Читать книгу Centennial History of Columbus and Franklin County - William Alexander Taylor - Страница 15

The Battle of Fallen Timbers.

The battle of "Fallen Timbers" was fought August 20. 1794, at which General Wayne obtained a complete victory over the Indians who had concentrated in the region of the Maumee. This defeat was followed the next summer by a general council held by General Anthony Wayne at Greenville.

Darke county, Ohio, with the Indian tribes of the northwest, which resulted in the celebrated treaty known as the "Treaty of Greenville," which was concluded August 3, 1795, and was in its results the most important of all the peace treaties made between the United States and the Indian tribes northwest of the Ohio. The Wyandots, Delawares. Shawnees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawattomies, Miamis, Eel Rivers, Weas, Piankeshaws, Kickapoos and Kaskaskias became parties to that treaty.

This treaty was followed by comparative peace for a period of sixteen years and until about the year 1811, although in the meantime turbulent, revengeful and evil-disposed Indians frequently broke away from the different tribes and from the control of their principal chiefs and formed marauding parties, which from time to time committed all manner of murders, thefts and outrages on the frontier settlers of the northwest.

For a few years prior to the declaration of the war of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain the relations between these two governments had been very much strained, and it was generally considered that war was sure to ensue. In the meantime the British maintained numerous active and powerful agents among the Indians of the northwest for the purpose of supplying them with munitions of war and creating discontent among them and inciting them to make war on the white settlers. Thus encouraged, there was assembled under Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, at their camp at the junction of the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers, in northwestern Indiana, a large number of turbulent and desperate Indians drawn from most of the various tribes east of the Mississippi. It was the purpose and hope of Tecumseh and his brother, and the Indians under their influence, by 'd united effort with the British forces, to drive the white people out of the territory of the northwest. These Indians thus assembled on the upper Wabash became very threatening and endeavored to deceive and surprise General Harrison, who was then governor of the territory of Indiana, with headquarters at Vincennes.

Their actions and numbers were such as to make it prudent and even necessary that General Harrison should make a demonstration against them for the purpose of discovering their purpose and strength. This resulted in the battle of Tippecanoe, November 7, 1811, at which battle the Indians were defeated, but not greatly dispirited, as they still relied greatly upon the looked-for war between the United States and Great Britain, when they would have the powerful aid of the British forces.

Tecumseh was not present at that battle, and the Indians were under the command of his brother, the imposter Prophet. By this defeat the power which the Prophet had been exercising over his Indian followers was largely destroyed, and he was never afterward in much favor.

The War of 1812.

The war which had long been threatening between the United States and Great Britain suddenly flamed into activity, and war was declared on the part of the United States against Great Britain on June 18, 1812. This was the opportunity the discontented and turbulent Indians of the northwest had long been waiting for. Tecumseh had before that time, and in anticipation of it, concluded his alliance with the British forces, and the forces under him were already well prepared to join in active warfare. He was at the head of all the Indian forces in the northwest and was by far the ablest war chief of his times and the ablest war chief which the Indian race has produced of which we have any accurate knowledge, unless it may be the great Pontiac of a half century before. He at once commenced a vigorous onslaught on the frontier military posts and frontier settlers, and with terrible effect Affairs went badly against the American forces for the first year after the declaration of war. On July 17. 1812. Lieutenant Hanks, in command of Mackinac, was compelled to surrender the garrison, consisting of fifty-seven effective men. to the forces under the British commander at St. Joseph's, a British post near the head of Lake Huron.

On August 15 following, the massacre of the garrison at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) occurred, at which time between fifty and sixty United States soldier were mercilessly murdered and the fort destroyed. This terrible slaughter, in which the treacherous and blood-thirsty Black Hawk was engaged, was followed the next day (August 16) by the cowardly and ignominious surrender of General Hull at Detroit of about fifteen or sixteen hundred troops to a greatly inferior number of British and Indians under General Brock of the English army.

The Northwest Overrun.

By the time of September, 1812, the entire northwest, with the exception of Fort Harrison on the Wabash and Fort Wayne on the Maumee had been overrun and was in possession of the British and Indians, and these two forts were both besieged by hordes of savages. Fort Harrison, with but fifty or sixty men, under Captain Zachary Taylor (then a young officer in the United States army and afterward president of the United States), was heroically defended and the Indian hordes repelled. A like brilliant defense was made at Fort Wayne. The garrison was small, the Indians were in great numbers, the captain in command of the garrison was dissipated and incompetent and was summarily deposed from command, which then devolved upon one Lieutenant Curtis, a young officer in the United States army, who, by his heroic defense of the fort during the two weeks of unremitting siege has recorded his name permanently in the annals of his time.

It was just at this discouraging and perilous time that General Harrison was appointed commander of all the forces in the northwest. He at once took most heroic measures to raise the siege at Fort Wayne and strengthen that garrison, and also to strengthen the garrison at Fort Harrison on the Wabash.

