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CHAPTER III
THE INDIAN TRIBES
Character of the Indians, With An Account of the Principal Indian Tribes East of the Mississippi River Subsequent to the Discovery of America by the Whites—Their Wars and Treaties.
The Indians of the United States were a race who had no written history. They were principally forest wanderers, living on game and fish, and what little grain the Indian women cultivated, for no Indian warrior would demean himself by labor. In the early history of the country a brisk trade existed by adventurers bringing colored men from Africa and selling them to the early settlers as slaves. The thrifty pioneers endeavored to secure slave labor cheaper by capturing Indians, but in all the colonies where it was attempted it proved a failure. The Indians would not work, and although cruel and brutal punishment was inflicted it was useless. The IndianS died under the lash rather than degrade themselves by manual labor. They had, as stated, no written language, the Iroquois being regarded as the most intelligent, as they could count up to one hundred, many of the tribes being unable to definitely express numbers above ten.
Long before the hunter and trapper wandered through the great Northwest, the Jesuit and Moravian missionaries, following on the heels of the early discoveries, became very friendly with the Indians. These missionaries were told by the older men of the Lenni Lenape (Delawares) that centuries previous their ancestors dwelt in the far west, and slowly drifted toward the east, arriving at a great stream, called the Namoesi Sipee (Mississippi) or "river of fish." Here they met the Mangwes (Iroquois) who had drifted westward to the Mississippi, far to the north, the Delawares having come east about the center of the United States. The country east of the Mississippi was reported as being inhabited by a very large race of men, who dwelt in large towns along the shores of the streams. These people were called the Allegewi, and it was their name that was given to the Allegheny river and mountains. Their towns were strongly fortified by earth embankments. The Delawares requested permission of the Allegewi to establish themselves in their territory, but the request was refused, although permission was given them to cross the river, and go through their country to the east. When the Delawares commenced crossing the river the Allegewi became alarmed at their numbers, and fell upon them in force and killed those who had crossed. threatening the others with a like fate should they attempt to pass the stream.
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The legend indicates the Allegewi were not of the Indian race but the the Iroquois were. The Delawares were indignant at the murder of their braves and the treachery of the Allegewi, so they took counsel with their Iroquois brethren, and formed a compact to unite and drive the Allegewi beyond the Mississippi, and divide the country. The war lasted for years and great was the slaughter on both sides, until finally the Indians conquered, and the Allegewi fled down the Mississippi, never more to return. The Iroquois then took the country along the great lakes, and the Delawares the country to the south. The two nations remained peaceful for many years, and the Delawares wandered further to the east, until finally they established their principal headquarters along the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. The Iroquois covered the territory north of the Delawares and along both shores of the St. Lawrence. The Delawares, occupying land from the Atlantic to beyond the Mississippi river, became divided into various tribes, but they had grown in strength as the years passed and far outnumbered the Iroquois. Trouble arose between the two nations, and they went to war. To overcome the superiority in numbers of the Delawares the Iroquois resorted to stratagem. An Indian tribe is one family, and an injury done to one member is avenged by the entire tribe. Each tribe had its war instruments marked with some peculiar design, or totem. The Iroquois murdered an Indian of one of the Delaware tribes and left at the scene of the murder the war club bearing the mark of another branch of the Delawares. This caused war between the two branches of the Delaware tribes. The shrewd Iroquois soon had the Delawares hopelessly divided, fighting and killing each other.
The treachery of the Iroquois was discovered and the Delawares called a grand council, summoning their warriors from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, with the intention of utterly exterminating the Iroquois. Then was formed by the Iroquois the Five Nations, organized by Thannawaga, an aged Mohawk chief. It was an absolute alliance of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, a form of republic in which the leaders of the five nations consulted and acted as one. Under this powerful organization the Delawares were forced back to their own lands.
The Five Nations, having driven back the Delawares, turned their attention to the French, who were forcing them south from their hunting grounds on the St. Lawrence. North of this river were the Hurons (Wyandottes) and although of the Iroquois branch of the Indians, yet they were now a separate nation and at enmity. Although Cartier had treacherously taken their chief to France on his first visit, Champlain, nearly a century later, had made friends with the Hurons and when the Iroquois began resisting the French inroads on their territory, Champlain organized the Hurons and made a raid on the Iroquois in 1609, administering a crushing defeat, the Hurons returning to Quebec with fifty scalps. In 1610 another attack was made on the Iroquois by Champlain and his Huron allies, but they were driven back by the Iroquois. The French now abandoned further extensions to the south, and the Iroquois made an onslaught on their ancient enemies, the Delawares, and drove them from the Atlantic westward to the Alleghenies.
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It was land the Five Nations had taken from the Delawares that they sold to William Penn in 1682. The Iroquois as early as 1609 became the inveterate enemy of the French, an enmity which continued with undiminished hatred for a century and a half. So when the French created this hatred by their attacks en the Iroquois, this, and an admiration the western and northern Indians had for the French, made them allies. The Hurons were not as warlike as the Iroquois, but like all Indians they took up the cause of any insult to any member of their tribe. As a result the battles between the Iroquois and the Hurons were frequent, and they were ever inveterate enemies. To balance the Five Nation league of the Iroquois, the Hurons also united all that branch of the Algonquins in the north and west who were opposed to the Iroquois, the principal nation of the confederation being the Wyandottes.
After the French and Hurons had defeated the Five Nations on Lake Champlain, they remained quiet for some time. The Franciscan friars had done much missionary work among the Hurons and many had adopted the Catholic faith, and with religion came a less warlike spirit, and more cultivation of the soil. With the Iroquois the missionaries could do nothing, many losing their lives in the attempt.
The Jesuits followed the Franciscans, and found a fruitful field of labor among the Hurons. This was from 1625 on, and the energetic Jesuits soon supplanted all over the west the quieter and less religiously aggressive Franciscans. The Jesuits established missions and schools all along the northern border of the lakes, at Detroit, through Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, and along the Mississippi from its source to New Orleans. It is to be noted, however, that even these zealous Jesuits in going from Quebec, on the St. Lawrence, to Detroit, kept north of the lakes, as the more convenient route by way of the Niagara river and Lake Erie was controlled by the ferocious Iroquois, whose implacable hatred of everything French had been started by Champlain. It is but just to the Jesuits to say some did visit the Iroquois, only to be horribly treated, sometimes tortured and burned at the stake ; or, if allowed to return, maimed for life.
