being a sufficiency of the enemy for the
Legion to play on," wrote Clark. The entire action lasted under forty
minutes. [Footnote: Bradley MSS., entry in the journal for August 20th.]
Less than a thousand of the Americans were actually engaged. They
pursued the beaten and fleeing Indians for two miles, the cavalry
halting only when under the walls of the British fort.

A Complete and Easy Victory.

Thirty-three of the Americans were killed and one hundred wounded.
[Footnote: Wayne's report; of the wounded 11 afterwards died. He gives
an itemized statement. Clark in his letter makes the dead 34 (including
8 militia instead of 7) and the wounded only 70. Wayne reports the
Indian loss as twice as great as that of the whites; and says the woods
were strewn with their dead bodies and those of their white auxiliaries.
Clark says 100 Indians were killed. The Englishman, Thomas Duggan,
writing from Detroit to Joseph Chew, Secretary of the Indian Office,
says officially that "great numbers" of the Indians were slain. The
journal of Wayne's campaign says 40 dead were left on the field, and
that there was considerable additional, but unascertained, loss in the
rapid two miles pursuit. The member of Caldwell's company who was
captured was a French Canadian; his deposition is given by Wayne. McKee
says the Indians lost but 19 men, and that but 400 were engaged,
specifying the Wyandots and Ottawas as being those who did the fighting
and suffered the loss; and he puts the loss of the Americans, although
he admits that they won, at between 300 and 400. He was furious at the
defeat, and was endeavoring to minimize it in every way. He does not
mention the presence of Caldwell's white company; he makes the mistake
of putting the American cavalry on the wrong wing, in trying to show
that only the Ottawas and Wyandots were engaged; and if his figures, 19
dead, have any value at all, they refer only to those two tribes; above
I have repeatedly shown that he invariably underestimated the Indian
losses, usually giving the losses suffered by the band he was with as
being the entire loss. In this case he speaks of the fighting and loss
as being confined to the Ottawas and Wyandots; but Brickell, who was
with the Delawares, states that "many of the Delawares were killed and
wounded." All the Indians were engaged; and doubtless all the tribes
suffered proportionately; and much more than the Americans. Captain
Daniel Bradley in his above quot