The campaign of the Federal troops,--mustering about two thousand, besides garrisons in two or three newly erected forts,--commenced late in the summer of 1791. Desertion reduced the number to fourteen hundred, before the commander, General St. Clair, had advanced far into the hostile territory. Continuing his march, however, on the third of November he encamped on a piece of commanding ground, within fifteen miles of the Miami villages. An interval of only seventy paces was left between the two wings of his army. The right was in some degree protected by a creek, and a steep bank; the left, by cavalry and picquets. The militia, about three hundred fresh Kentuckian recruits, were permitted to cross the creek, and draw up in two lines on the first rising ground beyond it, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the main body, from which they were separated also by a rich sugar-tree "bottom." The enemy had apparently anticipated a movement of this kind. The chieftains had collected a force of from one thousand to fifteen hundred men, upon the Miami territories; and for several days previous to the halt, numbers of them had been hovering round and evidently watching the movements of the troops. During the night of the 3d, shots were occasionally exchanged between them and the American sentries, and small parties were sent out in different directions to prevent their too near approach. Meanwhile the Indians were holding a grand council of war. The plan of attack was agreed upon, and the order and rank of the various tribes settled with a precision as punctilious as that of the ancient Greeks. The Wyandots stretched to the west; the Delawares were stationed next to them; the Senecas third, and so on. The Turtle, acting as commander-in-chief, superintended and stimulated the whole, but headed no particular detachment; the arm of the warrior was to do much, but the eye and voice of the chieftain, much more. Nothing happened during the night to alarm the Americans, and indeed the noise and stir of the outskirts in the early part of the evening gradually subsided. All at length was silent, and it might well be supposed, as it probably was, that the enemy had taken advantage of the darkness of the night to make good a precipitate retreat, or that their whole force as yet consisted only of a few scouting and scalping parties. But the mistake was of short duration. The militia were violently attacked between dawn and sunrise of the fourth, by a powerful body of the Indians, who, with a terrific yell, poured in a volume of musketry along the entire length of the two lines. Never was surprise more complete. The ranks of the militia were thrown into confusion at once; and although the battle was hotly contested for three hours at least, no efforts of the officers, or of the regular troops of the main body, proved sufficient to recover the lost ground. The former, indeed, were picked off