Some of the historians who have commented on these campaigns of Scott and Wilkinson and the Kentucky militia, have sought to minimize and even to discredit these expeditions. Says Albach: "The expeditions of Harmar, Scott and Wilkinson were directed against the Miamis and Shawnees, and served only to exasperate them. The burning of their towns, the destruction of their corn, and the captivity of their women and children, only aroused them to more desperate efforts to defend their country, and to harass their invaders." The review of Secretary of War Knox, communicated to President Washington on the twenty-sixth of December, 1791, however, contains the following: "The effect of such desultory operations upon the Indians, will, by occupying them for their own safety and that of their families, prevent them spreading terror and destruction along the frontiers. These sort of expeditions had that precise effect during the last season, and Kentucky enjoyed more repose and sustained less injury, than for any year since the war with Great Britain. This single effect, independent of the injury done to the force of the Indians, is worth greatly more than the actual expense of such expeditions." Other effects produced were equally important. The brave Kentuckians, for the first time, were acting in conjunction with, and under the direction and control of the federal authorities. The cement of a common interest, as Washington would say, was binding state and nation together. Not only were the soil and the long suffering people of Kentucky rendered more secure against Indian attack, but the hardy descendants of the pioneers were being trained for the eventful conflict of 1812, when seven thousand of the valorous sons of that commonwealth should take the field in the defense of their country. CHAPTER XIII ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT _--The first great disaster to the Federal armies brought about by the Miamis._ The objectives of General St. Clair have already been mentioned. He was now to take the village of Kekionga, establish a garrison there, and erect a chain of posts stretching from the new establishment to Fort Washington at Cincinnati.