This he accomplished, and thereafter was able to maintain the lines of the Wabash and Maumee as the frontier between the American forces and the allied British and Indians. All beyond to the northwest was in possession of the enemy.

But disasters to the American forces were not yet ended. On the 21st of January, 1813, General Winchester, who was in command of the forces on the Maumee, was defeated at the battle of the River Raisin by the combined forces of General Proctor and Tecumseh, and about seven hundred of his troops captured or destroyed, many of them being massacred after they had surrendered.

General Harrison was at the headquarters of the army at Upper Sandusky when he first heard that General Winchester, who was in command of the forces on the Maumee, intended to make an important military movement, the nature of which, however, he could not learn. No important offensive movement was contemplated by him at that time. On receiving this information he at once ordered forward all the troops then at Upper Sandusky, about three hundred strong, and took a horse and rode to Lower Sandusky (Fremont) in all haste. Such was the energy with which he pushed forward over the terrible winter roads that the horse of his aid-decamp failed and died under the exertion. At Lower Sandusky he learned that on the 17th of January Colonel Lewis had been sent forward from the Rapids to the River Raisin in command of over six hundred troops, which was almost the entire available force on the Maumee. General Harrison's mind was filled with forebodings, and, ordering the troops at Lower Sandusky forward to the Rapids, he again pushed forward to that place, where he arrived early on the 20th. Here he learned that General Winchester had gone forward to join his command at the River Raisin. There was nothing that could be done but wait for the troops which he had ordered forward from the Sanduskies, which were floundering along as best they could through the swamps of the wilderness. He did not have to wait long before he received the appalling news of the battle at the River Raisin, which was one of the most disastrous of all our Indian wars.

Columbus at Mercy of the Foe.

The battle was fought on January 21, the defeat was complete and overwhelming, and Winchester's army was practically destroyed. This left the region of the Maumee entirely open to be overrun by the victorious British and Indians, and it was expected that they would soon make their appearance at the Rapids. A council of war was at once held and it was determined to withdraw the remaining troops to Portage river, about twenty miles east from the Maumee. Here a camp was established, and the troops, which were struggling forward, as well as the remnant of General Winchester's command, were concentrated. Within a few days such a force had been assembled as-to enable General Harrison to move back to the Maumee. He did not, however, resume possession of the old camp, Fort Miami, which had been occupied before by General Winchester's command, but a better place was selected some distance up the river from the old camp and on the south side of the river, where a strong fort was erected which was named Fort Meigs in honor of the then Governor of Ohio.

It was the intention to concentrate a force at Fort Meigs sufficient to maintain it against all attacks which might be made, but on account of the terrible roads through the wilderness the expected recruits from Kentucky and southern Ohio did not arrive until the fort was besieged by the entire forces under Proctor and Tecumseh.

On the 1st day of April, 1813, the fort was invested on every side and an active siege was at once begun. The siege was carried on with great vigor, the Indians being incited to bravery by the promise of the monster General Proctor to deliver General Harrison into their hands should the siege be successful and the fort taken. However, after nine days of constant bombardment and conflict, the siege failed and the British and Indian forces withdrew. Immediately after the British and Indians had withdrawn from the Maumee. General Harrison hastened in person to southern and central Ohio to urge forward the troops that were being collected to meet and repel the British and Indian forces and drive them beyond the boundaries of the United States.

It was under these anxious and harassing circumstances that General Harrison came to Franklinton and held the conference with the chiefs of the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese and Senecas. The principal chiefs of these tribes had remained true to their obligations and neutrality under the Treaty of Greenville, but so many had been lured away from their tribal obligations by British pay and British bribes and promises, and such was their strength when commanded and guided by that able and energetic Tecumseh, that it became necessary for General Harrison to know as exactly as possible what proportion of the military strength of the powerful tribes would remain neutral or if necessary join with the American forces. The chiefs assembled not only assured him that they would remain true to their obligations, but if called upon would join with the American forces against the British.

They were not called upon to take an active part in the war, but as a matter of fact several of the chiefs of these four great tribes, with a considerable number of their warriors, of their own volition accompanied General Harrison in his campaign, which ended in the decisive battle of the Thames. Chief Tarhe (the Crane), grand sachem of the Wyandots, whose village was then near Upper Sandusky, Wyandot county, and who was spokesman for all the tribes at the conference at Franklinton, although seventy-two years of age.

went with General Harrison on foot, with a number of his warriors, to Canada and was present at the battle of the Thames, although he took no active part in that battle.

This conference or council at Franklinton enabled General Harrison to know what he could depend upon as to these four neutral tribes and greatly relieved him from uncertainty and anxiety, and also greatly relieved the frontier settlers from the apprehension and fears with which their minds and hearts were filled.