His speech was full of fire and eloquence. He was an orator. He reminded his brothers of their treatment by the English, and of their better treatment by the French—their friends who had been ousted. He told them that now was the time to rise, when the war canoes of their French father were on the way to re-people the land with happiness.

A prophet had been born among the Delawares, said Pontiac. The Great Spirit had appeared to this prophet in a dream, and had demanded why the Indians suffered the white strangers to live in this land that he had provided with everything for the Indian's use.

Let the Indians return to the customs of their ancestors—fling away the blankets, the coats, the guns, the fire-water, and use again the skins, the bows, and the native foods, and be independent. "As for these English, these dogs dressed in red, drive them from your hunting grounds; drive them! And then when you are in distress, I will help you."

The day was named by Pontiac. It should date from the change of the moon, in the next month (or about May 7). At that time should begin the work, by all the tribes, of seizing every English fort and trading post in the Great Lakes country and west of the Alleghany Mountains. The tribes nearest to each should attend to the matter—strike when they heard that he had struck Detroit.

The date and the plan were approved. The council broke up. As silently as they had come, the chiefs went home; some by water, some afoot, and no white man knew of the meeting!

Detroit was the largest and most important of the English posts. Pontiac himself would seize this by aid of his Ottawas, some Potawatomis and Wyandots. To the Chippewas and the Sacs was given over the next important fur-trade station, that of Mich-il-i-mac-ki-nac, north.



CHAPTER VII

THE BLOODY BELT OF PONTIAC (1763-1769)

HOW AN INDIAN GIRL SAVED FORT DETROIT

Old Fort Detroit was a stockade twenty feet high, in the form of a square about two-thirds of a mile around. It enclosed a church and eighty or one hundred houses, mainly of French settlers with a sprinkling of English traders.

In the block-houses at the corners and protecting the gates, light cannon were mounted. The garrison consisted of only one hundred and twenty men of the Eightieth Foot. In the village there were perhaps forty other men.

On both sides of the river lay the fertile farms of the French settlers. Back of the farms on the east or Canadian side, and about five miles from Detroit, was the teeming village of Pontiac's Ottawas. Potawatomis and Wyandots also lived near. At Pontiac's call there waited more than a thousand warriors.

The set time approached. On May 1 Pontiac and forty chiefs and warriors entered the fort, and danced the calumet, a peace dance, for the pleasure of their officers. Pontiac said to Major Gladwyn that he would return, at the change of the moon, May 7, or in one week, to hold a council with him, and "brighten the chain of peace with the English."

The major agreed. He was a very foolish man, for a chief. Having returned to his village, Pontiac called a different kind of a council, there—a war council of one hundred chiefs. They were to have their people cut off the ends of muskets that should be carried concealed under the blankets. Sixty chiefs and warriors should go with him into the council chamber at the fort; the others should linger in the streets of the town and at the fort gates.

He would speak to the major with a belt, white on the one side, green on the other. When he turned the belt and presented it wrong end first, let every warrior kill an English soldier, beginning with the officers. At the sound let every warrior outside the council use gun and hatchet.

On May 5 a French settler's wife crossed the river to buy maple-sugar and deer-meat at the Ottawa village. She saw the warriors busy filing at their gun-barrels—shortening the guns to scarce a yard of length. This was a curious thing to do. When she went back to the post she spoke about it.

"That," said the blacksmith, "explains why those fellows have been borrowing all my files and hack-saws. They wouldn't tell me what for. Something's brewing."

When Major Gladwyn was informed, still he would not believe. But the fur-traders at the post insisted that when an Indian shortened his gun, he meant mischief. The opinion of fur-traders carried no weight with Major Gladwyn, the British officer.

The next evening Catharine, a pretty Ojibwa girl who lived with the Potawatomis, came to see him in his quarters. She was his favorite. She had agreed to make him a pair of handsome moccasins, from an elk hide. Now she brought the moccasins, and the rest of the hide.

Usually she had been much pleased to look upon and talk with the handsome young major in the red clothes. This time her face was clouded, she hung her head, and spoke hardly at all. Her eager girlishness had vanished. The major's delight with the moccasins failed to cheer her up.

Trying to win her smiles, he told her the moccasins were so beautiful that he wished to give them to a friend. Would she take the elk-hide away with her, and make another pair of moccasins for himself!

She finally left, with strangely slow step, and backward glances. At sunset, when the gates of the fort were to be closed, the guard found her still inside. As she would not go, the sergeant took word to the major.

"She won't talk with me, sir," he reported.

"Send her in and I will talk with her," ordered the major.

Catharine came, downcast, silent, and timid.

"Why have you not gone before the gates are shut, Catharine?"

She hesitated.

"I did not wish to take away the skin that is yours."

"But you did take it away, as far as the gate."

She hesitated more.

"Yes, that is so. But if I take it outside I can never return it."

"Why not?"

"I cannot tell. I am afraid."

"You can talk freely. Nothing that you say shall go to other ears. If you bring me news of value you will be well rewarded, and no one shall know."

Catharine loved the major. Presently she told him of the mind of Pontiac, and the deed planned for tomorrow morning.

A cold fear clutched the heart of Major Gladwyn. He recalled the shortened guns, he recalled the Bloody Belt, he recalled the date made with him for a big council on the morrow. At last he rather believed.

So he sent away the trembling Catharine, that she might go to her village. He held a council with his officers.

Here they were, with only one hundred and twenty soldiers, and less than three weeks' provisions, cut off by one thousand, two thousand, three thousand merciless Indian warriors, and by the French settlers and traders who probably would be glad to have the English killed.

"The English are to be struck down, but no Frenchman is to be harmed," had said Catharine.

That looked bad indeed.

This night guards were doubled along the parapets, and in the block-houses. The major himself walked guard most of the night. From the distant villages of the Ottawas, the Wyandots, and the Potawatomis drifted the clamor of dances—an ugly sound, full of meaning, now.

Precisely at ten o'clock in the morning a host of bark canoes from the Ottawa side of the Detroit River slanted across the current, and made landing. Pontiac approached at the head of a long file of thirty chiefs and as many warriors. They walked with measured, stately tread. Every man was closely wrapped in a gay blanket.

They were admitted through the gate of the fort, but it was closed against the mass of warriors, women and children who pressed after.

As Pontiac, with his escort, stalked for the council room, his quick glances saw that the soldiers were formed, under arms, and moving from spot to spot, and that a double rank had been stationed around the headquarters.

In the council chamber he noted, too, that each officer wore his sword, and two pistols!

"Why," asked Pontiac, of Major Gladwyn, "do I see so many of my father's young men standing in the street with their guns?"

"It is best that my young men be exercised as soldiers, or they will grow lazy and forget," answered the major.

Ha! Pontiac knew. Somehow his plans had been betrayed; his game was up, unless he chose an open fight.

His chiefs and warriors sat uneasily. They all feared death. By Indian law they ought to be killed for having intended to shed blood in a calumet council.

Pontiac started his talk. He acted confused, as though he was not certain what course to pursue.

Once he did seem about to offer the belt wrong end first, as the signal—and Major Gladwyn, still sitting, slightly raised his hand. Instantly from outside the door sounded the clash of arms and the quick roll of a drum, to show that the garrison was on the alert. The officers half drew their swords.

Pontiac flushed yet darker. He stammered, and offering the belt right end first, closed his talk, and sat down again.

Major Gladwyn made a short reply. He said that the English were glad to be friends, as long as their red brothers deserved it; but any act of war would be severely punished.

That was all. The major let the Indians file out again. Pontiac knew.

He was too great a leader, in the Indian way, to be balked by one defeat. He actually proposed another council; he actually persuaded the foolish major to send out to him two officers, for a peace talk. One of the officers barely escaped from captivity, the other never came back.

Then Pontiac boldly besieged Detroit, in white race fashion—the closest, longest siege ever laid by Indians against any fort on American soil.

His two thousand Indians swarmed in the forest, held the fences and walls and buildings of the fields, peppered the palisade with bullets and arrows, shot fire into the town; captured a supply fleet in the river, ambushed sallying parties, cut to pieces a column of reinforcements.

The siege lasted six months. The orders to attack went out. On May 16 Fort Sandusky, at Lake Erie in northern Ohio, was seized by the Wyandots and Ottawas, during a council.

On May 25, Fort St. Joseph of St. Joseph, Michigan, on Lake Michigan across the state from Detroit, was seized in like manner by the Potawatomis. On May 27, Fort Miami, near present Fort Wayne of Indiana, commanded by Ensign Holmes who had discovered the Bloody Belt, was forced to surrender to the Wyandots. Ensign Holmes himself was decoyed into the open, and killed.

On June 4, populous Michilimackinac of northern Michigan was pillaged. The Chippewas and Sacs celebrated the King's Birthday, in honor of the English, with a great game of lacrosse in front of the post. Michilimackinac did not know that Detroit was being besieged! The gates were left open, the officers gathered to witness the game. The ball was knocked inside the palisades, the players rushed after—and that was the end of Michilimackinac.

