e speeches," said these Potawatomi, "that we received
from him, were as red as blood; all the wampum and feathers were
painted red; the war pipes and hatchets were red; and even the tobacco
was red." The evidence furnished by two Shawnees, captured on the
twenty-second of June, corroborated the Potawatomi. They testified that
the British were always setting the Indians on, like dogs after game,
pressing them to go to war, and kill the Americans, "but did not help
them; that unless the British would turn out and help them, they were
determined to make peace; that they would not be any longer amused by
promises only." Asked about the number of warriors collected along the
Maumee, they put the number of the Shawnees at three hundred eighty, the
Delawares at four hundred and eighty, the Miamis at one hundred, and the
Wyandots at about one hundred and fifty. The Chippewas, however, would
furnish the greatest number of fighting men, and they were on the way to
the council. That the question of whether there would be a fight or not
depended upon the British; "that the British were at the foot of the
rapids, and had fortified at Roche de Bout; that there was a great
number of British soldiers at that place; that they told the Indians
they were now come to help them to fight; and if the Indians would
generally turn out and join them, they would advance and fight the
American army; that Blue Jacket had been sent by the British to the
Chippewas and northern Indians, a considerable time since, to invite
them, and bring them to Roche de Bout, there to join the British and
other hostile Indians in order to go to war."

On the last day of June, 1794, the premeditated blow fell on Fort
Recovery, the scene of St. Clair's disaster in 1791. The garrison was
under the command of Captain Alexander Gibson, of the Fourth Sub-Legion.
Under the walls of the fort were a detachment of ninety riflemen and
fifty dragoons under the command of Major McMahon, who had escorted a
train of packhorses from Fort Greenville on the day before, and who were
now about to return. The Indians were, according to some authorities,
under the command of the Bear chief, an Ottawa; others assign their
leadership to the Little Turtle. That they had planned a coup de main
and a sudden re-capture of the position is certain. Their army consisted
of about fifteen hundred men; they had advanced in seventeen columns,
with a wide and extended front, and their encampments were