For nearly forty years the warlike Iroquois remained quiet, except occasional marauding expeditions against neighboring tribes and treacherous attacks on the white settlers. They had made a treaty of peace with the New England settlers, and in 1648 made a treaty with the Dutch of New Amsterdam. Under this treaty the Dutch sold them arms and ammunition, which, prior to this time, they had scrupulously refused to do. After two- score years of rest a new generation had sprung up, equally warlike and equally fearless, and they concluded to try their new weapons on the Eries, another of the tribes of the Huron combination. The Eries then occupied the southern shore of Lake Erie, including the territory now embraced by Crawford and adjoining counties. The Eries were entirely unprepared and the victory was so complete that the Eries never again became prominent. This led to a war between the Hurons and the Iroquois, and it raged with undiminished fury for several years, until in 1659, the Iroquois crossed into Canada in great force, above the French settlements, and marched through the Huron terri-
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tory, massacreing their enemies, burning their towns, destroying the missions and murdering the priests. The Hurons fled through lower Canada, across the river at Detroit, and into upper Michigan, and only found final refuge from their insatiable foes on the southern shores of Lake Superior, where the Chippewas came to their defense and drove the Iroquois back. The Iroquois were now in undisputed control from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and from the Lakes to the Ohio river.
In the Lake Superior region the bulk of the Wyandottes and Ottawas (another of the Huron branch) made their home for many years, until two French priests arrived among them, Jacques Marquette and Claude Deblon, and began organizing them in the interest of the French, and establishing a headquarters for all the Indian allies of the French at Mackinac. - This was in 1671, and here they remained for thirty years. In 1701 Cadillac, who had been in command of the French fort at Mackinac, established a new post at Detroit, which was called Fort Ponchartrain, later changed to Detroit, a name it ever after retained. When Cadillac moved to Detroit, at his request most of the Indian allies accompanied him; they were joined by other Indians, and new tribal relations established, and the Hurons took the name of their leading tribe, the Wyandots,* the name meaning "Traders of the West."
The Wyandots were frequently attacked by their old enemies, the Iroquois, but the Indians around Detroit were all united; they received arms and ammunition from the French, and when necessary the French soldiers fought with them, and at the end of six years the Iroquois were compelled to give up the struggle and leave the French and Wyandots in control of lower Michigan and Canada north of Lake Erie and Ontario.
But the shrewd Iroquois were not idle. They instigated the Fox nation to make an attack on the Detroit settlement. They chose a time when the Wyandots were away on a hunting expedition, early in May, 1712. Du Buisson was then in command of Fort Ponchartrain, with only twenty-one men. He sent runners out to notify the Indians to return. On the 13th an assault was made on the Fort, but the Foxes and their allies were held at bay. While the fight was going on the Wyandots returned, and drove the Foxes into the fort they had erected when they came to capture the French settlement. The French and Wyandots in turn attacked the enemy's fort, but were unsuccessful. For nineteen days the fighting continued, when the Foxes were compelled to flee, and hurriedly built a fortification a .few miles north of Detroit. Here they were attacked by the French and their allies, the French bringing two small cannon to bear on the enemy. The fighting lasted three days more, when the Foxes were utterly routed, the Wyandots, and their allies, the Ottawas and Pottawatomies massacreing Boo men, women and children, and nearly wiping out the Fox nation, a few of those remaining joining their friends, the Iroquois, and the remainder removing to Wisconsin and the south shore of Lake Superior, where they became as bitter enemies of the French as were the Iroquois in the east. It was this same year the Tuscaroras, driven from North Carolina, came north and united with the Iroquois and the con-
* The correct name was Wyandotte, but from this date the name is given according to the modern spelling.
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federation became the Six Nations. While the battles at Detroit intensified the anger of the Six Nations and the Foxes against the French, it gave the latter the strong friendship of the Wyandots and all those Indians who surrounded the French settlement, a friendship which, to the credit of the Wyandots, they faithfully maintained through all the varying fortunes of war for the next half century, and when, in 1763, the flag of France fell before the meteor flag of England, and the French retired from American soil, for some years after the treaty of peace between England and France was signed, the Wyandots with their western allies were at war against the British.
The Wyandots now gradually extended their hunting grounds along the southern shore of Lake Erie, the nearly half a century of war of the Iroquois with the French having left that nation in so crippled a condition that they never again appeared west of the Alleghenies on a warlike expedition. The Wyandots, extending their territory, were soon in control from Lake Erie to the Ohio river. In 1740 the remnant of the once famous Delawares was driven from Pennsylvania by the Six Nations and by the advance of the Pennsylvania colonists, and the Wyandots gave them permission to occupy the Muskingum Valley. A number of the Shawanese also made their home along the Scioto, .and the Ottawas had land between the Sandusky and the Maumee rivers, and from here, as allies of the French, they frequently made warlike excursions into Pennsylvania and Virginia, surprising the settlers at dead of night, and massacreing entire families, men, women and children, and when the expedition was in retaliation for some real or fancied wrong, returning with the prisoners and holding a war dance while the unfortunate captives were horribly tortured until death relieved them of their suffering.
In 1755 all of the coast states were British colonies ; the French were in control of all west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio, they had fortifications all along Lake Erie ; one at Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg) another at Erie, Pennsylvania ; at Detroit ; two at the mouth of the Sandusky, others in Indiana and Illinois, and the Indians in all this great Northwest were their friends and allies. The French claimed the territory, and justly, by right of discovery ; the English claimed through charters of British rulers, granted to companies for so many. miles along the Atlantic "and extending west to the Pacific ocean."
In 1744, when the war occurred between France and England, practically all the Indians of the northwest gave their services to the French. They attacked the frontiers of Pennsylvania. and Virginia; some went down the St. Lawrence, reported at Montreal, where they were given arms and ammunition, and attacked the settlers of 'New York, and even extended their depredations across the Hudson to massacre settlers in far-off New England. They were as loyal to their French friends as they were bitter and implacable in their hatred of the English and the Iroquois, who, after a hundred years, were still the loyal friends of the English. In 1745 a French commandant's record in Canada shows the number of Indians reporting for duty in the war against England, among them the Wyandots. Other records show that in one year at least twenty of these blood-thirsty murdering bands were sent out
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by the French, frequent mention being made of the part taken by the Wyandots in the wholesale butcheries which followed in these bloody raids.
In 1748 a treaty was patched up between England and France and comparative quiet was maintained until 1754, but as the French still remained in posseSsion of the great Northwest, and England was determined to have the territory, war again broke out. In the spring of 1754 a company of French soldiers from Fort Duquesne, while extending their explorations southward, were attacked by some Virginia rangers under Lieut. Col. George Washington: A fight for the ownership of the great Northwest between the French and English was so inevitable that during the winter of 1754-55 England and the colonies on the one side and the French on the other organized for the coming struggle, which commenced in 1755, and lasted for seven long years, England and the extreme eastern colonies marching to Canada, and the Virginia and Pennsylvania militia joining with the English soldiers in the battles in the northwest.
