Fallen Timbers 1794 by John F. Winkler

Author:John F. Winkler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fallen Timbers 1794: The US Army’s First Victory
ISBN: 9781780963778
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

On January 11,1794, George Rogers Clark, as “major general in the armies of France,” issued to Henry Lindsay, one of the first settlers of Cincinnati, this commission as a captain in the “French Revolutionary Legion on the Mississippi.” (Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

On February 17, Dorchester ordered Simcoe to build an advanced fort on the Maumee to protect Detroit. When George Hammond, the British minister to the United States, learned of the order, he protested. It would be an act of war, he wrote to London, to build a fort on what Britain acknowledged to be American territory.

On February 22, a new French minister arrived in Philadelphia to replace Genêt. Jean-Antoine-Joseph Fauchet, who brought with him a warrant for his predecessor’s arrest, agreed to stop the military adventures that Genêt had planned. On March 4, Fauchet issued an order canceling Clark’s expedition. On the same day, Indians attacked a packhorse convoy near White’s Station. At Bloody Run, they killed two and wounded one.

Despite Fauchet’s action, Clark continued to prepare for his campaign. Desperate to avoid the war with Spain that Clark’s invasion would provoke, the Washington administration asked Arthur St. Clair, the Governor of the Northwest Territory, and Shelby, the Governor of Kentucky, to stop the recruiting for Clark’s army. When Shelby refused, Washington announced on March 24 that the federal government would take action against any men who joined Clark’s expedition.

On March 31, Knox ordered Wayne to build a fort on the Ohio River at the site of old French Fort Massiac. What the Americans would call Fort Massac would guard Kentucky from a Spanish invasion. The fort’s guns, Knox also directed, were to be used on Clark’s army if it attempted to descend the river.

Knox’s March 31 letter revealed how well Posey and Scott had performed their assignments in Philadelphia. Washington, it said, approved of Wayne’s actions as commander and had the highest confidence in him. In a separate letter, marked “Private and Confidential,” Wayne learned how important their work had been. Several congressmen, Knox wrote, had begun spreading defamatory rumors about Wayne’s conduct in Ohio. Washington’s expression of confidence in him, Knox added, should be made public to discredit “the disorganizers be they who they may be.” The conspirators then intensified their attack. On April 4, Wilkinson wrote directly to Washington and Knox accusing his commander of incompetence and corruption. On April 13, an anonymous officer sent to the Centinel a report with similar accusations, which he entitled “Stubborn Facts.” The Centinel refused to publish the report. On April 16, however, “Stubborn Facts” appeared in a Virginia paper, the Martinsburg Gazette, and was widely reprinted in other newspapers.

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