Ohio History Journal

JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION*

 

By HOWARD H. PECKHAM

 

When the Revolutionary War ended, the new United States

of America faced a problem that is acutely familiar to us today:

Nobody wanted to remain in the Army or Navy. At the conclu-

sion of the Revolution, there were probably 20,000 to 30,000 men

under arms. The single, unifying aim of the war -- independence

from Great Britain -- appeared to have been won, at least on the

battlefield. Acknowledgement of that independence remained to

be secured by a treaty of peace. The soldier and the sailor believed

that their work was done; and if they had been serving their

country for eight years, ever since the Battle of Lexington, every-

one agreed that they had done their duty. In fact, if they had

joined the armed forces only in time to participate in the final

campaign at Yorktown, everyone agreed that they had done

enough. The "homing instinct" of the American soldier was as

strong then as it is now. None of them liked the military life.

Yet the happy issue of the Revolutionary War did not remove

all danger for the new republic. Great Britain was to exhibit a

disgraceful stubbornness in failing to evacuate the northwest posts

along the line of the Great Lakes. Lecherous, ambitious Spain

was entrenched at New Orleans and up along the west bank of the

Mississippi River and casting covetous eyes at the eastern shore.

The Indian tribes which had been allied with Great Britain did

not forget or forgive their recent enemies, the "long knives," and

regardless of the treaty making in Paris were not going to sur-

render the lands on which they lived and hunted to the hated

Americans. In fact, they denied the right of Britain to give away

their -- the Indians' -- land, since the Indians argued that the

British had only a tenant's rights to the posts they held.

So then as now, the United States stood in dire need of

military protection to prove or make good its dearly bought vic-

tory. And yet its military force was melting away like ice in

 

* Delivered on the Museum Lecture series, sponsored by the Ohio State Archaeologi-

cal and Historical Society, Thursday, April 11, 1946, in the Auditorium of its Museum

and Library Building.

227

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228   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

the spring. An important difference between the situation then

and now was that the Continental Congress, which represented

the federation of states, had no money to support a standing

army. By 1784, the army of the United States was reduced to

one regiment of infantry and one battalion of artillery, and the

western settlements of the country lay exposed and unprotected.

To command this token army, the Continental Congress ap-

pointed a young veteran of the Revolutionary War from Phila-

delphia. His name was Josiah Harmar, and he was, oddly

enough, a Quaker. He was one of the very few officers of the

Revolution who wished to continue his military career. Without

that desire on his part, that satisfaction in serving his country

well in a military office, the new nation would not have enjoyed

the little protection it did receive from the pitiful, though valiant,

army it maintained.

Josiah Harmar was born in Philadelphia in 1753. Genealogi-

cal research has failed to identify his father, but it was learned

that his mother's name was Rachael Harmar. Although this fact

suggests that Josiah may have been an illegitimate child, it is by

no means conclusive evidence. Rachael Harmar may have mar-

ried a cousin by the name of Harmar. Any way, it is known that

Rachael's ancestors were English Quakers who had migrated to

Pennsylvania in 1682.

Rachael Harmar died when her son was less than three

months old, and Josiah was reared by his aunt, who was his

mother's sister, Elizabeth Harmar. There appears to have been

some money in the family, and Josiah attended Robert Proud's

highly respectable Quaker school in Philadelphia. Before he

was twenty-three years old, the American Revolution broke out,

and Josiah, who must have had influence and no Quaker con-

victions against warfare, was appointed a captain in 1775 of the

2nd Pennsylvania regiment. Thus he served his country from

the very beginning of the conflict.

Promotion came rapidly. He was appointed a major in 1776

and a lieutenant-colonel in 1777. At various times he com-

manded the 6th, ₇th, 3rd, and 1st Pennsylvania regiments. He

fought around New York and Philadelphia, and then staved up

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JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION         229

 

on the Hudson with Washington until the descent on Yorktown

in 1781. After Cornwallis' surrender, he was detached under

General Anthony Wayne to join General Nathanael Greene in

the southern theater, where warfare continued.  Greene made

him adjutant general of the Southern Army in 1782.

