ioo The Winning of the West 



eight or ten of those nearest the fort they could 

 not get. They then drew off and marched back to 

 the Miami towns. At least twenty-five 32 of them 

 had been, killed, and a great number wounded; 

 whereas they had only succeeded in killing one and 

 wounding eleven of the garrison. They were much 

 disheartened at the check, and the Upper Lake In- 

 dians began to go home. The savages were as 

 fickle as they were ferocious; and though terrible 

 antagonists when fighting on their own ground and 

 in their own manner, they lacked the stability nec- 

 essary for undertaking a formidable offensive move- 

 ment in mass. This army of two thousand warriors, 

 the largest they had ever assembled, was repulsed 

 with loss in an attack on a wooden fort with a gar- 

 rison not one-sixth their strength, and then dissolved 

 without accomplishing anything at all. 



Three weeks after the successful defence of Fort 

 Recovery, Wayne was joined by a large force of 

 mounted volunteers from Kentucky, under General 

 Scott; and on July 27th he set out toward the 



32 Canadian Archives, G. La Mothe to Joseph Chew, Mich- 

 ilimackinac, July 19, 1794. McKee says, "17 men killed"; 

 evidently he either wilfully understated the truth, or else 

 referred only to the particular tribes with which he was as- 

 sociated. ' La Mothe says, "they have lost twenty-five people 

 amongst different nations," but as he was only speaking of 

 the Upper Lake Indians, it may be that the total Indian loss 

 was 25 plus 17, or 42. McKee always understates the British 

 force and loss, and greatly overstates the loss and force of 

 the Americans. In this letter he says that the Americans 

 had 50 men killed, instead of 22; and that 60 "drivers" (pack- 

 horsemen) were taken and killed; whereas in reality 3 were 

 taken and 2 killed. 



