4.4: Little Turtle, the “Mad” General, and the Battle of Fallen Timbers

Conflict between Indigenous tribes and nations and European, and later, American, settlers, is a consistent theme throughout American history, and we’ve certainly covered our fair share on the podcast.  The aftermath of St. Clair's defeat is what we are focused on today: the response of the U.S. Army, the proposed follow-up by Indigenous forces, and the battle that led to a treaty ending large-scale Indigenous resistance in the Northwest Territory.  Our primary subjects are a Miami leader who fought in St. Clair’s Defeat and came to realize what he was truly up against, and a Revolutionary general in search of a comeback.  In this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, our first of three where we explore U.S. reactions to “foreign” powers, we look at Little Turtle, Anthony Wayne, and the decisive Battle of Fallen Timbers.

Key People

Little Turtle

General Anthony Wayne

Blue Jacket

Josiah Harmar

Key Events/Ideas

Battle of Fallen Timbers

Treaty of Greenville

We're back for Season Four of History: Beyond the Textbook! This season will focus on the stories of individuals who shaped "America's Federalist Era" in the years roughly 1789-1800. The first six episodes will release every Tuesday from October 28-December 2, while the second six episodes will be released every Tuesday from February 17-March 24. Catch up on Season One, "America's Colonial Era," Season Two, "America's Revolution," and Season Three, "America's Crucial Years," wherever you listen to your podcasts!

Feel free to contact us with feedback or questions by clicking the "Send Us a Text" link or email us at: hbttpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Conflict between Indigenous tribes and nations and European, and later, American, settlers, is a consistent theme throughout American history.  We’ve certainly covered our fair share on the podcast, but we’ve also seen some changes that have occurred at various points.  Consider Season One: the Pequot War set the template for land grabs that would follow, while the destructiveness of King Philip’s War effectively ended Indigenous resistance to new settlement in the Northeast.  In Season Two, the Peace of Paris, as well as U.S. federal conduct in the following years, made it clear that U.S. policy would be vastly different than dealing with the English…or even Spain, for that matter.  However, Indigenous victory was not impossible: the Great Southwest Revolt overthrew Spanish rule for a time, Pontiac enjoyed a moderate degree of success, and last season, we witnessed St. Clair’s Defeat, the worst defeat in the United States Army’s young history.  The aftermath of this defeat is what we are focused on today: the response of the U.S. Army, the proposed follow-up by Indigenous forces, and the battle that led to a treaty ending large-scale Indigenous resistance in the Northwest Territory.  Our primary subjects are a Miami leader who fought in St. Clair’s Defeat and came to realize what he was truly up against, and a Revolutionary general in search of a comeback.  In this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, our first of three where we explore U.S. reactions to “foreign” powers, we look at Little Turtle, Anthony Wayne, and the decisive Battle of Fallen Timbers.

Act I: Aftermath of St. Clair’s Defeat

Ultimately, we began to address the direct events that led to Fallen Timbers last season in episode 3.6, so we’ll start with a quick recap of those events.

Recall that within the first two years of settlement of the Northwest Territory, nearly 20,000 settlers arrived looking to stake their claim to fertile land to live their version of what might now be called the “American Dream.”  By the laws of the United States, this land belonged to the young nation and they could do with it what they pleased.  However, the thousands of Miami, Wyandot, and members of other nations who were living on this land certainly disputed this claim.  Shawnee leader Blue Jacket and his forces played a pivotal role in the successful defeat of General Arthur St. Clair’s forces in 1791.  Well, it was a success for the Shawnee-led coalition: the fact that a 3,000-strong American force was reduced to 600 by the time the battle was finished marks it as an unmitigated disaster for the fledgling American Army.  Still, the Americans would continue to stream westward, while the Indigenous nations would continue to fight and resist.  Blue Jacket pressed forward with the insistence that his forces were near-invincible and could defeat the Americans at any turn.  His war parties increased their raids across southern Ohio and provided a confidence boost to his men; however, their targets were more civilian in nature, and while successful, further serve to inflame tensions on the frontier. Militia had proven to be suspect when dealing with such matters, while trained soldiers, known sometimes as “Regulars,” were the obvious choice to handle the situation.  However, a large standing army was viewed with an enormous amount of suspicion, especially by the new Republican Party.  A large standing army of professional soldiers smacked of the European monarchy…and a monarch who could easily turn this army against his own people.  Meanwhile, the often-bellicose rhetoric of Blue Jacket propelled him into a position of prominence among those favoring war…and this exalted status placed him in contrast to the Miami leader Little Turtle.