In this section the war commenced with the attempt of Gen. Braddock in command of the English. and Col. George Washington in command of the militia, to capture Fort Duquesne, situated at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela unite to form the Ohio. The French sent an army from Detroit, and they were joined in their march by the Wyandots, who were then the leading nation of the northwest, the most numerous, and in bravery the equals of the Iroquois. They were among the Indian troops who were secreted in the woods and poured the deadly fire on the ambuscaded Americans and English. The French loss was four killed, and the American and English 300. Among the slain was General Braddock, who had refused advice as to Indian warfare, and who paid the penalty with his life, leaving Washington in command to save what he could from the slaughter.
The victory at Fort Dequesne excited the Indians' thirst for blood, and nearly every Wyandot warrior took to the war path. Along the borders of Pennsylvania they left a trail of death and desolation ; they were with Mont- calm in Canada, where the French were defeated: then on to Ottawa. which fell into the hands of the British ; returning to Fort Niagara they received another repulse ; everywhere the English and Americans were slowly but surely driving back the French. Bravery, endurance and fortitude were characteristic of the Wyandots, but adversity they could not stand. Their belief in French superiority was becoming shattered, and by degrees they drifted back to the banks of the Sandusky, disappointed and discouraged, and took no further hand in the struggle. It ended in 1763 when France relinquished Canada, and all her possessions in the United States east of the Mississippi to the English.
While the French were receiving their reverses, Pontiac an Ottawa chief (Huron branch of the Indians) organized practically all of the Indians of the northwest to seize every English outpost, probably twelve in number. In the great Northwest they failed only at Detroit, where the siege lasted for many months, by which time the English had regained their forts and relieved Detroit, and peace was declared. In this peace Pontiac refused to join, but
PICTURES: RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH ALTENBACH, SIDNEY, O.,; OHIO AVENUE HOMES, SIDNEY, O.; MIAMI RIVER EAST FROM TWO MILE BRIDGE, SIDNEY, O.; LAKE TAWAWA AND CLUB HOUSE, SIDNEY, O.
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retired with his Ottawas to Illinois. The capture of the different farts was arranged for May 7, 1763. The Wyandots captured the fort near the mouth of the Sandusky. Here Ensign Paully was in command, and on May 16 he was approached by seven Indians with a request for a conference. He admitted them without hesitation, when he was seized, bound and the fort captured the garrison being taken unawares. Nearly all the garrison, eleven in number, were massacred and the fort was burned. ,Ensign Paully being reserved for torture. He was tied to the stake, and just as the fagots were about to be fired an Indian squaw, whose husband had been killed, claimed the prisoner to take the place of her dead husband. Paully consented, and was liberated, but at the first opportunity made his escape, leaving the widow doubly bereaved.
Pontiac in Illinois remained the inveterate foe of the English, and in 1769 he was murdered by an Illinois Indian. The Wyandots, who had for some years been living quietly, on learning the news, accompanied by the Ottawas and other tribes marched to Illinois and avenged the chief's death by almost wiping out the Illinois tribe.
In 1764 General Bradstreet, who was in command at Detroit, with a force of men "ascended the Sandusky river as far as it was navigable by boats.- The point reached was probably the old Indian town of Upper Sandusky on the river about three miles southeast of the present town of Upper Sandusky. Here a treaty of peace was made with the chiefs and leading men of the Wyandots.
This peace was .fairly observed until in 1774, the Wyandots, Shawanese, Delawares and Mingoes made an attack on Point Pleasant, where the Kanawha joins the Ohio. They had a force of over a thousand warriors, under command of Cornstalk. General Lewis was in command of Point Pleasant with 1,100 men. The fight continued all day the English loss being two colonels, five captains, three lieutenants and T00 soldiers, besides 140 wounded. The Indian loss must have been severe, as during the night they retreated across the Ohio river and returned to their homes. Just before the battle they were joined by Simon Girty, who had been a scout for the English. He was an efficient scout, but in some altercation with General Lewis, the latter struck him with a cane over the head, inflicting a deep gash. Girty threatened vengeance, and escaped from the fort, joining the Indians, and in the attack On the fort was as savage and bitter and cruel as any Indian warrior could desire. He remained with his new friends and ever after made his home with the Shawanese, Delawares and Wyandots. He declared he had foresworn his white blood and assumed the garb of the Indians with their painted flesh and feathered headdress.
After the Americans and English had succeeded in driving out the French in 1763, England for years pursued an unjust policy toward the colonies; which eventually culminated in the Revolutionary war. In the east all manufactures which interfered with England were prohibited or crippled by severe laws. All goods must be bought in England ; all products raised in America must be sold to England alone, and forwarded on English vessels. The Eng-
lish commercial policy also affected the great Northwest. The French, by their
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explorations, and by their trading posts all over this great territory had built up a large business in furs, of which they had a monopoly. The English merchants secured this trade, and it was so vast and profitable they wanted it continued. As a result they petitioned the King and Parliament : "It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely on the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting grounds, and that all colonizing does, in its nature, and must, in its consequences, operate to the prejudice of that branch of commerce." So George Third issued a proclamation declaring the new territory, the Great Northwest from the Ohio to the Lakes and from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi, royal domain, and prohibited further settlement in thiS vast territory, or the purchase of any part of it from the Indians. This was in 1774, and the English statesmen, forseeing a coming contest, attached this territory to the Province of Quebec, and Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were a part of Canada.
Eight years later the Province of Quebec was the danger point in the treaty of peace between England and the United States. The American commissioners were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay and Henry Laurens. Their imperative instructions were that the independence of the United States must be recognized. Other matters were minor. France had been the ally of the United States and the treaty must be satisfactory to that nation. France had received from Spain practically all west of the Mississippi river, and desired to have her rights recognized by England. Spain was with France, and the two secretly arranged with England that the north boundary of the United States should be the Ohio river, basing the claim on the ground that the Great Northwest was a part of the Province of Quebec, and there was no question that Canada was to remain English territory. In the early part of the treaty, while this agreement was not definitely reached, matters were tending that way. Franklin, as minister to France, conducted the earlier negotiations, and later, when John Adams and John Jay arrived, the boundary came up. The English were insistent ; Vergennes, the French minister, favored the English, until finally Adams and Jay positively declared they would submit to no boundary except the lakes. Laurens and Franklin stood by them solidly, and it was over a year before England finally yielded the point, and Ohio and the Great Northwest became a part of the United States. England probably thought the territory of far less importance than it was, having relegated all that vast region to a great hunting ground, with no higher conception of its future use than the protecting and raising of fur- bearing animals. How different the views of John Jay, who speaking of this territory in congress in 1777, prophetically said : "Extensive wildernesses, now scarcely known or explored, remain yet to be cultivated ; and vast lakes and rivers, whose waters have for ages rolled in silence to the ocean, are yet to hear the din of industry, become subservient to commerce, and boast delightful villas, gilded spires, and spacious cities rising on their banks."
