This defeat of course simply made worse the state of affairs in general, and the Six Nations, who had hitherto been quiet, became uneasy and were kept so by the ever-kind incitement of the English.  Various mediations with these powerful tribes failed; but Colonel Pickering, appointed a special commissioner, managed at last to appease their discontents.  To the southward also the Cherokees began to move and threaten, but were pacified by the exertions of Governor Blount of the Southwest Territory.  Meantime an act had been passed to increase the army, and Arthur St. Clair was appointed major-general.  Washington, who had been greatly disturbed by the failure of Harmer, was both angered and disheartened by the conduct of the States and of the frontier settlers.  “Land-jobbing, the intermeddling of the States, and the disorderly conduct of the borderers, who were indifferent as to the killing of an Indian,” were in his opinion the great obstacles in the way of success.  Yet these very men who shot Indians at sight and plundered them of their lands, as well as the States immediately concerned, were the first to cry out for aid from the general government when a war, brought about usually by their own violation of the treaties of the United States, was upon them.  On the other hand, the Indians themselves were warlike and quarrelsome, and they were spurred on by England and Spain in a way difficult to understand at the present day.

In all this perplexity, however, one thing was now clear to Washington.  There could not longer be any doubt that the western troubles must be put down vigorously and by the armed hand.  Even while he was negotiating in the north and south, therefore, he threw himself heart and soul into the preparation of St. Clair’s expedition, pushing forward all necessary arrangements, and planning the campaign with a care and foresight made possible by his military ability and by his experience as an Indian fighter.  While the main army was thus getting ready, two lesser expeditions, one under Scott and one under Wilkinson, were sent into the Indian country; but beyond burning some deserted villages and killing a few stray savages both were fruitless.

At last all was ready.  St. Clair had an interview with Washington, in which the whole plan of campaign was gone over, and especial warning given against ambuscades.  He then took his departure at once for the west, and late in September left Cincinnati with some two thousand men.  The plan of campaign was to build a line of forts, and accordingly one named Fort Hamilton was erected twenty-four miles north on the Miami, and then Fort Jefferson was built forty-four miles north of that point.  Thence St. Clair pushed slowly on for twenty-nine miles until he reached the head-waters of the Wabash.  He had been joined on the march by some Kentucky militia, who were disorderly and undisciplined.  Sixty of them promptly deserted, and it became necessary to send a regiment after them to prevent their plundering