St. Clair's defeat, also known as the Battle of the Wabash, the Battle of Wabash River or the Battle of a Thousand Slain, was a battle fought on 4 November 1791 in the Northwest Territory of the United States. The U.S. Army faced the Northwestern Confederacy of Native Americans as part of the Northwest Indian War. It was "the most decisive defeat in the history of the American military" as well as the most substantial victory ever by Native American combatants against European-Americans.
The Native Americans were led by Little Turtle of the Miamis, Blue Jacket of the Shawnees, and Buckongahelas of the Delawares (Lenape). The war party numbered over 1,000 warriors, including many Potawatomis from eastern Michigan. The opposing force of about 1,000 Americans was led by General Arthur St. Clair. A surprise Native American attack at dawn overwhelmed the Americans. Of the 1,000 officers and men under St. Clair, only twenty-four escaped unharmed. As a result, President George Washington forced St. Clair to resign his post, and Congress initiated its first investigation of the executive branch.
Background
In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War, Great Britain recognized United States sovereignty of all the land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. The native tribes in the Old Northwest, however, were not parties to this treaty, and many of them, especially leaders such as Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, refused to recognize American claims to the area northwest of the Ohio River. The young United States government, deeply in debt following the Revolutionary War and lacking the authority to tax under the Articles of Confederation, planned to raise funds via the methodical sale of land in the Northwest Territory.
This plan necessarily called for the removal of both Native American villages and American squatters. During the mid and late 1780s, a cycle of violence in Indian-American relations and the continued resistance of Native nations threatened to deter American settlement of the contested territory, so territorial representatives John Cleves Symmes and Jonathan Dayton petitioned President Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox to use military force to crush the Miami.
A force of 1,453 men (320 regulars from the First American Regiment and 1,133 militia) under Brigadier General Josiah Harmar marched northwards from Fort Washington on 7 October 1790. The campaign ended in disaster for the United States. On 19–22 October, near Kekionga and Fort Miami (present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana), Harmar played into the hands of his enemies by dividing his forces. On three separate occasions, he failed to reinforce or reorganize his detachments as they were ambushed one after the other. Suffering more than 200 casualties, as well as a loss of a third of his packhorses, Harmar ordered a hasty retreat back to Fort Washington. Estimates of total Native casualties, killed and wounded, range from 120 to 150. The press vilified Harmar as a disgrace, and he would never hold a command again.
Washington then ordered Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, to mount a more vigorous effort by the summer of 1791. Harmar's experience had proven that state militiamen, who made up the bulk of his army, were too undisciplined to be reliable. Congress authorized the raising of a second regiment of regular soldiers for six months, but at a reduced rate of pay. The demoralized First Regiment was reduced to 299 soldiers, while the new Second Regiment only had half the number of recruits needed for a full contingent. St. Clair was able to raise two regiments (five battalions) with six-month civilian levies but ultimately had no choice but to ask Kentucky to send its militia.
In May 1791, Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson led a subsequent raid in August 1791, intended to create a distraction that would aid St. Clair's march north. In the Battle of Kenapacomaqua, Wilkinson killed nine Wea and Miami and captured thirty-four Miami as prisoners, including a daughter of Miami war chief Little Turtle. Many of the confederation leaders had grown weary of fighting and were considering making overtures of peace to Congress. Upon hearing of Wilkinson's raid, however, the peace movement collapsed, and the tribes quickly united for war.
Command structure
The Native American forces did not have a formal command structure, and the overall planning and leadership have been debated. Blue Jacket and Little Turtle later claimed to have been in overall command of the united forces. John Norton claimed that when the battle began, the Shawnee took the lead. Little Turtle is often credited for the victory, but this may have been due to the influence of his son-in-law, William Wells, who later served with the United States as an Indian agent and interpreter.
The different nations were grouped by similar language groups in a crescent-shaped formation at the start of the battle. Little Turtle of the Miamis, Blue Jacket of the Shawnee, with Buckongahelas and Captain Pipe of the Lenape formed the center. Egushawa was among the leaders of the Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe units to the left. Tarhe and Simon Girty were among the leaders of the Wyandot, Mingo, and Cherokee units that formed the right horn of the crescent.
In addition, two British officers from the 24th Regiment (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot were on hand to observe.
The United States command structure was as follows:
U.S. Army – Major General Arthur St. Clair
U.S. levies – Major General Richard Butler †
- 1st Levy Regiment – Lieutenant Colonel William Darke
- 2nd Levy Regiment – Lieutenant Colonel George Gibson
Kentucky militia – Lieutenant Colonel William Oldham †
Campaign
Washington was adamant for St. Clair to move north in the summer months, but various logistics and supply problems greatly slowed his preparations at Fort Washington (now Cincinnati, Ohio). The recruits had to be rushed through training, the food supplies were substandard, poor hygiene and disease were rampant, and the horses were low in number and of poor quality. The expedition thus did not set out until October 1791. Building supply posts as it advanced, the Army's objective was Kekionga, the capital of the Miami tribe.