Act II: Little Turtle’s Ideology

Little Turtle would emerge as leader of the Miami, a people who share much in common with Blue Jacket’s Shawnee.  Both fled violence in their traditional homelands, with the Miami fleeing the aggression of the Ojibwe and Potawatomi, and both share a similar language and cultural traditions.  The Miami would settle in what is now Ohio and Indiana and participate in the burgeoning fur trade with the French, but not so much with the English.  Little Turtle is similar to his Shawnee counterpart in that we know very little about his early life: he was the son of a Miami war chief and a Delaware mother, and gained a reputation as a brave and courageous war chief following a daring raid on a French-American settlement in 1780.  He also became familiar with the emerging American world when he befriended the captured William Wells, a red-headed youth who acquired the nickname “The Carrot.”  Wells would live for nearly a decade among the Miami and married one of Little Turtle’s daughters, even helping Little Turtle when he tried dealing with Kentuckians.  It was those from Kentucky who would often settle on Miami lands, and try as the Miami did to remain aloof from continued warfare, the behavior of these American forced their hand.  Little Turtle personally led the defense of the Miami village of Kekionaga during Harmar’s Campaign, but beyond this, they mostly met new settlement with a wary eye.  However, the increased presence of American military personnel was an entirely different matter, and a force under Josiah Harmar would soon lead more men into this region.  Understand that, by most accounts, Little Turtle was more of a reluctant warrior…”reluctant” in the sense that he rarely used combat as an initial diplomatic option, but once he was committed...look out.  This was the case when Little Turtle led his Miami against Harmar’s men, and while we referenced Harmar’s Campaign in episode 3.6, and mentioned it a few moments ago, it’s worth exploring a bit more given Little Turtle’s outsized role.

Josiah Harmar had pretty much been in the military his entire adult life, and by the mid-1780’s, was the highest-ranking Army officer in the United States.  By 1790, he had been involved in campaigns, both overt and covert, against the Indigenous nations of the region.  He was leading a force of about 1,500 men from Fort Washington, which is modern-day Cincinnati, to the aforementioned Kekionaga to try and destroy it.  Little Turtle’s relationship with William Wells came in handy as Wells was responsible for intelligence operations…and his intelligence revealed that most of these 1,500 men were inexperienced and unreliable.  Additionally, Harmar’s concern was placed on protecting his lengthy supply lines and not on engaging in direct combat, and though the sheer size of his force was intimidating, Well’s updated information convinced Little Turtle that victory could be achieved.  On multiple occasions, his men attacked the Americans as they were marching to their destination, and when Blue Jacket arrived with more men, it was game over.  Apparently, the outcome could haver been even worse than the loss of hundreds of American fighters, but a further attack was called off when Little Turtle concluded that open-field combat would not suffice.  Still, his military successes led to an increase in trade with British agents to procure needed supplies, and also led to the disastrous defeat of Arthur St. Clair by the combined forces of Little Turtle and Blue Jacket.  It would appear that momentum was on the side of Little Turtle and his Miami-led coalition. 

Act III: The “Madman” and a new Army

So the United States Army, and frankly, the young government, is reeling.  They have just suffered the near-annihilation of their western forces, and they need a new plan, and a new leader of said forces.  Enter Anthony Wayne.

Admittedly, we need to understand what led to Anthony Wayne’s selection as leader of this force that will eventually deliver the final blow to any hope of legitimate Indigenous resistance in the Northwest Territory.  Anthony Wayne spent his earliest years enamored by all things military, yet he was at that unique age where he could not participate in the many colonial conflicts that shaped early American life…kind of like someone who was too young for service in the Great War, yet too old to serve when World War II began.  He had zero interest in farming his family land in Pennsylvania, yet this is the life he led beginning at age 18 upon concluding his formal education.  However, his allegiance lay against the British when war came calling, and he was respected enough that he commanded an entire battalion of Pennsylvanians who explicitly sought service under Wayne’s command.  Early in his career, he was part of a force that sought to invade Quebec and thus lay claim to Canada, and his force was actually joined by a regiment led by…Arthur St. Clair.  It was their first meeting, and Wayne was not impressed: to him, command, and specifically, senior command, should be given to those who demonstrated the talents and temperament for such an assignment.  St. Clair smacked of the old world since he served in the British army…and was older, period.  Anthony Wayne was known to grumble when things did not go his way or work out according to his desires, traits that would not always endear him to others.

