Military Roads of the Mississippi BasinHulbert, Archer Butler
History
Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin
Hulbert, Archer Butler
Clark, George Rogers, 1752-1818; Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1790-1794; Northwest, Old -- History -- 1775-1865
The lateness of the season prevented a more elaborate campaign than
Wayne had suggested to the Secretary of War. The army swept northward to
Greenville Creek and on the present site of Greenville, Ohio, erected
Fort Greenville--named by Wayne in honor of his dead friend General
Nathaniel Greene of Revolutionary fame. By November 16, Posey records,
all the houses were completed and once more the drilling and
manoeuvering began. We have it under the hand of the same authority
that General Wayne affirmed that never in the Revolutionary War had he
commanded such well-drilled troops as these which spent the winter with
him buried deep in those Ohio forests. It is sure that a general never
needed well-drilled soldiers more; and no less sure that no troops
needed encouragement more than these. There were, however, the bright
sides to life even here. Though coffee was a dollar and brown sugar
seventy-five cents a pound, and whiskey five dollars a gallon, yet there
was good cheer and merrymaking. A battery was built for the officers to
play "fiver," of which the younger men became very fond. On one evening
the veteran General Scott entertained the officers in his apartments and
was drawn out to tell of pioneer Kentucky in whose battles he had
displayed so much courage and lost his three sons. "He told us how Col^o
Boon first discovered Kentucky," wrote Posey; "'Col^o Boon was a very
enterprizing, smart man,' said General Scott, 'but very whimsical.'"
There were frequent scouting expeditions in which the whole garrison was
interested. On one occasion Wells's audacious rangers fell upon three
Indians at their midday repast; one of the three in the pursuit was
compelled to leap into a creek and when he "came up" he was found to be
a white man, Christopher Miller. His life being saved, he renounced the
wild career, visited his aged parents in Kentucky, and then returned to
become one of Wayne's most successful spies. No doubt the soldiers
laughed at this transformation of a red into a white man, and perhaps
swore that if other Indians were dowsed equally well they would be found
to be equally white and to be wearing British uniforms!
There was one duty that fell now to Wayne that was not congenial. Posey
was one of the detachment which pushed forward in the December snow to
St. Clair's slaughter-ground and erected there the most advanced of the
chain of forts between the Ohio and Maumee. As the company neared the
spot, Captain Edward Butler touched Posey on the shoulder and said:
"When you reach the ground go to a large spreading oak which you cannot
fail to see. Under that oak my brother's marquee was pitched and there
you will find his bones which you can identify by a fracture of one
thigh bone."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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