want of a sufficient number of riflemen to pursue this advantage, they soon returned, and the troops were obliged to fall back in their turn. At this moment they had entered the camp by the left flank, having pushed back the troops that were posted there. Another charge was made here by the second regiment, Butler's and Clark's battalions, with equal effect, and it was repeated several times and always with success; but in all of them many men were lost, and particularly the officers, a loss altogether irreparable. In the last charge Major Butler was dangerously wounded, and every officer of the second regiment fell except three, one of whom, Mr. Greaton, was shot through the body.

The artillery being now silenced and all the officers killed, except Capt. Ford, who was very badly wounded, and more than half of the army fallen, being cut off from the road, it became necessary to attempt the regaining of it and to make a retreat, if possible. To this purpose the remains of the army were formed as well as circumstances would admit towards the right of the encampment, from which, by the way of the second line, another charge was made upon the enemy, as if with the design to turn their right flank, but in fact to gain the road. This was effected, and as soon as it was open, the militia took along it, followed by the troops, Major Clark, with his battalion, covering the rear.*

The retreat, in those circumstances, was, as may be imagined, a very precipitate one. It was, in fact, a flight. The camp and the artillery were abandoned; but that was unavoidable, for not a horse was left alive to have drawn it off, had it otherwise been practicable. But the most disgraceful part of the business is, that the greatest part of the men threw away their arms and accoutrements, even after the pursuit, which continued about four miles, had ceased. St. Clair found the road strewed with them for many miles, but was not able to remedy it, for having had all his horses killed, and being mounted upon one that could not be pricked out of a walk, he could not get forward himself, and the orders he sent forward either to halt the front, or to prevent the men from parting with * St. Clair's report.

their arms, were unattended to. The flight continued to Fort Jefferson, twenty-nine miles, which was reached a little after sunset. The action began about half an hour before sunrise, and the retreat was attempted at half an hour after nine o'clock. Maj. Gen. Butler, Lieut. Col. Oldham, of the militia, Major Ferguson, Major Hart and Major Clark were among the killed.

St. Clair, in giving the details of this disaster, closes with these remarks: "I have nothing to lay to the charge of the troops but their want of discipline, which, for the short time they had been in the service, it was impossible they should have acquired." He continues: "We were overpowered by numbers; but it is no more than justice to observe that, though composed of so many different species of troops, the utmost harmony prevailed during the campaign.”

In addition to the above brief account of St. Clair's defeat, I give the following from the pen of Mr. Van Cleve, who was in the Quartermaster General's service on the occasion and witnessed the disaster:

We were encamped just within the lines, on the right. The attack was made on the Kentucky militia. Almost instantaneously the small remnant of them that escaped broke through the line near us, and this line gave way. Followed by a tremendous fire from the enemy, they passed me. I threw my bridle over a stump, from which a tent pole had been cut, and followed a short distance, when finding the troops had halted, I returned and brought my horse a little farther. I was now between the fires, and finding the troops giving way again, was obliged to leave him a second time. As I quitted him he was shot down, and I felt rather glad of it, as I concluded that now I should be at liberty to share in the engagement. My inexperience prompted me to calculate on our forces being far superior to any that the savages could assemble, and that we should soon have the pleasure of driving them. Not more than five minutes had yet elapsed, when a soldier near me had his arm swinging with a wound. I requested his arms and accoutrements, as he was unable to use them, promising to return them to him, and commenced firing. The smoke was settled down to about within three feet of the ground, but I generally put one knee on the ground, and with a rest from behind a tree, waited the appearance of an Indian's head from behind his cover, or for one to run and change his position. Before I was convinced of my mistaken calculation, the battle was half over and I had become familiarized to the scene. Hearing the firing at one time unusually brisk near the rear of the left wing, I crossed the encampment. Two levy officers were just ordering a charge. I had fired away my ammunition and some of the

bands of my musket had flown off. I picked up another and a cartridge box nearly full, and pushed forward with about thirty others. The Indians ran to the right, where there was a small ravine filled with logs. I bent my course after them, and on looking round I found I was with only seven or eight men, the others having kept straight forward and halted about thirty yards off. We halted also, and being so near where the savages lay concealed, the second fire from them left me standing alone. My cover was a small sugar tree or beech, scarcely large enough to hide me. I fired away all my ammunition; I am uncertain whether with any effect or not. I then looked for the party near me, and saw them retreating and half way back to the lines. I followed them, running my best, and was soon in. By this time our artillery had been taken, I do not know whether the first or second time, and our troops had just retaken it and were charging the enemy across the creek in front, and some person told me to look at an Indian running with one of our kegs of powder, but I did not see him. There were about thirty of our men and officers lying scalped around the pieces of artillery. It appeared that the Indians had not been in a hurry, for their hair was all skinned off.

