as he desired.
On August 15th, Wayne’s messenger returned the message – while the Indians’ war preparations continued in earnest at fort Miami. General Wayne determined not to send an answer, and leaving behind a 90-man garrison at fort Defiance, he resumed his march and crossed the Maumee river, with one wing of the army on the north side and the other wing on the south side, but the next day, he marched east with the entire army on the north shore until they arrived at Roche de Bout, the head of the rapids, about 10 miles from the enemy camp near fort Miami.
On August 19th, General Wayne directed the construction of a temporary place of deposit for heavy baggage, so that the Legion could advance more rapidly – the soldiers would only carry a blanket and 2 days’ rations.
Leaving behind a 100-man garrison at Camp Deposit, on the morning of August 20th, General Wayne’s army marched forward, led by Major Price’s 180 mounted Kentucky militiamen, followed on the left wing by Colonel Hamtramck with the 2nd and 4th Sub Legions and flanked on his left by a brigade of mounted militia; and on the right wing by General Wilkinson with the 1st and 3rd Sub Legions, and flanked on his right by the Miami river. The dragoons and artillery and the rest of the Kentucky mounted militia followed in the rear.
The 1200 Indian warriors were formed in one single line about ¾ mile long and were waiting in ambush at Fallen Timbers, an area about 5 miles west of fort Miami, where some years earlier a tornado had caused downed trees and tangled thicket to produce a natural abatis.
As Wayne’s advance troops rode east along the river, upon reaching the Fallen Timbers, they were attacked by the concealed Indians. A part of the centre of the Indian line charged at the mounted militia, causing them to flee. Being impracticable for the cavalry to operate effectively in this abatis, General Wayne then ordered Scott to gain and turn the enemy’s right flank, using the whole of the mounted militia, and ordered the Legion cavalry to turn the enemy’s left flank. General Wayne now brought up the Legion infantry and formed them into two lines to fire at the charging Indians.
After stopping their charge, General Wayne then ordered a charge with bayonets, easily forcing the thin Indian line to retreat, falling back from ravine to ravine. After taking heavy fire from the 60 Canadian militia and traders on the left, a brigade of unmounted militia moved through the swampy terrain to outflank the Canadian militia, sending them reeling in disorder. With some of the officers wary of being led into another ambush, the dragoons charged ahead, the Indians were unable to offer any resistance and they fled back to fort Miami.
Upon seeing the scattered Indians streaming out of the woods and heading for the fort, and ‘not knowing at what moment we might be attacked’, Major Campbell ordered the garrison under arms and the gates closed. Astounded and confused, the Indians were outraged at the sudden withdrawal of the fort’s protection. Despite McKee’s efforts to rally them, the disorganized Indians continued their flight to Swan creek where their families were camped and where they would now have to rely on the British for provisions.
The battle lasted a little over an hour, with the American Legion suffering 33 killed and 100 wounded, while it was estimated that the Indians suffered twice as many casualties. After having the ground in front reconnoitered for the entire distance to the British fort, General Wayne advanced his army to within a mile of fort Miami and encamped for the evening.
The next morning, Major Campbell sent a message to General Wayne asking:
“in what light, I am to view your making such near approachs to this garrison … I know of no war existing between Great Britain and America.”
General Wayne answered that:
“were you intitled to an answer, the most full and satisfactory one was announced to you, from the muzzels of my small arms yesterday morning in the action against the hoard of savages in the vicinity of your post.”
The following day, Major Campbell replied that attacking the British fort may bring on a war between their countries, that:
“should you continue to approach my post … my indispensable duty to my king and country and the honor of my profession will oblige me to have recourse to those measures, which thousands of either nation may hereafter have cause to regret.”
General Wayne answered that the British post was on American territory, and that:
“taking post far within the well known and acknowledged limits of the United States, and erecting a fortification in the heart of the settlements of the Indian tribes now at war with the United States … appears to be an act of the highest aggression and destructive to the peace and interest of the Union …
I do hereby desire and demand in the name of the President of the United States that you immediately desist from any further act of hostility or aggression, by forbearing to fortify and by withdrawing the troops, artillery and stores under your orders and directions forthwith, and removing to the nearest post occupied by his Britannick Majesty’s troops at the peace of 1783.”
Lastly, Major Campbell replied with his excuse, that:
“being placed here in the command of a British post and acting in a military capacity only, I cannot enter into any discussion either on the right or impropriety of my occupying my present position … I certainly will not abandon this post at the summons of any power whatever until I receive orders to that purpose … [I] desire that your army or individuals belonging to it will not approach within reach of my cannon without expecting the consequences attending it.”
With 20 howitzers the only artillery on hand, General Wayne considered the fort too strong to take by assault or siege, and, most importantly, he did not want to fall into the British trap of starting an engagement with British regulars, which could then be used by the British to declare war on the United States. However, he did want to show the Indians that the British had neither the power nor the inclination to protect them and he ordered the destruction of all of the Indians huts and houses (including the storehouses of McKee and the other traders) in the vicinity of the fort, and of all the surrounding cornfields, gardens and haystacks.