The Army under St. Clair included 600 regulars, 800 six-month conscripts, and 600 militia at its peak, a total of around 2,000 men. Desertion took its toll; when the force finally got underway, it had dwindled to around 1,486 total men and some 200–250 camp followers (wives, children, laundresses, and prostitutes). Insubordination was constant; St. Clair, suffering from gout that made riding a horse difficult, struggled to keep order. Indians constantly shadowed the force, and skirmishes occasionally erupted. By 2 November, through further desertion and illness, St. Clair's force had been whittled down to around 1,120, including the camp followers. Meanwhile, the Western Confederacy increased its strength. Buckongahelas led his 480 men to join the 700 warriors under Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, bringing the war party to more than 1,000 men, including many Potawatomis from eastern Michigan.
St. Clair had only 52 officers and 868 enlisted and militia present on 3 November. That day, the combined force camped on an elevated meadow, with the First Infantry and volunteers encamped on the opposite side of the Wabash River from the Kentucky militia's camp, a decision that made it near-impossible for the Americans to reinforce one another quickly. No defensive works were constructed, even though natives had been seen in the forest. Butler sent a small detachment of soldiers under Captain Jacob Slough to drive off natives harassing the perimeter of his camp. The detachment engaged what they assumed to be a small party, but soon realized they were outnumbered. They retreated to camp and warned of what they believed to be an impending attack, but Butler did not send this report to St. Clair or build up the camp's defenses.
Battle
On the evening of 3 November, St. Clair's force established a camp on a high hill near the present-day location of Fort Recovery, Ohio, near the headwaters of the Wabash River. The natives, led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, formed a large crescent surrounding the camp. They waited in the woods until dawn, when the Americans, distracted by preparations for breakfast, were largely unarmed. Adjutant General Winthrop Sargent had just reprimanded the militia for failing to conduct reconnaissance patrols when the natives struck, surprising the Americans and overrunning their ground.
The center, consisting of the Miami, Shawnee, and Lenape, overran the panicking militia, who fled across the Wabash and up the hill to the main camp without their weapons. The regulars immediately broke their musket stacks, formed battle lines, and fired a volley into the natives, forcing them back. The left and right wings of the Native American formation then flanked the regulars and closed in on the main camp, meeting on the far side. Within thirty minutes, the native warriors had completely encircled the U.S. camp. The regulars fought well, but their firearms and artillery were in poor condition and had little effect on the well-entrenched Native positions. An effort to place additional artillery on the hill was foiled by Native marksmen shooting down the crews as they tried to load their pieces, and the survivors were forced to spike the guns.
St. Clair was awakened half-dressed when the battle began. A group of Natives led by William Wells was specifically targeting American officers, and it is possible that St. Clair's lack of proper uniform spared his life. Nevertheless, he had two horses killed under him before he took command on foot. By this point, more than 400 soldiers and militia were killed or wounded, and half of the horses had been killed.
Women and children who accompanied the army ran to hide in the covered supply wagons. Some militia tried to join them but were forced back into battle by the women. Running low on ammunition, Darke ordered his battalion to fix bayonets and charge the central Native position. Little Turtle's forces seemingly gave way and retreated to the woods, only to encircle the exhausted levies and overpower them in brutal hand-to-hand combat. Several more bayonet charges were ordered to try and push back the Natives, but the Americans were beaten back each time before the whole force finally disintegrated.
Several survivors of St. Clair's Defeat wrote vivid accounts of their experiences during the battle. The governing boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County published a pamphlet, one of a historical series. The three accounts were published in 1847, 1851, and 1864, respectively.
Retreat
After three hours of fighting, St. Clair called together the remaining officers and, faced with total annihilation, decided to take their remaining men and try to break out of the Native encirclement. This meant willfully abandoning their supply wagons, the women and children, and the wounded. As before, Little Turtle's army allowed the bayonets to pass through, but this time, the Americans simply threw their guns away and ran as fast as they could to Fort Jefferson. Ebenezer Denny wrote that the Natives let the faster soldiers escape and focused instead on picking off the stragglers who couldn't keep up.
A Pennsylvania detachment under Major John Clark provided the rearguard for the retreat. When Clark was wounded, however, the detachment also lost their nerve and retreated. With no organized defense against the pursuing Natives, the retreat quickly turned into a rout. "It was, in fact, a flight", St. Clair described a few days later in a letter to Secretary of War Henry Knox. He later wrote that the route was littered with discarded firelocks, cartridge boxes, and uniforms, as the fleeing soldiers discarded any items that slowed them down. In desperation, one cook known as "Red-headed Nance" even abandoned her baby. Another account tells a similar story, where a baby abandoned in the snow by a fleeing mother was found and adopted by pursuing Natives.
Private Stephen Littell became lost in the woods and accidentally returned to the abandoned camp. He reported the remaining wounded begged him to kill them before the Natives returned from their pursuit. After they had gone about four miles, the Native warriors returned to loot the camp. Hiding beneath a tree, Littell saw them feast on the soldiers' breakfasts, strip the wagons and tents of valuables, take the abandoned women and children prisoner, and slaughter the helpless wounded.