Blood on the Ohio: Tales of Frontier Terror

Blood on the Ohio: Tales of Frontier Terror

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Accounts of murders, torture, and massacres of colonists and Native Americans were reported in early historical journals. Heinous stories, that will bring a renewed understanding of the terrible costs of western expansion; a cost paid in full by the Natives and those that thought it just to take their lands.

At the beginning of the year 1754, a few colonists' cabins began to appear on the western side of the Allegheny mountains, The British western expansion gave rise to the French and Indian War. The conflict was begun over French and British claims over the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers called the Forks of the Ohio. From 1775 - 1783, during the American Revolution, resources and manpower, was unavailable to the beleaguered settlers. Another ten years would pass before the Native Americans relinquished their lands.

Native Americans and colonists were engaged in a war of extermination that included women and children. Numerous atrocities being committed by both parties. Somber tales that few have read, but reveal the heavy price in blood that both parties paid for those lands of the Ohio River.

The Indian Massacre of St. Clair: 700 US Soldiers Dead in the Field in 1791

 At times they gathered force for a great battle, and in the first two of these battles they were the victors, but in the third they were beaten and their strength and spirits were broken. In 1790 General Harmar destroyed the towns of the Miamis on the Wabash; but they ambushed his retreat and punished his fifteen hundred men so severely that he was forced back to the Ohio. In 1791 General Arthur St. Clair led an army against the Indians in the Maumee country, and was attacked and routed with greater havoc than the savages had ever yet made of the whites, except perhaps in Braddock's defeat. In 1792 General Anthony Wayne set about gathering another army for the Indian campaign. He moved into the enemy's country slowly, building forts in Darke County and Mercer (where St. Clair was routed) as he advanced. In 1794, at the meeting of the Auglaize and Maumee, twenty miles from the last post, which he named Fort Defiance, he finally met the tribes in great force, and defeated them so thoroughly that for sixteen years they never afterwards made head against the Americans.

At this day we can hardly imagine the dismay that the rout of St. Clair and the slaughter of his men spread through the Ohio country. He was a gallant officer, the governor of the Northwest Territory, and the trusted friend of Washington. It is true that his army was largely the refuse of the Eastern States, picked up in the streets of the larger towns and lured into the wilderness with the promise of three dollars a month; that these men were badly fed, badly clothed, and badly drilled; and that they were led by a general whose strength and spirits were impaired by sickness. But with them was a large body of Kentuckians and other backwoodsmen, skilled in Indian warfare, and eager for the red foes with whom they had long arrears of mutual injury to bring up; and the hopes of the settlers rested securely upon these. The Indians were led by Little Turtle, one of their greatest war chiefs, and at the point where General Wayne two years later built one of his forts, and called it Recovery, they surprised St. Clair's troops.

Forgotten in history is the massacre of St. Clair at present day Fort Recovery, Ohio.  700 men were dead in the field after being routed by the Miami Chief, Little Turtle

It was an easy slaughter and massacre. St. Clair was suffering so much with gout that he could not move from his horse when he was helped to the saddle, and was wholly unfit to fight. Yet he went undauntedly through the battle; horse after horse was shot under him, and his clothes were pierced with nine of the bullets which the Indians rained upon his men from every tree of the forest. The backwoodsmen had hardly a chance to practice the Indians' arts against them before the rout began. The cannon which St. Clair had brought into the wilderness with immense waste of time and toil, proved useless under the fire that galled the artillerymen. The weak, undisciplined, and bewildered army was hemmed in on every side, and the men were shot down as they huddled together or tried to straggle away, till half their number was left upon the field. Of course none of the wounded were spared. The Americans were tomahawked and scalped where they fell; one of the savages told afterwards that he plied his hatchet until he could hardly lift his arm. All the Ohio tribes shared in the glory of this greatest victory of their race,—Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, Ottawas, Chippeways, and Pottawottomies. There had been plenty of game that year; they were all in the vigor and force which St. Clair's ill-fated army lacked; and they lustily took their fill of slaughter.

Many stories of the battle were told by those who escaped. Major Jacob Fowler, of Kentucky, an old hunter, who went with the army as surveyor, carried his trusty rifle, but he had run short of bullets, the morning of the fight, which began at daybreak. He was going for a ladle to melt more lead, when he met a Kentucky rifleman driven in by the savages, and begged some balls of him. The man had been shot through the wrist, and he told Fowler to help himself from his pouch. Fowler was pouring out a double handful, when the man said, "Stop; you had better count them." Fowler could not help laughing, though it was hardly the time for gayety. "If we get through this scrape, my dear fellow," said he, "I will return you twice as many." But they never met again, and Fowler could only suppose that his cautious friend was soon tomahawked and scalped with the other wounded. Fowler took to a tree, and shot Indians till his gunlock got out of order. Then he picked up a rifle which had been thrown away, and which he found his bullets would fit, and renewed the fight. It was a very cold November morning, and his fingers became so stiff that he could not hold the bullets, which he had to keep in his mouth, and feed into his rifle from it. At one time he was behind a very small tree, and two Indians fired on him at such close range that he felt the smoke of their guns and gave himself up for dead. But both had missed him, and he got away from the battlefield unhurt.

