Opposition: Col. Daniel Brodhead IV 1736-1809

This American Revolutionary War officer was leader of several punitive expeditions against Natives in New York and in the Ohio Valley.  And, in the end, karma caught up with him in a strange way.

Daniel Brodhead IV (1736-1809) was the fourth of his name, born to an old New York family in Marbletown.  When he was a boy, his father moved the family to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.  There, Daniel IV saw firsthand the struggle between Natives and Settlers for the same ground.  In this case, it was the Lenape/Delaware, whom he would become familiar with later in life.  The family homestead was attacked numerous times.  When Daniel's father died, Daniel sold his share of the family homestead and headed for better prospects.  He would work a series of odd jobs before finding his calling as a soldier in the American Revolution. 

Brodhead became an officer in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.  He took part in many early battles in New York, including the Battle of Long Island, where George Washington commended Brodhead for his bravery.  He took over the 8th Pennsylvania after the death of its Colonel, suffered through Valley Forge and led his first expedition against Native Americans, in this case the Delaware living near the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country in 1778.  After General Lachlan McIntosh's failed attempt to capture Fort Detroit, Washington replaced McIntosh with Brodhead, making him commander of the Western Department, which included Ohio and western Pennsylvania.  Brodhead would have his hands full dealing with Shawnee, Wyandot, Mingo, Delaware and other tribes both working as auxiliaries for the British and defending their hunting range.

He would lead an expedition against the Ohio-based Seneca in 1779 in support of the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition, which we've already covered.  In 1781, he led another expedition against the Lenape/Delaware known as the Coshocton Expedition.  It was during this expedition that he would have to restrain militia who wanted to kill Christianized Delaware living at the mission station of Gnadenhutten, something we've discussed in a previous post.  Then, karma in the form of George Washington caught up with Brodhead.  He was accused of misappropriating supplies and money earmarked for recruiting bonuses and removed from command.  He was court-martialed and acquitted of all the charges except mishandling the recruiting funds.  However, the court-martial found that his handling of the funds was justified under the circumstances and recommended no discipline.  Washington brevetted Brodhead a Brigadier General and sidelined him to militia command for the rest of the War.  He later married a wealthy widow, Rebecca Mifflin, from a well-known Pennsylvania family and helped found the Society of the Cincinnati, but he never held a field command again. 

Treaty: Fort Pitt, September 17, 1778

This treaty was the first formal, written treaty between the new United States Government, as represented by the Continental Congress and an Indian tribe.  It is sometimes known as the Delaware Treaty, or even the Fourth Treaty of Pittsburgh, commemorating both the people with whom it was conducted, the Lenape/Delaware, and the place, Fort Pitt where modern-day Pittsburgh now stands.

Prior to this treaty, various states had conducted diplomacy with Native tribes and there had been informal agreements but nothing formal on the federal level.  With the Revolutionary War on the frontier theatre heating up, the Continental Congress knew they needed allies among the Native tribes.  They would need the help if an attack on Fort Detroit was to become reality.  White Eyes of the Delaware, whom we've already covered, was one of those leaders who believed peaceful co-existence with the Americans was the only way for his people to preserve some of their land and hunting range for themselves.  He had been chosen as Principal Chief of the Delaware and spearheaded negotiations for their side. 

The United States requested permission for troops to travel through Delaware territory and called for the Delaware to actively aid them as allies against the British, including furnishing warriors to fight against the Redcoats or their Native auxiliaries.  The United States promised trade goods including cloth, such as Calico, ammunition and arms.  It represented to the Delaware that it would build a fort to help protect the Delaware against either the British or trespassers on their land.  In reality, the fort would be there to protect American settlers as they made their way into the Ohio Valley.  And here the understanding on both sides diverged.  As with many Native treaties, the Natives believed they were granting free passage or use of their land.  They didn't know or weren't told, that this treaty would be a prelude to White settlement.  White Eyes also pressed for, or was led to believe, that the treaty created a Native buffer state out of the Ohio to allow the Natives to live in peace in a no-man's-land between British-held territory and American territory.  Sources differ on whether White Eyes requested it, or the American representatives offered it as an incentive to sign the treaty.  In reality, a treaty with such a clause in it would likely never see the light of day.