On August 23rd, General Wayne turned his army around and, 4 days later, arrived back at fort Defiance, remaining there to strengthen the fort and gather corn and vegetables from the fields nearby. With the fort completed, garrisoned and supplied, on September 14th General Wayne marched his Legion westward along the north bank of the Maumee river to the head of the river, and the site of Harmar’s defeat in 1790, and on the 17th began building a fort that was named Fort Wayne. Leaving Hamtramck in command of the garrison, on October 28th Wayne marched his Legion and arrived back at Greene Ville on November 2nd.
News of Wayne’s victory would change everything!!!
After Governor Simcoe received reports of Wayne’s army advancing to the Glaize, on August 17th (three days before the battle of Fallen Timbers) he wrote to McKee that:
“it is obvious that if Wayne attacks the Miamis Post that a war commences between Great Britain and the United States in which case his distance from all supplies will, I hope, ultimately occasion the destruction of his army.”
The British hope for war is seen in Simcoe’s letter to Dorchester, that if the Americans should occupy Presqu’ Isle or should occupy a post at Buffaloe creek, in order to supply Wayne’s army, that his plans would be that the British would destroy such armaments and would prevent any American occupation on the coast of lake Erie, and that the British would have to drive the troops of the United States from fort Recovery, that led to fort Miami, and from fort Franklin on the Alleghany, that led to Presqu’ Isle. His war plan also called for seizing Sodus Point, for occupying the communication between Oswego and Three River Point and occupying the smaller lakes of the Genesee with gun-boats, and for destroying the entire Genesee settlement.
This plan was consistent with Simcoe’s and McKee’s original plan of June 1792 – that the Americans must not have any access to the great lakes.
Simcoe also planned that Brant would hurry to Detroit with as many warriors as he could, and that he, himself, would proceed to Detroit with all the force that he could muster. But before he could assemble his troops and leave, Simcoe received reports of Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers, of his confrontation at fort Miami and of his subsequent retreat back to fort Defiance.
Putting his war plans back on the shelf, Simcoe now undertook a trip to Detroit because ‘the Indians may disperse and all my hopes of reuniting them may be lost.’ Simcoe arrived at fort Miami on September 27th and toured the battlefield and the destroyed Indian villages. Here he also met with Brant, who had arrived with 97 Mohawk warriors.
Simcoe held a council on October 11th at Big Rock, at the mouth of the Detroit river, with delegates from the Six Nations, Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, Miamis, Potawatomies, Chippawas, Ottawas, Cherokees and Munseys. The Indians spoke of their want of arms and ammunition, and asked ‘whether it is in your power to assist us now’. Simcoe replied that:
“I can only assure you that he [the King] will uniformly fulfill all his engagements with you, his arms will at all times be ready to receive you, and his territory open to protect and defend you from all his enemies.”
Brant then proposed that there should be a great council assembled at Big Rock in the spring. Simcoe left Detroit and arrived back at fort Erie on October 18th.
By October 25th, over 1600 Iroquois had assembled at Canandaigua for the conference with American Commissioner Pickering. William Johnson, a British Indian Department agent, had been invited to attend the conference by Cornplanter, but now Pickering refused, saying that:
“I am instructed by the President not to suffer a British agent to attend this council fire.”
Pickering recounted to the Iroquois how the British had sabotaged the convening of the conference at Sandusky and said that:
“the United States have never asked the mediation of the British, and we never shall ask it, until they give some proof of their sincerity … What has prevented a peace between us and the western nations? I answer without hesitation, the British prevented it.”
On October 27th when news was received that General Wayne had defeated the western Indians in battle, it was then decided that it would be in the best interest of the Six Nations to begin negotiations with the Americans – and without the British!
On November 11th, a treaty was signed with the Five Nations (no Mohawks attended the conference) – ‘peace and friendship are hereby firmly established, and shall be perpetual, between the United States and the Six Nations.’
The United States acknowledged the lands reserved to the Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga Nations in their respective treaties with the State of New York; and agreed to the boundaries of the land of the Seneca Nation – that excluded the triangular piece of land in the State of Pennsylvania, that was around Presqu’ Isle, that the Senecas had been trying to claim. The United States delivered to the Five Nations $10,000 worth of goods, and increased their yearly allowance to $4,500 for purchasing clothing, domestic animals, implements of husbandry and other utensils.
[next week – chapter 23 – The Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, July 17th 1794]
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For those who may wish to support my continuing work on ‘The Unveiling of Canadian History’, you may purchase my books, that are available as PDFs and Paperback (on Amazon) at the Canadian Patriot Review :
Volume 1 – The Approaching Conflict, 1753 – 1774.
Volume 2 – Forlorn Hope – Quebec and Nova Scotia, and the War for Independence, 1775 – 1785.
And hopefully,
Volume 3 – The Storming of Hell – the War for the Territory Northwest of Ohio, 1786 – 1796, and
Volume 4 – Ireland, Haiti, and Louisiana – the Idea of a Continental Republic, 1797 – 1804,
may also appear in print, in the near future, while I continue to work on :
Volume 5 – On the Trail of the Treasonous, 1804 – 1814.