Another Kentuckian, a young ranger named William Kennan, was one of the first riflemen driven back by the overwhelming force of Indians. He tried to hide in the tall grass, but found that his only hope was in his heels. The savages endeavored to cut him off, but he distanced all except one, who followed him only three yards away. Kennan expected him every moment his tomahawk at him, and he felt in his belt for his own. It had slipped from its place, and he found himself wholly unarmed, just as he came to a tree which the wind had blown down, and which spread before him a mass of roots and earth eight or nine feet high. He gathered all his strength, bounded into the air, and cleared it, while a yell of wonder rose from the baffled Indians behind him. A little later he came upon General Madison of Kentucky sitting on a log, so spent with the day's work and loss of blood from a wound, that he could no longer walk, and waiting for the Indians to come up and kill him. Kennan ran back and caught a horse which he had seen grazing, put Madison on it, and walked by his side till they were out of danger. The friendship thus begun lasted through their lives.

This is one of the few softer lights in the picture whose darker features we must not fail to look upon. One of the grimmest of them was the war chief of the Missasagos, Little Turtle, who planned the surprise, against the advice of all the other chiefs, and who merits the fame of the awful day. To the Americans who saw him then, he was a sullen and gloomy giant, who fought with his men throughout the battle, arrayed in the conspicuous splendor of a great war, chief, with silver ornaments dangling from his nose and ears. Hardly less terrible than the figure of this magnificent butcher is that of the Chickasaw warrior who accompanied the American army, to glut the hate of his nation for the Northern tribesmen. When the fight began, he said he would not stand for the Shawnees to shoot him down like a wild pigeon, and he left the ranks and took to a fallen log, where he fired with unfailing aim. But he could not be kept from leaving it to scalp the other Indians as he shot them, and his own turn to be shot and scalped came at last.

The battle ground was covered with a thick slush from the new-fallen snow, and this made the retreat more exhausting. A poor mother, perhaps one of the soldiers' or pioneers' wives, staggered along with a baby in her arms till she fell with it. The ranger McDowell then carried it awhile for her. When he gave it back, she threw it away in the snow, to save her own life, and the Indians found it, and took it to Sandusky, where they brought it up as their own.

Two years after, when a detachment of Wayne's army camped upon the scene of the massacre, they had to scrape away the heaps of bones and carry them out of their tents before they could make their beds, and they buried six hundred skulls on the field. Such is war, and we cannot look too closely on its hideous face, which is often so alluringly painted that we forget it is the face of a pitiless demon.

1,000 American Soldiers Massacred on the Wabash River by the Miami Indians

1,000 American Soldiers Massacred on the Wabash River by the Miami Indians

Greatest Indian General Little Turtle

History Not Taught in Schools

Indian hostilities still continued to destroy the peace and safety of our frontier settlements. And Congress with a view to provide relief, resolved to increase our military force, and place in the hands of the Executive, more ample means for their defense. A new expedition was therefore projected. General St. Clair, governor of the territory west of the Ohio, was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces to be employed.

President Washington had been deeply pained by the disasters of General Harmar's expedition to the Wabash, resulting from Indian ambushes. In taking leave of his old military comrade, St. Clair, he wished him success and honor; at the same time to put him on his guard, said,—"You have your instructions from the secretary of war. I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word—Beware of a surprise! You know how the Indians fight. I repeat it—Beware of a surprise!" With these warning words sounding in his ear, St. Clair departed. [Footnote: Irving's life of Washington.]

On the seventh of September, 1791, General St. Clair set out for the Indian country. The American banner was unfurled and waved proudly over two thousand of her soldiers, as with sanguine hopes and bright anticipations, they took up their line of march for the Miami, designing to destroy the Indian villages on that river, expel the savages from the region, and by establishing a line of posts to the Ohio river, prevent the Indians from returning to a point, where they had been the occasion of great mischief. On their way they constructed two forts, Hamilton and Jefferson, and advanced but slowly, having to open for themselves a way through the forest. Too many of those composing this little army were deficient in soldier-like qualities. They had been recruited from the off- scourings of large towns and cities, enervated by idleness, debauchery, and every species of vice, which unfitted them for the arduous service of Indian warfare. Hence insubordination, and frequent desertion, were among the difficulties encountered.

Under the command of the Miami Chief Little Turtle, 700 Americans are slaughtered on the Wabash River.  Why has this battle kept secret and not found in any history books?

