who might be found there. The detachment marched in three columns. The regular troops were in the center, at the head of which Captain Joseph Ashton was posted, with Major Wyllys and Colonel Hardin in his front. The militia formed the columns to the right and left. Owing to some delay, occasioned by the halting of the militia, the detachment did not reach the banks of the Maumee till some time after sunrise. The spies then discovered some Indians and reported to Major Wyllys, who halted the regular troops, and moved the militia on some distance in front, where he gave his orders and plan of attack to the several commanding officers of the corps. Major Wyllys reserved to himself the command of the regular troops. Major Hall, with his battalion, was directed to take a circuitous route round the bend of the Maumee river, cross the St. Mary's, and there, in the rear of the Indians, wait until the attack should be brought on by Major McMullen's battalion, Major Fontaine's cavalry, and the regular troops under Major Wyllys, who were all ordered to cross the Maumee at and near the common fording place. It was the intention of Hardin and Wyllys to surround the Indian encampment; but Major Hall, who had gained his position undiscovered, disobeyed his orders by firing on a single Indian, before the commencement of the action. Several small parties of Indians were soon seen flying in different directions, and the militia under McMullen, and the cavalry under Fontaine, pursued them in disobedience of orders, and left Major Wyllys unsupported. The consequence was, that the regulars, after crossing the Maumee, were attacked by a superior force of Indians, and compelled to retreat, with the loss of Major Wyllys, and the greater part of their corps. Major Fontaine, at the head of the mounted militia, fell, with a number of his followers, in making a charge against a small party of Indians; and, on his fall, the remainder of his troops dispersed. While the main body of the Indians, led by the Little Turtle, were engaged with the regulars near the banks of the Maumee, some skirmishing took place near the confluence of the rivers St. Mary's and St. Joseph, between detached parties of Indians and the militia under Hall and McMullen. After the defeat of the regulars, however, the militia retreated on the route to the main army; and the Indians, having suffered a severe loss, did not pursue them. About eleven o'clock,

A. M., a single horseman reached the camp of Harmar, with news of the defeat of the detachment. The general immediately ordered Major Ray to march, with his battalion, to the assistance of the retreating parties; but so great was the panic which prevailed among the militia that only thirty men could be induced to leave the main army. With this small number Major Ray proceeded a short distance toward the scene of action, when he met Colonel Hardin, on his retreat. On reaching the encampment of Harmar, Colonel Hardin requested the general to march back to the Miami village with the whole army; but Harmar said to him:-"You see the situation of the army: we are now scarcely able to move our baggage: it will take up three days to go and return to this place: we have no more forage for our horses: the Indians have got a very good scourging; and I will keep the army in perfect readiness to receive them, should they think proper to follow."* The general, at this time, had lost all confidence in the militia. The bounds of the camp were made less, and, at eight o'clock on the morning of the 23d, the army took up the line of march for Fort Washington, and reached that place on the 4th of November, having lost, in the expedition, one hundred and eighty-three killed, and thirty-one wounded. Among the killed were Major Wyllys and Lieutenant Ebenezer Frothingham, of the regular troops; and Major Fontaine, Captains Thorp, McMurtrey and Scott, Lieutenants Clark and Rogers, and Ensigns Bridges, Sweet, Higgins, and Thielkeld, of the militia. The Indians, whose loss was about equal to that of the whites,* did not annoy the army after the action of the 22d of October.

During the progress of Harmar's operations against the Indians about the Miami town, Major Hamtramck, with the troops under his command, marched up the Wabash to the mouth of the river Vermillion, destroyed some deserted villages, and returned to Vincennes, without meeting with any opposition on his march.

* Deposition of Colonel Hardin, September 14, 1791.

AV

A SEVERE punishment was inflicted on the Miami and Shawanee tribes, by the troops under the command of General Harmar, in the fall of the year 1790; but the events which immediately followed the campaign did not accord with the expectations of the government of the United States. The expedition did not compel the hostile tribes to sue for peace; nor were the settlements on the borders of the river Ohio relieved from the evils of a revengeful, merciless, and destructive war. On the 8th of January, 1791, General Rufus Putnam, who was one of the "Ohio Company of Associates," and the founder of the settlement at Marietta, wrote to President Washington as follows:

"MARIETTA, January 8, 1791.