On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, the Wyandots and their neighbors at first saw no reason to take any hand in the contest. In the east the British had secured the assistance of the Six Nations, the Mohawks being
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then the chief tribe, but by 1777 the English had succeeded in enlisting the Wyandots and other Ohio tribes on their side, and under British pay they made onslaughts on the western borders of the colony, attacking the settlers in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Many joined the British army, and a number of Wyandots joined the army of General Burgoyne, in New. York state, but did little beyond burning a few houses of settlers, stealing their stock and murdering a number of the pioneers. In an excursion with Burgoyne into New Hampshire, a number of Wyandots were killed, and they blamed the British general for the loss, claiming the warriors were needlessly sacrificed. This, and the fact that Burgoyne endeavored to restrain their ferocity and cruelty, disgusted the Wyandots, and most of them returned to their home on the Sandusky; but still under the pay of the English, continued to harass the frontier, destroying, burning and murdering. The English had a trading- post at the Indian village of Sandusky, where settlement was made, and at this point nearly all the Indian tribes were paid for the scalps taken.
Their first expedition was in 1777. The renegade Girty was thoroughly conversant with affairs along the Ohio river, and at his suggestion 500 warriors, Delawares, Wyandots and Shawanese, started on an expedition against Fort Henry, near where Wheeling now is, on the Ohio river. The British had supplied them with arms and ammunition, and the Indians made their way through the dense forests, along their trails, crossed the Ohio and surrounded the fort with its garrison of forty men, and a number of women and children. Col. David Sheppard was in command, and rumors had reached the fort that 500 warriors had started from the Sandusky region on some murdering expedition, destination unknown. On the evening of September 26, 1771, settlers reported Indians in war paint had been seen lurking in the neighborhood. Cabins were abandoned, and all sought safety in the fort. Colonel Sheppard sent out two men to reconoitre ; one was killed and the other returned to the fort wounded; the colonel then sent out 14 men, and as they were proceeding cautiously down the river they fell into an ambush, and I I were instantly killed, the others escaping in the dense forest. Hearing the firing, the colonel sent 12 more men to relieve the imperiled party ; eight of these were promptly killed. The fighting force in the fort was now reduced to a dozen men. The Indians made constant attacks, but were as constantly driven back. It was during this engagement that, when the powder gave out. Elizabeth Zane bravely went to the storehouse, sixty yards away, and brought back the powder in safety. She volunteered for this service, saying that no man could be spared for this perilous trip under the direct fire of the enemy. Night coming on, the Indians retired until morning. During the night a dozen men arrived from a neighboring settlement, and succeeded in gaining entrance to the fort. In the morning 40 more rangers arrived, and the Indians, now regarded it as useless to continue their assault on the fort. They therefore destroyed everything they could, set fire to the houses, and killed or carried off 300 head of cattle. They had killed 21 men, with several others wounded. Their own loss, however, was over a hundred. They returned to Sandusky with 21 scalps for which cash was paid by the British agent.
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While the Wyandots were allies of the. English; as well as the other tribes of Ohio, on an eastern. branch of the Muskingum in Tuscarawas county were several hundred Moravian Indians, of the Delaware tribe, who constantly refused to take part in the war ; they had become Christian Indians, had three settlements in Tuscarawas county, and had cleared considerable land, devoted their time mostly to .farming and kept up .constant business relations with the Americans at Pittsburg, about 60 miles distant, which was the headquarters of the American forces in the west. They refused all the overtures and bribes of. the ;British... Finally, in the fall of 1781, Colonel Elliott, of the British forces; who; was stationed at Upper Sandusky, took with him two chiefs and 300 warriors; and marched to the Moravian settlements, their route being through Crawford, crossing the Sandusky at a point one mile south of the Tod township line, and passing through Bucyrus township in the direction of New Winchester and in a southeasterly direction toward the Kilbuck in Holmes county and on to the Tuscarawas settlements.. The three Moravian towns, all on the Tuscarawas river, were Schonbrunn, two miles south of the present town of New Philadelphia, seven miles further south was Gnadenhutten and five miles further Salem.
On reaching the Moravians the Indians urged their brethren to stand by .them in their war against the Americans ; the English colonel offered them presents, but the Moravians stood firm. Failing in peaceful persuasions the Indians insisted they should accompany them to the banks of the Sandusky, claiming they were too near Pittsburg, and the Wyandots were afraid they might ally themselves with the detested Americans. Expostulations were useless and the peaceful Moravians were forced to leave their crops ungathered, and accompany their captors in the long and weary march to the banks of the Sandusky. The Moravians were taken to Sandusky and from there their missionaries were sent to Detroit as prisoners. Some writers place the Moravian winter quarters on the river southwest of Bucyrus, but Butterfield fixes it near the old Indian town, three miles southeast of the present town of Upper Sandusky. Here they passed the winter, suffering great hardships. as the Indians make no provision for the future, and the addition of several hundred to the Indian villages along the Sandusky was beyond their means of support. After a severe winter a number were allowed to return to their villages to gather the crops of the fall previous. About 150 of them, men with their wives and children, made the journey to their former homes, and resumed their work on the clearings, dividing their force so as to look after all three of the villages.
While the Moravians had spent the winter suffering on the banks of the Sandusky the Wyandots had not been idle, but had made marauding expeditions on the settlers of Pennsylvania and Virginia, with their usual burning and killing.
