CHAPTER XXVI.

PROCTOR'S PEACE MISSION-ITS FAILURE-ORDERS FOR ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN-ST. CLAIR MARCHES INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY - HIS DEFEAT-ACCOUNT OF THE DISASTER.

BUT the Americans were also desirous to enlist Brant as a peace-maker, and steps were taken looking to this end, but before he could be approached he had departed for the west. His mission was unknown, although suspected to have been to promote war. Measures were now taken to secure a council of the Six Nations, on the sixteenth of June, 1791, at the Painted Post, near the junction of the Coshocton and Tioga rivers. The object of this council was to secure the neutrality of the Iroquois by presents and speeches. This plan partially succeeded. The council closed on the fifteenth of July, and the Indians returned satisfied.*

It had been calculated that Proctor would return from his mission by the fifth of May, and report the result of his journey at Fort Washington, and upon this calculation had been based the second part of the plan for the campaign. Accordingly, on the ninth of March, 1791, orders were issued to Brigadier General Charles Scott, authorizing him, in conjunction with Harry Innis, John Brown, Benjamin Logan, and Isaac Shelley, to organize an expedition of mounted volunteers against the nations upon the Wabash, to start upon May the tenth, unless countermanded, which would take place in the event of Proctor's success. These orders were obeyed, and the troops were in readiness at the time appointed, but no intelligence of Proctor having reached Fort Washington up to the twentysecond of May, the detachment took up its line of march from the Ohio. Col. John Hardin led the advance party. On the * American State Papers, p. 181.

first of June the towns of the enemy were discovered.* Gen. Scott immediately detached John Hardin with sixty mounted infantry, and a troop of light-horse under Capt. McCoy, to attack the villages to the left, and moved on briskly with the main body, in order of battle, towards the town, the smoke of which was discernable. The guides were deceived with respect to the situation of the town; for instead of standing at the edge of the plain through which they marched, they found it on the low ground bordering on the Wabash; on turning the point of woods, one house was presented in their front. Capt. Price was ordered to assault that with forty men. He executed the command with great gallantry, and killed two warriors. When Scott gained the summit of the eminence which overlooks the villages on the banks of the Wabash, he discovered the enemy in great confusion, endeavoring to make their escape over the river in canoes. He instantly ordered Lieut. Colonel-commandant Wilkinson to rush forward with the first battalion. The order was executed with promptitude, and this detachment gained the bank of the river just as the rear of the enemy had embarked; and, regardless of a brisk fire kept up from the Kickapoo town on the opposite bank, they, in a few minutes, by a well directed fire from their rifles, destroyed all the savages with which five canoes were crowded. To Scott's great mortification the Wabash was many feet beyond fording at this place; he therefore detached Col. Wilkinson to a ford two miles above, which the guides informed him was more practicable. Wilkinson moved the first battalion up to the fording place but found it impassable and returned. The enemy still kept possession of Kickapoo town, but Scott determined to dislodge them, and for that purpose ordered Capt. King and Logsdone's companies to march down the river below the town, and cross, under the conduct of Major Barboe. Several of the men swam the river, and others passed in a small canoe. This movement was unobserved; and the men had taken post on the bank before they were discovered by the enemy, who immediately abandoned the village. About this time word was brought to Scott that Col. Hardin was Peck's Compilation

encumbered with prisoners, and had discovered a stronger village further to his left than those Scott had observed, which he was proceeding to attack. The General immediately detached Captain Brown with his company, to support the Colonel; but the distance being six miles, before the Captain arrived the business was done, and Col. Hardin joined him a little before sun-set, having killed six warriors and taken fiftytwo prisoners. Captain Bull, the warrior who had discovered the army in the morning, had gained the main town and given the alarm a short time before the troops reached it, but the other villages were not aware of their approach, and could, therefore, make no retreat. The next morning Gen. Scott detached three hundred and sixty men under Col. Wilkinson, to destroy the important town of Tippecanoe, eighteen miles from the camp on the Wabash. The detachment left at halfpast five in the evening, but returned at one o'clock on the next day, having marched thirty-six miles in twelve hours and destroyed the most important settlement of the enemy.

Although this expedition under Scott was successful, Governor St. Clair determined to send another against the villages of Eel river, and Wilkinson was appointed to the command. He marched from Fort Washington on the first of August, and reached the Wabash on the seventh, just above the mouth of the river he was in search of. At this point he received word that the Indians on Eel River had been warned of his approach, and were preparing for a flight. A general charge was immediately ordered. The men, forcing their way over every obstacle, plunged through the river and scaled the banks beyond. The enemy was unable to make the smallest resistSix warriors, two squaws and a child were killed, and thirty-four prisoners were taken, and an unfortunate captive released, with a loss on the side of the Americans of two men killed and one wounded. Wilkinson encamped in the town that night, and the next morning he cut up the corn, scarcely in the milk, burnt the cabins, mounted the young warriors, squaws and children, and leaving two infirm squaws and a child, with a short talk, he commenced his march for the Kickapoo town in the prairie. But this village was not reached. The horses

ance.

were too sore, and the bogs too deep; but as General Wilkinson said, four hundred acres of corn were destroyed, and a Kickapoo town given to the flames; for which the General was duly thanked by his country. Meantime, while Proctor was attempting to hurry the slow-moving Iroquois, who told him it took them a great while to think; and Wilkinson was floundering up to his arm-pits in mud and water, among the morasses of the Wabash; the needful preparations were constantly going forward for the great expedition of St. Clair, which, by founding posts throughout the western country, from the Ohio to Lake Erie, and especially at the head of the Maumee, was to give the United States a sure means of control over the savages.*

Governor St. Clair received full instructions for the cam

*Peck's Compilation.

The instructions to St. Clair for this campaign were communicated to him by Gen. Knox, in the following language: The President of the United States having, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed you a Major General in the service of the United States, and of consequence invested you with the chief command of the troops to be employed upon the frontiers during the ensuing campaign, it is proper that you should be possessed of the views of the government respecting the objects of your command. I am, therefore, authorized and commanded, by the President of the United States, to deliver you the following instructions, in order to serve as the general principles of your conduct.

But, it is only general principles which can be pointed out. In the execution of the duties of your station, circumstances which cannot now be foreseen may arise to render material deviations necessary. Such circumstances will require the exercise of your talents. The government possesses the security of your character and mature experience, that your judgment will be proper on all occasions. You are well informed of the unfavorable impressions which the issue of the last expedition has made on the public mind, and you are also aware of the expectations which are formed of the success of the ensuing campaign.

An Indian war, under any circumstances, is regarded by the great mass of the people of the United States as an event which ought, if possible, to be avoided. It is considered that the sacrifice of blood and treasure in such a war exceed any advantages which can possibly be reaped by it. The great policy, therefore, of the general government, is to establish a just and liberal peace with all the Indian tribes within the limits and in the vicinity of the territory of the United States. Your intimations to the hostile Indians, immediately after the late expedition, through the Wyandots and Delawares; the arrangements with the Senecas who were lately in this city, that part of the Six Nations should repair to the said hostile Iddians, to influence them to pacific measures; together with the recent mission of Colonel Proctor to them for the same purpose, will strongly evince the desire of the general government to prevent the effusion of blood, and to quiet all disturbances. And when you shall arrive upon the frontiers, if any other or further measures to effect the same object should present, you will eagerly embrace them, and the reasonable expenses thereof shall be defrayed by the public. But, if all the lenient measures taken, or which may be taken, should fail to bring the hostile Indians to a just sense of their situation, it will be necessary that you should use such coercive means as you shall possess, for that purpose. You are informed that, by an act