Ohio History Journal

THE HARMAR EXPEDITION            OF 1790*

 

By RANDOLPH G. ADAMS

 

At the last meeting of the American Historical Association

(December, 1939) the chief of the General Staff of the United

States Army made some very critical remarks about the teaching

of military history in the United States. He expressed the wish

that teachers would tell and that text-books would relate the un-

complimentary and unvarnished truth about the ineptitude with

which the United States has conducted its wars.

The Maumee Valley, as we all know, was for centuries a

highway for traffic between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi

River. As such, France, Britain and the United States struggled

for it, among themselves, and with the Indians. When the valley

came under the jurisdiction of the United States, through the

Treaty of Peace of 1782-3, the Indians still held most of the

lands in the old Northwest Territory. By continued, and illegal

occupation of certain western posts, such as Detroit, the British

agents encouraged the Indians to resist the extension of the

power of the United States into the Maumee Valley. Three suc-

cessive efforts had to be made before the Indian power was

broken.

The first of these was the expedition of an army under

General Josiah Harmar, in the year 1790. At the Clements Li-

brary, University of Michigan, there are several thousand manu-

scripts which constitute the personal and military papers of Gen-

eral Harmar. They were acquired some years ago from a de-

scendant of General Hamar. In these we may trace, step by

step, the career of that officer, during his service in the American

Revolution, his trip abroad to carry back to Paris the final rati-

fication of the Treaty of Peace which ended that war, his ap-

pointment to service on the western frontier, first at Fort McIn-

tosh (Pennsylvania), then at Fort Harmar (Marietta, Ohio) and

 

* Summary.

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MAUMEE VALLEY HISTORICAL PROCEEDINGS         61

 

finally at Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio). It was from this

last named post that, in the year 1790, he led his expedition of

about 1400 soldiers into the Maumee country. Among his papers

we find the various instructions from the then seat of govern-

ment of the United States, in Philadelphia, mostly by Secretary

of War Henry Knox, in which Harmar is directed to conduct

the campaign. We also find his own records and reports of the

campaign, and the documents which were produced at and in

connection with the military court which enquired into the con-

duct of the campaign of 1790. When a general is not wholly

successful, or when he is defeated, he is apt to leave behind

much more complete documentary records than if he had been

completely victorious. He needs to work up, and to preserve, such

documents in his own defense.

The expedition which Harmar gathered at Cincinnati in

September of 1790 consisted of only 300 regular United States

army troops and about 1100 militia from Pennsylvania, Ohio and

Kentucky. The troops were ill-equipped, ill-disciplined and with-

out a proper equipment of staff officers. Harmar had trouble

with the militia from the outset, as there were quarrels between

the state militia leaders as to precedence. He got his expedition

started rather too late in the season, but managed to attain his

objective, which was the series of Indian villages at the con-

fluence of the St. Mary's and the St. Joseph's where they meet

to make the Maumee. This is the site of the modern city of

Fort Wayne. He found the Indian settlements deserted. By this

time, all kinds of ills had developed in the army, mostly the result

of the inadequate military preparations indicated above. This

group of Indian villages were for a few days, the headquarters

of Harmar's force. From this point he sent out one detachment

of several hundred troops, who promptly walked into an Indian

ambush and were cut to pieces. However, since he had attained

his objective, he decided to withdraw to Fort Washington. But

hardly a day's march south of the Miami villages he sent back

another detachment to defeat any Indians which might have

returned to reoccupy the ruined villages on the Maumee. This

detachment was also badly defeated. He then resumed his march

and got back to Cincinnati.

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62     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Besides ruining the Indian supplies, and burning their flimsy

huts, the expedition accomplished practically nothing. The con-

duct of the army was so severely criticized that a military court

was held and the whole matter investigated. What was divulged

may be seen in the Harmar papers. It was a typical American

military effort, ill-conceived, ill-conducted, with troops which

were ill-disciplined, and with supply services utterly inadequate.

In theory, I suppose, we are supposed to be celebrating the

150th anniversary of General Harmar's expedition which "cap-

tured" "Fort Wayne" for the Americans. As a matter of fact it

is one of the best possible illustrations of General Marshall's

point that American military history from the popular standpoint,

has not been well written or well taught.

We have a notion that the United States has been engaged

in a number of wars, all of which it has won. While this seems

to be the net result, the cost at which we have won them, and

the mistakes we have made are well worth study, and the Harmar

papers provide really excellent clinical material on which one

story at least can be worked out. For a hundred years after

our independence, most of our popular military history was a

glorification of our victories. With the coming of the "economic

historians" in the twentieth century, less and less emphasis was

laid on military history. More recently, we have moved into

a period of so-called "social history."

A collection such as General Harmar's papers provides an

opportunity for the study of a military episode. There are his-

torians who believe that the reaction to the old martial and heroic

history has gone too far. At this time we are, as a nation, con-

fronted by a great international crisis, the nature of which we are

utterly unprepared for, and which we don't even seem to under-

stand. Two immense oceans still give us a brief respite in which

we may learn. But if we continue to prattle about "economic his-

tory" without realizing that war makes and unmakes economic

forces, if we continue to prate about "social history" without

knowing that war is the most appalling social phenomenon which

society has produced, then all our collecting of historical data will

not do much good.

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