During the war, Harmar came to Washington's notice and

also became acquainted with several members of Congress. He

seems to have had some of Washington's ability to get along with

people and not to arouse the antagonism of the jealous politicians

in the Continental Congress.  As a result of the respect he

aroused and his desire to remain in military service, he was

singled out for a particular duty of high honor. The long, drawn

out peace negotiations in Paris had at last produced an acceptable

treaty in 1783. After the American commissioners had signed it,

it became necessary for the Congress to ratify it and put it into

effect. A ratified copy of the treaty was then to be exchanged

with Great Britain. The official copy for the British archives

had to be taken to Paris and delivered over to the British com-

missioners.  Congress selected Josiah Harmar, who had just

passed his thirtieth birthday, to be the courier.

Harmar went up to New York in January, 1784, where he

was forced to wait a month for ice to clear out of the harbor.

He then embarked for the port of L'Orient in France. As a

Quaker boy in France, he found much to occupy his time. He

attended the theater in L'Orient the first night of his arrival,

despite the fact that he did not know the language and conse-

quently, as he remarked in his diary, "understood very little of

it."

He traveled by carriage to Paris, and special attention was

shown this military officer from the United States on a diplomatic

mission all along the route. Harmar arrived in Paris on March

29 and delivered his dispatches and the ratified Treaty of Peace

to our commissioner, Benjamin Franklin. Of course, he dined

with Franklin and went to the theater several times.

He also called on his old companion in arms, the Marquis de

Lafayette, "who ruined me with the greatest affection and polite-

ness imaginable." He visited the zoo and saw many animals from

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Africa and India which he had never seen before. He did all

the things that modern tourists do in Paris: visited the Louvre,

the Luxembourg Gardens, Notre Dame cathedral, and even went

out to Longchamp to the races. He also paid his respects at the

Ecole Militaire and the Sorbonne University.  Lafayette ar-

ranged for him to be presented at Court and meet Louis XVI,

the king who was in a few short years to fall before a revolution

inspired in part by the success of the American rebels. Lastly,

Harmar dined with the Comte de Vergennes, the French foreign

minister who had directed the French aid extended to the United

States. For a Quaker boy in a strange capital, Harmar certainly

got around.

On April 19, 1784, he left Paris by coach for Calais and

crossed the channel to London, on a secret mission for Franklin.

He visited all the usual places of interest and attended the theater

almost every night. He records seeing the renowned Sarah Sid-

dons in Tancred and Sigismunda. In fact he went to see her

twice in Douglas and once in Isabella. From London Harmar

returned to Paris, and at length on June 18 set out for the port

of L'Orient. He sailed for America in company with Lafayette,

who was, Harmar reported, "intolerably and constantly sick."

On his return to Philadelphia, Harmar found himself al-

most at once appointed colonel-commandant of the United States

Army, which had been assigned to guard the northwest frontier.

Given a few weeks' grace, Harmar improved his time by renew-

ing his attentions to a Philadelphia girl whom he had known for

more than a year. She figures occasionally in his diary as the

"divine Miss Sarah" or "my dear Sally." The entry in his diary

for October 10, 1784, notes: "Sunday -- very fine weather.

Hymen. My dear S. J." This cryptic reference to the god of

marriage meant that on that day Josiah Harmar was married to

Miss Sarah Jenkins. Like the pioneer women who came after

her, she followed her husband into the wilderness without com-

plaint.

Col. Harmar and his troops were ordered first to Fort Mc-

Intosh at the present site of Beaver, Pennsylvania, northwest of

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JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION        231

 

Pittsburgh, where a great Indian conference was held for the

purpose of treaty making.

I have already mentioned that the Indians did not recognize

the right of the British to cede their lands in the Ohio Valley to

the Americans. The Indian claim was complicated further by the

fact that the Ohio Valley was claimed by both the tribes who

lived there and the Iroquois in New York state. Joseph Brant,

a Mohawk of considerable education, was trying to unite the

Indians behind him in order to demand that the land between the

Great Lakes and the Ohio River be retained by and for the

Indians.  The Continental Congress refused to recognize the

confederation he was forming or himself as its spokesman.

Shrewdly they dealt with the tribes separately. A treaty was

made with the Iroquois in 1784 by which they gave up their

claim to the Ohio Valley in return for a secure title to the land

they occupied in New York state. Now the Congress invited the

western tribes to Fort McIntosh in order to purchase title to the

same region from  them.   Representatives of the Delawares,

Hurons, Ottawas, and Chippewas turned up, and the United

States commissioners obtained title to much of what is now the

State of Ohio. The treaty was signed in January, 1785. Harmar's

little force was sent along to protect the commissioners and to

show the Indians that the Americans still had an army. After

this initial duty, Harmar moved his headquarters down to Fort

Pitt.

