g charge. This would make the destruction of the regulars
comparatively easy and lead to the demoralization of the whole
detachment. A plan so well designed as this, and so skillfully executed,
is not formed on the instant. Besides, it is not probable that the
Little Turtle remained out of touch with the American army while it was
in the immediate vicinity of the Indian towns.

On November sixth, Governor St. Clair wrote to the secretary of war that
the savages had received "a most terrible stroke." It is true that they
had suffered a considerable damage in the burning of their cabins and
the destruction of their corn, but the total loss of warriors was only
about fifteen or twenty. The American army, on the other hand, had lost
one hundred and eighty-three in killed, and thirty-one wounded. Among
the slain were Major Wyllys and Lieutenant Ebenezer Frothingham, of the
regular troops, and Major Fontaine, Captains Thorp, McMurtrey and Scott,
Lieutenants Clark and Rogers, and Ensigns Bridges, Sweet, Higgins and
Thielkeld, of the militia.

"The outcome of the campaign," says B. J. Griswold, the Fort Wayne
historian, "considered from the most favorable angle, gave naught to the
American government to increase its hopes of the pacification of the
west." On the other hand, the savages, their spirit of revenge aroused
to the white heat of the fiercest hatred, assembled at the site of
their ruined villages, and there, led to renewed defiance of the
Americans through the fiery speech of Simon Girty, set about the work of
preparation to meet the next American force which might be sent against
them. In a body, these savages, led by Little Turtle, LeGris and Blue
Jacket, proceeded to Detroit, where they "paraded the streets, uttering
their demoniac scalp yelps while bearing long poles strung with the
scalps of many American soldiers."

Governor St. Clair expressed regret that a post had not been
established; it would be the surest means of obliging the Indians to be
at peace with the United States. On December second, 1790, Major John
Hamtramck, writing from Vincennes, gave it as his opinion that "nothing
can establish peace with the Indians as long as the British keep
possession of the upper posts, for they are daily sowing the seed of
discord betwixt the measures of our government and the Indians." He
further summed up the situation as follows: "The Indians never can be
subdued by just going to their towns and burning their hous