The settlers of the upper Ohio and the Monongahela determined to administer a lesson that would be a warning to the Indians, and a corps Of t00 mounted men was organized, and under command of Colonel Williamson started for the Moravian towns. They knew the Moravians had spent the
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winter on the Sandusky, the point where all the brutal, murdering expeditions were organized; they knew they had again returned to their villages on the Tuscarawas. In what follows, the most lenient might concede they did not know the peaceful Indians had been taken there against their will, but this is not borne out by history. The rangers under Williamson reached Gnadenhutten after a forced march of two days, and at this village found the Indians gathering corn on the west bank of the Tuscarawas. A boat was secured and sixteen of the men crossed the river, but found more Indians there than they had expected. Then the rangers certainly learned that their visit to Sandusky had been an enforced bile, for they sympathized with them for the cruel treatment they had received and were assured of their friendship and that they had come to see in what way they could protect the Moravians. They further assured them that another expedition would come from the Sandusky region, and they would again receive the same cruel treatment, and that their friends at Pittsburg had advised them to go to that place where they would receive protection. Knowing the settlers of Pittsburg had always treated them with the greatest friendship, and being Christian Indians, they did not doubt what the men told them, and placed themselves under their protection. The trusting Indians also sent a messenger down the river to the village of Salem to notify the Indians there of the kindness of their newfound friends, urging them to join them at Gnadenhutten. They crossed the river with the rangers and gave their guns into their hands, after which they were ordered into houses and a guard placed around them. Colonel Williamson sent a party. of men down the river to the village of Salem, but on the way they met the Salem Moravians coming up the river to join their brethren at Gnadenhutten. The Salem Indians arrived and they, too, were deceived into giving up their arms after which they were imprisoned. Colonel Williamson then called a council of war, and put the question for the men to decide, as to whether the Indians should be taken as prisoners to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) or whether they should be put to death. There were 18 who favored the minor outrage of carrying them away as prisoners and 82 voted for immediate death.
No sympathy was manifested by the majority. They resolved to murder the whole of the Christian Indians in their custody. They were ordered to prepare for death. But the warning had been anticipated. Their firm belief in their new creed was shown forth in this sad hour of their tribulation, by religious exercises of preparation. The orisons of these devout people were already ascending to the throne of the Most High. The sound of the Christian's hymn and the Christianls prayer found an echo in the surrounding woods, but no responsive feeling in the bosoms of their executioners. With gun, and spear, and tomahawk and scalping knife, the work of death progressed in these slaughterhouses, till not a sigh or moan was heard to proclaim the existence of human life within. All perished save two. Two Indian boys escaped as by a miracle, to be witnesses in after times of the savage cruelty of the white man toward their unfortunate race.
After committing this cruel and cowardly act, the buildings containing
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the mutilated bodies of the murdered Indians were set on fire, and the flames of the heavy logs soon reduced to crumbling ashes all that remained of the Christian Indians.
Having thus removed all traces of their inhuman act, the men started up the river for Schonbrunn to murder the Moravians there, but the Christian savages had learned of the sad fate of their companions and fled to the forest, and were beyond pursuit. The number murdered was 96; of these 62 were grown persons, about 42 men and 20 women; the remaining 34 were children.
It was only a part of the Moravians who had been murdered; the larger number were still on the banks of the Sandusky, and to this same retreat fled the 50 Christian Moravians who had escaped from Schonbrunn. Immediately on Williamson's return, arrangements were made for a new expedition to go to the fountain-head of all the trouble—the headquarters on the Sandusky —and administer a blow that would leave the settlers in peace. The massacre of the Moravians took place May 3, 1702, and on May 7 the decision was reached to attack Upper Sandusky, the seat of the Wyandots, not that the Wyandots alone were guilty of all the murdering and massacreing, butchering and scalping of the unfortunate settlers and their families, but because Upper Sandusky was the headquarters of the Wyandots, Ottawas, Delawares, and Shawanese, and here was their rendezvous, where they gathered to start on their raids. Volunteers to the number of 480 were secured, all mounted and well armed, all from two or three counties south of Fort Pitt. Monday, May 20, was the time set for their assembling and the place chosen was Mingo Bottom, on the west bank of the 'Ohio, about seventy-five- miles below Pittsburg, and about two miles below the present city of Steubenville. They began assembling on the 21st, and on the 24th the last man had reported. A vote was taken as to who should command the expedition, and Col. William Crawford received 235 votes, and Col. David Williamson, who had commanded the expedition against the Moravians, 230. Colonel Crawford was therefore selected as commander with Colonel Williamson as senior major, and second in command. Besides the two commanding officers there were three other majors : Gladdis, McClelland and Bunton, with Daniel Leet as brigade major, and Dr. John Knight as surgeon. John Slover and Jonathan Zane accompanied the expedition as guides. There were 18 companies, the captains, as far as known, being McGeehan, Hoagland, Beeson, Munn, Ross, Ogle, Briggs, Craig, Ritchie, Miller, Bean, and Hood.
The Williamson expedition against the Moravians was a private affair of the settlers. The expedition against the Wyandots was a government affair, under direction of General Irvine, who commanded the western department of the United States and Lieutenant Rose, a member of his staff, accompanied as his representative.
Saturday morning, May 25, 1782, the expedition started for the Sandusky Plains, about 150 miles distant, but to avoid the Indian trails, so the savages would have no knowledge of the attack, their course was through the unbroken forest, to the Tuscarawas, on the banks of which were the destroyed Moravian towns, and it took them four days to cover the 60 miles, although Williamson's
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men, over the traveled route, had made it in two days when on their mission of murder. They encamped at the ruined town of Schonbrunn, and two officers, reconnoitering, saw in the distance two Indian warriors, who had been spying on their movements. After a forced march through the wilderness of Holmes county, they encamped May 30, about ten miles south of the present site of Wooster, just south of the Wayne county line. From here they went almost due west, passing north of Odell's lake, and on to the Mohican, following up the river until near where Mansfield now is they turned west and encamped on June 1st at Spring Mills, eight miles east of Crestline. The next day, June 2, about one o'clock, they entered Crawford county and continued west to the Sandusky river at the mouth of a small creek called Allen's Run, near the present town of Leesville. They reached the Sandusky river south of the Wyandot trail, which the Indians used on their excursions from the Sandusky towns east to Pittsburg. In the last five days they had made 85 miles, and were now about 25 miles due east of the Indian town. A little to the southwest were extensive plains reaching to their destination. Early on the morning of June 3d they entered the plains, and the open sunlight, after the long and dreary march through the dense woods, was a pleasing relief to all. Passing about four miles south of Bucyrus, they journeyed west to an Indian trail skirting the west side of the Sandusky which they followed into Wyandot county, and made their final encampment near the present town of Wyandot, within ten miles of their destination.
