ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN Harmar wrought wide destruction but of the kind that made the Indians of the Maumee irrevocably and bitterly angry. The main boast of the returning campaigners was that the enemy did not pursue them--which, after all, was more significant than we can realize today. It illustrates in a word the exact effect of the raid; the Indians were dumbfounded at the arrival of a white army so far within their forests. They knew as well as the whites that the punishment administered to the frontiersmen was almost wholly due to the rash boldness of the latter, who, rushing heedlessly after the scurrying savages, made ambuscades possible. Yet Harmar's actual success was only in burning villages and crops, and sending crowds of old men and women and children fleeing to the swamps and forest fastnesses. Practically, it was the old story of a score of Kentucky raids into the "Indian side" of the Ohio over again. "You are the 'town-destroyer,'" was the cry of an old chieftain to President Washington, "and when that name is heard our women look quickly behind them and turn pale." But there was something more to be done on the Maumee than to make squaws turn pale! That would not keep back the murdering bands from the infant settlements along and below the Ohio. This became plain so suddenly that the shock was felt throughout the East. In no way could the Northwestern Indians have struck home more quickly than by perpetrating the terrible Big Bottom Massacre. The New England colony which, led by Rufus Putnam, founded Marietta at the mouth of the Muskingum had, by January 1790, expanded in all directions.[87] One company of pioneers had ascended the Muskingum to Big Bottom, Morgan County, Ohio. At dusk, on the second night in January, 1791, a band of savages crossed the river at Silverheels Riffle above the unprotected blockhouse, and entered the settlement feigning friendship. The pioneers offered them a portion of the evening meal, when a sudden burst of flame swept the room. Several whites fell straight forward into the fireplace before which they were eating; others, to the number of fourteen, were instantly put to death. But one blow was struck by the whites at Big Bottom. The goodwife of the woodsman Meeks, uninjured by the first fire that swept the cabin, took advantage of the cloud of smoke to seize a broad-ax standing by the wall. As an Indian strode forward to the bloody finale, the glittering blade sank deeply into his shoulder. It was but one blow--but it was a token of a Nation's anger; it meant as much as the blood-red battle-ax the departing murderers left beside the smouldering ruins of Big Bottom blockhouse.