On June 15 the little fort of Presq' Isle, near the modern city of Erie on the Lake Erie shore of northern Pennsylvania, was attacked. It was captured in two days, by the Ottawas and Potawatomis from Detroit.

On June 18, Fort Le Boeuf, twelve miles south of it, was burned. Just when Fort Venango, farther south, fell to the Senecas, no word says, for not a man of it remained alive. June 1, Fort Ouatanon, below Lafayette on the Wabash River in west central Indiana, had surrendered.

Niagara in the east was threatened; Fort Legonier, forty miles southeast of Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, was attacked by the Delawares and Shawnees, but held out; the strong Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg), with garrison of over three hundred soldiers and woodsmen, was besieged by the united Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots and Mingo Iroquois.

A second Bloody Belt had been dispatched by Pontiac from Detroit; as fast as it arrived, the allies struck hard. Of twelve fortified English posts, eight fell. Not only that, but the fiery spirit of Pontiac had aroused twenty-two tribes extending from Canada to Virginia, and from New York to the Illinois. A hundred English traders were murdered in camp, and on the trail. A thousand English are supposed to have been killed. Five hundred families of northern Virginia and of western Maryland fled for their lives.

While this work was going on, and the frontier settlements shuddered, and feared the morrow, Pontiac was sternly sticking to his siege of Fort Detroit.

The French around there complained to him that his men were robbing them of provisions, and injuring the corn-fields.

"You must stand that," rebuked Pontiac. "I am fighting your battles against the English."

He gave out receipts, for the supplies as taken. These receipts were pieces of bark, pictured with the kind of supplies taken, and signed with the figure of an otter—the totem of the Ottawas. After the war every receipt was honored, by payment.

Only his Ottawas were still fighting Detroit, when on October 30, this 1763, there arrived, from the French commander on the lower Mississippi, a peace belt and a messenger for Pontiac.

He had been told that peace had been declared between the French and the English, but he had not believed. Now he was told again, by word direct, that the king of France and the king of England had signed peace papers; the country was English, his father the king of France could not help him. He must stop his war, and "take the English by the hand."

Weeks before this, the Indians to the south had withdrawn; his other allies were fading into the forest. So, sullen and disappointed, he, too, withdrew. His sun had set, but he tried to follow it southwestward.

Before he gave his hand to the English he did attempt another war. The tribes of the Illinois hesitated, in council.

"If you do not join my people," thundered Pontiac, "I will consume you as the fire eats the dry grass of the prairies!"

The plot failed, but the Illinois did not forget his insulting words. In April, 1769, while leaving a council with the Illinois beside the Mississippi River, and wearing a blue-and-silver uniform coat given to him years before by the brave General Montcalm of the French, he was murdered by a Kaskaskia of the Illinois nation, in the forest which became East St. Louis.

The Kaskaskia had been bribed by an English trader, with a barrel of whiskey, to do the deed. There died Pontiac. He was buried, it is said, on the site of the present Southern Hotel in St. Louis City.

The Illinois suffered from this foul crime. All of Pontiac's loyal people—the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, the Sacs, the Foxes, the Chippewas—rose against them and swept them from the face of the earth.

Now what of Catharine, who saved Detroit from Pontiac? She saved Detroit, but Fort Detroit did not save her. Pontiac was no fool; he very quickly had suspected her. He well knew that Major Gladwyn was her friend, and that she had taken the moccasins in to him.

She was seized by the chief, beaten almost lifeless with a lacrosse racquet, and condemned to the meanest of labor. After the siege, Major Gladwyn made no effort to rescue her or reward her. At last, when an old and miserable woman, she fell into a kettle of boiling maple sap, and died.



CHAPTER VIII

LOGAN THE GREAT MINGO (1725-1774)

AND THE EVIL DAYS THAT CAME UPON HIM

During the French-and-Indian war with England, and during the war waged by Pontiac, there was one prominent chief who did not take up the hatchet. His name was the English one of John Logan. He was a Mingo, or Iroquois, of a Cayuga band that had drifted south into east central Pennsylvania.

There Chief Shikellemus, his father, had settled and had proved himself a firm friend of the whites. Old Shikellemus invited the Moravian missionaries to take refuge on his lands. He spoke good English. He acted as agent between his people and the Province of Pennsylvania. He was hospitable and shrewd, and ever refused to touch liquor because, as he said, he "did not wish to become a fool."

His house was elevated on stilts, as protection against the "big drunks."

About 1725, a second son was born to him and his wife, and named Tah-gah-jute, meaning "His-eye-lashes-stick-out," or, "Open-eyes." In admiration of his good friend James Logan, of Philadelphia, secretary of Pennsylvania, and sometimes acting governor, Chief Shikellemus gave little Tah-gah-jute the English name of Logan.

As "John Logan" he was known to the settlers.

The wise and upright Shikellemus died—"in the fear of the Lord." His people scattered wider. Logan his son moved westward, to the Shawnee and Delaware country of Pennsylvania.

Here he married a Shawnee girl. He set up housekeeping and traded venison and skins with the white settlers, for powder, ball, and sugar and flour.

The tide of white blood was surging ever farther into the west, and the Indians' hunting grounds. Many of the Indians grew uneasy. Pontiac's Bloody Belt passed from village to village, but the weary and nervous traveler was always welcome at the cabin of Logan, "friend of the white man."

A white hunter, Brown, trailing bear in the Pennsylvania timber, laid aside his rifle and stooped to drink at a spring. Suddenly he saw mirrored in the clear water the tall figure of an armed Indian, watching him. Up he sprang, leaped for his gun, leveled it—but the Indian smiled, knocked the priming from his own gun, and extended his hand.

This was Logan—"the best specimen of humanity I ever met with, red or white," wrote Brown. "He could speak a little English, and told me there was another white hunter a little way down the stream, and guided me to his camp."

Other stories of Logan's kindnesses to the whites in his country are told. In the latter part of 1763, a party of white settlers had broken in upon the refuge of twenty Conestoga Iroquois, in southern Pennsylvania, and killed every one. The Conestogas were kin to the other Mingos; but Logan made no war talk about it.

Simon Kenton, one of the most famous scouts of Daniel Boone's time in Kentucky and Ohio, says that his form was "striking and manly," his countenance "calm and noble."

Although Logan started out to walk the straight path of peace, sore days were ahead of him. He moved westward again in 1770, erected a cabin at the mouth of Beaver Creek, on the Ohio side of the Ohio River about half way between Pittsburg of Pennsylvania and Wheeling of West Virginia.

His cabin was kept wide open. Everybody spoke well of Logan. He removed once more. The new cabin, "home of the white man," was built on the Sciota River of central Ohio, among the Shawnees of Chief Cornstalk's tribe. He and Chief Cornstalk were close friends. They both stood out for peace. But Cornstalk had been a war chief also, during the Pontiac up-rising. He and his warriors had obeyed the Bloody Belt. His name, Cornstalk, meant that he was the support of the Shawnee nation.

Now the evil days of Logan were close at hand.

Since the treaty signed with the twenty-two tribes of Pontiac, in 1765, there had been general peace between the red men and the white men in America. This peace was not to continue.

For instance, Bald Eagle, a friendly old Delaware chief, who frequently came in, by canoe, to trade for tobacco and sugar, was killed, without cause, by three white men, in southern Pennsylvania. They propped him, sitting, in the stern of his canoe, thrust a piece of journey-cake, or corn-bread, into his mouth, and set him afloat down the stream. Many settlers who knew him well saw him pass and wondered why he did not stop for a visit. Finally he was found to be dead, and was brought ashore for burial.

There were bad Indians, too, who murdered and stole. For this, the good Indians suffered. Western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio were a wild and lawless country.

Up to 1774 these tit-for-tats had not brought on war. But the French of Canada and the Great Lakes country still secretly urged the Indians to drive out the settlers. The Americans were becoming annoyed by the harsh laws of the English king. There were English officials who desired an Indian war. That would give the Colonists something else to think about.

Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, was one of these officials. He had claim to land extending into Pennsylvania; Fort Pitt, at present Pittsburg, was garrisoned by Virginia troops, and he wanted to keep them there, to help his land schemes.

April 25, 1774, he issued a proclamation calling upon the commander at Fort Pitt to be ready to repel the Indians. The commander called on the border settlers.

There was great excitement. Almost at once the peace chain that Logan had received from his father Shikellemus was broken. He and his wife and relatives, and a number of Shawnees and Delawares, were encamped along Yellow Creek. This emptied into the Ohio River a few miles below Beaver Creek, his former home.

On the very day after the commander at Fort Pitt had issued his notice to the border people to arm, from Wheeling, on the Ohio in West Virginia, Captain Michael Cresap led a party of militia and frontiersmen to hunt Indians.

They promptly killed two friendly Shawnees at Pipe Creek, fourteen miles below Wheeling. The Shawnees had no time in which to make resistance. The next Indians who were attacked, fired back; one white man was wounded. Among the Indians killed in these two meetings was a relative of Logan.

