irst place, a great many of the people of the eastern
seaboard regarded the Kentuckians and all ultra-montane dwellers with
positive distrust. This feeling crept into the counsels of the
government itself. On June 15th, 1789, in a report of Henry Knox,
secretary of war, to President Washington, on the Wabash Indians, the
secretary says that since the conclusion of the war with Great Britain,
"hostilities have almost constantly existed between the people of
Kentucky and the said Indians. The injuries and murders have been so
reciprocal, that it would be a point of critical investigation to know
on which side they have been the greatest." It was probably just such
sentiments as these that led to the orders of July, 1789, withdrawing
the Virginia scouts and rangers who had helped to protect the frontiers,
thus leaving the western people entirely dependent upon the limited
garrisons stationed at the few and widely separated frontier posts. In
the second place, the government neither had the men nor the money at
command wherewith to undertake a successful expedition against the
savages. The number of warriors on the Wabash and its communications
were placed by Secretary Knox at from fifteen hundred to two thousand.
This was probably an over-estimate, but the Indians were formidable. The
regular troops stationed at the frontier posts were less than six
hundred. To organize and equip an army sufficient to extirpate the
Indians and destroy their towns, would require the raising of nineteen
hundred additional men, and an expenditure of two hundred thousand
dollars. This was a sum of money, says the secretary, "far exceeding the
ability of the United States to advance, consistently with a due regard
to other indispensable objects." In the third place, the government
vainly imagined that it was possible to effect a peace with the Wabash
tribes. The views of Secretary of War Knox were very emphatic on this
subject. "It would be found, on examination, that both policy and
justice unite in dictating the attempt of treaty with the Wabash
Indians; for it would be unjust, in the present confused state of
injuries, to make war on those tribes without having previously invited
them to a treaty, in order amicably to adjust all differences." With
these views, Washington himself concurred, observing, "that a war with
the Wabash Indians ought to be avoided by all means consistently with
the security of the frontier inhabitants, the security of