The party left Mingo Bottom on the 25th of May.  After nine days’ steady marching through the unbroken forests they came out on the Sandusky plains; billowy stretches of prairie, covered with high coarse grass and dotted with islands of timber.  As the men marched across them they roused quantities of prairie fowl, and saw many geese and sand-hill cranes, which circled about in the air, making a strange clamor.

Crawford hoped to surprise the Indian towns; but his progress was slow and the militia every now and then fired off their guns.  The spies of the savages dogged his march and knew all his movements [Footnote:  Heckewelder, 336.  Butterfield shows conclusively that there is not the slightest ground to accept Heckewelder’s assertion that Crawford’s people openly declared that “no Indian was to be spared, friend or foe."]; and runners were sent to Detroit asking help.  This the British commandant at once granted.  He sent to the assistance of the threatened tribes a number of lake Indians and a body of rangers and Canadian volunteers, under Captain Caldwell. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  May 14, 1782.  De Peyster to Haldimand.]

    The Fight at Sandusky.

On the fourth of June Crawford’s troops reached one of the Wyandot towns.  It was found to be deserted; and the army marched on to try and find the others.  Late in the afternoon, in the midst of the plains, near a cranberry marsh, they encountered Caldwell and his Detroit rangers, together with about two hundred Delawares, Wyandots, and lake Indians. [Footnote:  Do.  Official report of Lt.  John Turney of the rangers, June 7, 1782.] The British and Indians united certainly did not much exceed three hundred men; but they were hourly expecting reinforcements, and decided to give battle.  They were posted in a grove of trees, from which they were driven by the first charge of the Americans.  A hot skirmish ensued, in which, in spite of Crawford’s superiority in force, and of the exceptionally favorable nature of the country, he failed to gain any marked advantage.  His troops, containing so large a leaven of the murderers of the Moravians, certainly showed small fighting capacity when matched against armed men who could defend themselves.  After the first few minutes neither side gained or lost ground.

Of the Americans five were killed and nineteen wounded—­in all twenty-four.  Of their opponents the rangers lost two men killed and three wounded, Caldwell being one of the latter; and the Indians four killed and eight wounded—­in all seventeen. [Footnote:  Do.  Probably some of this loss occurred on the following day.  I rely on Butterfield for the American loss, as he quotes Irvine’s official report, etc.  He of course wrote without knowledge of the British reports; and his account of the Indian losses and numbers is all wrong.  He fails signally in his effort to prove that the Americans behaved bravely.]