llages on the northern border between Ohio and Indiana
formed the base for the many war parties.

So in 1790, President George Washington and Congress ordered General
Arthur Saint Clair, the governor of this Northwest Territory, to clear
the land for the smoke of the white cabins.

Little progress had been made by the white settlements, across the Ohio
River. There were only two of any note: Marietta, named for the French
queen Marie Antoinette; and the newer Cincinnati, christened in 1790 by
Governor Saint Clair himself. There were several smaller ones,
struggling to live.

The governor called for regulars and militia. General Josiah Harmar,
the commander-in-chief of the United States army, was detailed in
charge. On October 3 he started from Fort Washington, at Cincinnati,
with three hundred and twenty regulars of the First Infantry, and
eleven hundred and thirty-three militia of Kentucky and Pennsylvania,
to destroy the towns of Little Turtle the Miami.

Little Turtle of course soon knew all about this. His spies infested
the region. He rallied his bands. The Indians whom he
commanded--Ottawas, Potawatomis, Chippewas, Shawnees, Senecas,
Delawares, Miamis, and so forth--were the same nations that had obeyed
the Bloody Belt of Pontiac. He had able aides, too; the skilled
Buc-kon-ga-he-las of the Delawares, Blue-jacket of the Shawnees, and
others--great fighters, every one.

White men, also, were helping him. There were three, especially: Simon
Girty, Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, who was part Indian. They
were three traitors who had deserted from the American garrison at Fort
Pitt, in 1778, and had spread false reports among White-eyes'
Delawares, and elsewhere.

Serving the enemies of their country, they had continued to live among
the Shawnees and Wyandots, and in their savagery were worse than the
Indians. Their names are red on the pages of history.

In Chief Little Turtle's main village, sometimes called "Girty's Town,"
located a few miles southeast of present Fort Wayne, Indiana, there was
another white man--a young man. His name had been William Wells, but
now was Black Snake. The Indians had captured him when a little boy in
Kentucky; he had grown up with the Miamis, had married Chief Little
Turtle's sister, and was rated as a Miami warrior. But his heart was
not bad.

General Josiah Harmar, commander-in-chief of the United States army,
was a year younger than Chief Little Turtle