From there he sent one company northward to establish

Fort Franklin at what is now Franklin, Pennsylvania. Two

more companies went down the Ohio River to establish Fort

Steuben at Steubenville and Fort Harmar at Marietta. These

two forts were used as bases from which to offer protection to

the United States surveyors under Thomas Hutchins who were

beginning to lay out the townships with which we are so familiar

today.  Before the Northwest Territory could be opened for

settlement it had to be surveyed in order that claims and pur-

chases could be described and recorded.

The importance of this survey demands further comment.

Ohio was the laboratory state in this work. After much experi-

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232   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

menting the township of six miles square, divided into 36 sections,

was determined to be the best means of measurement. Seven

ranges of townships were surveyed and marked by Hutchins with

Harmar's protection. When the settlers began to pour in, it was

possible to designate clearly their claims and purchases and to

give them clear titles--although there was a little confusion and

skullduggery. On the basis of the pioneer work done in eastern

Ohio, the surveys of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and other states

proceeded without a hitch. How many millions of dollars were

saved the early settlers by being kept out of the pockets of law-

yers in land suits, we can only guess. Kentucky furnishes an

example of the expensive confusion rising from unsurveyed,

squatter settlement.

Besides protecting the surveying parties, Harmar's main

duties were to see that the Indians observed their treaty obli-

gations and did not molest white traders and settlers, to evict

white settlers from lands rightfully claimed by the Indians, and

to be ready to take over the posts still held by the British in

defiance of the cession made in the peace Treaty of 1783.

The Canadians were no happier about the northern boundary

of the United States than the Indians were. The area between

Lake Superior and the Ohio River was a rich fur region which

Canadian traders were exploiting. Moreover, if the Indian tribes

withdrew from this area, they might very well demand large

tracts of land in Canada as compensation for the loss they had

suffered.  Governor Haldimand and Governor Carleton both

decided to hold the Lakes region as long as possible. They re-

fused to evacuate the posts of Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, and

Mackinac on the technical grounds that they had received no

direct orders from London to do so.

The Continental Congress thereupon demanded that London

send orders for the evacuation of the posts. The British disliked

to antagonize the Canadians or their recent Indian allies, and

they benefitted from the fur monopoly in the Northwest. They

found a loophole in the Treaty of 1783. The American peace

commissioners had agreed to recommend to the several states that

the Loyalists, whose property had been confiscated during the

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JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION        233

 

war, be compensated for it. The recommendation had been made,

but the Congress was powerless to force the states to make such

restitution if they didn't want to--and none of them did. Britain

blamed the United States for evading a clause of the treaty and

said she would hang on to the northwest posts until the Loyalists

were compensated. It was apparent that the United States could

make good its claim to the area only by settling it under armed

protection and eventually pushing the British out. One of Col-

onel Harmar's ticklish jobs was to keep his army moving just

ahead of the settlers, until the British gave away or attacked.

Settlers did not need to be urged into the rich new territory.

They clamored to go west. The Ohio River was a broad highway

that permitted entry for everybody into the fertile valley, unimag-

inably rich in good soil, pleasant climate, water power, great

forests, wild fruits and game and fish. We can hardly picture

the new life that opened up before the western pioneer. Great

land companies were formed to buy huge tracts of land from

Congress and resell it to individuals. It is not my purpose to

discuss the organization of the Ohio Company and the Scioto

Company and their encouragement of westward migration, ex-

cept to point out that their promotional efforts made Congress

realize that some form of government must be set up in this

territory. On July 13, 1787, the famous Northwest Ordinance

was passed for the government of this region. General Arthur

St. Clair, a Revolutionary War officer and a former president of

the Continental Congress, was appointed civil governor of the

territory. He was an old friend of Harmar's.

We left Harmar at Fort Pitt, but late in 1786 he moved

down the river with 600 of the 670 men composing the United

States Army and established his headquarters at Fort Harmar.

From the fort, Harmar dispatched Captain Walter Finney to

establish Fort Finney in 1786 at modern Jeffersonville, Indiana.

