St. Clair was suffering from a fever. Irving says : "The veteran St. Clair, unable to mount his horse, was borne about on a litter, and preserved his coolness in the midst of the peril and disaster, giving his orders with judgment and self-possession." By his own suggestion, he was carried to a place where the firing seemed heaviest, and where Colonel Drake, a Revolutionary officer of great bravery and experi ence, was trying to overcome the confusion and hold his lines steady. St. Clair directed them to make a vehement charge with bayonets. This at first promised good results, for many Indians, concealed in the tall grass, fled in confusion, but the soldiers were unable to overtake them. They soon returned seemingly in increased numbers, and a second bayonet charge was followed with the same results. The artillery was prac tically of no use, for the daring Indians killed the men and horses before they could render any service against the scat tered and concealed foe. The regulars fought bravely and with much more system and effect than one might expect, but the confusion spread from the militia till it pervaded all the troops, Behind trtcs and bushes and hidden in the tall grass, were apparently Indians without number. With their bullets came showers of arrows and the wounds from the latter seemed more painful and exasperating than gun-shot wounds. The soldiers were necessarily more or less in line, and this seemed only to aid the Indians in their peculiar style of war fare. The General did not require a litter to carry him from place to place, except in the beginning of the contest. When the battle raged and his forces began to wane, the excitement brought back his strength as though the vigor of his youth had been renewed. Eight balls passed through his clothes and hat, one of which cut a lock of hair from the side of his head. Two horses were killed under him just as he had been helped to mount them. For an hour or so, no horse being near, he moved about on foot, and surprised all who saw him by the agility he displayed. When again well nigh exhaust ed, he was placed on a pack-horse, the only one that could be procured, and though he was scarcely able to force the animal out of a walk, he rode him till the battle closed. Adjutant General Winthrop Sargent, in a private diary wrote particu larly of "St. Clair's coolness and bravery, though debilitated by illness." The battle lasted about four hours when there was nothing left to do but to retreat and this the army ac complished but with the greatest confusion. Hundreds of soldiers threw away their arms and fled towards the fort.
When fourteen hundred men thus fought this infuriated mob of savages, struggling for their native land, it seems an insult to heroism to have the event forever known in history as St. Clair's defeat. It is more fitting to commemorate their unrivaled bravery by calling it the Battle of the Wabash. Though countless acts of heroism and daring courage, which have challenged the praise and admiration of four generations and will live as long as any war stories of our border history, were performed, yet the result was nevertheless most dis astrous. There were five hundred and ninety-three reported killed and two hundred and fourteen wounded. The brave general was among the last to leave the field.
After the result of the battle became known, a bitter feel ing arose throughout the Union against St. Clair. The real situation, had it been understood as it is now, would have thoroughly defended him against all blame, but the means of circulating the true story of the battle were extremely limited and most people knew nothing of it except the general result and the number of killed and wounded. At St. Clair's request therefore a congressional committee was appointed to investi gate the entire affair and report their findings. The investi gation disclosed a most disgraceful neglect in the commissary department, over which the commander had no control and which alone would have rendered success almost impossible.
It disclosed also that Captain Slough with a scouting party was sent out on the night of the 3rd and that he found Indians in large numbers. This he reported to General Butler, who said he would report it to the Commander, but he made no report whatever. Butler, though a man of great bravery who lost his life in this struggle, was disgruntled because of St. Clair's appointment over him. It disclosed also that St. Clair had ordered Colonel Oldham to take four or five parties out an hour before daybreak th, following morning. Very early on the morning of the fourth he sent his adjutant-general to see if they had started ; they had not, and then came the battle. The committee reported as follows: "The committee conceive it but justice to the commander-in-chief to say that in their opinion the failure of the late expedition can in no respect be imputed to his conduct, either at any time before or during the action, but that, as his conduct in all the pre paratory arrangements was marked with peculiar ability and zeal, so his conduct during the action furnishes strong testi monies of his coolness and integrity." St. Clair resigned and General Anthony Wayne succeed ed him as Commander-in-chief early in 1792. Through Wash ington the former promptly tendered the benefit of his infor mation concerning the army to his successor, whereupon President Washington replied : "Your wishes to afford your successor sill the information of which you are capable, al though unnecessary for any personal conviction must be re garded as additional evidence of the goodness of your heart and your attachment to your country." Both the government and Wayne profited by the early lessons in Indian warfare. A well equipped army, more than twice as large as St. Clairs, was given to General 'Wayne. He was also given an adequate commissary and was allowed to drill his men until they were competent, and to select the sea son of the year that he should march against the enemy. By this time, too, the people had awakened to the magnitude of the undertaking, just as the English did after Braddock's, de feat, and as our own nation did after the first disasters of the Civil War. So Wayne was supported by every one, from the President down to the humblest citizen. After drilling his army for over two years, he marched over the roads which St.
Clair had opened up and in August, 1794, met the Indians at Fallen Timbers and completely overwhelmed them.
St. Clair has been more or less censured for not throwing up breastworks on the night of November 3rd, notwithstand ing the fatigued condition of his army. These critics forget that an enemy confronted him which did not fight according to the rules of civilized warfare. Breastworks, such as an army could construct in a night, would have been utterly futile against savages who fought like wild animals, and against whom the only effectual defense was a stockade or other obstruction which they could not surmount. Such were the fortifications which St. Clair built on his march from Cin cinnati, but it was impossible to build one in a night's time. Bouquet was by far the most successful Indian fighter of his day and in his greatest contest and victory at Bushy Run, he fought the enemy all afternoon and until night-fall tempor arily ended the battle. He could then have thrown up breast works in the night as a protection against the enemy in the more terrible contest which he knew would follow with the earliest dawn. Such an idea certainly never entered his mind. Like St. Clair. he knew too well the methods of Indian war fare not to realize that such earth works, though potent against drilled troops, would have been no protection what ever against his savage enemy ; indeed, both commanders must have known that breastworks in either instance, would have but aided the savages by confining the troops to a posi tion that was not in anyway, inaccessible to them.