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.
(60)
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.
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.