b'Autumn continued from page 45what was left of the militia and retreated, followed by theThe American Revolution was not just a war fought between British, Loyalists, and Indians, who won the day by following up with an uncharacteristic mounted charge (Nelson,the colonists and the British; it was also our first Civil War, William H., Vandiver, Frank E., Fields of Glory, E. Dutton and Company, New York, 1960, p.91). with families and friends pitted against each other. McGary also survived to murder, a peaceful agedShawnee Chief named Moluntha, four years later to the disgust of his fellow militiamen. McGary would be court- might never have heard of Thomas\'s son - who was namedout until the beginning of October, just before winter set martialed and dismissed from the militia but received nofor his slain father - Abraham Lincoln. in. The unruly invasion force finally reached Kekionga the further punishment. second week in October, only to then find that the Miami THE GROWING PAINS OF THE EMBRYONIC and Shawnee had burned their corn, their villages and The combined British-Loyalist-Indians force advanced intoU.S. ARMY retreated deep into the forest. Harmar\'s men burned the what is today West Virginia, laying siege to Fort Henry,Meanwhile, the new nation was just starting to find itself,leftovers (Hogeland, Autumn of the Black Snake, pp.113-near Wheeling. After a spirited defense by Ebenezer Zane,let alone find its role in the world. The pre - Constitution115; Palmer, 1794, pp.171-177). Heartened by seeing the whose daughter Betty earned everlasting fame by riskingArticles of Confederation government was a string ofdestruction of the Miami towns, Harmar sent 210 men, her life to run to a nearby cabin, bringing back much- independent-minded colonies more so than a unitedmainly militia, straight into a trap devised by Little Turtle needed ammunition for the fort\'s defenders, the British andcountry. The concept of a United States Army was sufferinghimself on the morning of October 19th. The warriors the Indians retreated into the Ohio wilderness. The youngtoo as the colonies preferred the militia system over asmeared with war paint the colors of brush and leaves Miss Zane would be immortalized by her descendant Zanecentralized, well-trained, professional force. The Colonialwaited patiently as the soldiers moved deeper into the Grey in his first novel, "Betty Zane" (mostly written in hisleadership still hadn\'t gotten used to the idea that a trained,forest, then they struck. Scores of militia and regulars were cabin near Payson). Learning of Cornwallis\'s defeat, theprofessional army, not the militia, had won the Revolution.shot out of their saddles by the first Indian fusillades, the Loyalists chose to suspend offensive operations against theUltimately the country would pay a steep price beforemajority of the surviving militia fleeing unceremoniously settlements. The Americans, under George Rogers Clark,things were rectified. for their lives. The regulars being overwhelmed by the tried to even the score with one last advance deep intowarriors, 120 men did not return.Kentucky where they burned five empty Shawnee villages -As the saying goes, "the more things change, the more but nothing else to show for it. they stay the same." Congress was so stingy that in theStunned, Harmar nonetheless ordered the second advance spring of 1784, following the Treaty of Paris, they choseof 400 only to stumble into a far worse trap than before. to disband practically the entire Continental Army, evenDeploying an equal number of warriors, Little Turtle with Washington\'s earnest protestations, only makingkept his men hidden in bushes on the edge of a cornfield. an allowance for eighty regulars, 25 at Fort Pitt and 55 atThey had not long to wait. First, an American cavalry West Point, plus a small number of officers and a clerk, tounit splashed across the river, only to be cut down by a remain, guarding stores, armories and supplies (Nelsonsegment of the hidden Indian force. Rushing headlong and Vandiver, Fields of Glory, p.33; Palmer, Dave R., 1794:to succor their mounted comrades, the untrained militia America, It\'s Army, and the Birth of the Nation, Presidioinfantry moved into the cornfield, to be surprised by an Press, Novato, California, 1994, p. 42). overwhelming force of Miami shooting volley after volley into the American ranks from the safety of the bushes. The Former U.S. Army General Dave Palmer, in his booksurvivors fled in disarray back to the American lines. With 1794 wrote of this sorry - and dangerous - state of affairs:almost 200 of his men killed Harmar ordered a retreat "Eighty men. A handful of officers. A clerk. Stacks of usedback to Fort Washington, which thankfully for him was equipment. An era had ended in disintegration" (Ibid., p. 42). orderly and not resisted by the 700 warriors Little Turtle was now able to summon (Hogeland, Autumn of the Black The Articles of Confederation Congress, perhaps seeing howSnake, p. 115; Palmer, 1794, 178-180). Both Harmar and the myopic their decision was, did agree to the formation of asurviving militia hurled verbal recriminations at each other; 700 man militia that would augment the minuscule nationalHarmar accusing the militia of cowardice and the militia army which was then placed under the command of theleaders accusing Harmar of being drunk. In the meantime, Revolutionary War hero, Colonel Josiah Harmar, a then- the 40-something Little Turtle, over six foot tall, proved to favorite of Washington\'s. Unfortunately, internal rot had setbe much more worthy than most of the American officers in, and Harmar, unschooled in the ways of Indian warfarewho fought him - until he met his match four years later would soon prove to be inadequate to undertake the task at(but we anticipate things). hand, to protect the settlers in the Ohio Valley and Kentucky, and to expand American military force in the region. Next month, Part 2.With thousands of settlers moving across the Appalachians to mark settlements in the fertile Ohio Valley, with Colonel Josiah Harmar thousands of angry Indians constantly marauding settlements, with scores of British and Loyalist agents egging them on, a recipe for disaster was in the making. Over the next decade, the Americans would negotiateAnd it would not be long in coming.treaties with the Indians, while more or less docile tribes would adhere to them, the settlers would often violateTHE HARMAR DEFEATthe agreements with some outrage like the murder of theBetween 1784 and 1790 successive American delegations aged chief Moluntha. In turn, the warrior tribes, i.e., thesought peace with the Western tribes. The majority of them, Shawnee, Miami, and Wyandot, supported and eggedthe Shawnee, the Miami (named after the Ohio River, not on by Loyalist agents like the Girty brothers, McKeethe city in Florida), the Mingo, and the Wyandot, led by and Elliott, plus knowing that the British would not betheir powerful chiefs Little Turtle of the Miami and Blue vacating Fort Detroit anytime soon despite the Treaty ofJacket of the Shawnee however refused to accept American Paris (1783), continued their destructive raids in the Ohiodemands of land appropriation, so as more settlers flowed Valley and Kentucky. in, more violence erupted. The cries of the settlers grew louder until President Washington felt a military incursion One such raid could have changed American historywas necessary. In early 1790 he summoned Ohio territory forever, for some time in 1786 one certain settler wasgovernor Arthur St. Clair, Harmar, and his secretary of war, outside of his cabin, tilling his Kentucky homestead whenthe obese former bookseller-turned-artilleryman Henry an Indian crept up upon him and shot him down. HisKnox to formulate a plan of action. It would be a "flying young boy Thomas ran weeping to his father\'s body andstrike" against the Indian center of Kekionga (today\'s Fort stood there motionless as the Indian nearby was reloadingWayne, Indiana), just south of the Great Lakes near the his rifle. Before the brave could get off another shot - orsame Sandusky region where Crawford\'s expedition had kidnap the young child, his older brother Mordechai ranmet its end eight years earlier. Delayed by the "red tape" of out from their cabin, aimed, fired, and killed the Indian whorecruitment and logistical issues that have bedeviled our murdered their father. If he hadn\'t - Thomas Lincoln mightmilitary since, Harmar was not able to move his almostChief Little Turtlehave been either killed or kidnapped by the Indians. We1,500 men force (320 regulars and 1,133 member militia) 46 November 2020'