by Allan Eckert
As the panic had broken out and the troops thrashed away in the darkness, Francis Dunlavy, at the northeastern edge of the occupied portion of the grove, found himself left suddenly crouching behind a log with another soldier and wondering what was happening. Dunlavy had a horse, but the young soldier with him, his panic rising, had none. Dunlavy urged that they both get on the horse and rush after the others as swiftly as possible, but the young volunteer was frozen with fear.
“Come on, man!” Dunlavy urged. “Get on the horse. There’s no time to waste.” Still the youth remained locked in place, wailing in his terror, and now Indians, attracted by the noise he was making, shrieked triumphantly as they burst into the far end of the glen on foot. One charged with uplifted tomahawk and Dunlavy instantly leaped into the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop to the south. The young soldier fell dead with a tomahawk in his brain just as Dunlavy plunged into the deeper darkness of the woods beyond.545
Back on the road close to the woods, Maj. John McClelland, still afoot and dazed from having been overridden and passed by his troops, suddenly heard Indians coming toward him, and he broke into a run. Wounded as he was, he could not run fast and tired quickly. Within 100 yards he was overtaken and felt his arms gripped on both sides by warriors—Shawnees—and his weapons ripped away from him. He braced himself for the tomahawk blow that would end his life, but it did not fall. Instead, he was hustled off in the darkness by the Indians toward one of their watchfires.546
Col. Crawford, upon hearing the outbreak of firing at Hardin’s company, wheeled his horse around and retraced his path back toward the south trail where it emerged from the woods and where the main army had been. He arrived there just as the rear of that force, mostly afoot, was leaving the woods, and he mingled with the men, calling out for his son, son-in-law and nephew, who, last he knew, should be among these men. They did not answer, and none of the passing men had any idea where they were. Fearing they were still deeper in the woods, Crawford reined his mount back into the grove to search for them.
The chaos continued and, as balls whistled among the rear divisions under Majs. John Brinton and Daniel Leet, the woods were rapidly emptying of the volunteers, except for those who were confusedly moving in circles or who were wounded and horseless. Among the latter was Capt. Ezekiel Rose, who had taken a ball that passed through his chest and out his back. Though conscious, he was in shock and certain he was dying. He considered it most important that he say The Lord’s Prayer before he died. In his confused state he kept making mistakes in the wording, and upon realizing he had done so, he would immediately break off and begin the prayer again. Men of his own company and others tried to help him onto a horse, but he struggled against them, deeming it necessary that he complete the prayer before attempting escape. Maj. Leet happened by, saw what was occurring and, exasperated, picked him up and practically dumped him into the saddle, then ordered a private up behind him to hold him on as they rode.
Maj. Brinton abruptly took a ball and, badly wounded, was himself helped away, while Maj. Leet took over his command, and with some 90 men in tow, including Col. Crawford’s son John, he led them directly west through the woods, heading for the Oak Creek Trail he had earlier advocated using, taking a chance on breaking through the Indian line in that direction. He succeeded, not only in bursting past the Indians but in reaching the trail running west of the cranberry bog. The Indians fired in wild abandon as the whites charged through, but they did not follow so large a body of men in the darkness, fearing that they would themselves be slain.
Pvt. Michael Myers, one of the sentries on the northern perimeter, heard the gunfire and assumed the Indians were attacking from the west. He leaped up onto the broad trunk of a fallen tree and looked into the woods toward the southwest, trying to ascertain more accurately the origin of the firing. He heard a noise behind and spun around to see the shadowy forms of Indians emerging from the deep grasses and rushing toward him. He snapped off a shot but missed and, almost in the same instant, an arrow buried itself in his leg just above the knee, tumbling him to the ground. He scrambled to his feet, gripping his empty rifle now by the barrel to swing as a club. The warriors were swarming to him by then, and he managed to hit several with the gun, but then a tomahawk blow knocked the rifle out of his grip, cut his hand badly and dislocated his thumb. Driven to his knees by warriors swarming over him, he still managed to shake them off and get to his feet again. He yanked out the arrow projecting from his leg and raced off toward the darkest part of the woods. Despite the wound, he eluded his pursuers and emerged from the grove just above the marsh, into which he plunged without pause.