"Sir:-The mischief which I feared has overtaken us much sooner than I expected. On the evening of the 2d instant, between sunset and daylight-in, the Indians surprised a new settlement of our people, at a place on the Muskingum called the Big Bottom, nearly forty miles up the river, in which disaster eleven men, one woman, and two children were killed: three men are missing, and four others made their escape. Thus, sir, the war which was partial before the campaign of last year, is, in all probability, become general: for I think that there is no reason to suppose that we are the only people on whom the savages will wreak their vengeance, or that the number of hostile Indians have not increased since the late expedition. Our situation is truly critical. The governor and secretary both being absent, no assistance from Virginia or Pennsylvania can be had. 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, does not exceed two hundred and

eighty-seven, and these, many of them, badly armed. We are in the utmost danger of being swallowed up, should the enemy push the war with vigor during the winter. This, I believe, will fully appear by taking a short view of our several settlements, and, I hope, justify the extraordinary measures we have adopted, for want of a legal authority in the territory to apply for aid in the business. The situation of our people is nearly as follows:

"At Marietta are about eighty houses in the distance of one mile, with scattering houses about three miles up the river. A set of mills at Duck creek, four miles distant, and another mill two miles up the Muskingum. Twenty-two miles up this river is a settlement, consisting of about twenty families: about two miles from them, on Wolf creek, are five families and a set of mills. Down the Ohio, and opposite the Little Kanawha, commences the settlement called Belle Prairie, which extends down the river, with little interruption, about twelve miles, and contains between thirty and forty houses. Before the late disaster, we had several other settlements, which are already broken up. I have taken the liberty to inclose the proceedings of the Ohio Company and justices of the sessions on this occasion, and beg leave, with the greatest deference, to observe that, unless government speedily send a body of troops for our protection, we are a ruined people. The removal of the women and children, etc., will reduce many of the poorer sort to the greatest straits; but if we add to this the destruction of their corn, forage, and cattle, by the enemy, which is very probable to ensue, I know of no way they can be supported: but, if this should not happen, where these people are to raise bread another year, is not easy to conjecture; and most of them have nothing left to buy with. But my fears do not stop here. We are a people so far detached from all others, in point of situation, that we can hope for no timely relief, in case of emergency, from any of our neighbors; and among the numbers that compose our present military strength, almost

*Immediately after the disaster at Big Bottom, the directors of the "Ohio Company of Associates" voted to raise and pay troops, to be employed in the defense of their settlements.

one-half are young men, hired into the country, intending to settle by and by. These, under present circumstances, will probably leave us soon, unless prospects should brighten; and, as to new settlers, we can expect none in our present situation: so that, instead of increasing in strength, we are like to diminish daily; and, if we do not fall a prey to the savages, we shall be so reduced and discouraged as to give up the settlement, unless government shall give us timely protection. It has been a mystery with some why the troops have been withdrawn from this quarter, and collected at the Miami [Symmes' purchase]. That settlement is, I believe, within three or four days' march of a very populous part of Kentucky, whence, in a few days, they might be reinforced with several thousand men; whereas, we are not within two hundred miles of any settlement that can probably more than protect themselves. But I forbear suggestions of this sort, and will only observe further, that our present situation is truly distressing; and I do, therefore, most earnestly implore the protection of government for myself and friends inhabiting these wilds of America. To this we conceive ourselves justly entitled; and so far as you, sir, have the means in your power, we rest assured that we shall receive it in due time. "I have the honor to be, with the highest possible respect, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

"RUFUS PUTNAM."

Immediately after the close of the expedition of Harmar, the fears of Indian depredations which prevailed among the settlements about Marietta, became general among the inhabitants of the western counties of Virginia. The delegates of the counties of Ohio, Monongahela, Harrison, Randolph, Greenbriar, Kanawha, and Montgomery, sent to the governor of Virginia a joint memorial, in which they made the following statement: "The defenseless condition of those counties, forming a line of nearly four hundred miles along the Ohio river, exposed to the hostile invasion of their Indian enemies, destitute of every kind of support, is truly alarming: for, notwithstanding all the regulations of the general government in that country, we have reason to lament that they have been hitherto ineffectual for our protection; nor indeed could it happen other