s and was forced
to return to Kentucky. On the fourth of June, he released sixteen of the
weakest and most infirm of his prisoners and gave them a written address
of peace to the Wabash tribes. It was written in a firm, manly tone, but
without grandiloquence. He now destroyed the villages at Ouiatenon, the
growing corn and pulse, and on the same day of the fourth, set out for
Kentucky. The grand old man, who was to fight with Wayne at Fallen
Timbers, had done well. Without the loss of a single man, and having
only five wounded, he had killed thirty-two warriors "of size and
figure," and taken fifty-eight prisoners. He took a receipt from Captain
Joseph Asheton of the First United States Regiment at Fort Steuben, for
forty-one prisoners.

On the twenty-fifth of June, governor St. Clair wrote to the Kentucky
Board of War to send a second expedition against the Wabash towns. On
the fifth day of July the Board appointed James Wilkinson as the
commander. The troops were ordered to rendezvous at Fort Washington, by
the twentieth of July, "well mounted on horseback, well armed, and
provided with thirty days' provisions." In certain instructions from
Governor St. Clair to General Wilkinson, of date July thirty-first,
Wilkinson's attention is called to a Kickapoo town "in the prairie,
northward and westward of L'Anguille," about sixty miles. This town will
be mentioned later. Wilkinson was directed also to restrain his command
from "scalping the dead." With a Kentuckian, the only good Indian was a
dead one.

On the first day of August, Wilkinson rode out of Cincinnati with five
hundred and twenty-five men. His destined point of attack was the Eel
river towns, about six miles above the present city of Logansport. The
country he had to pass through was mostly unknown, full of quagmires and
marshes, and extremely hard on his horses. He made a feint for the Miami
village at Kekionga, but on the morning of the fourth, he turned
directly northwest and headed for Kenapacomaqua, or L'Anguille, as the
Eel river towns were known. After some brief skirmishes, with small
parties of warriors and much plunging and sinking in the bogs, he
crossed the Wabash about four and one half miles above the mouth of the
Eel river, and striking an Indian path, was soon in front of the Indian
towns. He now dismounted and planned an attack. The second battalion was
to cross the river, detour, and come in on the rear of the villages.
The first battalion wa