This fort, at the rapids of the Ohio, was to protect the Kentucky

settlements and Clark's Grant from Indian raids. In 1787 Har-

mar marched to Vincennes and established Major Hamtramck

there in command. A new fort, called Fort Knox, was built

in the settlement. Harmar was back at his headquarters again

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234   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

to welcome the first colony of settlers brought by Rufus Putnam,

which landed on April 8, 1788. The newcomers established

themselves across the Muskingum from the fort and named the

town Marietta in honor of Queen Marie Antoinette of France.

The establishment and garrisoning of these western forts--

three in Pennsylvania, two in Ohio, and two in Indiana--had the

effect of stringing out Harmar's meager force in a thin line.

Communication and the forwarding of supplies were difficult,

and almost impossible in bad weather. Harmar was plagued with

all the old troubles familiar to generals in the Revolution and

some new ones. He had difficulties with army contractors who

failed to deliver food and clothing supplies to his troops on time,

or who furnished damaged goods. He had to deal with lawless

settlers who sold liquor to the Indians and otherwise incited

them to acts of depredation. He was continually put off by the

government in his efforts to obtain proper clothing for his troops

and to get them paid. He was constantly in need of new recruits

to fill up the companies. He was in continuous correspondence

with Secretary of War Henry Knox. Doubtless many of his

soldiers blamed him for their condition, and certainly some of

the settlers resented the presence of authority and power.

But the government existing under the loose Articles of

Confederation was coming to its unlamented end. In 1788 a

new Constitution was adopted, and the next year George Wash-

ington was inaugurated as our first President. Harmar's work

was rewarded by a new commission as brigadier-general, the first

commander, again, of the first United States Army under the

Constitution.

But as things looked better behind him, the Indians grew

more menacing in front of him. They were not living up to

their treaty obligations, once the full meaning of surrendering

title to certain areas came home to them. They found that the

lands they had ceded away for temporary gifts were being taken

up by settlers who resented having the Indians set foot on their

farms, and who by their very presence were driving wild game

out of the region. The Indians were forced to hunt far and wide

from the reservations left to them.

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JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION         235

 

Then they were cheated by the traders who bought their

furs, and out of fear they were given as little shot and powder

as possible. It is certainly true that the Americans were not

interested in making living conditions easy or even tolerable for

the savages. The red men were frankly a nuisance and a danger,

to be pushed out of the way by treaty, by purchase, by cheating,

by threats, and by ill-treatment. Our record of observing our

treaty commitments with the Indians is a black one. The rush

of westward migration was such that always the Federal Govern-

ment asked for more land and more land. We paid for it, yes,

under a forced sale; but the money and goods we gave in pay-

ment did not last long in Indian hands, and the dispossessed

savages resented their bargains.

White families who pushed a few miles northward of the

Ohio River found themselves subject to attack by wandering

bands of Indians. Behind the unrest of the Indians was the dark

hand of the British at Detroit, who were anxious to promote

border warfare to keep back the growing tide of American mi-

gration and settlement. The nearer the Americans came the more

pressing would grow the demands for settlement of the Canadian

boundary dispute and evacuation of the illegally held posts. It

was an old game Britain was playing--and it is still being played

today--of stirring up native peoples against the extension of

rule by a rival power.

White settlers had moved westward down the Ohio from

Marietta on to the land of the Miami purchase in the fall of

1789. To protect them another fort became necessary, and Fort

Washington was erected on the site of modern Cincinnati. Gen-

eral Harmar moved his headquarters there in December, 1789.

At the same time Indian raiders grew bolder. By the spring of

1790 it became evident to the Federal Government, as it was to

Governor St. Clair and General Harmar, that a military expedi-

tion to chastise the Indians was necessary. The regular army

was too small to undertake it alone, of course, so a call was issued

for militia in Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

The volunteers came into Fort Washington all during the

summer. They were not the sharpshooting frontiersmen of the

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236   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Daniel Boone type. They were boys, old men, drunkards, minor

fugitives from justice, men without jobs or money, and the like

--all the undesirable, restless, and unsuccessful element that is

churned out of an established society and thrown to the frontiers.

The motley rabble alarmed General Harmar because he had al-

most no time to train them. They numbered 1133, of which

Harmar said "at least 200 are good for nothing." He added

320 regulars to the militia which made a total force of 1453

men.