Anthony Wayne would serve with distinction through the rest of the war, fighting at Monmouth and even serving under Marquis de Lafayette and Nathanael Greene in the Southern campaign.  Along the way, he also picked up the nickname “Mad Anthony,” acquired when one of the privates under his command stated “Anthony is mad!”  We’re not entirely certain what about Wayne would constitute the moniker of “Mad,” but it’s just one of those things that stuck around…even hundreds of years later.  As successful as he was in combat, with several injuries along the way to truly designate him as a “grizzled” veteran, Wayne never really adjusted back to civilian life.  He rarely found time to visit home, even when his campaigns took him practically to his own backyard, and his post-war life found him in a quest for riches that would prove elusive and embarrassing.  Wayne had acquired land in Georgia, and he felt that this was the key to future financial success.  Unfortunately, his experience as a small farmer was insufficient for the work of a larger plantation…one in which he would purchase enslaved men and women to work, and one that was in rough shape to begin with.  He found himself in a mountain of debt from his procurement of people and crops, and he sought a significant loan to get him by.  He wrote to multiple lenders, and even attempted to woo Thomas Willing…the business partner of financier Robert Morris.  He was rejected, and dejected…but not deterred.  Reasoning that politics should be his next move, he sought a seat in the young U.S. House of Representatives, a seat in which he won...but was denied on account of potential election fraud.  Life was looking grim for General Anthony Wayne, but shortly after he was denied his House seat, he received word that he had been placed in command over America’s western Army.

Wayne’s appointment wasn’t necessarily without controversy because, again, he could be a bit bull-headed and rub people the wrong way.  There was also the reality that placing the conquest of Indigenous nations of the Northwest in the hands of a bankrupt and disgraced officer, albeit a true war hero, might not exactly pan out.  However, Wayne’s appointment was part of a larger argument taking place over the role that a permanent military might play in the American republic.  This dilemma was alluded to in Act I, but we’ll provide a bit more context: going back to the Philadelphia Convention, and even the state ratification conventions, Federalists wanted a permanent standing army as well as the ability of the national government to maintain control over state militias.  Their Antifederalist opponents believed that this would simply serve as a mechanism to subordinate the states to the federal government, and potentially turn the military against its own people.  When the Constitution was ratified, it did make the President the “Commander-in-Chief” of the armed forces, and there was language that could place the militia under national control.  However, an actual army proved elusive: the militia had won the Revolution, or so the thinking went, so western states and territories could simply rely on them to handle any and all matters with hostile Indigenous nations.  This attitude prevailed in Congress, and President Washington begrudgingly accepted it…until St. Clair’s Defeat.  Not exactly a Federalist in name, but certainly a Federalist in policy, Washington understood the importance of Valley Forge in creating a disciplined fighting force during the Revolution, and he knew that only a professional, disciplined fighting force that was trained in combat could succeed in securing the Northwest Territory.  By and large, his Cabinet, at least Knox and Hamilton, had been on board with this ideology from the beginning, and Washington persuaded Congress to follow his lead.  With that, Washington selected “Mad” Anthony Wayne as the leader of this new force.

Act IV: Ending Resistance

It’s not as if it was entirely smooth sailing for Anthony Wayne upon assuming his command; there were times when he felt as though he was held back by his orders and was not given the free reign he desired to pursue his objectives.  The years leading up to the pivotal Battle of Fallen Timbers mainly consisted of drilling, preparation, and even negotiations.  One such negotiation was attended by about 50 Shawnee and was led by Mohawk Joseph Brant, the Loyalist from Season 2, who continued to provide a presence as a respected negotiator for Indigenous causes. All the while, Wayne believed that a direct invasion was the only way to secure the Northwest Territory, so he gathered more men and began to attack Shawnee and Miami villages in preparation for such an event.  Word reached the Indigenous coalition, including the Miami and Shawnee, that Wayne’s large force was headed their direction.  The place they had chosen as their battleground was known as “Fallen Timbers” because tornadoes had created a massive thicket of trees that were perfect to conceal their position…or, it would conceal their position if the enemy was unaware of it.  By most accounts, Little Turtle was the lone voice advocating for some kind of peace.  He believed that Anthony Wayne was a force to be reckoned with, and much different than the St. Clair that had been so easily routed.  Keep in mind that Britain also continued to garrison forts in the Northwest Territory and had intermittently armed Indigenous fighters…yet Little Turtle did not trust the British to provide support on a large scale when it was most needed.  He officially stepped down from his leadership position owing to the fact that he wanted no part of a literal losing battle: the actual combat would be left to Blue Jacket and the hawks of the coalition as Little Turtle decided to sit this one out.  With that, the force of 1,000-plus dug in and prepared to fight.