The Treaty was signed at Fort Pitt on September 17, 1778.  The Delaware delegation included White Eyes, Captain Pipe/Hopocan, whom we've also met, and John Kill Buck/Gelelemend for the Lenape/Delaware.  Brothers Andrew Lewis and Thomas Lewis, veterans of several frontier skirmishes, led the American delegation.  The treaty signing was witnessed by Col. Daniel Brodhead, more on him later, and Col. William Crawford, whom we've already run across in a previous post.  The Treaty was returned to Philadelphia to be ratified by the Congress and was submarined in committee, never being ratified into effect.  Settlers continued to pour into the Ohio Valley.  The Delaware sent delegations to the Congress to alert them that the treaty terms weren't being carried out, to no avail.  Peaceful relations between the Delaware and Settlers collapsed again.  White Eyes, who'd worked so hard to bring the treaty forward, died during one such visit in November, 1778, barely two months after it was signed.  The story was that he'd died of smallpox or fever, depending on the source.  Only years later did relatives find out that he'd been killed by one of his militia escorts.  The Delaware soon joined other Ohio tribes on the side of the British and the war in the frontier kept on. 

Natives versus Settlers: the Battle of Blue Licks, August 9, 1782

The fighting on the eastern theatres of the Revolutionary War may have ended when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in October, 1781, but nobody on the frontier seems to have gotten the memo.  Working from Fort Detroit, the British and their Indian auxiliaries were determined to maintain control of the Ohio Valley, including Kentucky, against backcountry settlers who were determined to have it for their own.  The conflict would result in a Loyalist-Indian victory in August, 1782 that would wreck the career of an American commander and result in the murder of a Native chief.  And the irony would be that neither man was even there when the battle happened.

As the War wound down and negotiations for a treaty dragged on in Paris, the British were determined to hang on to the Ohio River Valley and the Old Northwest.  The Natives were committed to helping them since they knew that their land rights would be disposed of in the eventual treaty without their say-so.  In July, 1782, a meeting took place at a Shawnee village on the headwaters of the Mad River to discuss what course of action should be taken.  Along with the Shawnee, other tribes represented included the Delaware/Lenape, Mingo, Wyndot, Miami, Ottawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi.  From there, 150 members of Butler's Rangers under William Caldwell and about 300 warriors under Matthew Elliot, Alexander McKee and Simon Girty headed toward Wheeling (now West Virginia), on the Ohio River.  Incidentally, this is one of the few times Girty is known to have led Native warriors in battle against the Americans, though to hear them tell it, he did it almost every day of the War.

Scouts erroneously reported that George Rogers Clark was headed their way with a large force of militia.  Clark was probably the only commander who could strike fear into the heart of any warrior and, indeed, had he been there, the result of this battle might have been different, but it was not to be.  Clark was patrolling the Ohio River, but had no specific plans yet of coming their way.  Most of the Loyalists returned home, but about 50 stayed, along with the 300 warriors, heading from Bryan's Station near Lexington, Kentucky.  Caldwell besieged the fortified frontier outpost, but the Settlers barricaded themselves and held off.  Again, hearing report that Clark was in the area, the Loyalists broke off the siege.  A force of Kentucky militia under John Todd and Stephen Trigg arrived at Bryan's Station, heard what happened and wanted to pursue the Loyalists and Natives.  Daniel Boone counseled them to wait until reinforcements under Benjamin Logan could arrive, but he was outvoted. 

On the morning of August 19, 1782, the militia reached a salt lick on the Licking River near present-day Mount Olivet, Kentucky.  The area was known as the Lower Blue Licks, hence the name of the ensuing battle.  Boone noticed signs that the Natives had been here recently and knew something was up.  Todd and Trigg again asked his assessment and he stated that the Natives were leading them into a trap and they should withdraw and wait for Logan.  The commanders were on the verge of taking his advice this time when a self-proclaimed Indian Fighter named Hugh McGary charged his horse across the small stream shouting, "them that aren't cowards, follow me."  The commanders tried to restrain their men, but it was no use.  Everyone crossed the creek.  Boone threw up his hands with the remark, "we are all slaughtered men," and cross with them. 