On reaching the old Indian town of Sandusky, on the east bank of the river, about three miles southeast of the present town of Upper Sandusky they found it deserted. The officers and guides were astonished and a halt was called. The volunteers feared a mistake had been made and that there was no village short of Lower Sandusky (Fremont) 40 miles down the river, through a section known to be covered by roving bands of Indians, for they were now in the heart of the Indian country. The army had but five days' of provisions left, but it was decided to move forward in search of the Indians. They crossed the river to the west side, continued along the trail up the west bank to the site of the present town of Upper Sandusky; they continued a mile further, with no sign of Indians and the troops became anxious, and for the first time expressed a desire to return home. Crawford promptly called a halt and a council of war. Colonel Crawford and Guide Zane both favored an immediate return, as further progress was dangerous, and the final decision was made to continue that day and if no Indians were discovered they would return. The march was continued, and the troops had gone but a short distance, when one of the light-horse scouts, who in the open prairie were generally a mile in advance, returned at full speed announcing the Indians were in front of them. The volunteers were now enthusiastic and the whole army moved forward rapidly.
The Indians had kept trace of the army ever since it had left Mingo Bottom, and had sent warriors to the Shawanese, in the Miami valley, and to the Wyandots and Delawares, on the Sandusky, to prepare for an attack. The various tribes gathered and when Crawford left the Tuscarawas, in a north-
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westerly direction, it was known the Sandusky Indians were the objective point. Pomoacan, Wyandot chief, sent special messengers to Detroit, notifying DePeyster, the English commandant at that point, of the intended attack. DePeyster acted promptly, and started Butler's rangers, a mounted troop, to Lower Sandusky (Fremont) by boats to assist their allies ; special messengers were also sent by the Wyandots to the Shawanese on the Miami, and 200 warriors started on their march of 40 miles from Logan county to help their brethren. In the meantime the Delawares, under Pipe, had assembled 300 warriors at his town on both sides of the Tymochtee, about one and a half miles northeast of the present town of Crawfordsville, Wyandot county, near the place now marked by the monument erected on the site where Colonel Crawford was burned at the stake. Zhaus-sho-toh was the Wyandot war chief, and the village of Pomoacan, the "Half King," was five miles northeast of Upper Sandusky, in Crane township, on the Sandusky river. Here he had 400 warriors.
The Americans had advanced about two miles north of Upper Sandusky, and were one mile west of the river, when they met the enemy, the Delawares, being in the front line of battle, under Pipe, his assistants being the renegade Simon Girty and Chief Wingenund, the latter having joined the Delawares from his village about two and a half miles northwest of the present site of Crestline, Craw ford county. The Delawares had taken possession of a small grove called an "island," and from this they were promptly driven by the Americans. The Wyandots under Zhaus-sho-toh, with whom was the British Captain Elliott, came to the support of the Delawares. Elliott took command of both tribes, and the Delawares occupied the west and south sides of the grove, and the Wyandots the north and east. The firing began at four o'clock, and the battle lasted until dark. As the Indians exposed themselves when skulking through the grass they were picked off by the American sharpshooters. The day closed decidedly favorable to the Americans ; their loss was five killed and 19 wounded. Indian losses were never known, but their killed and wounded far exceeded the Americans. Although the Americans were in full possession of the field, the Indians were not dispirited. Desultory firing was resumed at six o'clock in the morning and continued until noon, the Americans believing the Indians had not recovered from their defeat of the day previous, and plans were discussed by the Americans to attack the enemy in force the Delawares were drawn up south of them and the Wyandots north.
Before the plan of attack was matured, a sentinel reported mounted troops coming from the north they proved to be Butler's rangers, sent by DePeyster from Detroit, and a few minutes later another sentinel reported the arrival of 200 Shawanese from the south ; during the late afternoon additional small detachments of Indians were continually arriving. The council of war now unanimously decided on a retreat that night. About nine o'clock the retreat started and by a circuitous march to the west passed around the Delawares and Shawanese south of them, reaching the old town of Upper Sandusky just before daylight. Here a halt was called and stragglers kept
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constantly arriving, but Colonel Crawford, Doctor Knight and John Slover the guide, and many others were missing.
The command now devolved on Williamson, and his force numbered 300. After a short rest the army went south along the east bank of the Sandusky, crossed the river at the mouth of the Little Sandusky, and then east, skirting the southern bank of the river. They were again on the Sandusky Plains, and when they reached where the town of Wyandot now is, they saw in the distance a large force of mounted Indians and Butlersis rangers following in pursuit. They were a dozen miles from the woods on the eastern boundary of the plains, where alone lay safety. Their horses had two days' rest at Sandusky during the battle, but the eleven clays previous marching, and the long night ride had left both man and horses in a jaded condition. They were also hampered by their wounded. Yet Colonel Williamson urged his troops forward with all possible speed and was ably assisted by Lieutenant Rose, the military genius of the expedition.
The retreating column left the Sandusky at Wyandot, and started northeast across the plains. Their route lay through Craw ford county and they passed the site of the present city of Bucyrus about three miles to the south. The enemy followed them closely, harrassing them with occasional shots, and it required all the courage and skill of Colonel Williamson and Lieutenant Rose to prevent the demoralization of the troops. The woods and safety were still six miles away, and they were in an open prairie, being almost surrounded by double their number of infuriated savages, from whom they could expect no mercy. When within a mile of the woods it was found necessary to make a stand, and the little army was reversed and, facing to the west, hurriedly formed ranks to resist the attacking foe. Fortunately the British allies of the Indians had left their artillery behind. The first attack was repulsed with unbroken lines and the second was also a failure. The Indians then sought the protection of the high grass and continued their attack until a heavy storm came on which drenched both armies to the skin and rendered the fire-arms useless, finally causing a cessation of hostilities. The Americans had lost three killed and eight wounded, the loss of the enemy being much greater.
Hurriedly burying their dead and making their wounded as comfortable as possible for transportation, the army resumed its retreat, pursued by the foe, who fired on the Americans from a respectful distance, different companies taking turns in protecting the rear. In this way the tired troops finally reached the shelter of the woods. They passed the night in camp at Leesville and next morning resumed the retreat, the last shots of the enemy being heard as they passed the borders of Crawford county, just north of the site of the present town of Crestline.
When the retreat was started Colonel Crawford missed his son John Craw ford, his son-in-law, William Harrison, and his nephew, William Crawford. While looking for these relatives, Doctor Knight joined him. A little before midnight they reached the Sandusky which they crossed less than a mile south of the village of the Wyandot chief Pomoacan. At daylight Craw-
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ford, Knight and a boy entered Craw ford county, their progress being slow on account of the darkness and the jaded condition of the horses. Near Oceola, Crawford and the young man were compelled to abandon their horses, and on foot they continued their journey and about two o'clock fell in with Captain Biggs, who had carried Lieutenant Ashley from the battle, the latter being badly wounded. After reaching the point on the Sandusky, where the troops had left the river on their outward march, discussion arose as to the future course and it was decided to follow the course of the army. They followed the south bank of the Sandusky, through the site of the present town of Leesville and just east of that place several Indians started up less than fifty feet from Crawford and Knight. The doctor jumped behind a tree and was about to fire, when Crawford, observing how many Indians there were, advised him not. An Indian who knew them came forward and shook hands; Captain Biggs in the meantime had fired on the savages, but missed, and he and his companion, Lieutenant Ashley, took to the dense woods, as did the two young men. The party that captured Crawford and Knight, were Delaware Indians, who under their chief, Wingenund, had followed the retreating army as far as their camp, which was only half a mile distant from the place where they captured Crawford, about a mile and a half northwest of Crestline.
