Chillicothe, when reached, was found to be deserted.  It was burned, and the army pushed on to Piqua, a town a few miles distant, on the banks of the Little Miami, [Footnote:  The Indians so frequently shifted their abode that it is hardly possible to identify the exact location of the successive towns called Piqua or Pickaway.] reaching it about ten in the morning of the 8th of August. [Footnote:  “Papers relating to G. R. Clark.”  In the Durrett MSS. at Louisville.  The account of the death of Joseph Rogers.  This settles, by the way, that the march was made in August, and not in July.] Piqua was substantially built, and was laid out in the manner of the French villages.  The stoutly built log-houses stood far apart, surrounded by strips of corn-land, and fronting the stream; while a strong block-house with loop-holed walls stood in the middle.  Thick woods, broken by small prairies, covered the rolling country that lay around the town.

    The Fight at Piqua.

Clark divided his army into four divisions, taking the command of two in person.  Giving the others to Logan, he ordered him to cross the river above the town [Footnote:  There is some conflict as to whether Logan went up or down stream.] and take it in the rear, while he himself crossed directly below it and assailed it in front.  Logan did his best to obey the orders, but he could not find a ford, and he marched by degrees nearly three miles up stream, making repeated and vain attempts to cross; when he finally succeeded the day was almost done, and the fighting was over.

Meanwhile Clark plunged into the river, and crossed at the head of one of his own two divisions; the other was delayed for a short time.  Both Simon Girty and his brother were in the town, together with several hundred Indian warriors; exactly how many cannot be said, but they were certainly fewer in number than the troops composing either wing of Clark’s army. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  McKee to De Peyster, Aug. 22, 1780.  He was told of the battle by the Indians a couple of days after it took place.  He gives the force of the whites correctly as nine hundred and seventy, forty of whom had been left to guard the boats.  He says the Indians were surprised, and that most of the warriors fled, so that all the fighting was done by about seventy, with the two Girtys.  This was doubtless not the case; the beaten party in all these encounters was fond of relating the valorous deeds of some of its members, who invariably state that they would have conquered, had they not been deserted by their associates.  McKee reported that the Indians could find no trace of the gun-wheels—­the gun was carried on a pack-horse,—­and so he thought that the Kentuckians were forced to leave it behind on their retreat.  He put the killed of the Kentuckians at the modest number of forty-eight; and reported the belief of Girty and the Indians that “three hundred [of them] would have given [Clark’s men] a total rout.”  A very common feat of the