, commander-in-chief of the
Indian army. They both were veterans of the Revolution, had good
fighters under them, and might be thought well matched. But the
general got threshed.

Little Turtle waited for him to come on, and plagued his march with
parties of scouts who in the swamps and thickets cut off his foraging
squads.

The general had tough going, for two weeks. When on October 17 he
arrived at Girty's Town, he found it abandoned and burning, to deprive
him of more supplies.

Then General Harmar made his first mistake. He detached thirty of the
First Infantry regulars, under Captain John Armstrong, and one hundred
and fifty of the militia, under Colonel John Hardin of Kentucky, to
follow the retreating Indians and perhaps destroy the next village.

He played into the hands of Little Turtle, who had over a thousand
warriors. Colonel Hardin and Captain Armstrong had marched scarcely
six miles, when in an open place they were completely ambushed. A
swarm of Indians suddenly poured in a heavy fire from the brush on all
sides; rose, and charged with tomahawk and knife.

This was too much for the militia, who were poorly drilled. Away they
pelted, trying to reach the main army. But the well-drilled regulars
stood stanch, and met the tomahawk with the bayonet, in the hope of
forcing a passage.

The Little Turtle warriors cared nothing about the militia, and let
them go. The few regulars did not last long. Every soldier except two
officers and two privates was killed.

Of these two officers, in the break-up Ensign Asa Hartshorne of
Connecticut fortunately stumbled over a log and lay concealed until he
might escape.

Captain Armstrong crouched to his neck in a swampy pond, and stayed
there all night, while only two hundred yards from him the enemy held a
war-dance over the bodies of the slain. They had whipped the trained
soldiery, who had fought bravely.

The next day, with all his army General Harmar advanced upon the Miami
towns. Little Turtle had ordered them burned. The general destroyed
the corn-fields and the fruit-trees; and seeing no Indians to fight,
turned back for Fort Washington.

He had gone about ten miles, when scouts brought word that the Indians
were gathering in their towns again. The general made a second
mistake. Colonel Hardin, stung by the way in which his militia had
acted, begged for another chance. Instead of going, himself, General
Harmar again detached some of the m