Tired of the Senate struggle over health care? Or the Copenhagen climate change fiasco? (We're screwed, but that's another diary). Time for a history break! Journey with me now into the days of European-American expansion across the continent...and the biggest defeat ever suffered by a U.S. Army at the hands of Native American fighters.
No, not the Little Bighorn. That fight may well be the most famous of all the Indian Wars, and it certainly ranks as ONE of the U.S. Army's worst defeats against and Indian force, but George Armstrong Custer was not even a gleam in his mother's eye - in fact, his mother was not even a gleam in her mother's eye - when the battle we are talking about took place. We must go back, not to 1876 and the plains of Montana, but to 1791 and the forests of Ohio. Err - Ohio? Yes, that's right. It's not what leaps to mind when people hear the words 'Indian Wars', but the worst defeat ever suffered by the U.S. Army against the Indians (actually, two of them) took place here during Little Turtle's War (AKA The Northwest Indian War, although it has no 'official' name - and probably never made it into your high school history texts).
At the time of its peace treaty with Britain in 1783, the western border of the United States was the Mississippi River. The lands further West were claimed by Spain, a claim then recognized by both the U.S. and Britain (although Spanish settlement was limited to a few thousand settlers each in what would become New Mexico, California, and southern Texas). The area then known as the Northwest - what would someday become the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota - was the subject of competing claims by various states. It was already inhabited, of course - tens of thousands of Native Americans, from such nations as the Miami, the Potawatomi, the Sauk and Fox, lived there. As usual, they were not consulted as to their opinions when the Europeans laid 'claim' to their lands. But the new government also had to recognize facts on the ground and deal with the native inhabitants - so, in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance recognized Indian title to the land under U.S. law, and negotiations immediately began to encourage the Indians to begin ceding land for settlement.
Little Turtle was a war chief of the Miami (like many Native peoples, the Miami designated different leaders for peace and for war) and opposed to land cessions. The various peoples of the Northwest (including the Huron, Ojibwe, Shawnee, and others, as well as the Miami) formed a loose confederacy to enable joint action against encroaching white settlers. Far to the south, the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Cherokee were numerous and well-organized and formed a substantial barrier to settlement - so as the white population overflowed the Appalachian Mountains, they settled for the most part in present-day Kentucky and Tennessee. But as tribes such as the Delaware and Shawnee were pushed north and west across the Ohio River, tensions rose.
In October 1790 a small army under General Josiah Harmar was in eastern Indiana near present-day Fort Wayne. Little Turtle led a force of Indians that defeated Harmar's subordinate Colonel Hardin, with more than 200 of Hardin's men killed or wounded (this, by the way, was also one of the worst defeats suffered by a U.S. army in the Indian wars). Take a look at the historical marker, and use the map link on the page to see the exact location, at this site: http://www.hmdb.org/.... At the time, the defeat was shocking. General Arthur St. Clair was given an even larger force of regular army, militia, and draftees, totalling nearly 2000 men, and set out to defeat Little Turtle and his allies.
On November 4, 1791, St. Clair's army - reduced to just under 1000 men ready for duty, due to desertion and disease - was camped near present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio. Little Turtle and some 1000 warriors from several tribes of the confederacy launched a surprise attack from the woods while the troops were sitting down to eat breakfast. They initially struck the militia, which - lacking the discipline and training of the regulars - quickly broke and fled. The regulars rallied and returned fire, but were flanked by the Indians. A bayonet charge failed when the Indians allowed the soldiers to enter the woods, then attacked and slaughtered them as they were unable to maneuver among the trees. After hours of fighting, St. Clair rallied the survivors to another charge. This time, upon breaking through, the soldiers fled toward nearby Fort Jefferson rather than trying to keep up the fight.
896 of 920 soldiers were reported killed or wounded, with 632 of those dead - an astonishing 97% casualty rate. The Indians suffered fewer than 100 casualties. For the location of St. Clair's defeat, see here
http://www.hmdb.org/... (use the map function again to pinpoint the location). Like the war, the battle itself has no official name - although it is sometimes called the 'Battle of the Wabash.'
The ramifications of the defeat were many, and for the native peoples of the Old Northwest they were not good. The disaster shocked the U.S. government; General 'Mad Anthony' Wayne of Revolutionary War fame was assigned to recruit and lead an enlarged army against the Indians. In 1794 Wayne's army of over 3500 men was assembled in Ohio. Little Turtle recognized the superior training and discipline of this force, compared to those he had previously defeated, and also knew that the Indian confederacy was sorely outnumbered. He counseled peace, but the Shawnee war chief Blue Jacket assumed command of those still wishing to fight, only to be decisively defeated by Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The next year (1795) the Treaty of Greenville forced the Indian nations to cede their claims to most of Ohio and part of Indiana. The conquest of the Northwest for white settlement had begun in earnest.
St. Clair's defeat also led to the first-ever Congressional investigation of the executive branch, as Congress requested War Department documents to determine what happened. This in turn led to the first-ever assertion of executive privilege, as Washington and his cabinet decided to hold out on the grounds that the public good required some executive secrecy. Another great American tradition had begun!
Little Turtle himself never fought again and worked for peace and accomodation with the whites (some would say, too much accomodation). He met Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Adams in person, and died in 1812 - just after the War of 1812 between the U.S. and Britain had begun, and the tribes of the Northwest united a final time in their struggle against U.S. domination under a new war leader - Tecumseh.
After the War of 1812 ended, some of the native peoples retreated further north, and still have small reservations in northern Michigan and Wisconsin today (such as the Potawatomi). Others (such as the Sauk and Fox) were eventually forced entirely from their lands and across the Mississippi River, where they found an extremely temporary refuge from land-hungry settlers. Little Turtle and the Northwest Indian War, despite their dramatic effect on the early politics of the new United States, are largely forgotten today.