t have been
one twentieth that of the whites. They did not at the moment follow up
their victory, each band going off with its own share of the booty. But
the triumph was so overwhelming, and the reward so great, that the war
spirit received a great impetus in all the tribes. The bands of warriors
that marched against the frontier were more numerous, more formidable,
and bolder than ever.

In the following January Wilkinson with a hundred and fifty mounted
volunteers marched to the battle-field to bury the slain. The weather
was bitterly cold, snow lay deep on the ground, and some of the
volunteers were frost bitten. [Footnote: McBride's "Pioneer Biography,"
John Reily's narrative. This expedition, in which not a single hostile
Indian was encountered, has been transmuted by Withers and one or two
other border historians into a purely fictitious expedition of revenge
in which hundreds of Indians were slain on the field of St. Clair's
disaster.]

Kentucky Volunteers Visit the Battle-field and Bury the Dead.

Four miles from the scene of the battle, where the pursuit had ended,
they began to find the bodies on the road, and close alongside, in
the woods, whither some of the hunted creatures had turned at the last,
to snatch one more moment of life. Many had been dragged from under the
snow and devoured by wolves. The others lay where they had fallen,
showing as mounds through the smooth white mantle that covered them. On
the battle-field itself the slain lay thick, scalped, and stripped of
all their clothing which the conquerors deemed worth taking. The bodies,
blackened by frost and exposure, could not be identified; and they were
buried in a shallow trench in the frozen ground. The volunteers then
marched home.

News of the Disaster is Sent to Washington.

When the remnant of the defeated army reached the banks of the Ohio, St.
Clair sent his aide, Denny, to carry the news to Philadelphia, at that
time the national capital. The river was swollen, there were incessant
snowstorms, and ice formed heavily, so that it took twenty days of toil
and cold before Denny reached Wheeling and got horses. For ten days more
he rode over the bad winter roads, reaching Philadelphia with the evil
tidings on the evening of December 19th. It was thus six weeks after the
defeat of the army before the news was brought to the anxious Federal
authorities.

The young officer called first on the Secretary of War; but as soon as
th