by Allan Eckert
Most important, the New Half King’s Town was so situated that if, in fact, the Americans did show up, a nearby blind ravine some 30 feet in depth would prove ideal for staging an ambush.
Monakaduto’s eyes glittered at the thought.
[May 24, 1782—Friday]
Although the rendezvous of volunteer troops to march against the Sandusky Towns was scheduled for May 20 and many men had shown up that day, it had taken until today for everyone to arrive and for the army to form itself into an organized unit of close to 500 men. Everyone participating had brought his own horse, gun and supplies for a month. Even Col. Crawford had to buy a new, sturdier horse.499 That more men would continue to show up, even after the army began its 150-mile march, and follow the force in an effort to overtake and join it, was a foregone conclusion.500
The initial groups of mounted men arrived and rendezvoused on the left bank—the east, or Virginia side—of the Ohio River and crossed over the fording place individually and in small clusters to the expansive Mingo Bottom where the Indian trail led westward.501
The army that formed was not made up largely of border ruffian types. To the contrary, though none were in any kind of uniform and most wore long hunting shirts belted at the waist and soft-brimmed hats and some, such as Pvt. John Hays, looked almost Indian in their breechclouts and leggings, quite a significant number of the volunteers had ample experience as frontline veterans of the regulars who had served at the battles of Quebec, Germantown, Brandywine, Saratoga, Trenton, Monmouth, Princeton and Yorktown. Some had served in Clark’s campaign against Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes and others had suffered the terrible winter at Valley Forge under Washington. Quite a few had served as scouts and spies in the border patrols of the upper Ohio to protect the settlers and had helped defend the settlements when necessary.
A certain number of the militiamen, especially those of means, who as bona fide members of the militia were required to answer the call to accompany the expedition had, instead, hired stand-ins to march and fight in their place—a practice entirely legal, provided one had the means for doing so and could locate an uncommitted individual avaricious enough to become a stand-in for a fee. Among those who availed themselves of this practice were William Rowe, whose substitute was William Orr, and John McCaddon who hired Aaron Longstreet.502 Richard Elson sent his Negro slave, Sam, to fight in his stead. Elson was not the only one to take this permissible way out of risking his own life, even though it was generally looked upon askance. Most of the men, however, felt honor-bound to answer their militia call to duty without attempts at evasion because it was a matter of personal pride and integrity to do so.
A number of the notable border men were not on hand for the rendezvous. Among them were Capt. Samuel Brady and most of his Rangers. Realizing the necessity of continuing to protect the frontier in case bands of Indians should attempt to make raids while the majority of the men were gone on the expedition, Brady and his men were exempted from serving on the campaign, although Peter Parchment elected to go anyway. Other upper Ohio residents simply chose not to go, among them the Tomlinson boys and the Wetzels. Lewis Wetzel scoffed when asked if he was going along. “Me?” he snorted. “Reckon when it comes t’killin’ Injens, I’ll do it in my own way an’ in my own time.”
So, with the majority of the men assembled, the election of officers was begun. Two men were especially favored for the top command spot—Col. David Williamson and Col. William Crawford. Williamson was undeniably the popular choice for the command, but Gen. Irvine wanted no repetition of the rashness, poor leadership and insensitivity that Williamson had exhibited in the Moravian campaign. Thus, for the past several weeks Gen. Irvine, in a more or less clandestine manner, had brought to bear considerable influence among the more prominent men who would accompany the expedition, that when it came time to elect the officers for the campaign, William Crawford would be named to the top command. By the time of the rendezvous, Irvine had little lingering doubt that the selection for leadership would ultimately fall to the man of his own choice. Nevertheless Gen. Irvine’s letter of instructions for the design and comportment of the campaign was addressed To the Officer who will be appointed to command a detachment of Volunteer Militia on an expedition against the Indian town at or near Sandusky, and it said, among the variety of details covered:
The object of your command is to destroy with fire and sword (if practicable), then you will doubtless perform such other services in your power as will, in their consequences, have a tendency to answer this great end.
Knowing and respecting Crawford as a seasoned veteran officer of the Continental line, Irvine was prepared to give him written instructions in regard to the comportment of the troops and to leave no question this time as to whether the campaign had official authorization.503 Yet, despite his confidence in the man, Irvine also meant to have a close watch kept on Crawford and to be provided with a full and very accurate report of his activities and those of the army at the close of the campaign. To this end, Gen. Irvine magnanimously loaned his own aide, Maj. John Rose, to Crawford to act as Crawford’s aide-de-camp. He also honored Crawford’s request to have his old friend, Dr. John Knight, as surgeon for the campaign.