As Col. Crawford penetrated deeper into the woods searching for his three relatives, another horseman, hearing him calling their names, rode up to him. It turned out to be Dr. John Knight, coming from the direction of the knoll, and they joined. Knight evinced concern about a couple of men still on the knoll who were dying and whom he had been loath to leave as the retreat formed up. He had decided to stay with them as long as possible. Then had come the pandemonium from the panicked troops on the south and the howls and shrieks of the Indians entering the woods on the north approaching the knoll. He’d had no other choice then but to leave his trunkful of surgical tools and medical supplies behind and the dying men to their fate, snatch up a rifle, powderhorn and lead pouch belonging to one of the dying men, and try to overtake the army. That was when he encountered his commander.
Now Col. Crawford and Dr. Knight tried to decide what their best move might be. Knight assured his commander that by this time all the men were well ahead of them with the retreating army. Crawford was, of course, unaware that his son was already breaking through the Indian line to the west under Maj. Leet, while his nephew, William Crawford, and his son-in-law, William Harrison, were together with Maj. McClelland’s advance force, now under heavy attack and scattering like flushed quail. The two young men, for the moment, having become separated from others, rode southeastward until they were well away from the road, then turned south again, expecting to intersect the trail once more in a mile or so and rejoin their unit.
Col. Crawford grimly concluded that if Dr. Knight was incorrect, his three relatives had already been taken prisoner or killed, and so he terminated his search. But now the question was what to do. He was furious at the disorder of the premature retreat and complained bitterly about the disobedience of the troops. From the sounds to the south, the screams of the Indians dominating, it seemed evident that the Indians were now in force in that direction. The cries of the Indians approaching through the woods from the north cut off that avenue of escape, so with a few murmured words Crawford led the way toward the northwest. They picked their way carefully through the dark woodland, pausing now and then as they heard nearby Indians approach and then pass them unseen. At length they came to the far northwestern edge of the grove and found the prairie silent before them, a few untended watchfires dimming. Logic dictated that they turn southward and pass west of the bog, as Maj. Leet had earlier suggested, but, still convinced the Indians lay in wait there, Crawford took a different tack.
“I think our best chance,” he told Knight, “is to head straight north for a while until we’ve cleared the Indian lines and then head east for the river, get across and continue in that direction for a good way before swinging to the south, then east again, and then south again to confuse any of the Indians that might be trying to follow us. That way maybe we can avoid them, and we should be able to hit the trail again by daylight and perhaps intercept the army.” Having no better suggestion, Knight agreed, and they moved off at once.
While the height of the panic prevailed, the rear guard of the army was all confusion. Many of the men, hearing the crash of guns and seeing muzzle flashes in the dark woods behind them, struck out in whichever direction happened to lead away from the assumed danger. A good number, emerging from the woodland, immediately galloped to the southwest and almost at once encountered the northern swell of the
expansive cranberry marsh. Into it they plunged with reckless abandon. Very quickly their horses mired and they abandoned them and continued on foot, slogging waist deep, sometimes neck deep, in water and muck, losing weapons, provisions and footwear in the process. All the while they were pressed by those behind, who were hastened by the hail of balls following them and ripping through the tangle of bushes and other marsh growth. For six volunteers who hesitated or fell, including Pvt. Benjamin McQueen, the Indians were almost instantly upon them with tomahawks and scalping knives.
