Little Turtle and the Indians
Although St. Clair and the adversaries he met in the battle that took his name came from two different worlds culturally speaking, the differences may not be as profound as first thought. One of the foremost barriers that historians encounter while trying to reconstruct the lives of Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and other leaders of the Northwest Indian Confederation is the lack of written sources. Most of the individual Indians during the period either could not, or chose not to write and there was no tribe in the Northwest that developed a system of writing after European contact as the Cherokee did, which means that many details of early American Indian culture in the region have been lost. Some of the more important myths were handed down to successive generations orally and there were also some accounts written by white observers of the Indians, particularly captives, that have survived, but unfortunately many lacunae exist. With that said, by combining oral accounts with those of other witnesses and more modern archaeological and anthropological techniques, modern scholars can piece together a fairly accurate picture of the Indian leaders of the Northwest Indian Confederacy and what life was like for them and their people.
Little Turtle (ca. 1747-1812) was chief of the Miami Indians, who were among the most powerful tribes in the Northwest. The headquarters of Little Turtle and the Miami was near the confluence of the Maumee River and Flatrock Creek in a fairly large ecumenical Indian community known as the Glaize. Although Little Turtle was chief of the Miami, his mother was a Mahican, which actually probably helped the chief extend his political connections beyond the Miamis. The Mahican, or sometimes referred to as Mohican, Indians were an eastern Algonquin speaking tribe that was made famous by the 1827 James Fenimore Cooper novel, The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757. By the time of the Northwest Indian War, the Mahican tribe exercised little direct influence on Indian politics, but their legendary status as one of the early, powerful eastern tribes persisted. Throughout his life, Little Turtle distinguished himself as both a warrior and a diplomat, but it was through warfare that he made his name on American history.
Little Turtle rose to prominence politically and militarily among the Indians of the old Northwest during the American Revolution. Although the Miami were divided in which side they supported during the Revolution, Little Turtle was adamantly anti-American and carried out many raids and campaigns by himself and alongside the British. In what is now Indiana, Little Turtle led a successful campaign to expel the French from the region and in the later stages of the war he raided American settlements in Kentucky. After the Americans were successful in the Revolution, Little Turtle continued to lead most of the Miami against American settlement in the Northwest. As important and powerful as the Miami were the Shawnee, who were also present in the Glaize community.
The Shawnee sided with British during the American Revolution and when that war was over they continued their resistance to the Americans in the Northwest Territory. At the time of the Battle of St. Clair the Shawnee were led by Blue Jacket. A very detailed description of Blue Jacket was given by a white observer who visited the chief in the Glaize. The observer wrote:
His person, about six feet high was finely proportioned, stout, and muscular, his eyes large, bright, and piercing; his forehead high and broad; his nose aquiline; his mouth rather wide, and his countenance open and intelligent, expressive of firmness and decision. . . He was dressed in a scarlet frock coat, richly laced with gold and confined around his waist with a part-colored sashs, and in red leggings and moccasins ornamented in the highest style of Indian fashion. On his shoulders he wore a pair of gold epaulets, and on his arms broad silver bracelets; while from his neck hung a massive silver gorget and a large medallion of His Majesty, George III. Around his ledge were hugh rifles, war clubs, bows and arrows, and other implements of war; while the skins of deer, bear, panther, and otter, the spoils of the chase, furnished pouches for tobacco, or mats for seats and beds. His wife was a remarkably fine looking woman; his daughters, much fairer than the generality of Indian women, were quite handsome; and his two sons, about eighteen and twenty years old, educated by the British, were very intelligent. (Tanner, 18)
The observer’s colorful description of the chief surely fits the image of the “noble savage” that was prevalent in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It should be noted that Blue Jacket’s wife was half-French and was probably literate in French, although there is no way of knowing that for sure from the available sources. If sources were discovered that tell scholars more about Blue Jacket’s wife, then the level of influence she may have had on her husband may also be revealed, which would certainly be interesting and important in reconstructing some of the factors that led the Indians to war.
Another prominent idea leader who was present at the Battle of St. Clair was Buckongahelas of the Delaware. The interestingly named Delaware chief and his principal warrior, Big Cat, both played a role in St. Clair’s defeat, although the extent is not known. Buckongahelas, like the other Northwest Indian chiefs, lived in the Glaize community and was given a second dwelling there by the residents after the Battle of St. Clair, which points to the chief playing an important role in the battle. The Delaware lived in permanent and semi-permanent villages, such as the Glaize, and followed many of the same cultural norms as their white counterparts. A white captive of the Delaware who lived with Buckongahelas noted:
The Delawares are the best people to train up children I ever was with. They never whip, and scare or ever scold them. I was once struck one stroke, and but once while a member of the family, and then but just touched. They are remarkably quiet in the domestic circle. A dozen may be in one cabin, of all ages, and often scarcely noise enough to prevent the hearing of a pin fall on a hard place. Their leisure hours are, in a great measure, spent in training up their children to observe what they believe to be right. They often point out bad examples to them and say, ‘See that bad man; he is despised by everybody. He is older than you; if you do as he does, everybody will despise you by the time you are as old as he is.’ They often point good as worthy of imitation, such as brave and honest men. I know I am influenced to good, even at this day more from what I learned among them, than what I learned among my own color. (Tanner, 20)
Truly, the people of the Northwest Indian Confederation may not have been as technologically advanced as the Americans, but theirs was a sophisticated culture none the less. What modern historians know about the Northwest Indian tribes demonstrates that they possessed a fairly advanced understanding of government processes and organization. Historians also know that during the Northwest Indian War, the tribes of the Northwest Indian Confederation exhibited advanced degrees of military planning against the American expedition that Arthur St. Clair led from Fort Washington. The Northwest Indian Confederation was also fairly well armed by British traders at Fort Miamis.
