His Shortcomings.

St. Clair should have covered his front and flanks for miles around with scouting parties; but he rarely sent any out, and, thanks to letting the management of those that did go devolve on his subordinates, and to not having their reports made to him in person, he derived no benefit from what they saw.  He had twenty Chickasaws with him; but he sent these off on an extended trip, lost touch of them entirely, and never saw them again until after the battle.  He did not seem to realize that he was himself in danger of attack.  When some fifty miles or so from the Miami towns, on the last day of October, sixty of the militia deserted; and he actually sent back after them one of his two regular regiments, thus weakening by one half the only trustworthy portion of his force. [Footnote:  Bradley MSS.  In his journal Captain Bradley expresses his astonishment at seeing the regiment and his inability to understand the object in sending it back.  Captain Bradley was not over-pleased with his life at the fort; as one of the minor ills he mentions in one of his letters to Ebenezer Banks:  “Please deliver the enclosed letter to my wife.  Not a drop of cider have I drinked this twelve month.”]

    The Last Camp.

On November 3d the doomed army, now reduced to a total of about fourteen hundred men, camped on the eastern fork of the Wabash, high up, where it was but twenty yards wide.  There was snow on the ground and the little pools were skimmed with ice.  The camp was on a narrow rise of ground, where the troops were cramped together, the artillery and most of the horse in the middle.  On both flanks, and along most of the rear, the ground was low and wet.  All around, the wintry woods lay in frozen silence.  In front the militia were thrown across the creek, and nearly a quarter of a mile beyond the rest of the troops. [Footnote:  St. Clair’s Letter to the Secretary of War, Nov. 9, 1791.] Parties of Indians were seen during the afternoon, and they skulked around the lines at night, so that the sentinels frequently fired at them; yet neither St. Clair nor Butler took any adequate measures to ward off the impending blow.  It is improbable that, as things actually were at this time, they could have won a victory over their terrible foes; but they might have avoided overwhelming disaster.

    The Indians Surprise the Camp at Dawn.

On November 4th the men were under arms, as usual, by dawn, St. Clair intending to throw up entrenchments and then make a forced march in light order against the Indian towns.  But he was forestalled.  Soon after sunrise, just as the men were dismissed from parade, a sudden assault was made upon the militia, who lay unprotected beyond the creek.  The unexpectedness and fury of the onset, the heavy firing, and the appalling whoops and yells of the throngs of painted savages threw the militia into disorder.  After a few moments’ resistance they broke and fled in wild panic to the camp of the regulars, among whom they drove in a frightened herd, spreading dismay and confusion.