Battle of the Wabash

Battle of the Wabash. . , Although Brigadier General Harmar's campaign was considered a victory for the American Indians, it devastated their homelands. Harmar's troops burned five Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware villages along the Maumee river and destroyed over 20,000 bushels of crops, which led to starvation during the hard winter of 1790-1791. The Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware recovered in the spring, moved their villages elsewhere in the Kiihkayonki neighborhood or west to "the Glaize," and prepared for another U.S. military campaign from Fort Washington., In the spring of 1791, Major General Arthur St. Clair succeeded Harmar as leader of the U.S. military campaign in the Northwest Territory. St. Clair was to build a series of forts from Fort Washington to Kiihkayonki to control the Northwest Territory. St. Clair's troops headed north from Fort Washington in August. In October, the army built Fort Jefferson, approximately 20 miles south of here. It took St. Clair's army of over 1,000 soldiers plus 250 civilians more than a week to travel through the heavily forested area from Fort Jefferson to this site on the banks of the Wabash River, arriving in late afternoon on November 3. They put up no fortifications, and scouting reports of Indians in the area were not passed on to St. Clair. The main encampment was arranged in a rectangle directly behind you along present Wayne Street. St. Clair thought they were actually on the St. Mary's River, much closer to Kiihkayonki. Outposts surrounded the camp to the east, and the Kentucky Militia were camped across the Wabash River to the northwest., In the days previous, the nine tribes of the American Indian alliance, based on information from their scouts, had traveled southeast from Kiihkayonki in war parties of 20-30 men. The tribal alliance was led by Mihšihkinaahkwa (Little Turtle, Miami) and Weyapiersenwah (Blue Jacket, Shawnee). In the early morning hours of November 4, over 1,400 warriors assembled in a crescent formation on a high ridge northwest of St. Clair's encampment. This crescent strategy was used successfully by tribes in previous battles, but never with this many tribes attacking such a large opposing force., "It was later than usual when the army reached the ground this evening, and the men much fatigued prevented the General from having some works of defense immediately erected", "The high dry ground barely sufficient to encamp the army; lines rather contracted." , --Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny: An Officer in the Revolutionary and Indian Wars