The Birth of a Nation^81TOTAL WAR IN OHIO SETS THE STAGE
The first Washington administration was consumed by the crisis
engendered by its inability to quickly conquer and colonize the Ohio
Country over which it claimed sovereignty.4 During the Confedera
tion period, before the US Constitution was written and ratified, the
Indigenous nations in that region had access to a constant supply
of British arms and had formed effective political and military al
liances, the first of them forged by Mohawk leader Joseph Brant
during the 1780 s. Washington's administration determined that
only war, not diplomacy, would break up the Indigenous alliances.
Secretary of War Henry Knox told the army commander of Fort
Washington (where Cincinnati is today) that "to extend a defensive
and efficient protection to so extensive a frontier, against solitary,
or small parties of enterprising savages, seems altogether impos
sible. No other remedy remains, but to extirpate, utterly, if possible,
the said Banditti."5 These orders could not be implemented with a
conventional army engaged in regular warfare. Although fe deral of
ficers commanded the army, the fighters were nearly all drawn from
militias made up primarily of squatter settlers from Kentucky. They
were unaccustomed to army discipline but fe arless and willing to
kill to get a piece of land to grab or some scalps for bounty.
The army found the Miami villages they planned to attack
already deserted, so they set up a base in one of the villages and
waited for a Miami assault. But the assault was not forthcoming.
When the commander sent out small units to find the Miamis,
these search-and-destroy missions were ambushed and sent flee
ing by allied Miamis and Shawnees under the leadership of Little
Tu rtle (Meshekinnoqquah) and Blue Jacket (Weyapiersenwah). The
deserted towns had been bait to lure the invaders into ambushes.
The commander reported to the War Department that his forces
had burned three hundred buildings and destroyed twenty thousand
bushels of corn. Those were likely facts, but his claim to have bro
ken up the Indigenous political and military organization was not
accurate. Knox apparently knew that more than fo od and property
destruction would be needed to quell resistance. He ordered the
commanders to recruit five hundred weathered Kentucky mounted