98 The Winning of the West 



Very frequently even the members of a tribe would 

 fail to act together. 



Thus it came about that during the forty years in- 

 tervening between Braddock's defeat and Wayne's 

 victory, though these Northwestern tribes waged 

 incessant, unending, relentless warfare against our 

 borders, yet they never at any one time had more 

 than three thousand warriors in the field, and fre- 

 quently not half that number 10 ; and in all the bat- 

 tles they fought with British and American troops 

 there was not one in which they were eleven hun- 

 dred strong. 11 



But they were superb individual fighters, beauti- 

 fully drilled in their own discipline 12 ; and they were 



10 Smith, "Remarkable Occurrences," etc., p. 154. Smith 

 gives a very impartial account of the Indian discipline and 

 of their effectiveness, and is one of the few men who warred 

 against them who did not greatly overestimate their num- 

 bers and losses. He was a successful Indian fighter himself. 

 For the British regulars he had the true backwoods contempt, 

 although having more than the average backwoods sense in 

 acknowledging their effectiveness in the open. He had lived 

 so long among the Indians, and estimated so highly their 

 personal prowess, that his opinion must be accepted with 

 caution where dealing with matters of discipline and com- 

 mand. 



11 The accounts of the Indian numbers in any battle given 

 by British or Americans, soldiers or civilians, are ludi- 

 crously exaggerated as a rule ; even now it seems a common 

 belief of historians that the whites were generally outnum- 

 bered in battles, while in reality they were generally much 

 more numerous than their foes. 



18 Harrison (loc. czt.) calls them "the finest light troops in 

 the world"; and he had had full experience in serving with 

 American and against British infantry. 



