The War in the Northwest 207 



countered, be slaughtered as pitilessly as their hos- 

 tile brethren. 



How little the militia volunteers disapproved of 

 the Moravian massacre was shown when, as was 

 the custom, they met to choose a leader. There were 

 two competitors for the place, Williamson, who 

 commanded at the massacre, being" one; and he was 

 beaten by only five votes. His successful opponent, 

 Colonel William Crawford, was a fairly good offi- 

 cer, a just and upright man, but with no special fit- 

 ness for such a task as that he had undertaken. 

 Nor were the troops he led of very good stuff 18 ; 



18 A minute and exhaustive account of Crawford's cam- 

 paign is given by Mr. C. W. Butterfield in his " Expedition 

 against Sandusky," (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1873). 

 Mr. Butterfield shows conclusively that the accepted ac- 

 counts are wholly inaccurate, being derived from the re- 

 ports of the Moravian missionaries, whose untruthfulness 

 (especially Heckewelder's) is clearly demonstrated. He 

 shows the apocryphal nature of some of the pretended nar- 

 ratives of the expedition, such as two in "The American 

 Pioneer," etc. He also shows how inaccurate McClung's 

 "sketches" are for McClung was like a host of other early 

 Western annalists, preserving some valuable facts in a good 

 deal of rubbish, and having very little appreciation indeed of 

 the necessity of so much as approximate accuracy. Only a 

 few of these early Western historians had the least concep- 

 tion of the value of evidence or of the necessity of sifting; it, 

 or of weighing testimony. 



On the other hand, Mr. Butterfield is drawn into grave 

 errors by his excessive partisanship of the borderers. He 

 passes lightly over their atrocious outrages, colors favorably 

 many of their acts, and praises the generalship of Crawford 

 and the soldiership of his men ; when in reality the campaign 

 was badly conducted from beginning to end, and reflected 

 discredit on most who took part in it ; Crawford did poorly, 

 and the bulk of his men acted like unruly cowards. 



