St. Clair and Wayne 51 



ordinary militia or regulars, and were prized very 

 highly by the frontiersmen. 21 



Besides thus organizing the local militia for de- 

 fence, the President authorized the Kentuckians to 

 undertake two offensive expeditions against the 

 Wabash Indians so as to prevent them from giving 

 aid to the Miami tribes, whom St. Clair was to at- 

 tack. Both expeditions were carried on by bands of 

 mounted volunteers, such as had followed Clark on 

 his various raids. The first was commanded by 

 Brigadier-General Charles Scott ; Colonel John Har- 

 din led his advance guard, and Wilkinson was sec- 

 ond in command. Toward the end of May, Scott 

 crossed the Ohio, at the head of eight hundred horse- 

 riflemen, and marched rapidly and secretly toward 

 the Wabash towns. A mounted Indian discovered 

 the advance of the Americans and gave the alarm; 

 and so most of the Indians escaped just as the Ken- 

 tucky riders fell on the town. But little resistance 

 was offered by the surprised and outnumbered sav- 

 ages. Only five Americans were wounded, while 

 of the Indians thirty-two were slain, as they fought 

 or fled, and forty-one prisoners, chiefly women and 

 children, were brought in, either by Scott himself 

 or by his detachments under Hardin and Wilkinson. 

 Several towns were destroyed, and the growing 

 corn cut down. There were not a few French living 

 in the town, in well-finished log-houses, which were 

 burned with the wigwams. 22 The second expedition 



81 American State Papers, IV, 107, Jan. 5, 1791. 

 12 American State Papers, IV, 131, Scott's Report, June 28, 

 1791. 



