A terrible day of reckoning was at hand; the retribution fell on but part of the real criminals, and bore most heavily on those who were innocent of any actual complicity in the deed of evil.  Nevertheless it is impossible to grieve overmuch for the misfortune that befell men who freely forgave and condoned such treacherous barbarity.

    Crawford Marches against Sandusky.

In May a body of four hundred and eighty Pennsylvania and Virginia militia gathered at Mingo Bottom, on the Ohio, with the purpose of marching against and destroying the towns of the hostile Wyandots and Delawares in the neighborhood of the Sandusky River.  The Sandusky Indians were those whose attacks were most severely felt by that portion of the frontier; and for their repeated and merciless ravages they deserved the severest chastisement.  The expedition against them was from every point of view just; and it was undertaken to punish them, and without any definite idea of attacking the remnant of the Moravians who were settled among them.  On the other hand, the militia included in their ranks most of those who had taken part in the murderous expedition of two months before; this fact, and their general character, made it certain that the peaceable and inoffensive Indians would, if encountered, be slaughtered as pitilessly as their hostile brethren.

How little the militia volunteers disapproved of the Moravian massacre was shown when, as was the custom, they met to choose a leader.  There were two competitors for the place, Williamson, who commanded at the massacre, being one; and he was beaten by only five votes.  His successful opponent, Colonel William Crawford, was a fairly good officer, a just and upright man, but with no special fitness for such a task as that he had undertaken.  Nor were the troops he led of very good stuff [Footnote:  A minute and exhaustive account of Crawford’s campaign is given by Mr. C. W. Butterfield in his “Expedition against Sandusky.”  (Cincinnati:  Robert Clarke & Co., 1873).  Mr. Butterfield shows conclusively that the accepted accounts are wholly inaccurate, being derived from the reports of the Moravian missionaries, whose untruthfulness (especially Heckewelder’s) is clearly demonstrated.  He shows the apocryphal nature of some of the pretended narratives of the expedition, such as two in “The American Pioneer,” etc.  He also shows how inaccurate McClung’s “sketches” are—­for McClung was like a host of other early western annalists, preserving some valuable facts in a good deal of rubbish, and having very little appreciation indeed of the necessity of so much as approximate accuracy.  Only a few of these early western historians had the least conception of the value of evidence or of the necessity of sifting it, or of weighing testimony.

On the other hand, Mr. Butterfield is drawn into grave errors by his excessive partisanship of the borderers.  He passes lightly over their atrocious outrages, colors favorably many of their acts, and praises the generalship of Crawford and the soldiership of his men; when in reality the campaign was badly conducted from beginning to end, and reflected discredit on most who took part in it; Crawford did poorly, and the bulk of his men acted like unruly cowards.]; though they included a few veteran Indian fighters.