es not promise a peaceable issue. The confidence
they have in their situation, the vicinity of many other nations not
very well disposed, and the pernicious counsels of the English traders,
joined to the immense booty obtained by the depredations upon the
Ohio, will most probably prevent them from listening to any reasonable
terms of accommodation, so that it is to be feared the United States
must prepare effectually to chastise them." Shortly afterwards, St.
Clair hastened to Fort Washington at Cincinnati, and there held a
military conference with General Josiah Harmar. Being empowered to call
upon Virginia, then including Kentucky, for one thousand militia, and
upon the State of Pennsylvania for five hundred more, it was resolved to
concentrate three hundred of the Kentucky troops at Fort Steuben
(Clarksville), to march from that place to Post Vincennes. From thence
an expedition under Major John F. Hamtramck was to be directed against
the villages on the lower Wabash, so as to prevent them from aiding the
Miamis higher up. The remaining twelve hundred militiamen were to join
the regulars at Fort Washington and strike directly across the country
to the principal Miami village at Kekionga. No permanent military post
was to be established, however, at the forks of the Maumee. Secretary of
War Knox was fearful of results. While admitting that the Miami village
presented itself "as superior to any other position," for the purpose of
fixing a garrison to overawe the Indians at the west end of Lake Erie,
on the Wabash and the Illinois, still, he was apprehensive that the
establishment of a post at this place would be so opposed to the
inclinations of the Indians generally as to bring on a war of some
duration, and at the same time render the British garrisons "so uneasy
with such a force impending over them, as not only to occasion a
considerable reinforcement of their upper posts, but to occasion their
fomenting, secretly, at least, the opposition of the Indians." How any
official of the government with the report of Antoine Gamelin in his
hands, could hope to soften the animosity of the tribes by the taking of
half measures, or to propitiate the British by a display of timidity, is
hard to conceive. Four months later the hesitating secretary changed his
course.

The army with which General Harmar marched out of Fort Washington in the
latter days of September, 1790, to strike the Indian towns, was a motley
array. Pennsylva