troops, in a limited number of months or years,
so as to enable them to meet their forest foes on equal terms. The
discipline to which they were accustomed was admirably fitted for
warfare in the open; but it was not suited for warfare in the woods.
They had to learn even the use of their fire-arms with painful labor. It
was merely hopeless to try to teach them to fight Indian fashion, all
scattering out for themselves, and each taking a tree trunk, and trying
to slay an individual enemy. They were too clumsy; they utterly lacked
the wild-creature qualities proper to the men of the wilderness, the men
who inherited wolf-cunning and panther-stealth from countless
generations, who bought bare life itself only at the price of
never-ceasing watchfulness, craft, and ferocity.

The Regulars Superior to the Militia.

The regulars were certainly not ideal troops with which to oppose such
foes; but they were the best attainable at that time. They possessed
traits which were lacking in even the best of the frontier militia; and
most of the militia fell far short of the best. When properly trained
the regulars could be trusted to persevere through a campaign; whereas
the militia were sure to disband if kept out for any length of time.
Moreover, a regular army formed a weapon with a temper tried and known;
whereas a militia force was the most brittle of swords which might give
one true stroke, or might fly into splinters at the first slight blow.
Regulars were the only troops who could be trusted to wear out their
foes in a succession of weary and hard-fought campaigns.

The best backwoods fighters, however, such men as Kenton and Brady had
in their scout companies, were much superior to the regulars, and were
able to meet the Indians on at least equal terms. But there were only a
very few such men; and they were too impatient of discipline to be
embodied in an army. The bulk of the frontier militia consisted of men
who were better riflemen than the regulars and often physically abler,
but who were otherwise in every military sense inferior, possessing
their defects, sometimes in an accentuated form, and not possessing
their compensating virtues. Like the regulars, these militia fought the
Indians at a terrible disadvantage. A defeat for either meant murderous
slaughter; for whereas the trained Indian fighters fought or fled each
for himself, the ordinary troops huddled together in a mass, an easy
mark for their savage foes.