Captain Cresap started north to wipe out Chief Logan's camp. He well knew that as soon as the word of the killings reached the camp, trouble might break. On the way his heart failed him. He was a hot-headed man, he hated Indians—but he balked at shooting women and children. So he turned aside, with his party.

There were white men not so particular as he. On Baker's Bottom, opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek, lived Joshua Baker, whose principal business was that of selling rum to the Indians. In the same settlement lived Daniel Greathouse—"a ruffian in human shape," and an enemy to all Indians.

Greathouse, too, was inspired to "strike the post," in the worst Indian fashion. He gathered thirty-two whites, and hid them in Baker's house. He feared that the Logan camp had heard of the Cresap killings, so he crossed over the river, to investigate.

A friendly squaw warned him to go back, or he might be harmed, for the camp was very angry. Back he went. Because he was afraid to attack the camp with his thirty-two men, he invited the Indians over, to drink "peace" with him. He was a rum seller, himself.

On April 30, they came. First a canoe containing six warriors, Logan's sister, another woman, and a little girl. The warriors were made drunk, and all but the little girl were butchered.

Across the river Logan heard the shooting. He sent two men in a canoe to find out what was the matter. They were killed. A larger canoe was sent. It was ambushed and the survivors fled back to the camp.

Now Logan learned that his sister and brother had been murdered. They were the last of his blood relatives. That was his reward for having remained the friend of the white man. That was his reward for having opened his cabin to the white wayfarer. He went bad, himself. He saw only red, and he vowed vengeance. A bitter wrath turned his heart sour. He felt that he must grasp the hatchet, buried so long ago by his father Shikellemus.

The war spirit blazed high among whites and reds on the frontier. The whites accused the Indians of many thoughts and deeds—some false, some true. The Indians accused the whites of many deeds—mainly true. Block-houses were hastily erected, for the protection of settlers. Governor Dunmore of Virginia called out troops in earnest. "Dunmore's War" as well as "Cresap's War" was this named.

The Shawnees, the Delawares, the Mingo Cayugas, the Wyandot Hurons, held councils in their Scioto River country of central Ohio. Belts were sent to the Miamis on the west and the Senecas on the east. There were debates upon striking the Long Knives, as the Virginians were called.

These Long Knife Americans had crossed the rivers and the mountains, were possessing themselves of Ohio, and even of Kentucky; much blood had been shed, and the wiser heads among the tribes did not know exactly what to do about it.

The great Cornstalk, loved chief of the Shawnees, and now fifty years in age, lifted his voice for peace. He could see no good in a war against the Americans. Logan, gnawed by his own wrongs, remained apart and said little. But the Americans struck first.

Hoping to keep the Indians at home, in June four hundred border men were ordered by Governor Dunmore of Virginia to attack the villages in Ohio. They marched west across country until in southern Ohio they destroyed two Shawnee towns.

The light-skinned Shawnees were known as the fiercest, most stubborn fighters among all the Algonquins between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River. Now their hot natures burst. Chief Cornstalk yielded.

"It is well," he said. "If you go to war, then I will lead you. If we fight at all, we must fight together."

But of the Indians it was Logan who first struck the Long Knives. With only seven warriors he suddenly appeared in Virginia itself. This was Long Knife country. Here, July 12, he fell upon William Robinson, Thomas Hellen and Coleman Brown, three settlers who were gathering flax in their field.

Brown died under the first volley; Hellen and Robinson ran hard. Hellen was an old man, and easily caught, but William Robinson was young and strong. Dodging and legging, he had almost reached the timber. Hearing loud shouting, with English words, behind him, and fearing a rifle bullet, he turned his head and lunged full tilt into a tree. Down he dropped, stunned.

After a bit he came to. He was lying, securely tied, hands and feet. Logan was sitting quietly beside him, waiting for him to waken. The old man Hellen had not been harmed, either. Logan's party took their two captives to Logan's town in Ohio—treated them kindly on the way.

"What will be done to us at your town?" asked Robinson.

"You will be made to run the gauntlet," answered Logan. "But if you listen to my words, you will not be hurt. You must break through the lines and run to the council house. When you are in the council house, you will be safe. That will end the gauntlet."

Approaching the Mingo and Shawnee towns, Logan uttered a terrific scalp-halloo, as signal of success. Warriors hastened out. The gauntlet was formed. This was two lines of warriors, squaws and children, armed with sticks, clubs and switches. Through the long, narrow, living aisle the two prisoners had to make their way.

Remembering Logan's advice, Robinson charged aside, broke through, and raced for the council house. All out of breath, he reached it ahead of his howling pursuers. No Indian dared to attack him there. It was sanctuary.

Poor old Mr. Hellen failed. The lines were stout, the clubs and switches blinded him; before he had reached the council house a war-club struck him helpless. He might have been beaten to death had not Robinson bravely grabbed him and dragged him in.

He had won his life, and was adopted into an Indian family. Now the Indians were angry with Robinson. They decided to burn him at the stake.

"Have no fear. You shall not die," asserted Logan.

But matters looked bad. He was tied to the stake. While he stood there, with the squaws howling around him, he heard Logan speak, appealing for his life.

"The most powerful orator I've ever listened to," afterward said Robinson. "His gestures and face were wonderful!"

The warriors still called for fire. The torch was ready, when Logan sprang angrily forward. With his own hatchet he cut the ropes, and marching the white captive through the mob landed him in the lodge of an old squaw. Few chiefs would have dared an act like this, to save merely a white man, and an enemy.

However, Logan was not yet done. Thirteen of his people, he claimed, had been killed by the whites; and thirteen white scalps should pay. Just before he set out on the war-path again, he brought to William Robinson a goose-quill and some gun-powder.

He bade Robinson sharpen the quill, and with gunpowder-and-water for ink write a letter.

Captain Cresap:

What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago, and I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill, too; and I have been three times to war since; but all the Indians are not angry, only myself.

July 21, 1774. CAPTAIN JOHN LOGAN.

This note was carried clear down into western Virginia, as if to show how far Logan could reach. It was found tied to a war-club and left at a plundered settler's cabin.

Logan never would believe but that Michael Cresap had killed the warriors and women at Yellow Creek. When Captain Cresap heard of this note, and that he was blamed, he said that he would like to sink his tomahawk in Daniel Greathouse's head!

Chief Logan was not long in getting his thirteen scalps.

"Now," he announced, "I am satisfied. My relations have been paid for. I will sit still."

He was not to sit still yet. The hands of the Shawnees grasped the hatchet very firmly. Forty scalps at a time had been hung in the Shawnee lodges, but the spirits of their fathers and the ashes of their towns called for more. The Delawares had not taken payment enough for the scalp of old Bald Eagle. The Senecas remembered that many years ago eight of their warriors were attacked by one hundred and fifty Long Knife soldiers. The Mingos had not forgotten the massacre of the Conestogas. The Wyandots were red, and hated the white face in the east.

These nations formed the league of the Northern Confederacy, to defend themselves. Cornstalk the Shawnee was chosen head chief.



CHAPTER IX

CORNSTALK LEADS THE WARRIORS (1774-1777)

HOW HE AND LOGAN STROVE AND DIED

At the last of September a Shawnee scout ran breathless into the Chief Cornstalk town. He brought word that far across the Ohio River, in north-western (now West) Virginia, he and his comrade had met a great column of Long Knives, advancing over the mountains, as if to invade the Indian country. His comrade had been killed. He himself had come back, with the word.

Taking eleven hundred warriors—the pick of the Shawnees, the fighting Delawares, the Wyandots, the Mingo Cayugas and the Mingo Senecas—Chief Cornstalk marched rapidly down to give battle.

There really were two American columns, on their way to destroy the Shawnee and Mingo towns in interior Ohio.

The Division of Northern and Western Virginia, twelve hundred men, had mustered at Fort Pitt (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania), in the territory disputed by Virginia and Pennsylvania. It was under command of Lord Dunmore himself, governor of Virginia for the king of England.

The Division of Southern and Eastern Virginia, fifteen hundred men, had mustered at Lewisburg, West Virginia. It was under command of General Andrew Lewis, a valiant soldier.

The Lord Dunmore division was to march south, the General Lewis division was to march west; the two were to join forces at Point Pleasant, where on the border of West Virginia the Big Kanawha River empties into the noble Ohio.

Cornstalk moved fast. He had as aides Logan of the Cayugas, Chi-ya-wee of the Wyandots, Scop-pa-thus of the Senecas, young Red Hawk of the fighting Delawares, his own son El-li-nip-si-co—noted chiefs, all. Among the Shawnee sub-chiefs was Puck-ee-shin-wah, father of a boy named Tecumseh who grew to the greatness of Pontiac.

The General Lewis division had arrived first at the mouth of the Big Kanawha. On the evening of October 9, from the opposite side of the Ohio, Cornstalk's and Logan's men sighted them there, in camp.