Not until the third of November, did they come near the Indian villages on the Miami. On the evening of that day they selected a position on the bank of a creek, which favored their purpose, and bivouacked for the night. Their number, from desertion, and those left to garrison the forts, amounted to but fourteen hundred. The place of their encampment was surrounded by close woods, dense thickets, and the trunks of fallen trees, affording a fine cover for stealthy Indian warfare.

It was the intention of St. Clair to throw up a slight work on the following day, and then move on to attack the Indian villages. The plan of this work he concerted in the evening with Major Ferguson, of the artillery. In the mean time, Colonel Oldham, an officer commanding the militia, was directed to send out that evening, two detachments, to explore the country and gain what knowledge they could of the enemy. The militia showed signs of insubordination, complained of being too much fatigued, and the order apparently could not be enforced. The militia were encamped beyond the stream, about a quarter of a mile in advance, on a high flat, a position much more favorable than was occupied by the main body. The placing of sentinels, about fifty paces from each other, formed their principal security against surprise.

At an early hour the next morning, the woods about the camp of the militia, swarmed with Indians, and a terrific yell, followed by sharp reports of the deadly rifle, were startling sounds, in the ear of the newly recruited soldier. The militia returned a feeble fire, and immediately fled toward the main body of the army. They came rushing in, pell-mell and threw into disorder the front rank, drawn up in the order of battle. The Indians, still keeping up their frightful yell, followed hard after the militia, and would have entered the camp with them, but the sight of troops drawn up with fixed bayonets to receive them, checked their ardor, and stopping short they threw themselves behind logs and bushes, and poured in a deadly fire upon the first line, which was soon extended to the second. Our soldiers were mown down at a fearful rate.

The Indians fought with great desperation. They charged upon the center of the two main divisions commanded by General Butler, and Colonel Darke with unexampled intrepidity. They aimed a destructive fire upon the artillerists from every direction, and swept them down by scores. The artillery if not very effective, was bravely served. A quantity of canister and some round shot were thrown in the direction whence the Indians fired; but concealed as they were, and seen only occasionally, as they sprang from one covert to another, it was impossible to direct the pieces to advantage; and so effective was the fire upon them, that every artillery officer, and more than two-thirds of the men, were killed or wounded.

The greatest Indian general was Little Turtle, who massacred three military expeditions to take the Lake Erie-Wabash Portage.

St. Clair, unable to mount his horse, was borne about on a litter, and in the midst of peril and disaster, gave his orders with coolness and judgment. Seeing to what disadvantage his troops fought with a concealed enemy, he ordered Colonel Darke, with his regiment of regulars, to rouse the Indians from their covert with the bayonet, and turn their left flank. This was executed with great spirit; the enemy were driven three or four hundred yards; but for want of cavalry or riflemen, the pursuit slackened, and the troops were forced to give back in turn, and the Indians came on with a deadlier aim, the moment pursuit was relinquished. Strenuous efforts were made by the officers, early in the engagement, to restore order, which resulted in making themselves a mark, and they were cut down by the quick-sighted enemy.

All the officers of the Second regiment were cut off except three. The contest disastrous from the first, had now continued for more than two hours and a half. The loss of so many officers, and the hopeless condition of the army, the half of them killed, and the situation of the remainder desperate, brought discouragement to many a brave heart. It was useless to make further effort, which promised only a more fatal result. A retreat therefore was ordered, Colonel Darke being directed to charge the Indians that intercepted the way toward Fort Jefferson, and Major Clark with his battalion to cover the rear; these movements were successfully made, and the most of the troops that remained collected in a body, with such of the wounded as could possibly hobble along with them; thus they departed, leaving their artillery and baggage.

The retreat, though disorderly, was accomplished without difficulty, as the Indians did not pursue them far, from a desire to return for plunder. Yet the entire way, for near thirty miles, the distance to Fort Jefferson, bore the marks of a trepidation that seemed to characterize the entire engagement. The soldiers continued to throw away their guns, knapsacks, or whatever else impeded their flight, even when at a wide remove from all danger.

The army reduced by killed, wounded and desertion to about one-half its original number, fell back upon Fort Washington, the point of starting, and thus unfortunately closed a campaign, concerning which the highest expectations had been entertained. It was a heavy blow upon our infant republic, and spread over our country a gloom, which was greatly deepened by a sorrow for the loss of many worthy and brave men, who though they freely sacrificed their lives, could not avert these disasters.

The Indians, on account of this further victory, were elated beyond endurance, and conducted more haughtily than ever before. Their incursions were more frequent, their depredations more extensive, and their cruelties more excessive. The frontier inhabitants, especially of Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, never felt more insecure, and were never more exposed to loss of life, plunder and burning. In some instances whole settlements were broken up, by those who left their homes and sought, in the more densely peopled sections of the east, places of greater security.