The details of Crawford's subsequent death at the stake are too harrowing to make pleasant reading and will be omitted. The renegade Simon Girty was present at the awful scene and either could not or would not interfere. Doctor Knight escaped from his captors, thereby avoiding a similar fate. and after a toilsome journey and much suffering, reached home in safety. The Wyandots had nothing to do with Crawford's death. He was a Delaware prisoner. The Wyandots for some years had ceased the burning of prisoners at the stake. The Delawares and Shawanese still adhered to the custom.
The British general, Cornwallis, had surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, which practically ended the war of the Revolution, although the treaty of peace was not signed until a year later, November 30, 1782. The British still retained possession of Detroit, and kept the Indians of the northwest hostile to the Americans, and the depredations still continued. The Americans, however, were now more free to protect their border, and expeditions were sent against them in the Miami valley and up toward the Maumee and Detroit, the Wyandots sending all their warriors to oppose the Americans on these expeditions.
On January 27, 1785, a treaty was signed at Fort McIntosh, a fort on the Ohio, 30 miles below Pittsburg, at the mouth of the Beaver river, where the town of Beaver, Pennsylvania, now is. This treaty was made between the Americans and the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas and Ottawas. The boundary line between the United States and the Wyandots and Delawares was declared to begin "at the mouth of the river Cuyahoga, and to extend up said river to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum, thence down that branch to the crossing place above Fort
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Laurens (on the border line of Stark and Tuscarawas counties, near where the town of Bolivar now is) thence westerly to the portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio (its western point being Fort Recovery in Mercer county) at the mouth of which branch was Fort Slovel which was taken by the French in 1752 ; then along said portage to the Great Miami or Omee river (Maumee) and down the south side of the same to its mouth, then along the south shores of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga, river, where it began." All of the territory inside this boundary (all of northwestern Ohio), was assigned to the Indians, with a few trading-posts reserved, six miles square at the mouth of the Sandusky, and a tract two miles square at Fremont.
Sha-tay-ya-ron-yah, or Leather Lips, who signed this treaty and kept it, was afterward murdered under Indian law on account of his friendship for the Americans. In 1810 Tecumseh commenced his organization of the Indians against the whites, but found the Wyandots, led by Tar-he and Leather Lips, were bitterly opposed to the plan. General Harrison was of the opinion the chief's death was the result of the direct command of Tecumseh.
January 9, 1789, another treaty was made by Gov. St. Clair at Fort Harmar (Marietta), with the Wyandots and others, confirming the treaty of 1785. It was not kept and the Indians, supplied with arms and ammunition by the British at Detroit, continued their depredations, and several expeditions sent against them were disastrous to the Americans. Finally, in 1794, Gen. Anthony Wayne, "Mad Anthony," led the expedition against them, and at the battle of ,Fallen Timbers he gained a complete and decisive victory, and on August 3, 1795, the Greenville treaty was signed, making the Indian reservation about as before.
On July 4, 1805, another treaty was signed at Fort Industry between the United States and the Wyandots and other tribes, by which the eastern boundary of their reservation was a meridian line, starting at a point on Lake Erie, 120 miles west of the western boundary of Pennsylvania, thence south to the Greenville treaty line. This line was the present west boundary of Erie and Huron counties ; it passed through Crawford county, giving the present eastern seven miles to the United States, the western thirteen miles being reserved to the Indians. It touched the Greenville treaty line about two miles
east of what is now Cardington, in Morrow county. All east of this north ,
and south line, north of the Greenville treaty line, extending to the Cuyahoga river was now open to settlement. For. this territory the Indians were given goods to the amount of $20,000, and were to receive in addition $7,500 in goods annually. From this new territory Richland county was created in 1807. For some years the Indians remained peaceful, their severe losses in their constant wars having so greatly reduced their numbers that they realized without help, all further opposition to the Americans was hopeless.
This peace would have continued but for the actions of the British in forcing the war of 1812. England for several years had been stopping American ships on the high seas, seizing seamen on those vessels and impressing them into the British navy on the claim they were British seamen. Many American born sailors were thus seized, and to all protests the British gov-
.
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ernment turned a deaf ear. The British also instigated the Indians in the northwest to recommence their depreciations against the :]Americans, and Tecumseh organized the savage tribes, and when war was declared by the United States Tecumseh and nearly all the northwestern Indians joined their forces with the British, with headquarters at Detroit. Tarhe "The Crane," was chief of the Wyandots at that time, and assisted by Between-the-Logs, another Wyandot chief, urged their tribe to remain neutral, which the majority of them did, very few Wyandots following the lead of Tecumseh. At the breaking out of the war, the first year in the northwest, the Americans met with a constant succession of reverses.
In July, 1812, Gen. William Hull; in command at Detroit, surrendered that post to the British and Indians, without firing a gun. The allied army consisted of 1,000 British and b00 Indians. The force surrendered was 2,500 men, with thirty-three cannon, arms and ammunition. Just prior to the surrender a detachment of 500 had been sent south to guard some supplies coming from Ohio. These were a part of Hull's army and were surrendered also, and as they were returning they were met by a company of British soldiers who astonished them with the statement that they, too, were included in the capitulation. The American troops were released on parole. A number started home on foot, others were transported in boats across Lake Erie to the mouths of the Sandusky, Huron and Cuyahoga rivers, and left at those points to go overland the nearest route to their homes, many passing through Crawford as the nearest way home.
Gen. William Henry Harrison was placed in command of the army in the northwest in September of 1812, the objective point of this campaign being to regain Detroit from the British. General Harrison immediately established a line of defense across the state from Wooster through Crawford county, to Upper Sandusky and St. Mary's to Fort Wayne. The army was divided into three divisions, the left composed of the Kentucky troops and the Seventeenth and Eighteenth United States regulars under Brigadier- General Winchester ; their route was up the Miami, with the base of supplies at St. Mary's, Auglaize county. The central division was composed of 1,200 of the Ohio militia and 800 mounted infantry under Brigadier-General Tupper, with their base of supplies at Fort McArthur (Kenton, Hardin county). The right was composed of three brigades of militia from Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, and were to assemble at Fort Ferree, a fort erected at Upper Sandusky, where General Harrison had his headquarters. On October 22d, General Harrison wrote to the war department : "I am not able to fix any period for the advance of the troops to Detroit. It is pretty evident that it cannot be done, on proper principles, until the frost shall have become so severe as to enable us to use the rivers and the margin of the lake for the transportation of our baggage on the ice." During November and December General Harrison did what he could toward improving the roads.