Fresh news had come to Cornstalk. He had learned of the other division, under Lord Dunmore. He had learned that the column across from him was equal to his own force, and that another detachment of it was hurrying on its trail.

In a council of the chiefs and principal warriors he proposed that he go over, in person, and treat for peace. But all his men voted him down.

"Very well," he replied. "If you are resolved to fight, then fight you shall. We must not delay. It is likely that we shall have hard work tomorrow, but if any warrior attempts to run away, I will kill him with my own hand."

This night the warriors ferried the Ohio, above the camp, by means of seventy-eight rafts. They worked hard, and formed for battle at daybreak.

"We will make a line behind the Long Knives," ordered Cornstalk, "and drive them forward like bullocks into the two rivers."

Most of the Virginians were asleep in their tents, when, before sunrise, two of their hunters, seeking deer for breakfast, found the Indian army, already in battle array, and covering, as one of the hunters excitedly reported, "four acres of ground."

But these Virginians were no fools. Of the eleven hundred here, wellnigh every man had been a buckskin borderer, deadly with rifle, tomahawk and knife, and up to all Indian tricks. They were fairly drilled, too, as militia. A number of the officers had fought under Major George Washington, when on the fatal Braddock's Field, in 1755, the American Rangers had tried to save the day from the French, and from Pontiac's whooping warriors.

They all had marched for five weeks across one hundred and sixty miles of trackless mountain country, driving their pack-horses and their herds of beef cattle; now they rallied briskly to save their lives. It was nip and tuck.

From before sunrise until sunset raged the great battle of Point Pleasant, or the Big Kanawha. It was the first pitched battle between simon-pure Americans—but the Revolution was near and after this the Americans were to do their own fighting.

The lines were over a mile long, rarely more than twenty yards apart, frequently less than six yards apart, and sometimes mingling. The armies were equal.

Both sides fought Indian fashion, from behind trees and brush. Rifle met rifle, tomahawk met tomahawk, knife met knife. The air was filled with whoops and cheers. Able chiefs faced able chiefs—on the white American side there were leaders who soon became more famous in the Revolution and in the history of the new nation.

It was a long-famous battle. A ballad written upon it was frequently sung, on the frontier:

Let us mind the tenth day of October, Seventy-four, which caused woe; The Indian savages they did cover The pleasant banks of the O-hi-o.

The battle beginning in the morning, Throughout the day it lashed sore, Till the evening shades they were returning Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.

Seven score lay dead and wounded. Of champions that did face their foe, By which the heathens were confounded, Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.

Col. Lewis and noble captains Did down to death like Uriah go. Alas, their heads wound up in napkins, Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.

O bless the mighty King of Heaven For all his wondrous works below, Who hath to us the victory given, Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.

Logan was seen here, there, everywhere. So was Cornstalk. His mighty voice was heard above the din, like the voice of old Annawan when King Philip had been surprised. "Be strong! Be strong!" he appealed to his warriors. With his tomahawk he struck down a skulker. That had been his promise, in the council.

All this October day the battle continued. In single encounters, man to man, valorous deeds were done.

Cornstalk proved himself a worthy general. When his line bent back, before the discipline of the Long Knives, it was only to form an ambush, and then the whites were bent back. He had early placed his warriors across the base of the point, so that they held the whites in the angle of the two rivers. They dragged logs and brush to position, as breast-works. "We will drive the Long Knives into the rivers like so many bullocks."

That was not to be. Two of General Lewis's colonels had fallen; the Indian fire was very severe and accurate; but after vainly trying to feel out the end of the red line, the general at last succeeded, toward evening, in sending a company around.

Chief Cornstalk thought that this company, appearing in his rear, was the absent part of the division. Lest he be caught between two fires, he swung about and skillfully withdrew.

The battle slackened, at dusk. This night he safely removed his army across the Ohio again, that they might avoid the Lord Dunmore division and protect their towns in Ohio.

Nearly all the Indian bodies found, and nearly all the Virginians killed and wounded, were shot in the head or the breast. That was the marksmanship and the kind of fighting!

The Long Knives lost seventy-five men killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. They lost two great chiefs: Colonel Charles Lewis, the brother of the general, and Colonel John Field—both Braddock men; six captains and as many lieutenants were killed, also.

The Indians said that had they known how to clean their rifles, they would have done better. Cornstalk and Logan lost the sub-chief Puck-ee-shin-wah, but only forty or fifty others in killed and wounded. But when they hastened for their towns they found them in danger from the Lord Dunmore column.

Governor Dunmore sent Chief White-eyes, of the Delawares, who had not joined in the war, to ask Chief Cornstalk for a talk. Chief White-eyes returned with no answer, for the Cornstalk chiefs were in bitter council.

Cornstalk addressed them:

"You would not make peace before Point Pleasant; what is your voice now, when the Long Knives are pressing on in two columns?"

There was no reply.

"We cannot save our villages," he continued. "If your voice is for war, let us first kill our women and children. Then let us warriors go out and fight like men until we, too, are killed."

Still no reply. Cornstalk dashed his hatchet into the council post.

"You act like children," he thundered. "I will go and make peace, myself."

And leaving his hatchet sticking in the post, go he did.

Logan had not been here. He was away, down in Virginia, scouting with his Mingos, and delivering his note to Captain Cresap. On October 21 he arrived with scalps.

He refused to meet the governor.

"Tell the governor that I am a warrior, not a councillor," he bade.

His sore heart was not yet healed. His Mingos were for war. The Revolution was brewing, and Governor Dunmore was anxious to be about his own affairs. So he sought out Logan with two messengers, Scout Simon Girty, and Trader John Gibson, who spoke the Mingo tongue. They returned with Logan's stubborn answer, written out by John Gibson:

I appeal to any white to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not.

During the course of the last long, bloody war [the French and Indian and the Pontiac war] Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, "Logan is the friend of the white men."

I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan; not even sparing my women and children.

There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!

Trader Gibson reported that while making this speech, Logan wept. The sad-hearted chief probably did not put his words in exactly this order, but they made a great sensation. Soon they were being repeated throughout all the Ohio River country, and east of the Alleghanies, in towns, cabins and camps.

"Who is there to mourn for Logan?" would ask some voice, in the circle. And another voice would reply, with deep feeling: "Not one!"

President Thomas Jefferson included the speech in a book that he published—"Notes on Virginia," and said that he challenged the orations of the world to produce anything better.

It was copied into other books. School-children memorized it, for "speaking day"; grown people used it, in contests; and for one hundred years it was the favorite platform piece. Thus Logan lived in the white man's words.

Still Logan did not come in to the peace talk held with Governor Dunmore, southeast of present Circleville in south central Ohio. The Shawnees and Delawares said:

"Logan is like a mad dog. His bristles are up; they are not yet fallen, but the good talk may smooth them down."

He stayed close in his cabin, up the Scioto River, and Cornstalk spoke for the Shawnees, Delawares and Wyandots. It was another great address.

"I have heard the first orators of Virginia—Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee," declared Colonel Benjamin Wilson, of Dunmore's men, "but never have I heard one whose powers surpassed those of Cornstalk on that occasion."

Cornstalk told of the wrongs suffered by the Indians, in their hunting grounds; how they were losing the lands of their fathers, and were being cheated by the white men. He asked that nobody be permitted to trade, on private account, with the Indians, but that the Government should send in goods, to be exchanged for skins and furs, and that no "fire water" should enter into the business, for "from fire water there comes evil."

Then he buried the hatchet. He never dug it up. When the Revolution broke, in 1776, and the British agents urged the Indians to strike the post again and help their great father, the king, Cornstalk held firm for friendship with the Americans.

In the spring of 1777, he and young Red Hawk the Delaware, and another Indian came down to the American fort that had been built on the battle field of Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Big Kanawha of the West Virginia border.

"My Shawnees are restless," he warned. "The current sets so strongly against the Americans, that I fear my people will disobey me and float with the stream."

Captain Matthew Arbuckle was the commander of the fort. He kept the Cornstalk party as hostages for the good behavior of the Shawnees. Cornstalk did not object, but spent much time in talking with the officers, and in kindly drawing maps of the Ohio country, for them.

One day in a council he said:

"When I was young and went to war, I often thought, each might be my last adventure, and I should return no more. I still lived. Now I am in the midst of you, and if you choose, you may kill me. I can die but once. It is alike to me, whether now or hereafter."

Those brave words were not forgotten. This same day somebody shouted loudly from the opposite side of the Ohio. It was the young Chief Ellinipsico. He had not known what had happened to his father, and had traveled many miles, seeking him.

Cornstalk called him over. There was much rejoicing in the reunion; they loved each other dearly.

On the very next day two soldiers, named Hamilton and Gilmore, went over the Kanawha River, to hunt. The majority of the Ohio Indians were now helping the British. Some of the hostile warriors, lurking in West Virginia, fired on the two men and killed Gilmore.