The Order of Battle
The First Signs of Distress
Overall, General St. Clair’s expedition was not particularly well planned or conceived. To begin with, in any successful military operation the objectives need to be simple and clear; they were not in St. Clair’s campaign. After Harmar’s fiasco a year earlier, the U.S. military was still scrambling to define its overall purpose in the Northwest Indian War: was it there to merely pacify the Indians in a series of punitive expeditions, or was it there as a conquering army? By all accounts St. Clair’s expedition was for the most part supposed to be punitive; to punish the Indians that inflicted damage on Harmar the year before, but even that purpose does not seem very clear. Clearly part of the problem can be traced to the highest levels of government and therefore to Secretary Knox and President Washington. Throughout his political career, Washington vacillated in his treatment of and attitude towards the Indians of the Northwest and Indians in general. Washington seemed to share many of the sentiments that were popular in the large American cities and in Europe at the time of the Indians as “noble savages”, but Wa
shington was also a pragmatist who fought against and alongside Indians during his military career. To Washington, the Indians of the Northwest were a proud people who deserved the respect of Americans, but they were also standing in the way of American advancement and development. No doubt this attitude was at least partially to blame for the lack of direction in the early stages of the Northwest Indian War, which resulted in a number of American defeats, most notably St. Clair’s defeat.
St. Clair’s expedition was also poorly supplied. Supply records show that the expedition would have been lucky to make it to the area of present day Fort Wayne and back on the food and ammunition they brought. As the cold winds of late autumn blew across the Ohio River, they brought a sense of foreboding to Fort Washington. It seems that everyone from the highest officers down to the lowliest enlisted men knew that St. Clair was about to lead a disastrous expedition. General Harmar, who was well acquainted with disaster at the hands of the Northwest Indian Confederation, even mentioned to Major Ebenezer Denny, one of St. Clair’s officers: “You must go on the campaign; some will escape, and you may be among the number.” With endorsements like that it should be no wonder the campaign ended in utter failure. Even before the logistical problems with the campaign were manifested, the Americans were unable to properly scout their enemy.
An Expedition that Was Lacking In Intelligence
Military intelligence has always been an essentially part of any successful military campaign. In pre-modern times, armies would pay spies to gather important information concerning a city’s defenses. Scouts were also an indispensable component of armies, as they were used to determine enemy positions and to give full reports of the topography in order for their commanders to determine the best terrain in which to engage the enemy. In the Northwest Indian War and particularly at St. Clair’s Defeat, intelligence gathering, or lack thereof, played a critical role. In the days before St. Clair led nearly 2,000 men from Fort Washington – comprised of a combination of regular U.S. soldiers and Kentucky militia – an American officer and a squad of Chickasaw allies were sent ahead to locate the enemy.
Captain Sparks was a burly and sometimes surly man. His large size often won him the respect of his men and his experience as a frontiersman landed him in the scout squad with the Chickasaw. Even though he was white, the Chickasaw respected him. He earned their respect by showing that his “medicine” was powerful against other Indians on more than one occasion. Sparks could fight, track, and drink with the best of them and he was not afraid of Indians the way that many who came from the bigger cities were. Sparks, like many frontiersmen of the time, was not much of a philosopher; he did not spend his time in studies and libraries discussing the virtues of American freedom – he lived American freedom everyday on the frontier. The captain’s down to earth nature, tough reputation, and pragmatism helped him survive and even thrive on the frontier. Clearly Sparks was more comfortable in the woods and grasslands of the Northwest than the cities of the east. He looked around the woods and sighed because he knew that something was different about this mission – he sensed it.
