Harmar campaign

The Harmar campaign was an attempt by the United States Army to subdue confederated Native Americans nations in the Northwest Territory that were seen as hostile in Autumn 1790. The campaign was led by General Josiah Harmar and is considered a significant campaign of the Northwest Indian War. The campaign ended with a series of battles on 19–22 October 1790 near the Fort Miami and Miami village of Kekionga. These were all overwhelming victories for the Native Americans and are sometimes collectively referred to as Harmar's Defeat.

From 1784 to 1789, there was considerable violence between encroaching American settlers and the Shawnee and Miami Indians in Kentucky, along the Ohio River, and at the few American settlements north of the Ohio, with some 1,500 settlers killed by the Indians. However, tensions did not escalate into full-blown war. Before the American Revolutionary War, the British had tried to preserve this area as a Native American reserve but were forced to cede what became known as the Northwest Territory when the United States gained independence. American settlers were eager to enter these lands and started to do so in large numbers.

United States Secretary of War Henry Knox at first resisted calls for military action against the resident Native American nations, as the new nation was in a financial hole and had more pressing issues to address. In 1789, President George Washington wrote to Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory (an entity not recognized by its Native inhabitants), and asked him to determine whether the Indians living along the Wabash and Illinois Rivers were "inclined for war or peace" with the United States. St. Clair replied that the tribes "wanted war," and called for American forces to be assembled at Fort Washington (now Cincinnati, Ohio) and Vincennes, Indiana.

Washington and Knox appointed Josiah Harmar, a well-respected veteran of the Revolution, to lead these forces on a punitive expedition into Shawnee and Miami lands as retaliation for the killings of American settlers and travelers on the contested frontier, and to deter the tribes from further attacks. The heavily indebted Harmar had no practical experience fighting Native tribes and suffered from chronic alcoholism, but his appointment was not contested.

In early 1790, emissaries from the United States approached tribal leaders with word that St. Clair wished to discuss peace with the Native Americans at Vincennes. These were generally not well received and reinforced St. Clair's decision to launch an attack. American Indian attacks continued throughout the summer, but just before the campaign was to launch, a party of Miami and Potawatomi representatives arrived at Vincennes to discuss peace. Major Jean François Hamtramck, the commandant at Vincennes, refused to see them unless all American captives held by the tribes were released, a demand impossible to honor.

The primary objective of the Harmar campaign was the destruction of the Native villages located near the large Miami settlement of Kekionga (present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana), where the St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers join to form the Maumee River. St. Clair and Harmar also planned to build an additional fort there. However, when St. Clair presented his plan to Washington at New York in August 1790, it was decided that such a fort would be too expensive and offer little military value. British forces still occupied Fort Detroit, in violation of the Treaty of Paris. St. Clair wrote to the British at Fort Detroit to assure them that the expedition was against only Indian tribes and expressed his confidence that the British would not interfere.

General Harmar gathered 320 regulars of the First American Regiment (organized into two battalions commanded by Major John Doughty and Major John Wyllys) and 1,133 militia from Kentucky and Pennsylvania, for a total of 1,453 men. The force also had a battery of three horse-drawn 6-pounder cannon. The campaign was launched from Fort Washington on 7 October 1790, when General Harmar began the march north along the Great Miami River.

A smaller force led by Major Hamtramck marched north from Vincennes at the same time. Hamtramck commanded 330 soldiers of the First American Regiment and militia from Virginia. His orders were to distract the Wabash Indians from the main force and then join Harmar for the main attack. Hamtramck's force burned a few villages over eleven days but was delayed when the militia threatened to mutiny if forced to continue. Hamtramck ultimately returned to Vincennes instead of joining Harmar, who, by 13 October, had marched to within a half day's ride of Kekionga. That day, Kentucky patrols captured a Shawnee scout who — after some intense interrogation — claimed that the Miami and Shawnee had decided to evacuate their towns rather than fight.