Instantly the cry arose among the soldiers at the fort, that Ellinipsico had planned the ambush. Ellinipsico denied it. He said that he had come alone, on purpose to find his old father.

But that made no difference. Captain John Hall and squad were returning in a canoe bearing the body of Gilmore.

"Let us go and kill those Indians in the fort!"

Captain Arbuckle and Private Stuart tried in vain to force them back. In their cabin, of the fort, the Chief Cornstalk party had been told by a white woman that they were in danger. They now heard the Captain Hall men approaching. Young Ellinipsico grew frightened, but his father steadied him.

"My son," said Cornstalk, "the Great Spirit has seen fit that we should die together, and has sent you here to that end. It is his will, and let us submit—it is all for the best."

He faced the door, and stood calmly waiting. Without a word or a struggle he fell dead, pierced through the front by seven bullets. Ellinipsico was now calm, also. He did not even stand, and thus he died, not moving. He was a worthy son of Cornstalk. Young Red Hawk was a Delaware and, hoping to be spared, he crept into the fire-place chimney. But he was dragged out, to death. The fourth Indian fought with his hands, and was cut to pieces.

The murderers of the generous, noble-hearted Cornstalk were never punished, but they certainly were not admired. The white men who had met him in war and in peace mourned him as much as the red men did. And from that day the Shawnee nation "became the most deadly foe to the inhabitants of the frontiers." Who may blame them?

Meanwhile Logan was living in misery, but he was soon to follow Chief Cornstalk. His end was far less happy. He had not been much heard from lately. After he had refused to meet the Long Knives in a peace talk, the troops had destroyed some of his villages. He and a band of his Mingos retreated northward toward the Great Lakes.

The Mingos aided the British, but Logan pursued fire-water more frequently than he did war. He never got over his grief. It had bitten him too deeply, and had poisoned his thoughts. Still, the good in him cropped out.

When in 1778 the famous American scout Simon Kenton had been captured by the Shawnees, he was taken, by the torture trail, to the village in northern Ohio where Logan was living.

He had little hopes, but Logan walked over to him.

"Well, young man," said Logan in good English, "these other young men seem very mad at you."

"Yes, sir; they certainly are," frankly answered Simon Kenton. Already one arm had been almost cut from his shoulder, by an axe.

Logan gravely smiled. "Well, don't be disheartened. I am a great chief. You are to go to Sandusky; they speak of burning you there, but I will send two runners tomorrow to speak good for you."

That was the real spirit of Logan. The two runners were sent, and Simon felt much encouraged. During the next day he was well treated in the village. He and Logan talked together freely.

In the evening the two runners returned. They went straight to Logan's lodge, but no word came to Kenton. Now he feared again. He feared more, when in the morning Logan himself approached him, said only, "You are to be taken at once to Sandusky," gave him a piece of bread and whirling on his heel strode gloomily away.

Evidently the power of Logan had weakened, the Shawnees had not listened, and Sandusky, north on the Sandusky River, was waiting with the stake.

So Simon Kenton journeyed unwillingly onward, to be saved, at the last moment, by the British. But Logan had done his best. After this he drank harder, until his mind was injured. He had flashes of good, and he had longer flashes of bad. He seemed bent upon doing as much harm to himself as he could.

Then, in 1780, one day at Detroit he thought that while drunk he had killed his Shawnee wife. He imagined that he was being arrested; and in the fight that he made he was shot dead by his own nephew, on the road between Detroit and Sandusky.

Many mourned Cornstalk. "Who was there to mourn Logan"—the "friend of the white man?"

"Not one!"

But the name "Logan" was worn, like a badge of honor, by others in the Mingo people.



CHAPTER X

LITTLE TURTLE OF THE MIAMIS (1790-1791)

HE WINS GREAT VICTORIES

During the Revolution, by which the United States became an independent nation, the great majority of the Indian tribes within reach took active part on the side of the British.

The Iroquois fought out of friendship, they said; the tribes farther west fought in the hope of keeping the settlers out of the Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana country.

For some years after the war, which closed in 1782, there was a dispute between the United States and England over the carrying out of certain terms in the treaty of peace. Until the matter was settled, the British kept Detroit and other American frontier posts.

This encouraged the Indians. They had been much astonished and alarmed to find that the Americans had "laid the king on his back." Now that the British had lost the fight, what would happen to them?

But the British agents and traders still in the Indian country urged them on to make good their boast that "no white cabin should smoke beyond the Ohio." It was reported that the king was only resting, and that the Americans yet had no right to any land west of the Ohio River.

So the Miamis, the Potawatomis, the Ottawas, the Shawnees, the war Delawares, the Chippewas, the Kickapoos, the Wyandots, the Senecas, refused to meet the Americans in council or to bury the hatchet. They formed a league of defense.

The Miamis were the central nation. "People who live on the peninsula" was their Chippewa name—for they were Algonquins from the Chippewa and Ottawa country north of the Great Lakes. "Twanh-twanh," the cry of the crane, was their own name. Miamis, from the Chippewa word Omaumeg, were they called in English.

They had been described by early travelers as a pleasant-faced, lively, very polite people, slow of speech, swift of foot, fond of racing, and obedient to their chiefs.

Their present home was in the Wabash River valley of northern Indiana, up as far as the modern city of Fort Wayne. They claimed this country and also all of western Ohio, where they formerly had lived. The Shawnees and the Wyandots of Ohio had moved in behind them, they said, and were merely tenants upon their lands.

Little Turtle, or Mich-i-kin-i-kwa, had become their chief. He had been born on the Eel River near Fort Wayne in 1752. Therefore now at the close of the Revolution he was thirty years old. He had not been born a chief, nor even a Miami. To be sure, his father was chief and a Miami, but his mother was a Mohegan of the Delawares. By Indian law he had ranked as only a warrior and a Mohegan. An Indian was known by his mother.

As a boy of eleven or twelve he had been stirred by the Pontiac war, in which the Miamis had joined. As a warrior he had campaigned with the British under General Burgoyne who surrendered at Saratoga.

So by his deeds and his experience in field, camp and council he was a veteran and had won the chieftainship of the twelve hundred Miamis.

Although his name was Little Turtle, he had nothing little in his make-up. On the contrary, he was of good size, strong and dignified, with a long face and full high forehead—not the face or forehead of a Miami. He seems to have been rather sarcastic, and unpopular.

Those were bloody days while the new United States was trying to extend across the Ohio River. A treaty was made with the Cherokees and Chickasaws of the South, and with the Six Nations of the North; one was supposed to have been made with these Ohio country tribes, also.

These Indians said that they would do nothing for peace until they had talked with their British "father" at Detroit. They were not sure that the king had really surrendered their lands beyond the Ohio.

They asserted that their treaty, by which they had sold their lands, had not been signed by the proper chiefs.

In the seven years since the end of 1782, some two thousand American settlers and traders had been killed or captured, along the Ohio River; twenty thousand horses had been stolen. The rifle was more necessary than the ax and plough.

The Miami villages on the northern border between Ohio and Indiana formed the base for the many war parties.

So in 1790, President George Washington and Congress ordered General Arthur Saint Clair, the governor of this Northwest Territory, to clear the land for the smoke of the white cabins.

Little progress had been made by the white settlements, across the Ohio River. There were only two of any note: Marietta, named for the French queen Marie Antoinette; and the newer Cincinnati, christened in 1790 by Governor Saint Clair himself. There were several smaller ones, struggling to live.

The governor called for regulars and militia. General Josiah Harmar, the commander-in-chief of the United States army, was detailed in charge. On October 3 he started from Fort Washington, at Cincinnati, with three hundred and twenty regulars of the First Infantry, and eleven hundred and thirty-three militia of Kentucky and Pennsylvania, to destroy the towns of Little Turtle the Miami.

Little Turtle of course soon knew all about this. His spies infested the region. He rallied his bands. The Indians whom he commanded—Ottawas, Potawatomis, Chippewas, Shawnees, Senecas, Delawares, Miamis, and so forth—were the same nations that had obeyed the Bloody Belt of Pontiac. He had able aides, too; the skilled Buc-kon-ga-he-las of the Delawares, Blue-jacket of the Shawnees, and others—great fighters, every one.

White men, also, were helping him. There were three, especially: Simon Girty, Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, who was part Indian. They were three traitors who had deserted from the American garrison at Fort Pitt, in 1778, and had spread false reports among White-eyes' Delawares, and elsewhere.

Serving the enemies of their country, they had continued to live among the Shawnees and Wyandots, and in their savagery were worse than the Indians. Their names are red on the pages of history.

In Chief Little Turtle's main village, sometimes called "Girty's Town," located a few miles southeast of present Fort Wayne, Indiana, there was another white man—a young man. His name had been William Wells, but now was Black Snake. The Indians had captured him when a little boy in Kentucky; he had grown up with the Miamis, had married Chief Little Turtle's sister, and was rated as a Miami warrior. But his heart was not bad.