The expedition left Fort Washington on September 30. Its

objective was the Miami Indian towns under Chief Little Turtle,

located on the portage between the Maumee and the Little

Wabash, the present site of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Since the

highways of the wilderness were the waterways, Harmar could

not proceed directly to the spot. He was going on foot, but had

to follow the rivers. The expedition started up the west bank

of the Little Miami, paralleling highway 42 to Xenia. Then it

swung northwestward to Piqua and Fort Loramie, and northward

to Girty's Town, or modern St. Marys. Then it followed down

the St. Mary's River on the north side, paralleling present-day

highway 33.

The remarkable part of this wilderness march, which took

18 days, was that during that time Harmar saw almost no

Indians. They vanished before him and he met no opposition.

On reaching the Miami villages, he found them deserted. Fore-

warned, the Indians had withdrawn rather than face this army.

Harmar destroyed about 300 log cabins and wigwams and 20,000

bushels of corn in the village area.

After this destructive work was done, Harmar was still dis-

appointed at finding no enemy to fight. He started back toward

Fort Washington, then detached 210 men under Colonel Hardin,

the militia commander, to comb the Miami towns in the hope of

encountering some Indians who might have returned to the site

of their homes. In this hope the detachment was not disap-

pointed; it was in fact attacked by surprise, and the militia fled

disgracefully, while the regulars stood their ground and 23 were

killed. Colonel Hardin returned to General Harmar's camp and

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JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION         237

made his sad report. He was greatly disappointed in the show-

ing the militia had made, and asked permission to avenge his

defeat. Two days later, Harmar allowed him to take a detach-

ment of 320 men to go back and stir up another fight. The

same pattern was repeated. The Indians overwhelmed the detach-

ment, again the militia wilted, and this time 180 men were killed

and wounded. Probably 100 to 120 Indians were killed.

After this second beating and having suffered over 15%

casualties in his total force, Harmar marched straight back to

Fort Washington over the route he had come. Oddly enough,

he seems to have considered his expedition a success in his

reports to Secretary of War Knox. He had destroyed the village

and the corn supply that the Indians needed for the winter. He

had also killed over 100 Indians. Apparently he did not think

his more than 200 casualties too great a price for that accomplish-

ment, in view of the fact that his force was largely militia.

The fact was, however, the Indians were encouraged by

their two victories over American arms to make fresh attacks

on the outlying white settlements.  Moreover, the Kentucky

militia on returning home had no intention of bearing the blame

for the two defeats. Before Harmar's report reached the capital,

rumors swept out of Kentucky criticizing Harmar's command

and even saying that he was drunk all the time.

Secretary of War Knox let Harmar know that President

Washington was greatly disappointed in the costly venture. Since

the Indians were not subdued, the expedition had failed in its

main objective. A second expedition was promptly planned, and

this time the command was invested in Governor St. Clair.

Harmar was deeply hurt and refused to serve on the second cam-

paign. He asked instead for a hearing before a court of inquiry.

This was not a court martial, but a board of officers directed to

investigate and report on his conduct. The inquiry acquitted

him of all unbecoming and incompetent behavior. One cannot

help feeling, however, that Washington was right in objecting to

the detachments Harmar made to attack the Indians. After all,

the reason for raising a task force of 1400 men was because two

or three hundred were not regarded as sufficient to send against

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238   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

the Indians. The entire force should have been used as a unit,

or not at all.

The Federal Government learned one lesson from Harmar's

experience, and that was the undependability of militia. For St.

Clair's expedition the regular United States Army was doubled

in size, to consist of two regiments. Still, militia had to be called

out to fill up the number of troops needed. When the volunteers

came in to Fort Washington, they proved to be even a worse

lot than Harmar had commanded. St. Clair was apprehensive of

his fate, but he had to carry on. His appalling disaster is not

part of my story. Harmar left Fort Washington and resigned

from the army just before St. Clair set out in September, 1791.

He was shrewd enough to predict that the expedition would be a

failure.

Harmar returned to Philadelphia and for a year apparently

had no employment. It is time to return to his domestic life. Mrs.

Harmar had followed her husband to his successive headquarters

and presented him with two children: Charles, who was born

in 1785 and who was drowned in the West Indies when he was

twenty-one years old; and Eliza, born in 1787 and died in 1869.

She married but left no issue. Another daughter was born after

Josiah Harmar left the Northwest, but she died while still a

small girl.

The Harmars had what might be called a second family:

two sons, Josiah, Jr., born in 1802, and William, born in 1803.

Both of these boys survived and won honors at Yale University.

Then they went out to Cincinnati for a few years to manage

family properties there. Later they returned to live in Phila-

delphia.

