Wednesday, March 7, 2012

About the Massacre In Ohio, US Armies Biggest Defeat with over 600 Dead

About the Massacre In Ohio, US Armies Biggest Defeat with over 600 Dead
The massacre of St. Clair that left over 700 Americans dead in the field in absent from most history books.  The loss of life is far more than that lost by Custer. 


It was now evident to the government that large measures 
must be taken to establish the authority of the United States among 
the Indians and protect their Ohio settlements. Washington called 
Gov, St. Clair to Philadelphia, and with the approval of Congress 
placed him in command of an army to be organized for a new In- 
dian expedition. On October 4, 1791, Gen, St. Clair, at the head 
of some three thousand troops, hardly better in quality than those 
under Harmar, set out from Fort Washington. The plan was to 
proceed northward along the present western line of the state and 
establish a line of Forts to be properly maintained as permanent 
points for military operation and protection. Forts Hamilton, St. 
Clair and Jefferson, the latter near Greenville, were erected. But 
when the expedition, now about twenty-five hundred strong, had 
reached a branch of the Wabash in what is now Mercer county, 
some thirty miles from Fort Jefferson, it was attacked by an allied 
force of Indians, fifteen hundred strong, under Little Turtle. It 
was a desperate, irregular combat, the troops were completely 
demoralized and panic stricken, and indulged in "a most ignominious 
flight," with the woeful loss of over six hundred killed and two 
hundred and fifty wounded, a loss equal to that of the American 
army at Germantown, when Gen. Washington suffered one of the 
worst defeats and greatest losses of the Revolution. 

The Indian question had now become more serious than ever 
before, and there was great danger of the disaffection spreading 
among the Six Nations, with whom the whites had been at peace 
since the treaty of Fort Harmar. Washington anxiously scanned 

the list of officers for a reliable successor to St. Clair