The battle of Fallen Timbers was fought on the 20th of August, 1794, on
the banks of the Maumee, near a rising ground called Presque Isle, about
two miles south of the present Maumee City, and four miles from the
British Fort Miami. The place was called Fallen Timbers because it was
covered with trees blown down long before in a tornado. These formed a
natural stronghold for the savages, but Wayne had every other advantage,
especially in numbers; he had almost twice as many men, well drilled,
armed, and clothed, while the miserable and disorderly army of St. Clair
had fallen a prey to a far greater force of Indians.
On the morning of the battle, Wayne sent a flag of truce to the united
tribes, offering peace, but he did not wait for its return. He met his
envoy coming back with an evasive answer, and he pushed on to Fallen
Timbers without stopping. As soon as he reached the battlefield, he
ordered his infantry to beat up the covert of the enemy, who were hidden
among the logs, brush, and grass, with the bayonet, and as they rose to
deliver their fire. His order was carried out so thoroughly and promptly
that this charge of nine hundred men began and ended the fight. Two
thousand; Indians, Canadian militia and volunteers fled before them, and
the rout was complete.
[Illustration: St. Clair’s Defeat 114]
The affair was so quickly over that there was no time for the incidents
of heroism and suffering which heightened the tragedy of St. Clair’s
defeat. At the beginning of the action, General William Henry Harrison,
afterwards President of the United States, but then one of Wayne’s aids,
said to him, “General Wayne, I’m afraid you will get into the battle
yourself, and forget to give us the necessary field orders.” “Perhaps I
may,” said Wayne, “and if I do, recollect the standing order for the day
is, Charge the rascals with the bayonets!” Wayne had got his nickname
of Mad Anthony in the Revolution from his habit of swearing furiously
in battle, and now he called the Indians something more than simply
rascals. We have seen how his men carried out the spirit of his
instructions, and it is told of one of them who got astray from the rest
that he met an Indian alone and gave him the bayonet. At the same time
the Indian gave the American the tomahawk, and they were found dead
together, one with the blade in his breast, the other with the hatchet
in his skull.
A runaway negro who had followed the Kentucky horsemen to the battle,
saw three Indians swimming the river from the shore where the cavalry
were posted, and shot one of them. The other two tried to swim on with
the body. The negro fired again with deadly aim, and the only Indian
left was now in water so shallow that he was dragging the bodies to land
when once more the negro fired and killed his man. Then he ran up to
look at the dead men and found them so like one another that he knew
they must be brothers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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