In 1793, Harmar's old friend, Governor Mifflin of Pennsyl-

vania, appointed him adjutant general of the Pennsylvania

Militia. The job was mainly administrative, keeping tab on the

various county units. The militia was called out to Philadelphia

shortly after he took office, owing to brawls resulting from ten-

sion between France and England as reflected in sailors from

those two countries. Pennsylvania also furnished militia for the

suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania

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JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION         239

 

in 1794. Harmar again crossed the mountains to Fort Pitt, with

this federal force. The state militia was also greatly enlarged

under Harmar. It was kept in readiness for the anticipated war

with France in 1798, but the cloud passed. Harmar resigned

his commission in 1799, offering as reasons the state of his

health and of his private affairs.

He retired to his estate outside Philadelphia, oddly named

"The Retreat." He had tenant farmers on most of the land, and

he also owned property in the city of Philadelphia, in western

Pennsylvania, and his Revolutionary War bonus lands centered

in Ohio around Cincinnati. It is difficult to believe that Harmar

was ever poor. The problem of administering these properties

for profit doubtless did require much of his time, but whether

his health was impaired I have no way of knowing. At least he

lived for 14 years in retirement.

A receipt, written on a small scrap of paper and dated in

August, 1813, tells its own story. From one David Evans to

Mrs. Harmar, it reads: "for a mahogany Coffin with Silvered

handles 22 Dollars." The general was dead at sixty years of

age. There is no biography of him although he is important in

our country's military history and noteworthy in the development

of the Northwest Territory.  Because he performed his daily

duties competently and failed to shine on his one opportunity

to be spectacular, he is too easily dismissed as a name connected

with an ill-fated Indian campaign. His career before and after

that date is largely unknown. Yet he had a great deal of respon-

sibility in making the Northwest Territory a safe place for many

of our pioneering ancestors.

He held together and efficiently deployed a meager military

force maintained by an insolvent and shaky Congress under the

Articles of Confederation. This force was the visible arm of

government to the Indians and to the British in Detroit. For

five years General Harmar distributed this inadequate force along

a wild frontier with the shrewdness of an expert chess player

and exacted services from it that furnish our present day army

with proud traditions. He commanded a peacetime standing

army in a country that suspected all ambitious military men and

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240   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

hated peacetime standing armies. He kept together a ragged

force because the country could afford nothing better. He estab-

lished forts that became centers of pioneer settlement. He had

the unpleasant job of enforcing treaty obligations on the Indians,

sometimes when they regretted making those treaties, and he had

to chase raiders away from outlying settlements. Every movement

he made was watched both by a critical Congress and by a dis-

gruntled former enemy to the north. He was engaged in a con-

stant race to exert sufficient pressure on the British, by maintain-

ing control over the Indians and preparing the way for white

settlement, so that the British would seek neither a boundary

revision nor a new war. It was a ticklish assignment, and Har-

mar's unwavering attitude and steady hand paid off in 1794 when

Anthony Wayne was able to defeat the Indians at Fallen Timbers

within sight of a British post, and at the crucial moment the

British did not quite dare fight back.

Perhaps we can appreciate General Harmar's contribution to

our northwest history, if we consider what a commander of less

integrity might have done in the same position. There were wide

opportunities for petty graft in dealing with the army contractors.

Under an anemic Congress, a lazy man could have shown no

initiative and not been criticized. An unscrupulous man could

have insisted on a large share in the land companies he was

ordered to protect. A conspirator could have been paid hand-

somely by the British for being ineffective. An ambitious tyrant

might have turned his army against the Congress. These are all

things that might very well have happened during those pre-

carious years of our experiment with a new republic and with our

first frontier.

Yet Josiah Harmar seems to have been as firmly wedded to

the new country for which he had fought as George Washington

was. As a soldier he was loyal and obedient to the government

that employed him: as a man he was honest and energetic. His

failure to subdue the Indian raiders in 1790 may have revealed

faulty judgment in tactics, but he was more successful than St.

Clair was, and Anthony Wayne was completely successful only

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JOSIAH HARMAR AND HIS INDIAN EXPEDITION         241

 

because the regular army was again increased in size and Wayne

was allowed two years in which to train his men. However we

judge Harmar's expedition, we should not let it outweigh his

extraordinary services in opening the Northwest Territory to

settlement in perilous times. He is a man to remember with

gratitude.

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