ing represented the triumph of the principle of
collective national action over the spirit of intense individualism
displayed so commonly on the frontier. The uncontrolled initiative of
the individual, which was the chief force in the settlement of the
Southwest, was given comparatively little play in the settlement of the
Northwest. The Northwest owed its existence to the action of the nation
as a whole.

CHAPTER VII.

The War in the Northwest. 1787-1790

The Federal troops were camped in the Federal territory north of the
Ohio. They garrisoned the forts and patrolled between the little
log-towns. They were commanded by the Federal General Harmar, and the
territory was ruled by the Federal Governor St. Clair. Thenceforth the
national authorities and the regular troops played the chief parts in
the struggle for the Northwest. The frontier militia became a mere
adjunct--often necessary, but always untrustworthy--of the regular
forces.

The Regular Army in the Northwest.

For some time the regulars fared ill in the warfare with the savages;
and a succession of mortifying failures closed with a defeat more
ruinous than any which had been experienced since the days of the
"iron-tempered general the pipe-clay brain,"--for the disaster which
befell St. Clair was as overwhelming as that wherein Braddock met his
death. The continued checks excited the anger of the Eastern people, and
the dismay and derision of the Westerners. They were keenly felt by the
officers of the army; and they furnished an excuse for those who wished
to jeer at regular troops, and exalt the militia. Jefferson, who never
understood anything about warfare, being a timid man, and who belonged
to the visionary school which always denounced the army and navy, was
given a legitimate excuse to criticise the tactics of the regulars;
[Footnote: Draper MSS., G. R. Clark Papers. Jefferson to Innes, March 7,
1791.] and of course he never sought occasion to comment on the even
worse failings of the militia.

Shortcomings of the Regulars.

The truth was that the American military authorities fell into much the
same series of errors as their predecessors, the British, untaught by
the dreary and mortifying experience of the latter in fighting these
forest foes. The War Department at Washington, and the Federal generals
who first came to the Northwest, did not seem able to realize the
formidable character of the Indian armies, and were certainly u