Daniel Bonham, a young man raised by my uncle and brought up with me, and whom I regarded as a brother, had by this time received a shot through his hips and was unable to walk. I procured a horse and got him on. My uncle had received a ball near his wrist that lodged near his elbow. The ground was literally covered with dead and dying men, the commander gave orders to take the way—perhaps they had been given more explicitly. Happening to see my uncle, he told me that a retreat had been ordered, and that I must do the best I could and take care of myself. Bonham insisted that he had a better chance of escaping than I had, and urged me to look to my own safety alone. I found the troops pressing like a drove of bullocks to the right. I saw an officer whom I took to be Lieut. Morgan, an aid to Gen. Butler, with six or eight men, start on a run a little to the left of where I was. I immediately ran and fell in with them. In a short distance we were so suddenly among the Indians, who were not apprised of our object, that they opened to us, and ran to the right and left without firing. I think about two hundred of our men passed through them before they fired, except a chance shot. When we had proceeded about two miles, most of those mounted had passed me. A boy had been thrown or fell off a horse, and begged my assistance. I ran, pulled him along about two miles further, until I had become nearly exhausted. Of the last two horses in the rear, one carried two men and the other three. I made an exertion and threw him on behind the two men. The Indians followed but about half a mile further. The boy was thrown off some time after, but escaped and got in safely. My friend Bonham I did not see on the retreat, but understood he was thrown off about this place, and lay on the left of the trace, where he was found in the winter and was buried. I took the cramp violently in my thighs and could scarcely walk until I got within a hundred yards of the rear, where the Indians were tomahawking the old and wounded men; and I stopped

here to tie my pocket handkerchief round a wounded man's knee. I saw the Indians close in pursuit at this time, and for a moment my spirit sunk and I felt in despair for my safety. I considered whether I should leave the road or whether I was capable of any further exertion. If I left the road, the Indians were in plain sight and could easily overtake me. I threw the shoes off my feet, and the coolness of the ground seemed to revive me. I again began a trot and recollect that when a bend in the road offered, and I got before half a dozen persons, I thought it would occupy some time for the enemy to massacre them, before my turn would come. By the time I had got to Stillwater, about eleven miles, I had gained the centre of the flying troops, and, like them, came to a walk. I fell in with Lieut. Shaumburg, who, I think, was the only officer of artillery that got away unhurt, with Corporal Mott, and a woman who was called red-headed Nance. The latter two were both crying. Mott was lamenting the loss of a wife and Nance that of an infant child. Shaumburg was nearly exhausted and hung on Mott's arm. I carried his fusil and accoutrements and led Nance; and in this sociable way we arrived at Fort Jefferson a little after sunset.

The Commander-in-Chief had ordered Col. Darke to press forward to the convoys of provisions and hurry them on to the army. Major Truman, Capt. Sedan and my uncle were setting forward with him. A number of soldiers and pack-horsemen on foot and myself among them, joined them. We came on a few miles, when all, overcome with fatigue, agreed to halt. Darius Curtius Orcott, a pack-horse master, had stolen at Jefferson one pocket full of flour and the other full of beef. One of the men had a kettle, and one Jacob Fowler and myself groped about in the dark until we found some water, where a tree had been blown out of root. We made a kettle of soup, of which I got a small portion among the many. It was then concluded, as there was a bend in the road a few miles further on, that the Indians might undertake to intercept us there, and we decamped and traveled about four or five miles further. I had got a rifle and ammunition at Jefferson from a wounded militia man, an old acquaintance, to bring in. A sentinel was set and we lay down and slept, until the Governor came up a few hours afterward. I think I never slept so profoundly. I could hardly get awake after I was on my feet. On the day before the defeat the ground was covered with snow. The flats were now filled with water frozen over, the ice as thick as a knife blade. I was worn out with fatigue, with my feet knocked to pieces against the roots in the night and splashing through the ice without shoes. In the morning we got to a camp of pack-horsemen, and amongst them I got a doughboy or waterdumpling, and proceeded. We got within seven miles of Hamilton on this day and arrived there soon on the morning of the sixth.

CHAPTER XXVII.

RESULTS OF ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT - THE AMERICANS, THE ENGLISH, AND THE INDIANS - BRANT INVITED TO PHILADELPHIA - HORRIFYING SCENES ON ST. CLAIR'S BATTLE FIELD-THE PEACE MAKERSTHEIR INSTRUCTIONS - AMERICANS DESIRE PEACE-THE INIDANS FOR WAR.

THUS was the plan of establishing a chain of forts between Cincinnati and the Miami villages overthrown by the defeat of St. Clair. The savages again victorious, could neither be expected to make terms or show mercy, and along the line of the whole frontier the settlers were filled with anxiety, terror, and despair. Out of St. Clair's army of fourteen hundred men, eight hundred and ninety were killed and wounded. The battle took place on the fourth of November, 1791, and on the eighth of the same month the remains of the army reached Fort Washington. The news of the defeat was at once communicated to Congress, and on the twenty-sixth of December Gen. Knox laid before the President a plan for future operations. It provided for raising and equipping a large force, and the immediate invasion of the Indian country, but Washington desired that before this army was organized every effort should again be made to prevent bloodshed. Col. Pickering, in his meeting with the Iroquois, of June and July, 1791, at the Painted Post, had, among other things, proposed that certain chiefs should, in the following January, go to Philadelphia, while Congress was in session, and "shake hands with their newly adopted father." The importance of the proposed visit became more evident after the news of St. Clair's defeat, for now, the New York Indians were suspected. On the twentieth of December, 1791, Gen. Knox wrote to a missionary among the Iroquois, pressing through him the invitation given