The War in the Northwest 51 



The backwoodsmen pressed in on the line of least 

 resistance, first taking possession of the debatable 

 hunting-grounds laying between the Algonquins 

 of the north and the Appalachian confederacies of 

 the south. Then they began to encroach on the 

 actual tribal territories. Every step was accom 

 panied by stubborn and bloody fighting with the 

 Indians. The forest tribes were exceedingly formid 

 able opponents; it is not too much to say that they 

 formed a far more serious obstacle to the American 

 advance than would have been offered by an equal 

 number of the best European troops. Their vic 

 tories over Braddock, Grant, and St. Clair, gained 

 m each case with a smaller force, conclusively 

 proved their superiority, on their own ground, over 

 the best regulars, disciplined and commanded in 

 the ordinary manner. Almost all of the victories, 

 even of the backwoodsmen, were won against in 

 ferior numbers of Indians. 3 The red men were 



3 That the contrary impression prevails is due to the boast 

 ful vanity which the backwoodsmen often shared with the 

 Indians, and to the gross ignorance of the average writer 

 concerning these border wars. Many of the accounts in the 

 popular histories are sheer inventions. Thus, in the "Chroni 

 cles of Border Warfare," by Alex. S. Withers (Clarksburg, 

 Va., 1831, p. 301), there is an absolutely fictitious account of 

 a feat of the Kentucky Colonel Scott, who is alleged to have 

 avenged St. Clair's defeat by falling on the victorious In 

 dians while they were drunk, and killing two hundred of 

 them. This story has not even a foundation in fact ; there 

 was not so much as a skirmish of the sort described. As 

 Mann Butler a most painstaking and truthful writer points 

 out, it is made up out of the whole cloth, thirty years after 

 the event ; it is a mere invention to soothe the mortified pride 