“Did you find any signs?” Sparks asked a tall Chickasaw named Piomingo. Piomingo and other Chickasaws like him joined the Americans not out of love, but reality. They knew that the American conquest was inevitable: if they did not do it with their cannons and muskets then they would through the sheer numbers of their settlers. The Chickasaw saw the Americans as just another tribe, but a tribe that would take it all so getting on their good side was in their best interests. From another perspective the Chickasaw felt no cultural or racial loyalty towards the Northwest Indian Confederation; to the Chickasaw many of the cultural practices of the Northwest Indians were just as foreign as those practiced by the Americans. The Chickasaw also had long-standing hostilities with the Shawnee, which meant that most of the former could not bring themselves to enter into an alliance with the latter, no matter the mutual enemy. Ultimately, the Chickasaw valued their freedom and independence and did not see how relinquishing some of their sovereignty to the Northwest Indians was any different than doing the same to the Americans. Chickasaw pragmatism also bonded them with Sparks, who by all accounts had a definite level of respect for his Indian scouts.
“Some broken branches and a fire pit,” said Piomingo as he looked around. “They’ve covered things well. At least a handful, but maybe many more.” Piomingo sat down to eat some dried venison with the other Chickasaws around the fire. The more ambitious and intelligent scouts quickly learned that knowing English could find them constant employment with the army or settlers moving west. Throughout American history the U.S. army employed many Indian scouts during military campaigns against different tribes. Indian scouts also helped guide wagon trains through unknown and hostile territory. The Indian scouts’ historical reasons for helping Americans, government or private individuals, were as varied as they were for the Chickasaw: some did so to find legitimate employment in the new economic system while others did so as part of long running animus towards other tribes.
Sparks sat near the fire to write down their findings to General St. Clair. After he was done, he would hand the note to one of the scout to bring to St. Clair. He knew that St. Clair was leaving Fort Washington in the next few days and he had nothing to tell them. Little Turtle and all the warriors of the Northwest Indian Confederacy could be on the other side of the clearing he was looking at, or they could be a couple of hundred miles away to the north. The situation seemed bleak and ever the realist, Sparks reported what he observed honestly. Sparks never found out where Little Turtle and his army were.
When General St. Clair left Fort Washington he was accompanied by about 600 Kentucky militiamen. The Kentuckians were a rebellious band of rapscallions, but also very passionate, which can often be a volatile mixture. The Kentuckians were passionate about their bourbon whiskey, frontier lifestyles, and love of freedom. Throughout American history, Kentuckians have requited themselves quite well in every war: Daniel Boone was of course the famous Kentucky frontiersman who fought the British during the American Revolution; Kentuckians died at the Alamo, and Kentuckians fought valiantly on both sides during the American Civil War. St. Clair’s expedition was not an example of Kentuckian martial prowess. For most of the Kentuckians the Northwestern campaign was an afterthought. Yes, they wanted to pacify the Northwest for American settlement, but they had already done so in their own state and most were there more for adventure and profit than anything. The Kentuckians also hated being told what to do.
“That general sure is a jackass,” said Benjamin Van Cleve to his fellow Kentuckians as they marched from Fort Washington. The Kentuckians already had doubts about the mission when they saw the meagre food and ammunition stores and their doubts were multiplied when they saw their own leaders question St. Clair and his regular officers. The Kentuckians believed that they could do better by themselves; they knew the wilderness and could shoot better than any army regular, but still, most wondered why they were even there at all. It is not that Van Cleve was disloyal or insubordinate, actually, based on the primary sources the opposite appears to be the case, but St. Clair’s leadership style truly engendered little respect among his men.
The questionable thoughts that the Kentuckians had about St. Clair’s mission soon turned to whispers and then those whispers became outright mutiny.
“How far into the Northwest do we have to go?” asked one militiaman to Van Cleve. “Yea,” responded another, “I have to get my crops in.” Although the Kentucky militiamen were known for their shooting abilities and frontier skills, their lack of respect for St. Clair and the mission is evidenced by the high number of desertions before and during the actual battle. The Kentuckians were good fighters, but they needed to fight for a cause, and a commander for which they all believed. St. Clair was unable to capture the respect of the Kentucky militiamen, which may have been due to cultural gaps. The British born St. Clair was no prissy, high-class snob and definitely a “man’s man”;
but his sensibilities, leadership style, and military philosophy were clearly at odds with most of the free-wheeling Kentuckians. The clash of ideas combined with the Kentuckians lack of enthusiasm for the overall campaign resulted in about half of them deserting before the battle. As St. Clair marched north with his troop more and more Kentuckians broke off and headed home, south of the Ohio River.
Finally, St. Clair and his men reached the banks of the Wabash River near its headwaters, but, once again, intelligence failed the commander as he did not know the name of the river. In fact, historians point out that the battle is named for St. Clair not because of anything great he did – after all he lost the battle miserably – but because none of the Americans knew the river near where the battle took place. “We will engage the enemy here,” said St. Clair after he chose a clearing on the south side of the Wabash River. The area all around the camp St. Clair chose was wooded, which would have been to the Indians’ advantage, so the choice was logical in that respect. The river provided St. Clair and his men with a source of water that they could use for drinking, cooking, and cleaning, but it was actually quite shallow at that point so it offered no defensive benefits in those terms. One battlefield advantage that the camp could have given St. Clair was its elevation.
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