OH, USA
St. Clair's Defeat (Battle of the Wabash)
November 4, 1791
On November 4, 1791, a confederacy of Native nations led by Little Turtle of the Miami and Blue Jacket of the Shawnee destroyed Arthur St. Clair's army on the Wabash River, killing 632 soldiers and wounding 264 more — the worst defeat of a United States Army by Native forces in the nation's history. St. Clair escaped only by being helped onto a horse and fleeing the field.
The disaster reverberated through Marietta. St. Clair had recruited many of his men from the Ohio settlements, and the families of those men had remained at Campus Martius and the surrounding area. The defeat demonstrated that the federal government's strategy of asserting sovereignty through negotiated land purchases was not working, and that the Native nations of the Ohio Country had the military capacity to destroy American settlements if they chose to coordinate.
People Involved
Pennsylvania-born Continental Army general who served as President of the Continental Congress before becoming the first Governor of the Northwest Territory in 1788. He established his territorial government at Marietta, creating the legal and administrative institutions the Northwest Ordinance required. His 1791 military defeat by a confederacy of Native nations was the worst American military defeat by Native forces in the nation's history.