General Josiah Harmar, commander-in-chief of the United States army, was a year younger than Chief Little Turtle, commander-in-chief of the Indian army. They both were veterans of the Revolution, had good fighters under them, and might be thought well matched. But the general got threshed.

Little Turtle waited for him to come on, and plagued his march with parties of scouts who in the swamps and thickets cut off his foraging squads.

The general had tough going, for two weeks. When on October 17 he arrived at Girty's Town, he found it abandoned and burning, to deprive him of more supplies.

Then General Harmar made his first mistake. He detached thirty of the First Infantry regulars, under Captain John Armstrong, and one hundred and fifty of the militia, under Colonel John Hardin of Kentucky, to follow the retreating Indians and perhaps destroy the next village.

He played into the hands of Little Turtle, who had over a thousand warriors. Colonel Hardin and Captain Armstrong had marched scarcely six miles, when in an open place they were completely ambushed. A swarm of Indians suddenly poured in a heavy fire from the brush on all sides; rose, and charged with tomahawk and knife.

This was too much for the militia, who were poorly drilled. Away they pelted, trying to reach the main army. But the well-drilled regulars stood stanch, and met the tomahawk with the bayonet, in the hope of forcing a passage.

The Little Turtle warriors cared nothing about the militia, and let them go. The few regulars did not last long. Every soldier except two officers and two privates was killed.

Of these two officers, in the break-up Ensign Asa Hartshorne of Connecticut fortunately stumbled over a log and lay concealed until he might escape.

Captain Armstrong crouched to his neck in a swampy pond, and stayed there all night, while only two hundred yards from him the enemy held a war-dance over the bodies of the slain. They had whipped the trained soldiery, who had fought bravely.

The next day, with all his army General Harmar advanced upon the Miami towns. Little Turtle had ordered them burned. The general destroyed the corn-fields and the fruit-trees; and seeing no Indians to fight, turned back for Fort Washington.

He had gone about ten miles, when scouts brought word that the Indians were gathering in their towns again. The general made a second mistake. Colonel Hardin, stung by the way in which his militia had acted, begged for another chance. Instead of going, himself, General Harmar again detached some of the militia—six hundred this time—and sixty of the regulars under Major John P. Wyllys of Washington's old Continentals. He told Colonel Hardin to find the Indians.

The colonel found them, on the morning of October 22. His only fear had been that they would run off and not give him his revenge. But he had not counted the strategy of Little Turtle.

When the first few Indians were sighted, Colonel Hardin made careful and scientific preparation. He attacked. The Indians did run off, with the happy, shouting militia in full hue and cry after. The regulars followed slowly. When a gap of two miles had opened, as if from the very earth out sprang Little Turtle's whole remaining force, a thousand, and the hapless regulars were in the same plight as before.

The militia fought their way back, too late. The battle on the field had become hand-to-hand. Both sides were brave; but when a soldier thrust with his bayonet, two tomahawks were there, to crash into his skull.

Major Wyllys was killed; so was Lieutenant Ebenezer Frothingham; fifty of the rank and file fell. Only eight men escaped. Of the militia, a major, two captains, and over ninety others died.

After he had been joined by the survivors, General Harmar resumed his march to Fort Washington. He claimed a victory, because he had destroyed the Indians' winter supplies; but he had lost one hundred and eighty-three soldiers killed, and forty wounded, and the Indians not more than fifty warriors.

The victory and the field of battle were left to Little Turtle. General Harmar had proved to be a commander whose orders were "Go" instead of "Come," and Colonel Hardin had not known how to fight Indians.

However, Little Turtle realized that the Americans had other officers, and that General Washington was not a man to back down.. There would be another army.

So he spent much of the winter in visiting various tribes and enlisting them. He went as far north as Ontario of Canada, and there appealed to the Missisauga nation of Algonquins. He traveled west to the Illinois River. He was a second Pontiac.

General and Governor Saint Clair himself was the officer appointed by President Washington to lead the next expedition against the Little Turtle army. He was a gallant old Continental, aged fifty-seven and gray-haired. As a young officer in a Scotch regiment he had come over to America with a British army, in 1758, to fight the French and Indians. After that war he had become a true American citizen of Pennsylvania, and as colonel and major-general had served with the Buff-and-Blue in the war for American independence.

He had been unlucky in his campaigns, but nobody ever doubted his courage. General Washington thought highly of him, and now took pains to say, in person, to him, before the start was made:

"Beware of a surprise. You know how the Indians fight. So I repeat—beware of a surprise."

General Saint Clair had been promised three thousand men, but when early in September of this year 1791 he left Fort Washington, he had only two thousand men. Still, it was a strong army, comprising the greater portion of the whole army of the United States. There were the First and Second Infantry, half a battalion (two companies) of the regular artillery, a company of mounted riflemen volunteers, and six hundred Kentucky militia.

Major-General Richard Butler of Pennsylvania, and of the Continental army in the Revolution, was field officer in command; and a number of the other officers had been trained under Washington. But the Second Regiment was new, the last spring, and largely of recruits; and the Kentucky militia had not wanted to come.

Part of them deserted, on the way out. The First Regiment was sent to catch them. This left fourteen hundred men, to march on into the Indian country. General Saint Clair was so crippled with the rheumatism and the gout that he could scarcely mount a horse.

Twenty miles north of Fort Washington he halted long enough to erect Fort Hamilton—Hamilton, Ohio; twenty miles farther he erected Fort Saint Clair; and twenty miles farther, Fort Jefferson, near the present city of Greenville, Ohio.

He was following up along the Indiana-Ohio line, to strike the Miami villages. By the night of November 3 he had arrived within about fifty miles of Little Turtle's principal town. The place on the modern map is Fort Recovery, northern Ohio, close to Indiana.

Little Turtle was ready. He had twelve hundred men. Buckongahelas the Delaware, and Blue-jacket the Shawnee were helping him. So was a Missisauga chief who had been drilled under British officers. So was Simon Girty the white-Indian savage. So were a number of Canadians and French half-breeds, from Canada and from the Illinois country. And so, it is stated, were several British officers from Detroit, who wished to see their old foes, the Continentals, licked. Their red coats were noticed in the battle, next day.

General Saint Clair was a good soldier, and planned well. He had planted a string of supply depots behind him. He had made a practice of sounding the reveille two hours before day-break, every morning in camp, and keeping the men at parade until almost sunrise, to guard against a surprise. He tried to be thorough.

This afternoon of November 3 he had selected an excellent camp ground, from which a few Indians had fled at his approach. It was high, compact, and protected by a creek. He stationed his main body in two lines about seventy yards apart, facing in opposite directions.

His scouts had reported that the Indians were collecting in force about twelve miles distant. His intention was, to fortify the camp, so that the knapsacks and other baggage might be left there; and as soon as the delayed First Regiment came in, to push right on and attack.

Little Turtle's scouts also had been active. They had surveyed the marches and the camps, had measured the infantry, artillery and cavalry—and had been alarmed by the showing. Here was an old general and some big captains, wise in the art of war.

Now what to do?

Little Turtle called a grand council of all the chiefs, red and white. They debated whether to attack the camp, or to try an ambush in the field. Little Turtle favored attacking the camp. An ambush would be expected by the old general, but an attack upon a strongly guarded camp would not be expected. A maxim of war says: "Never do what the enemy expects you to do."

The Missisauga chief sided with Little Turtle. He was a tall, stout, fierce fellow, very swarthy and severe looking. He wore hide leggins and moccasins; a long blue shirt, a brocade vest, an overcoat instead of a blanket, and a turban studded with two hundred silver brooches. In either ear were two bangles, twelve inches long, formed of silver medals and quarter-dollars; in his nose were three nose-jewels of painted silver.

He was respectfully listened to as a wise captain, and he and Little Turtle carried the day.

"But the gray-haired general is always ready for a surprise attack."

"All right. Wait until the hour when he is not ready. Then strike."

Under the direction of Commander-in-Chief Little Turtle, in the darkness this night the Indian army stole forward and was posted with as much skill as any white army.

The Miamis held the center; the Wyandots, the Delawares and the Senecas held the right; the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, the Shawnees, and others, held the left.

They were ready. They could hear the challenges of the alert sentries, at the gray-hair's camp. Two hours before day-break they heard the drums beating the reveille. The soldiers of the gray-hair were on the watch.

The light in the east broadened. Securely hidden, the Little Turtle army waited. They might see the dim tents of the militia advance-guard, camped a quarter of a mile this side of the creek.

Beyond, where the main camp was under arms, the smoke of the fires began to thicken.

Toward the time of sunrise the soldiers grew tired of standing in ranks. The dawn-hour for surprise by Indians had passed. Trumpet and drum-roll sounded for "Break ranks." Having stacked their guns the soldiers gladly made for their tents, or squatted around the breakfast fires.

Another day had begun, without event.

Little Turtle allowed fifteen minutes or so, for the soldiers to settle and doze. Then he gave the signal, a half hour before sunrise.

