Battle of Kenapacomaqua

In 1791, troops from the United States descended upon Kenapacomaqua, a Miami (Wea) settlement along the Eel River, in an assault that history also remembers as the Battle of Old Town. The operation was led by Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson, who would later rise to the rank of Brigadier General. The village stood roughly six miles upstream from what is now Logansport, Indiana.

Background

Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, spent 1791 assembling troops for an assault on Kekionga, a move prompted by the earlier defeat suffered by Harmar in 1790. His plan called for a second, separate detachment to move at the same time, drawing attention away from the native coalition defending the region. As preparations fell behind schedule, however, St. Clair chose to send Wilkinson's raiders ahead of the main force rather than wait any longer.

Wilkinson himself, then a lieutenant colonel, had gained experience fighting alongside Brigadier General Charles Scott during what became known as the Blackberry Campaign in the spring of that year. During that earlier operation, mounted militiamen from Kentucky had struck at native settlements scattered along the Wabash River and its feeder streams. Given how well that expedition had gone, voices soon rose calling for another strike before summer's end.

Answering that call, Wilkinson led 523 Kentucky militiamen out from Fort Washington on the first day of August, 1791. Over roughly two and a half days of marching, the column pushed through about seventy miles of terrain, reaching Kenapacomaqua on August 7 of that same year.

Battle

Without hesitation, Wilkinson pushed his men across the Eel River and launched an assault. He had no way of knowing that the settlement stood nearly undefended. Alexander McKee had summoned a Grand Council of the Western Confederacy, drawing leaders away, while still others made their way to Quebec for talks with Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, and Joseph Brant. Those left behind were battling a severe flu-like sickness so intense that, as one British witness noted, two or three burials took place daily among them.

The raid yielded thirty-four Miami prisoners, the majority being women and children, including a daughter of the Miami war chief Little Turtle. Wilkinson's men also discovered a captive American at Kenapacomaqua, whom they freed. This former prisoner disclosed that a mere eight warriors had stayed behind to guard the village, since sixty others were off patrolling along the Wabash, and still more had traveled to Vincennes for ammunition or were out gathering food in the woods.

The clash cost two Kentuckians their lives and left a third wounded. Nine Miami perished in the fighting, though Wilkinson himself acknowledged that only six of the dead were actual warriors, the rest being two women and a child. His troops proceeded to destroy the standing corn and put the village dwellings to the torch. Though the militia set up camp there for the night, worry over possible reprisals convinced them against pressing onward. For the journey back to Kentucky, Wilkinson retraced the path General Scott had taken months before, pausing at Ouiatenon to wipe out the fields that had been replanted since the June raid.

Aftermath

The raid left the Western Confederacy furious, and messengers soon carried summons to arms across the region. Word reached the tribes within weeks that American forces were mounting a much larger push north out of Fort Washington. Those watching from Fort Detroit described an unbroken flow of Native Americans heading off to fight.

Wilkinson, for his part, inflated the significance of his expedition, insisting he had leveled "the chief town" of the Wea. Historians now recognize that his triumph owed less to skill than to the simple fact that Kenapacomaqua stood poorly guarded at the time. Still, both General St. Clair and President Washington expressed satisfaction with what he had accomplished. Secretary of War Henry Knox likewise judged the Blackberry Campaign and the fight at Kenapacomaqua triumphant, remarking that the fear created by showing the tribes they could be reached would only serve the larger goal of securing peace. In recognition of his conduct, Wilkinson received command of the Second United States Regiment when the main campaign resumed that October.

In a twist of timing, Governor Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, had spent that same August pressing for peace during talks at the Chateau St. Louis in Quebec. The Indian council left that meeting carrying proposed peace terms meant for the United States. But upon reaching Fort Detroit, they instead learned of Wilkinson's strike and of St. Clair's advancing army. Abandoning the peace effort at once, the council turned back to help defend Kekionga. That defense collapsed on 4 November 1791 in St. Clair's Defeat, counted among the most severe losses ever suffered by the U.S. Army. Even so, the Northwest Indian War dragged on for another four years.