In the Current of the Revolution 87 



Sixty Indians started with the troops from Detroit, 

 but so many bands joined him on the route that 

 when he reached Vincennes his entire force amounted 

 to five hundred men. 7 



Having embarked, the troops and Indians pad- 

 dled down stream to Lake Erie, reaching it in a 

 snow-storm, and when a lull came they struck boldly 

 across the lake, making what bateau men still call 

 a "traverse" of thirty-six miles to the mouth of the 

 Maumee. Darkness overtook them while on the lake, 

 and the head boats hung out lights for the guidance 

 of those astern ; but about midnight a gale came up, 

 and the whole flotilla was nearly swamped, being 

 beached with great difficulty on an oozy flat close 

 to the mouth of the Maumee. The waters of the 

 Maumee were low, and the boats were poled slowly 

 up against the current, reaching the portage point, 

 where there was a large Indian village, on the 24th 

 of the month. Here a nine miles' carry was made 

 to one of the sources of the Wabash, called by the 

 voyageurs "la petite riviere." This stream was so 

 IOW T that the boats could not have gone down it 

 had it not been for a beaver dam four miles below 

 the landing-place, which backed up the current. An 



7 Do. Hamilton's letter of July 6, 1781, the "brief ac- 

 count." Clark's estimate was very close to the truth; he 

 gave Hamilton six hundred men, four hundred of them In- 

 dians. See State Department MSS., No. 71, Vol. I, p. 247. 

 Papers Continental Congress. Letter of G. R. Clark to Gov. 

 Henry, April 29, 1779. This letter was written seven months 

 before that to Mason, and many years before the "Memoir," 

 so I have, where possible, followed it as being better author- 

 ity than either. 



