Historical Society Whitley County Columbia City Indiana Museum Harmar Hardin Defeat Battle

>Historical Society Whitley County Columbia City Indiana Museum Harmar Hardin Defeat Battle

Drawing of the original Peabody Library

Whitley County Historical Society
108 West Jefferson Street
Columbia City, Indiana 46725
Telephone: (260) 244-6372
Fax: 260-244-6384

History of Whitley County
Samuel P. Kaler, 1907
Page 69: Harmar's Defeat
The student of our country's history is familiar with the campaign of General Harmar in 1790, against Fort Wayne. October I4th Colonel Hardin was detached with one company of regulars and six hundred militia in advance of the main army, and being charged with the destruction of the Indian towns on the forks of the Maumee (Fort Wayne).
On the arrival of this advance party, they found the towns abandoned and the principal one burned. There were seven villages at the forks of the Maumee: the larger or Miami, being directly in the forks of the river, contained eighty houses. The army burned all the villages and destroyed about 20.000 bushels of corn. Appearances indicated the Indians had gone westward.
General Harmar sent eighty militia and thirty regulars in pursuit, John Armstrong commanding the regulars and Colonel Trotter the militia.
The following day Colonel Hardin assumed entire command. This small army moved westward along Turtle's trail until they found themselves near the enemy. The encampment was flanked on each side and in front by deep swamps. The front morass was promptly crossed by the soldiers under a galling fire from a body of savages.
The militia broke and fled and could not be rallied. Fifty-two men were killed in a few minutes. The regulars bore the brunt of the battle, one sergeant and twenty-two privates being killed. While endeavoring to hold their position the same became more precarious by the fleeing militia breaking through their ranks and throwing away their guns without firing a shot. Armstrong estimated the Indians at only about a hundred.
This gallant officer broke through the band of pursuing Indians and plunged into the swamp, where he remained all night up to his chin in mud and water and concealed by a tussock of high grass. He was compelled to hear the nocturnal orgies of the savages, as they danced around the dead bodies of the soldiers. As day approached the Indians fell asleep, and he extricated himself, retired to a ravine and built a fire by which he recovered the use of his limbs. He had with him his watch and tinder box.
This battle was fought near where the Goshen road crosses Eel river and was partly in Whitley and partly in Allen counties.