Back at the rear of the main army, McQueen’s brother, Thomas, also a private, got separated from his company during the retreat and linked up with a Frenchman and a lieutenant in similar straits. All three were still mounted, but their horses were in bad condition, and concluding they could not catch up, the three struck out overland in an effort to get home on their own.547
Pvt. John Sherrard of Capt. Biggs’s company, who had supplied men with water from the root-hole pool in the woods during the battle there, found himself separated in the wild retreat from his unit and riding beside a longtime friend, Pvt. Conrad Harbaugh of Capt. John Beeson’s company. Sherrard’s horse was in better condition than Harbaugh’s, which was wheezing and groaning from exertion, but Harbaugh had a good saddle while Sherrard was uncomfortably seated on a packsaddle. The two young men discussed whether it would be wisest to trot their horses after their units and conserve the strength of the animals, or put them into a gallop at once to overtake them. At that juncture Sherrard glimpsed a shadowy figure nearby and correctly guessed it was an Indian.
“Take cover!” he hissed, and leaped down, pulling his horse toward a big tree behind which he might find cover. Harbaugh’s reaction was slower and, as he dismounted, a lead ball whined out of the darkness and drilled straight through the right side of his chest. He dropped to the ground, struggled a moment to get up and then sank back into a sitting position.
“Lord have mercy on me,” he said aloud. “I’m a dead man!”
The Indian, evidently expecting the second man to return fire, raced away on foot in the darkness. Sherrard ran to Harbaugh to assist and was dismayed to find his companion dead, still in a sitting posture. He sadly lowered the body into a supine position and, unwilling to be burdened with carrying two guns, lay the dead man’s rifle beside him. The death was a great blow to him, but this was no time for indecision, so he swiftly removed saddle and bridle from Harbaugh’s horse and turned the animal loose. Jerking his own uncomfortable packsaddle and pack off his horse and tossing them aside, then removing the makeshift rope rein, he replaced them with Harbaugh’s bridle and saddle and in moments was mounted and moving off. No shots came and no one pursued him, but he had traveled fewer than 100 yards when he suddenly realized he had left behind his bedroll attached to the packsaddle and that all his provisions were inside the rolled-up blanket. He turned back.
He found Harbaugh’s body where he had left it but was amazed to find that in the short time he had been gone, the Indian had returned and taken Harbaugh’s scalp and gun. The horse he had turned loose was also gone. Searching about quickly, Sherrard fortunately located his packsaddle with the bedroll still attached, overlooked by the Indian, and he swiftly tied it behind the saddle on his own horse. Then he remounted and slapped the horse into a gallop. Within three miles he managed to catch up to the rear of the retreating army.
Pvt. Michael Walters was another of those soldiers afoot at the rear of the main army and, as he trotted along trying to keep up with the horsemen, he was joined by two other privates afoot, Christopher Coffman and James Collins, all three of Capt. Beeson’s scattered company. They concluded, as Thomas McQueen had, that they would never be able to overtake the mounted men ahead of them, and they quickly made a pact to remain together through whatever might occur and to do their utmost to protect one another.
Before the panic occurred, John Slover, knowing his horse would need all its strength on the retreat, had taken his mount to a nearby glade and was feeding the animal there. On the outbreak of panic, he instantly realized what was occurring and leaped into the saddle and headed for the southern edge of the woodland, emerging a little distance west of the road. He reined his horse toward it but traveled only a short way when he discovered that the main part of the force had veered to the southwest. He headed his mount that way and put it into a gallop in an effort to overtake them. In doing so, he overshot their path and wound up in the extensive marshland.
Slover forced his mount through the water and muck for a time, but the horse eventually bogged down badly and was quickly losing its strength. Not far behind he could hear some warriors closing in, so he dropped off the saddle, smacked the horse on its rump to send it floundering away with a splashing racket for the Indians to follow and himself waded silently straight ahead toward the western edge of the marsh a mile distant.
Slover had continued wading through the marsh without pause and at last, only a short time ago, the ground became firmer under his feet. In a few more minutes he left the mire behind, and now, after continuing westward for a time, he had finally come to the Oak Creek Trail. There he encountered five volunteers who had become separated in the darkness from the group under Maj. Daniel Leet. They included Col. Crawford’s nephew, Ens. William Crawford, and the colonel’s son-in-law, William Harrison, along with Pvts. William Nemins, James Paull and Thomas Heady.548 The six immediately joined forces and began angling toward the southeast, hoping to link up again with their units but, failing that, to reach the Ohio River on their own. With Slover, one of the expedition’s guides, now with them, their chances of doing so were greatly improved.