Suffice to say, the battle went the way of the Americans.  As far as tactics are concerned, it’s safe to say that Season Two demonstrated that I am not a military historian, so I won’t dissect the victory in minute detail, but the most crucial element is that the regulars of the American Army did as they were ordered to do under heavy enemy fire.  When it comes to strategy, Wayne simply hoped to avoid an ambush while pursuing the enemy, which the Indigenous forces had perfected.  His men flanked the coalition forces and drove them back with a bayonet charge…and that was that.  He didn’t press the attack for fear of the aforementioned ambush, but he understood that the real victory lay in the symbolism of what had occurred: his organized, professional force demonstrated what would happen when unleashed in combat…and it was not going to end well for their opponents.  Upon securing victory, Anthony Wayne built Fort Wayne amidst Miami land and invited the coalition leaders to a peace conference at his Green Ville camp in early 1795.  Blue Jacket arrived with the intention of realigning his interests with the Americans, but Fallen Timbers would pretty much represent the peak of his influence.  Still desiring peace, Little Turtle, who didn’t arrive until June, passionately spoke against the Fort Harmar Treaty, which was what Wayne wanted honored: this was the one where new borders in the Northwest were agreed upon, but Little Turtle maintained that only Miami could cede their own land, so it should be considered invalid.  He tried mightily to advocate for his people, but he stood alone, similar to his situation leading up to Fallen Timbers.  General Wayne listened out of respect, but he understood that there was no point in accepting anything that his defeated foes wanted: he dictated the terms, and Little Turtle was the last Indigenous representative to make his mark on the Treaty of Greenville.  The U.S. federal government claimed 25,000 square miles of Indigenous land and would force the people into what’s now northwest Ohio…all for a total price of $20,000 worth of gifts and yearly payments of $9,500 worth of goods.  Remember that Jay’s Treaty was also hammered out during this time frame, so whatever assistance these nations might have received from the British was theoretically about to evaporate.  Large-scale Indigenous resistance to American settlement, at least in the Northwest, had come to an end.

So what was to become of our principal figures after the end of hostilities and ensuing Treaty of Greenville?  Although not exactly considered “Father of the American Army,” this might make a fitting epitaph for General Anthony Wayne.  It was under his command that it was truly “born,” and though it would take years to come into its own, it would not have done so without his guidance.  He would die in 1796 shortly following the Treaty of Greenville, and his legacy is mixed, with some focusing on his military exploits and accomplishments, while others focus on his enslavement of Africans and subjugation of Indigenous nations when recalling his life’s work.  Little Turtle is a bit more interesting as he would live another decade and a half following the Treaty of Greenville.  His life had been devoted to peace for some time, and he was well-respected for this.  His son-in-law William Wells worked for the United States as a liaison between the federal government and Indigenous nations, so this relationship allowed Little Turtle to fiercely advocate for the Miami at a national level.  Wells even accompanied Little Turtle to Philadelphia where he met President Washington and was inoculated against smallpox by Dr. Benjamin Rush, a man we’ll meet in more detail in the back half of this season.  This excursion was actually encouraged by none other than General Anthony Wayne.  Little Turtle’s primary plan for Miami survival hinged on training the Miami to become small, landowning farmers, a plan that upset other Indigenous tribes, who wanted to preserve their traditional ways, as well as the Indiana territorial government, who wanted them off the land.  Little Turtle would live until 1812 and died beneath a tree that was on land that had once been Kekionga.  A few years earlier, he was asked to cool the passions that were inflaming among followers of Shawnee leader Tecumseh, whom we’ll meet next season.  His quote, when threatened with execution, makes for a fitting end to his story, “Kill me as soon as you please.  I cannot calculate on living many winters more, but rest assured…I will not die alone.”  Little Turtle and Anthony Wayne may have faded from the larger American consciousness, but they deserve recognition for what they achieved…through war, and peace.

Next week, we continue our exploration of America’s reaction to, and relations with, foreign powers as we head way out west into the Pacific.  On our next episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, we’ll focus on Kamehameha the Great and the Unification of the Hawaiian Islands.