northern tour lasted from October 15 to November 13, 1789, and was
attended by popular manifestations that must have promoted the spread of
national sentiment. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina came into the
Union, and Rhode Island followed on May 29, 1790. Washington started on a
tour of the Southern States on March 21,1791, in which he covered more
than seventeen hundred miles in sixty-six days, and was received with
grand demonstrations at all the towns he visited.

While he was making these tours, which in the days before the railroad and
the telegraph were practically the only efficacious means of establishing
the new government in the thoughts and feelings of the people, he was much
concerned about frontier troubles, and with good reason, as he well knew
the deficiency of the means that Congress had allowed. The tiny army of
the United States was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Josiah
Harmar, with the brevet rank of general. In October, 1790, Harmar led his
troops, nearly four-fifths of which were new levies of militia, against
the Indians who had been disturbing the western frontier. The expedition
was a succession of blunders and failures which were due more to the rude
and undisciplined character of the material that Harmar had to work with
than to his personal incapacity. Harmar did succeed in destroying five
Indian villages with their stores of corn, but their inhabitants had
warning enough to escape and were able to take prompt vengeance. A
detachment of troops was ambushed and badly cut up. The design had been to
push on to the upper course of the Wabash, but so many horses had been
stolen by the Indians that the expedition was crippled. As a result,
Harmar marched his troops back again, professing to believe that
punishment had been inflicted upon the Indians that would be a severe
lesson to them. What really happened was that the Indians were encouraged
to think that they were more than a match for any army which the settlers
could send against them, and before long news came of the destruction of