General Saint Clair was lying sick in his tent. There burst a distant rifle shot; it was instantly followed by a crackling volley, as from half a thousand rifles—and an answering heavier volley from the muskets of the militia.

Struggling to don his blanket-coat he limped out, his gray queue ragged. The camp sprang to arms, for officers and men knew their business; but here came the militia like a drove of stampeded cattle, legging frantically for shelter from a horde of whooping, darting Indians. The militia dived through the lines of the regulars, into the very center of the camp, and for a short period all was chaos.

It was a furious fight. Re-forming their lines, the regulars stood well. They checked the charge by a thunderous volley from the long-barreled flint-lock muskets—the same as used at Brandywine, Princeton and Yorktown.

The strategy of Little Turtle and his chiefs was excellent. They shifted the attack from point to point. They attacked both lines at once. They took advantage of every cover, and constantly appeared closer. They killed every horse and every gunner of the artillery posted in the center.

Of the Second Infantry, all the officers fell except two. General Butler hastened bravely up and down the one line, encouraging the troops; General Saint Clair limped heroically up and down the other line. Eight bullets pierced his clothing—a lock of his hair was shorn off. General Butler was shot twice; and while he was sitting, mortally wounded, an Indian rushed in and tomahawked him.

General Saint Clair's army was being shot to pieces. He ordered bayonet charges; but when these had cleared a little space, the Indians re-appeared, thicker than ever. Their fire, it is recorded, "was tremendous."

The camp was entered, and pillaged. Some two hundred and fifty women, among them the general's dashing daughter, had come with the army; and these suffered terribly.

After three hours' battle, the general ordered a final charge, to open a way. Pressing behind the bayonets, the weary troops commenced a retreat of twenty-nine miles to Fort Jefferson.

The general, on a poor pack-horse, insisted on bringing up the rear. Out of his less than fourteen hundred soldiers, thirty-eight officers and six hundred men were killed or missing; twenty-one officers and two hundred and forty-two men were wounded. Fifty of the women had died. It was as bad as the defeat of General Braddock's army, in 1755. For a year and a half the field was covered with bleaching bones.

Little Turtle, the Missisauga chief and Simon Girty the white savage had directed the attack. After a pursuit of four miles, seeing that the soldiers were on the run and throwing away guns, knapsacks, and all, they called the chase off.

It had been victory enough. They had captured seven pieces of cannon, two hundred cattle, many horses; they returned to the villages with one hundred and twenty scalps strung on one pole, and with three pack-horses piled high with kegs of liquor.

Their own loss was stated to be fifty-six. Surely this was a great triumph for Commander-in-Chief Little Turtle.



CHAPTER XI

LITTLE TURTLE FEARS THE BIG WIND (1792-1812)

AND IT BLOWS HIM INTO PEACE

President Washington was almost beside himself when he got the frank report from General Saint Clair. Another American army—as good a selection as had opposed the British themselves in many a battle of the Revolution—had been fairly outwitted and fairly defeated, by Indians.

General Anthony Wayne was appointed to try next. "Mad Anthony," soldiers and citizens had styled him, because of his head-long valor in the Revolution. He was a good man for the job, if he did not act too fast and get ambushed.

He took his time. The army of the United States was reorganized into the Legion of the United States. He was placed in command.

There were four Sub-legions, or corps, each composed of artillery, dragoons, infantry and riflemen. The enlisted men wore round caps like helmets.

The badge of the First Sub-legion was white binding, with short plumes of white wool and black horse-hair.

The badge of the Second Sub-legion was red binding, with short plumes of red wool and white horse-hair.

The badge of the Third Sub-legion was yellow binding, with yellow wool and black horse-hair.

The badge of the Fourth Sub-legion was green binding, with green wool and white horse-hair.

"Another defeat will be ruinous to the reputation of the United States," had said President Washington. With this in mind, General Wayne declared for drilling his troops hard, at Legionville, below Pittsburg. Infantry, artillery and cavalry were kept busy at target practice, broad-sword practice, and battle formations.

In the spring of 1793 he moved down to Fort Washington at Cincinnati. On August 8, he marched north, with two thousand troops the equal of any troops in the world, to invade the country of the Miamis.

Meanwhile there had been fighting, but the warriors of Little Turtle showed no signs of letting up. A message from the British had told them that war with the United States was due this year, and that the Indians were expected to hold their ground.

Now the great warrior "Mad Anthony" was advancing. Him, the Indians much respected. His reputation was known. They had named him "Black Snake," and "Big Wind" or "Whirlwind." From the methods with which he made his marches—his men deployed in open order, his dragoons sweeping the flanks, his scouts before, and every night's camp pitched early and surrounded by a log breast-works—they saw that he was wise.

He established more forts. He erected a new one near the site of Fort Jefferson at Greenville, Ohio; and spent the winter there. He built Fort Recovery on the skull-dotted field where General Saint Clair had been routed. There the Wayne men defeated the Little Turtle men. The Indians spent two nights in carrying off their dead and wounded. But the British from Detroit had come southward and built another fort for themselves—Fort Maumee—at the Maumee River Rapids, in northwestern Ohio, south of modern Toledo.

That was a rallying-place for the allied Indians, and encouraged them. The "Big Wind" continued, laying waste the villages and fields. He built Fort Defiance in the very heart of the Miami country, and proceeded down the Maumee River toward the British fort.

Within seven miles of the British fort he built Fort Deposit. He had two thousand Legionaries, and eleven hundred mounted Kentucky riflemen; Little Turtle's army was being driven back upon the British fort, and must fight or quit.

So far, the "Big Wind" had proved himself the master.

By this time Little Turtle had lost his brother-in-law, "Black Snake" or William Wells, whose blood was the white blood, and who could no longer fire upon his race.

When he had heard that another American army was on its way, he had led Little Turtle apart.

"I now leave your nation for my own people," he had said. "We have been friends. We are friends yet until the sun is an hour higher. From that time we are enemies. Then if you wish to kill me, you may. If I want to kill you, I may."

William Wells plunged into the forest, and found General Wayne. He became a valuable scout with the United States column.

From Fort Deposit General Wayne sent word to the Miamis that they must make peace at once, or be attacked. Little Turtle called a council. Some of his men were dubious.

"It is no use fighting that man. His eye is never shut," they complained.

Little Turtle himself was dubious. The council debated upon whether to try another "Saint Clair" surprise, or to choose their ground, and wait.

Blue-jacket the Shawnee was for fighting.

"Listen," spoke Little Turtle. "We have beaten the enemy twice, under separate generals. We cannot expect the same good fortune always. The Americans are led now by a chief who never sleeps. The night and the day are alike to him. During all the time that he has been marching upon us we have watched him close but we have never been able to surprise him. Think well of it. Something whispers to me that we could do well to treat with him."

Somebody accused Little Turtle of being afraid, at last. That was enough. He objected no more, and the council decided to form battle array and wait, at Presq' Isle, near the British fort. Blue-jacket took charge.

It was good ground for defense. Another "Big Wind" had passed through the timber, and laid the trees crisscross in great confusion. Amidst this maze Little Turtle, Blue-jacket, Simon Girty, and the other leaders stretched three lines of warriors and half-breeds, in a front two miles long. Their left rested at the river, their right was protected by a thicket, the British fort was behind them.

The British commander had said that he would open his gates to them, if they were again driven back.

The "Big Wind," who never slept, had not delayed. This morning of August 20,1794, he marched right onward, in battle array. At noon he struck the Fallen Timbers, at Presq' Isle.

Now he was "Mad Anthony," again. He made short work of the Little Turtle army of fifteen hundred. He sent his Kentucky mounted riflemen against their right flank; he sent his dragoon regulars against their left flank; he sent his regular infantry in a bayonet charge straight through their center. They were not to fire a shot until the Indians had broken cover; then they were to deliver a volley and keep going so hard that the enemy would have no time to reload.

For once, Little Turtle's warriors did not stand. They feared this mad general. The trained infantry Legionaries moved so fast that they outfooted the cavalry; and they alone drove the warriors helter-skelter back through the timber, to the very walls of the British fort.

There the mounted riflemen and the dragoons smote with their "long knives," or broad-swords—for the gates of the fort were not opened, and the walls proved only a death-trap.

The Battle of Fallen Timbers was over in about an hour. The Americans lost thirty-eight killed, one hundred and one wounded. The loss of the Miamis and their allies numbered several hundred. Nine Wyandot chiefs had been slain.

Their warriors were scattered, their villages and corn-fields were destroyed, the British had not helped them, United States forts occupied their best ground from the Ohio River right through north to Lake Erie, and the long war had ended.

The Miamis and eleven other nations signed a treaty of peace, at Greenville, in August of the next year, 1795.

"I am the last to sign," said Little Turtle, "and I think I will be the last to break it."

Ever after this, Little Turtle lived at peace with the Americans.

The United States built him a house on his birthplace at the Eel River twenty miles from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He tried to adopt civilization and bring his people to agriculture and prosperity.