They dismounted and formed a line of battle with the commanders front and center, Todd and McGary flanked by Boone and Trigg.  As they advanced, Caldwell's men, who had been concealed in several ravines, opened fire.  Most of the Patriots fell back.  Todd and Trigg, still on horseback, were killed.  Boone was the only commander who kept his men together.  The militia fled, leaving Boone and his men stranded.  Boone found a horse and told his son Israel to get on it and get out of there.  Israel mounted the horse and caught a bullet in his neck, killing him instantly.  This was the second of Daniel Boone's sons to die fighting Natives.  Boone took the horse and made his escape, having to leave Israel's body on the field.  The Patriots lost 72 killed, 11 captured, most of whom would be killed later.  The Loyalists and Natives lost 7 killed, 10 wounded.

Repercussions fell, but not where anyone expected.  Clark, who was on the way with a force of over 1,000 men including Logan's command, was roundly blamed for the disaster, though he had not been there.  He immediately set off on a campaign of retribution, burning unoccupied Shawnee villages as a warning to the Natives to keep their heads down, but it was not enough.  Enemies began a whispering campaign that Clark was a heavy drinker and his career was on the downhill slip.  Four years later, during the Northwest Indian War, Logan would carry out more retributive attacks on the Shawnee and other tribes along the Mad River.  During these engagements, McGary confronted Moluntha, a Shawnee chief who had succeeded Cornstalk.  Without benefit of an interpreter, McGary demanded to know whether Moluntha had been at the Battle of the Blue Licks.  Moluntha misunderstood the question and nodded yes.  McGary struck him with a tomahawk and killed him instantly.  Moluntha hadn't been anywhere near the battle, but he was a Shawnee and that was enough to condemn him.  McGary was court-martialed and stripped of his commission, but otherwise unpunished.

Today, the battlefield site is a Kentucky state park.  The site includes a commemorative obelisk, a burial ground and museum.  Every August, a reenactment commemorates the battle. 

The Opposition: George Rogers Clark

Americans called him the Washington of the West and the Conqueror of the Old Northwest.  To his Native opponents, he was the one American commander they both feared and respected, with good reason.

George Rogers Clark (1752-1818), the older half-brother of William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame, was born in Albemarle County, near Charlottesville.  His family would have been on a social par with the Jeffersons, Randolphs, Lees and others.  George was the oldest son of the family.  When he was about four years old, the family moved to a large plantation in Caroline County, Virginia.  George received some formal schooling and was tutored at home.  His grandfather taught him to be a surveyor.  As such, he became familiar with the backcountry and the Natives who inhabited it, lessons he would put to use in a later career.  He was named a captain in the Virginia militia and served in Lord Dunmore's War, then went back to surveying.

The Revolutionary War gave him the first of several big breaks.  While major battles were being fought in the Northeast, settlers in the Virginia back country found themselves embroiled in a dispute between North Carolina and Virginia as to which colony/state owned the land that would become Kentucky.  The settlers in that region wanted Virginia to claim the land and George Rogers Clark was one of the delegation to petition Governor Patrick Henry to press Virginia's claim to the land.  Henry named Clark a major in the Kentucky County militia and gave him a supply of powder to use in defending the area against Natives and Loyalists alike.  Clark was only twenty-four, but older men such as Daniel Boone already respected his qualities as a leader.

In 1777, British officials turned their attention to the backcountry.  The Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, Henry Hamilton, was based at Fort Detroit and supplied Natives in the Ohio Valley with arms and ammunition in return for their aid in attacking frontier settlements.  The Continental Army was spread thin in the East and could spare no men to protect the Ohio Valley or Kentucky.  Clark developed a plan to capture the British-allied Native villages of Kaskaskia and Cahokia in what is now Illinois, and Vincennes, in present-day Indiana considered Illinois country at the time.  Patrick Henry agreed and allied Clark to recruit men from Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.  From their staging area near what is now Pittsburgh, Clark's force set out, capturing Kaskaskia without firing a shot.  He also captured Vincennes, where many French-speaking and Native inhabitants refused to fight on behalf of the British.  Not to be outdone, Hamilton retook Vincennes and Fort Sackville in December, 1778, but Clark wasn't through with him yet.

