The Land of the Miamis: An Account of the Struggle to Secure Possession of the North-West from the End of the Revolution until 1812Barce, Elmore
History
The Land of the Miamis: An Account of the Struggle to Secure Possession of the North-West from the End of the Revolution until 1812
Barce, Elmore
Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1750-1815; Miami Indians; Northwest, Old -- History
The army with which St. Clair was expected to accomplish this task
consisted of "two small regiments of regulars, two of six months'
levies, a number of Kentucky militia, a few cavalry, and a couple of
small batteries of light guns." In all there were fourteen hundred men
and eighty-six officers. The Kentucky militia were under the command of
Colonel Oldham, a brave officer who afterwards fell on the field of
battle. The levies were "men collected from the streets and prisons of
the city, hurried out into the enemy's country and with the officers
commanding them, totally unacquainted with the business in which they
were engaged." Their pay was miserable. Each private received two
dollars and ten cents a month; the sergeants three dollars and sixty
cents. Being recruited at various times and places, their terms of
enlistment were expiring daily, and they wanted to go home. As they were
reckless and intemperate, St. Clair, in order to preserve some
semblance of order, removed them to Ludlow's Station, about six miles
from Fort Washington. Major Ebenezer Denny, aide to St. Clair, says that
they were "far inferior to the militia." On the morning of October
twenty-ninth, when St. Clair's army was penetrating the heart of the
Indian country, this disorderly element was keeping up a constant firing
about the camp, contrary to the positive orders of the day.
In the quartermaster's department everything "went on slowly and badly;
tents, pack-saddles, kettles, knapsacks and cartridge boxes, were all
'deficient in quantity and quality.'" The army contractors were
positively dishonest, and the war department seems to have been
fearfully negligent in all of its work. Judge Jacob Burnet records that
"it is a well authenticated fact, that boxes and packages were so
carelessly put up and marked, that during the action a box was opened
marked 'flints,' which was found to contain gun-locks. Several mistakes
of the same character were discovered, as for example, a keg of powder
marked 'for the infantry,' was found to contain damaged cannon-powder,
that could scarcely be ignited."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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