He was opposed by jealous chiefs, who envied him his house and accused him of having been bought by the Americans. But he was wiser than they.

He had been the first of the great chiefs to frown upon the torture of captives; give him a good mark for that. Now he frowned upon liquor. With Captain William Wells, his friend, he appeared before the Kentucky legislature, and asked for a law against selling liquor to the Indians. In the winter of 1801-1802 he asked to be vaccinated, at Washington, and took some of the vaccine back with him, for his people.

He frequently visited Philadelphia. There he met the famous Polish patriot Kosciusko. They had many talks. Kosciusko presented him with a fine pair of pistols and a valuable otter-skin robe.

Chief Little Turtle died July 14, 1812, while on a visit at Fort Wayne. The notice in a newspaper said:

"Perhaps there is not left on this continent, one of his color so distinguished in council and in war. His disorder was the gout. He died in a camp, because he chose to be in the open air. He met death with great firmness. The agent for Indian affairs had him buried with the honors of war."

His portrait, painted by a celebrated artist, was hung upon the walls of the War Department at Washington.



CHAPTER XII

THE VOICE FROM THE OPEN DOOR (1805-1811)

HOW IT TRAVELED THROUGH THE LAND

In the battle of the Fallen Timbers, when General "Big Wind" broke the back of the Ohio nations, two young warriors fought against each other.

One was Lieutenant William Henry Harrison, aged twenty-one, of the Americans. The other was Sub-chief Tecumseh, aged twenty-six, of the Shawnees.

They were the sons of noted fathers. Benjamin Harrison, the father of Lieutenant Harrison, had been a famous patriot and a signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Puck-ee-shin-wah, the father of Tecumseh, also had been a patriot—he had died for his nation in the battle of Point Pleasant, in 1774, when Chief Cornstalk fought for liberty.

At the Fallen Timbers, Lieutenant Harrison was an aide to General Wayne; young Tecumseh was an aide to Blue-jacket. The two did not meet, but their trails were soon to join.

The name Tecumseh (pronounced by the Indians "Tay-coom-tha") means "One-who-springs" or "darts." It was a word of the Shawnees' Great Medicine Panther clan, or Meteor clan; therefore Tecumseh has been known as "Crouching Panther" and "Shooting Star."

He was born in 1768 at the old Shawnee village of Piqua, on Mad River about six miles southwest of present Springfield, Ohio. His mother may have been a Creek or Cherokee woman, who had come up from the South with some of the Shawnees. The Shawnees were a Southern people, once. The mother's name was Me-tho-a-tas-ke.

Tecumseh had five brothers and one sister. Two of his brothers were twins, and at least two, besides his father, fell in battle while he was still young.

He had not been old enough to go upon the war trail with his father and Head Chief Cornstalk; but his elder brother Chee-see-kau went, and fought the Long Knives at Point Pleasant. When he came back he took little Tecumseh in charge, to train him as a warrior.

When Tecumseh was nineteen, he and Chee-see-kau, with a party of other braves, went upon a long journey of adventure south to the Cherokee country of Tennessee. It is said that the mother, Me-tho-tas-ke, already had left, to return to the Cherokees. Likely enough the two brothers planned to visit her.

They swung far into the west, to the Mississippi, and circled to the Cherokees. Here Ohee-see-kau was killed, while helping the Cherokees fight the whites.

He was glad to die in battle—"I prefer to have the birds pick my bones, rather than to be buried at home like an old squaw."

Tecumseh stayed in the South three years, fighting to avenge his brother, who had been a father to him, and whose spirit still urged him to be brave. He got home to Ohio just in time. In league with the Little Turtle Miamis, War Chief Blue-jacket's Shawnees had defeated the American general Harmar, and every warrior was needed.

Tecumseh had left as a young brave; he returned as a young chief. He was sent out with a party to spy upon the march of the gray-haired general, Saint Clair. He did good work, but he missed the big battle. But he was at the Fallen Timbers.

Here, in the excitement when the American infantry came scrambling and cheering and stabbing, through the down trees, he rammed a bullet into his rifle ahead of the powder, and had to retreat.

"Give me a gun and I will show you how to stand fast," he appealed, to the other Indians. He was given a shot-gun. The white soldiers were too strong, his younger brother Sau-wa-see-kau was killed at his side, and he must fall back again.

This hurt his heart. When the treaty with General Wayne was signed, the next year, he did not attend. Blue-jacket, his chief, afterwards sought him out and told him all about it: that the Indians had surrendered much land.

For some years the peace sun shone upon the Ohio country. Tecumseh was careful to cast no red shadow. He bore himself like an independent chief; gathered his own band of Shawnees, married a woman older than himself, lived among the Delawares, and spent much time hunting. He became known for his ringing speeches, in the councils; no Indian was more eloquent.

He was handsome, too—a true prince: six feet tall and broad shouldered, of active and haughty mien, quick step, large flashing eye's, and thin, oval Indian face, with regular features. His face was the kind that could burn with the fire of his mind.

In 1800 the Northwest Territory of which General Saint Clair had been the first governor was divided. The name Northwest Territory was limited to about what is now the state of Ohio; all west of that, to the Mississippi River, was Indiana Territory.

Captain William Henry Harrison, who had resigned from the army, was appointed governor and Indian commissioner, of Indiana Territory. He moved to Vincennes, the capital, on the lower Wabash. Chief Tecumseh was living eastward on the White River. Their trails were pointing in. Two master minds were to meet and wrestle.

The name of one of the two twins, brothers of Tecumseh, was La-la-we-thi-ka, meaning "Rattle" or "Loud Voice." He was not handsome. He was blind in the right eye and had ugly features. He was looked upon as a mouthy, shallow-brained, drunken fellow, of little account as a warrior. His band invited Tecumseh's band to unite with them at Greenville, in western Ohio where General Saint Clair's Fort Jefferson and General Wayne's Fort Greenville had been built.

Then, almost immediately, or in the fall of 1805, "Loud Voice" arose as the Prophet.

While smoking his pipe in his cabin he fell backward in a pretended trance, and lay as if dead. But before he was buried, he recovered. He said that he had been to the spirit world. He called all the nation to meet him at Wapakoneta, the ancient principal village of the Shawnees, fifty miles northeast, and listen to a message from the Master of Life.

The message was a very good one. It was a great deal like the message of the Delaware prophet, as used by Pontiac. The Indians were to cease white-man habits. They must quit fire-water poison, must cherish the old and sick, must not marry with the white people, must cease bad medicine-making (witch-craft) and tortures; and must live happily and peacefully, sharing their lands in common.

As for him, he had been given power to cure all diseases, and to ward off death on the battle-field.

He changed his name to Ten-skwa-ta-wa—the "Open Door," but is generally styled the Prophet. His words created intense excitement. Shawnees, Delawares and other Indians came from near and far to visit him. Tecumseh was very willing. It was a great thing to have a prophet for a brother—and whether this was a put-up job between them, is to this day a mystery. But they were smart men.

The Prophet enlarged his rant. To the whites he proclaimed that he, the Open Door, Tecumseh, the Shooting Star, and the other twin brother all had come at one birth. He asserted that their father had been the son of a Shawnee chief and a princess, daughter of a great English governor in the South.

Anybody whom he accused of witch-craft was put to death. They usually were persons that he did not like. The Delawares and Shawnees killed old chiefs who were harmless, and friends of the settlers.

Although the Open Door's teachings seemed to be for peace and prosperity among the Indians, they brought many Indians together, and aroused much alarm among the settlers of Ohio and Indiana Territory. Moreover, the gatherings at Greenville were upon ground that had been sold to the United States, under the treaty after the battle of the Fallen Timbers.

Governor Harrison sent a message to the Delawares, in the name of the Seventeen Fires—the United States.

"Who is this pretended prophet who dares to speak for the great Creator? If he is really a prophet, ask of him to cause the sun to stand still, the moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow, or the dead to rise from their graves!"

And—

"Drive him from your town, and let peace and harmony prevail amongst you. Let your poor old men and women sleep in quietness, and banish from their minds the dreadful idea of being burnt alive by their own friends and countrymen."

The Delawares listened, even the Shawnees were sickening of the witch-craft fraud—but the Prophet seized upon an opportunity.

In this 1806 an eclipse of the sun was due, and he knew, beforehand. Perhaps he was told by British agents, for the war of 1812 was looming, and there was bad feeling between the two white nations.

"The American governor has demanded of me a sign," he proclaimed. "On a certain day I will darken the sun."

And so he did.

His fame spread like a wind. Runners carried the news of him and of his power through tribe after tribe. He made long journeys, himself. In village after village, from the Seminoles of Florida to the Chippewas of the Canada border, from the Mingos of the Ohio River to the Blackfeet of the farthest upper Missouri, either he or some of his disciples appeared.

They bore with them a mystic figure, the size of the body of a man, all wrapped in white cloth and never opened. This they tended carefully. They bore with them a string of white beans, said to be made from the Prophet's flesh.