While at his headquarters on the Sandusky, Tarhe, the Wyandot chief, called on General Harrison, and suggested that a meeting of the Indians be held, as it was his opinion many of the Indians had been deceived into join-
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ing the British forces. In response to this, a council of Indians, both friendly and unfriendly, was held on the American side of the Detroit river at Brownstown. The Wyandots were then the leading and most powerful Indian nation, and Tarhe, their chief, sent a strong message urging them to remain neutral. Tarhe's message was received in sullen silence, and Round Head, a Canadian chief, and a Wyandot, made a bitter speech against the Americans, which was endorsed by practically all present. The British were represented at the council by two agents, Elliott and McKee, and Elliott, seeing the spirit of the Indians, made a very insulting speech, boasting of the victories already achieved, and alluding to the president of the United States as a squaw; and saying : "If she receives this as an insult and feels disposed to fight, tell her to bring more men than she ever brought before. If she wishes to fight me and my children she must not burrow in the earth like a ground hog* where she is inaccessible. She must come out and fight fairly." The leading chief of the Wyandots present was Between-the-Logs, the chief orator of that nation, and to the insulting speech of Elliott he made a dignified reply.
This closed the council, the Canadian Indians remaining with the British, while the Ohio Wyandots followed the advice of Between-the-Logs. Tarhe made another attempt and sent another message to his Canadian Wyandot kinsman : "Let all the Wyandots abandon the British. They are liars and have always deceived the Indians. They built Fort Miami, as they said, to be a refuge to the Indians. When wounded and bleeding, after our defeat by General Wayne, we fled to their fort for protection, they shut the gates against us." Later in the campaign Tecumseh threw this same treacherous act up to General Procter. It referred to a campaign when "Mad Anthony" Wayne defeated the British and Indians, and the British sought refuge in Fort Miami, and closed its gates against their fleeing Indian allies. He called attention to several other acts of perfidy of the British but it had no effect on his Canadian people, although nearly all the Wyandots in Ohio remained on the side of the Americans; only a very few joining the British.
During the War of 1812 General Harrison had his headquarters much of the time along the Sandusky river. He established Fort Ferree, the present site of Upper Sandusky ; Fort Ball at Tiffin and Fort Seneca half way between Tiffin and Fremont. This latter place had been a trading-post over a century, established by the French, and here was Fort Stevenson.
On December 17, 1812, Governor Meigs sent a message to the state legislature appealing for aid for the Ohio militia at Sandusky, in which he said : "The situation of the men as to clothing is really distressing. You will see many of them wading through the snow and mud almost barefooted and half naked. Not half the men have a change of pantaloons, and those linen."
In January, 1813, General Harrison marched from Upper Sandusky to the Maumee and about January l0th erected Fort Meigs, on the south side of the river just above where Perrysburg now is, and for the balance of the winter supplies and troops were sent forward and the fort strengthened.
* Alluding to the Americans having pits in the embankments to shelter them from cannon balls thrown into their forts.
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Toward the last of April the fort was beseiged by General Procter and Tecumseh with 2,000 British and Indians, but the small force there made so determined a resistance until reinforcements arrived under General Clay, that on May 5th, the allies gave up the siege and retired. General Harrison sent word to Governor Meigs that more troops were needed, and they were soon on their way to the different posts. On May 8th the commander at Fort Ferree wrote that 500 men had arrived that day and 1,000 more would be there the next day.
On July 21st General Procter and Tecumseh again laid siege to Fort Meigs with 4,000 British and Indians, General Clay being in command of the fort. The British general, Procter, left Tecumseh to watch the fort, while he, with 500 British troops and B00 Indians, marched to Lower Sandusky (Fremont) to capture Fort Stevenson, which was garrisoned by 150 men under Major Crogan, a young man of twenty-one. They arrived before the fort on August 1, 1813, and Procter demanded its surrender under the threat that its defense against his superior force was hopeless, and if they were compelled to capture the place, it would be impossible for him to restrain the savagery of the Indians, and the entire garrison would be massacred. The demand was refused and on August 2d the attack commenced, and after several hours of fighting the enemy endeavored to take it by assault but were repulsed with great slaughter. General Harrison was at the time at Fort Seneca, nine miles up the river, with a large force of troops, and Procter fearing an attack in return gave up the attempt and returned to Detroit. The American loss was one killed and seven wounded.
The Ohio militia continued pouring into Fort Ferree until in August there were from 5,000 to 6,000 men there under command of Governor Meigs. It was impossible to care for so many, besides the enemy had abandoned their attempt to capture Fort Meigs and retired to Detroit, and the pressing need for the militia had passed, so all but 2,000 were disbanded and sent home, an order which was received with the greatest disapproval by the disbanded troops, and led to indignation meetings in which severe resolutions were passed against General Harrison.
On September 10, 1813, Perry gained his signal victory on Lake Erie and General Harrison pushed forward into Michigan to retake the fort. Reaching Detroit he found the place deserted, the British and Indians having retired across the river into Canada. On October 2d, Generals Harrison and Shelby, with 3,500 Ohio and Kentucky troops, started after the retreating army and overtook the allied forces at the river Thames, 80 miles from Detroit. A battle followed on October 5th, in which Tecumseh was slain, which so demoralized his Indian followers that they immediately took flight. A large number of the British were killed or captured and the rest fled. This was the final battle of the northwest, and from that time the settlers of northwestern Ohio were no longer disturbed by the British or Indians. The war, however, continued in the east and south, until the last battle was fought at New Orleans, on January 8, 1815, by General Jackson, who, with 6,000 men, behind entrenchments, administered a crushing defeat to General Pack-
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enham's attacking force of 12,000. The troops of Packenham were the pick of the British army, the survivors returning to Europe in time to take part in the battle of Waterloo, while the troops of Jackson were the raw militia of Kentucky, Tennessee and the northwest, but every man a fine marksman. During the war of 1812, in the battles along the Maumee, the brutal murderings by the Indians of the soldiers after they had surrendered, were of frequent occurrence. In this war the English endeavored to curb the cruelties of their Indian allies, but it was generally useless, and it was only on a few occasions that Tecumseh himself was able to restrain the ferocity of the savages.