In February, 1779, marching unexpectedly in a frigid winter, Clark and his men showed up back in Vincennes, this time permanently capturing the village and Fort Sackville.  They also captured Henry Hamilton, who became a prisoner of war.  Washington praised Clark's accomplishment, using it as another argument toward a French alliance.  Virginia claimed all of the Illinois country, naming it Illinois County, Virginia.  Clark had his eyes on Fort Detroit, where the British continued to supply arms and ammo to the Natives, but could never gather enough men or materiel to make the attempt.  He remained closer to Kentucky, defending it against native attacks and strikes by Loyalist forces.  He fended off a British-sponsored and led invasion of Kentucky that included Shawnee, Delaware and Wyandot auxiliaries.  We'll get to Byrd's invasion of Kentucky in an upcoming post.  Clark led a retaliatory strike against the Shawnee village of Pekowi, near Springfield, Ohio. 

Thomas Jefferson succeeded Henry as Governor of Virginia and gave Clark the rank of Brigadier General and command of all the militia in Kentucky and Illinois counties.  Washington transferred a force of regulars to assist in a planned invasion of Fort Detroit, but it was ambushed before it could arrive, once again killing Clark's chances at a big prize.  Meanwhile, disaster struck.  In August, 1782, months after the Yorktown surrender, a British Loyalist force with Native auxiliaries defeated a detached unit of Kentucky militia at Blue Licks.  Though Clark wasn't present at the battle, and things might have been different had he been there, the Virginia government began to blame him for the disaster.  Clark promptly led a punitive expedition, destroying several Native villages and gaining a victory in the Battle of Piqua, but his fortunes were beginning to unravel, though he was still only thirty years old and had accomplished so much.

After the War, Clark served as a surveyor, assisting Continental veterans with settling their land grants.  He also helped negotiate two treaties with the Natives, the Treaty of Fort McIntosh and the Treaty of Fort Finney, in 1786.  However, the British were still in the area and Native raids on backcountry settlements continued, resulting in the loss of hundreds of American lives.  In 1786, Clark led 1200 men against Natives along the Wabash River in one of the opening campaigns of the Northwest Indian War.  On that expedition, everything that could go wrong, did.  Supplies were deficient, causing a mutiny among some of the men.  The Natives, preferring to retreat rather than face Clark, burned their own villages and fled, denying him a clear-cut victory.  And Clark had an ambitious and vicious enemy among his own ranks, James Wilkinson, more on him later.  Wilkinson insisted the Clark had a drinking problem, which led to lapses of judgment during the campaign.  Clark demanded a formal court martial to clear his honor but was ignored.  The Virginia Legislature formally condemned him and he resigned his commanded, going to live in Indiana where present-day Clarksville is named in his honor.

Clark had spent much of his own money in outfitting his various campaigns.  He was not successful in petitioning either the Virginia Legislature or the Continental Congress to repay these expenses.  He had to be constantly fearful of creditors, who in that day and age had the authority to have people jailed for debt.  Eventually, Virginia granted him land in Indiana, in what is now Clark County, but he had no resources to develop it.  Desperate, Clark became embroiled in schemes to help either France or Spain reclaim territory in the backcountry, further blackening his reputation.  He also wrote his memoirs, which were never published during his lifetime.  Clark tried to deed his land to relatives and friends to save it until he could develop it, but creditors seized it, leaving him with a small cabin and gristmill to make a daily living.  He was able to trade on his knowledge of the backcountry, becoming an informal behind-the-scenes consultant to his brother William as he and Meriwether Lewis planned their expedition.  Things went further downhill when Indian Territory chartered a company to construct a canal around the Falls of the Ohio.  Clark was named to the board of directors and did most of the surveying work, but the following year, two other board members, including former Vice-President Aaron Burr, were charged with treason and the company was investigated for misappropriating funds. 

And it wouldn't stop.  In 1809, Clark suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.  Still trying to get around and help himself on his own, he fell into a fireplace and suffered a burn so severe his leg had to be amputated.  Unable to live on his own, he moved with his sister Lucy and her family to Locust Grove, near Louisville.  Finally, Virginia awarded him a pension and repaid his services with a ceremonial sword.  He suffered another stroke in 1818 and was buried on the grounds of Locust Grove, but later reinterred in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.  A memorial to Clark was erected in Vincennes, Indiana in 1933.  It includes a bronze statue of Clark in uniform and murals of his campaigns.  Other statues also commemorate him, including Indianapolis, Massac County, Illinois, Louisville, KY, and Springfield, Ohio.