Toward the close of its last session, the First Congress was induced to
pass an act "for raising and adding another regiment to the military
establishment of the United States and for making further provision for
the protection of the frontiers." The further provision authorized the
President to employ "troops enlisted under the denomination of levies" for
a term not exceeding six months and in number not exceeding two thousand.
The law thus made it compulsory that the troops should move while still
raw and untrained. Congress had fixed the pay of the privates at three
dollars a month, from which ninety cents were deducted, and it had been
necessary to scrape the streets and even the prisons of the seaboard
cities for men willing to enlist upon such terms. Washington gave the
command to General Arthur St. Clair, whose military experience should have
made him a capable commander, but he was then in bad health and unable to
handle the situation under the conditions imposed upon him. General
Harmar, enlightened by his own experience, predicted that such an army
would certainly be defeated.

The campaign was intended as an expedition to chastise the Indians so that
they would be deterred from molesting the settlers, but it resulted in a
disaster that greatly encouraged Indian depredations. As the army
approached the Indian towns, a body of the militia deserted, and it was
reported to St. Clair that they intended to plunder the supplies. He sent
one of his regular regiments after them, thus reducing his available force
to about fourteen hundred men. On November 3, 1791, this force camped on
the eastern fork of Wabash. Before daybreak the next morning the Indians
made a sudden attack, taking the troops by surprise and throwing them into
disorder. It was the story of Braddock's defeat over again. The troops
were surrounded by foes that they could not see and could not reach.
Indian marksmen picked off the gunners until the artillery was silenced;
then the Indians rushed in and seized the guns. In the combat there were