where General Wayne two years later built one of his forts, and called
it Recovery, they surprised St. Clair's troops.

[Illustration: The defeat of St. Clair 107]

It was an easy slaughter. St. Clair was suffering so much with gout that
he could not move from his horse when he was helped to the saddle, and
was wholly unfit to fight. Yet he went undauntedly through the battle;
horse after horse was shot under him, and his clothes were pierced with
nine of the bullets which the Indians rained upon his men from every
tree of the forest. The backwoodsmen had hardly a chance to practice the
Indians' arts against them before the rout began. The cannon which St.
Clair had brought into the wilderness with immense waste of time and
toil, proved useless under the fire that galled the artillerymen. The
weak, undisciplined, and bewildered army was hemmed in on every side,
and the men were shot down as they huddled together or tried to straggle
away, till half their number was left upon the field. Of course none of
the wounded were spared. The Americans were tomahawked and scalped where
they fell; one of the savages told afterwards that he plied his hatchet
until he could hardly lift his arm. All the Ohio tribes shared in the
glory of this greatest victory of their race,--Delawares, Shawnees,
Wyandots, Ottawas, Chippeways, and Pottawottomies. There had been plenty
of game that year; they were all in the vigor and force which St.
Clair's ill-fated army lacked; and they lustily took their fill of
slaughter.

Many stories of the battle were told by those who escaped. Major Jacob
Fowler, of Kentucky, an old hunter, who went with the army as surveyor,
carried his trusty rifle, but he had run short of bullets, the morning
of the fight, which began at daybreak. He was going for a ladle to melt
more lead, when he met a Kentucky rifleman driven in by the savages, and
begged some balls of him. The man had been shot through the wrist, and
he told Fowler to help himself from his pouch. Fowler was pouring out
a double handful, when the man said, "Stop; you had better count them."
Fowler could not help laughing, though it was hardly the time for
gayety. "If we get through this scrape, my dear fellow," said he, "I
will return you twice as many." But they never met again, and Fowler
could only suppose that his cautious friend was soon tomahawked and
scalped with the other wounded. Fowler took to a tree, and shot Indians
till his gunlock got out