St. Clair and Wayne 375 



X 



though the militia might on occasion do well, yet 

 they could never be trusted ; they were certain to de 

 sert or grow sulky and mutinous if exposed to the 

 fatigue and hardship of a long campaign, while in 

 a pitched battle in the open they never fought as 

 stubbornly as the regulars, and often would not 

 fight at all. 



All this was true; yet the officers of the regular 

 army failed to understand that it did not imply the 

 capacity of the regular troops to fight savages on 

 their own ground. They showed little real com 

 prehension of the extraordinary difficulty of such 

 warfare against such foes, and of the reasons which 

 made it so hazardous. They could not help assign 

 ing other causes than the real ones for every defeat 

 and failure. They attributed each in turn to the ef 

 fects of ambuscade or surprise, instead of realizing 

 that in each the prime factor was the formidable 

 fighting power of the individual Indian warrior, 

 when in the thick forest which was to him a home, 

 and when acting under that species of wilderness dis 

 cipline which was so effective for a single crisis in his 

 peculiar warfare. The Indian has rarely shown any 

 marked excellence as a fighter in mass in the open ; 

 though of course there have been one or two bril 

 liant exceptions. At times in our wars we have 

 tried the experiment of drilling bodies of Indians 

 as if they were whites, and using them in the ordi 

 nary way in battle. Under such conditions, as a 

 rule, they have shown themselves inferior to the 

 white troops against whom they were pitted. In 