Hardly half a mile away, Pvt. James Collins, having become separated in the panic from his brother Joshua and several others, had been struck by a vagrant ball that entered his hip at a sharp angle and passed through the muscle tissue without striking any bones, exiting close to his backbone. It had knocked him off his horse, and the animal raced away. Dazed, a few moments later Collins tried to rise and was surprised at being able to do so successfully. The wound hurt considerably, but he found he could still walk, albeit with difficulty.
“Helluva thing,” he muttered, “to go out on my first real Injen hunt and get shot in the ass!”
Continuing to limp along carefully in the darkness, he soon connected with three other privates on foot who had become separated from their company. In whispers they discussed their present dangerous situation and, convinced they could not catch up to the army, decided to strike out eastward on their own and head for home as best they could.549
Less than a mile farther south on the trail, Collins’s brother, Joshua, was also afoot, his horse having given out. In the darkness he linked up with two other privates, Michael Walters and Christopher Coffman, whose horses had also failed beneath them—the penalty of having set out on this campaign with horses that were essentially worthless in the beginning. As his brother James had done only a short time before, Joshua Collins suggested they strike out overland, away from the trails, and try to get back to the Ohio. Coffman and Walters agreed, and they set off, determined to travel as rapidly as they could through the remainder of this night to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the Sandusky towns.
Meanwhile, in water, muck and mire to his armpits, Michael Myers had bulled his way through snaggly brush and stumbled over unseen submerged logs to the middle of the marsh. At that point, some 15 minutes ago, he had had a severe scare when there was a thrashing in the mucky cover to his right. He reached for his belt sheath to free his hunting knife and defend himself, but the approaching person turned out to be a friend and neighbor, Martin Swigart. They had almost wept with the relief of encountering each other. Together they floundered through the remainder of the muck to the west side of the marsh.
Emerging and quickly encountering the Oak Creek Trail just as John Slover had done a short time before them, they found a soldier who had dropped out of Leet’s movement with a ball lodged
in his ankle. Unable to walk farther with the ball still inside and seeing that Myers had his knife in the belt sheath, he begged them to cut the ball out.
“It’ll hurt like hell,” Myers warned, “but you’ll have to keep quiet, or you’ll bring the Injens down on us.”
“For God’s sake, do it!” the soldier moaned. “I won’t make a sound.”
Myers removed his knife from its sheath, leaned over the man’s foot and began probing with the tip of the blade. Despite his effort to remain silent, the man screamed at the pain. Myers clapped his hand over the man’s mouth, and his words came out in a hiss.
“No more crying out, you hear?” The man nodded, and Myers added, “You holler again, we’ll have to leave you on your own.”
The man moaned an assent and Myers again bent over him and touched his blade to the wound. Once more the man’s scream rent the air, and Myers desisted. “We’re not gonna let you get us killed,” he said with finality, and he and Swigart left the man lying where he was and moved on.
A short while later Myers and Swigart, hearing Indians nearby, separated and, both fearing to call out and reveal their presence, each moved on by himself. Myers came to where some Indian horses were picketed together. He slipped quietly among them, selected the one that appeared to be most powerful and secured it by forming a bridle out of willow withes, which he put around the horse’s lower jaw. He quietly led the horse out of hearing of anyone who might be nearby, then mounted and rode through the remainder of the night.550
Well ahead of where Myers and Swigart became separated, a group of ten men south of the marsh had also become separated in the darkness from Maj. Leet’s retreat as it passed through a region of thick brush. Their horses, already jaded, could barely push their way through, and finally the ten, including Pvt. Jonas Sams, dismounted and left their mounts, continuing on foot. In the pale moonlight they eventually managed to make their way back to the prairie grass. Using the moon to get their bearings, they moved off slightly east of south and soon came to a dimly perceived trail heading in a more easterly direction. Some of the men declared it was the trail they were seeking, but Sams and others argued the point.