Maj. Rose, 29, who was actually a Russian fugitive and soldier of fortune named Gustavus Heinrich de Rosenthal, was instructed by Gen. Irvine to record surreptitiously everything about the campaign. He elected to do so by the expedient of innocently keeping a comprehensive daily journal, which would later provide him a fitting resource for filing the full report that Gen. Irvine wished. Accompanying Rose was a Negro slave named Henry, who belonged to Gen. Irvine and worked for him at Fort Pitt as a vegetable gardener, tending the commander’s prized little plot of peas and asparagus. Irvine loaned Henry to Rose as valet and servant during the campaign.504 The prominent men who had been influenced by Gen. Irvine in turn swayed many of the men who had gathered at the rendezvous. As it was, the election was very close, and despite Irvine’s influence, Crawford was elected as colonel commanding by only five votes over Williamson; the latter was elected to the rank of major and named second-in-command.505
The force was to be divided into four battalions, each commanded by a field major. Williamson—though still addressed by most of the men by his militia rank of colonel—was one of those, along with Thomas Gaddis, John McClelland and John Brinton, the latter three named third, fourth and fifth in command of the army respectively. Crawford’s aide-de-camp, John Rose, was elected adjutant with rank of major, while Daniel Leet, a chunky man of medium height but weighing more than 200 pounds, was elected brigade major.506 The brigade surgeon was Dr. John Knight, who carried his array of surgical instruments in saddlebags. The three guides for the expedition were Jonathan Zane, John Slover and Thomas Nicholson.507
Now came the matter of troop organization. The nearly 500 men on hand distributed themselves into 18 companies.508 There were a great many among the volunteers who had two or three or even more relatives in this army. Even Col. Crawford had three, including his son John; a namesake nephew, William Crawford, who was son of his brother, Valentine; and a son-in-law named William Harrison.509 All immediate family members—fathers and sons and brothers—as well as other kinsmen and even neighbors, by general agreement, were divided into separate units, the reasoning being that if any single company was hit hard by the enemy and suffered great loss, no single family would be wiped out or their home neighborhood left defenseless by the loss of all its able men. Each of the 18 companies thereupon voted again, and each elected a company commander with the rank of captain, plus a second and third in command ranked, respectively, as lieutenant and ensign. There was one exception to the process of separation of kinsmen: Capt. John Hardin, Sr., a bullheaded miller, elected as one of the company commanders, refused to let his family be separated from him, and so they all stayed together in a company of only 12 men. Because of his dictatorial nature among his employees at his mill and his notorious rashness on past expeditions, few of
the other men assembled would agree to join Hardin’s company, certain he would lead them into the worst possible danger.510
With the army now well formed, the commander issued orders for it to begin its march at ten o’clock on the morrow.
[May 25, 1782—Saturday]
Col. Crawford, at 60 years of age, was still a very active man, despite the fact that he had put on so much weight in recent years that people politely described him as heavy-set. With his light complexion, dense dark gray hair and piercing steel-blue eyes, he presented a military bearing and commanding appearance that elicited respect. He had been closely involved in the opening of the west for most of his life and had come to epitomize a frontier leader in matters military and civil. He was proud of being chosen commander of this expedition against the Wyandots and Delawares on the upper Sandusky River, and he had no doubt that it would be the crowning role of his long career in the west.
It was at ten this morning that he set his army into motion and began moving out from Mingo Bottom on a campaign he knew was destined to make history. Though he would have preferred to be at the head of a fine corps of smartly uniformed regulars, he nevertheless set out with confidence in the fighting abilities of the volunteers, despite their ragtag aspect.
While a small number of these volunteers were, like himself, well mounted on fine saddles, the majority were not. His principal aide, Maj. John Rose, shook his head at the disreputable appearance of the army and privately considered them a collection of clodhoppers. Most rode scrawny, poorly fed farm horses that only with difficulty carried the maximum allotted weight of 150 pounds of equipment and provisions in addition to the weight of their riders. The majority of these riders did not have saddles for their horses, and they perched themselves on sacks of meal slung across the horse’s back, their feet precariously wedged in rope stirrups, their guidance of the horse limited to a single rein attached to a hair-rope halter. One exception to this general situation was young Pvt. Thomas Mills, who had borrowed his father’s fine gray gelding and excellent saddle, and he was very proud of both. To aid him in recovering the horse should it wander off while hobbled or be stolen by Indians, he had carefully cut a broad V in the gelding’s hoof. Tom Mills had grown up considerably in the past month since going out hunting with the Wetzels, when George Wetzel was killed.
Three advance columns of horsemen took the lead, preceding the main column of the army, which rode four abreast as they headed westward through the wilderness. The whole force, moving at a much slower pace than Col. Crawford had hoped to establish, stretched out for miles. They followed a tolerably good Indian trail out of Mingo Bottom only briefly and then, to avoid detection, left the trail and proceeded westward through unbroken forest.
Not unexpectedly, there were a few problems right from the beginning. Pvt. John Shannon, for example, was in exquisite pain because of several painful boils that had formed—perhaps psychosomatically—on his behind, so he was sent home. Before they had gone five miles, Pvt. John Smith, a neighbor of Col. Crawford, experienced difficulty controlling his unruly mare. When the horse unexpectedly lunged off the trail, Smith’s foot was smashed against a tree, the resultant injury so severe that he was unable to go on. He, too, was ordered home by Col. Crawford.511
Col. David Williamson brought up the rear late in the afternoon, detained not only by the slowness of the column but by the want of a horse for the third pilot. His portion of the militia traveled only ten miles this first day, despite the ease of the ride over the better-than-average woodland trail at the beginning.
It was hardly an auspicious start.512
[May 26, 1782—Sunday]
Col. Crawford was irked by the slowness of the first day’s march yesterday and the loud, careless conversation that the men engaged in as they rode. Their four-abreast columns had been ragged and disorderly, their behavior more like a group of youngsters out on a lark than an army marching to surprise an enemy. Now, as camp was struck and the army prepared to mount for its second day’s ride, he ordered a sign to be made and posted on a tree for all to read as they passed:
Every Man ought to be convinced that the success of our enterprize depends in great measure upon a rapid & secret march.
[May 28, 1782—Tuesday]
The route of Crawford’s army carried them past several good springs before reaching the valley of the Tuscarawas, so there was no want for water. Tension heightened as the force approached the Moravian town of Schoenbrun. Three times yesterday and once earlier today, individual Indians had been spotted at considerable distances ahead, evidently spying on the army’s movements. Thus far, however, nothing of significance had occurred except that on the morning of the second day of the march, three volunteers could not find their horses which had been hobbled the night before. There was some speculation that they may have been stolen by the spying Indians, but no proof to back it up. However, not wishing to have any of his men afoot, who would only become a burden on others, Crawford ordered the three to return home, and the march progressed. Pvt. Thomas Mills, fearful that his father’s fine horse would be stolen or wander off, decided that henceforth he would not let the gelding get much more than an arm’s length away from him.
The commander continued to be disappointed at the army’s slow progress—averaging only 15 miles per day, when he had hoped for 25—but he knew the hills ahead would gradually become less severe and was confident the speed of their march would increase as the difficulty of travel eased.
Though its sister villages, Salem and Gnadenhütten, had been destroyed by Col. Williamson on his infamous expedition a few months earlier, Schoenbrun had been only partially destroyed and rumor was rampant among the volunteers—bolstered by the sightings of the distant Indians—that the hostiles had reoccupied it and were waiting there to ambush them.
As they came in view of the place, the three advance columns, ignoring the orders, curses and threats of their officers, abandoned caution and put their sweating steeds into an unruly headlong charge. The left and right columns galloped to opposite sides of the town, and the center headed directly for the three partially burned log structures in the midst of the village. Had Indians in fact been lying in ambush there, these unauthorized advance columns would have been devastated, but fortunately no one was there.
As soon as the realization came that Schoenbrun was devoid of life, the lust for plunder took over and the men spread out everywhere to search for anything of value. Fully a third of the advance plunged across the Tuscarawas to hunt for horses they thought might be pastured there. Another large cluster jumped off their mounts and leaped into a nearby pond, surging about in water armpit deep and feeling with their feet for any goods that might have been tossed into the water in an effort to hide them. The majority tore through the buildings still standing or only partially destroyed. All the efforts were in vain. With the exception of an old, rusted and totally useless flintlock and a broken tomahawk, nothing was found.
When finally some sort of order had been restored, Col. William Crawford, obviously exasperated, addressed the men in strong terms, berating them for their foolhardiness and refusal to obey orders and threatening severe punishment for any further lapses in discipline. But even as he spoke, the commander had the distinct foreboding that they could well find themselves in truly serious trouble if attacked by the Indians in force.
As they set up camp for the night, Maj. John Brinton and Capt. Joseph Bane set off to reconnoiter the area and saw, only a quarter-mile away, two Indians. They immediately fired at the pair—the first shots fired in the campaign—but the Indians were not hit and quickly disappeared. Col. Crawford was disheartened when he learned of the incident, as he had still been hoping to maintain secrecy and take the Sandusky Towns by surprise. Now, quite obviously, the Indians were well aware of their presence, and all the army could do was press forward at the best speed possible.513
And now, as well, Crawford’s sense of foreboding increased.
[June 1, 1782—Satur
day]
The Delaware and Wyandot spies who were carefully watching the progress of the army marching against them, saw the large force reach the headwaters of the Sandusky River and begin following its left bank along the trail that led to their villages. They immediately sent runners to those villages to alert them, and now preparations began in earnest for the confrontation that would doubtless occur sometime in the next three or four days.
At the orders of their chiefs, Pimoacan and Wingenund, the majority of the Delaware women, children and elderly in the villages and settlements near McCormick’s Trading Post gathered up their goods and trudged northward. Seven miles later, just west of the new Monakaduto’s Town at the mouth of Tymochtee Creek, they entered a deep, well-hidden and expansive ravine.514 Here they set up a temporary camp, where they would remain for their own safety until the confrontation was concluded.
Wingenund and Pimoacan then conferred with Monakaduto and made plans for a surprise attack upon the Americans. Encouraging word had reached them that a force of close to 100 British Rangers was en route to help, and, behind them some miles, under Maj. Butler, was the promised British artillery—two cannon and a coehorn.515 Traveling with the Rangers, under command of the British deputy Indian agent, Capt. Matthew Elliott, was a fair-size war party of Chippewas and a few Potawatomies, Ottawas and Miamis. Word had also come that upward of 200 Shawnees under their war chief Shemeneto—Black Snake—would be arriving from their villages along the Mad River, some 40 miles to the southwest.