Chapter IX Summary

Efforts to build an army to fight the Indians are slow and the men who might have joined are further disheartened to arrive in the region to find the French who have been duped in their purchase of the Ohio property. On September 16, 1791, chiefs of the Indian tribes gather, putting aside their own animosities to unite against the whites. St. Clair's army leaves with only fourteen hundred men and without sufficient provisions to sustain them. Tecumseh follows the army's progress, constantly sending runners with news. St. Claire's men build a fort, Fort Hamilton, and by October stop to build Fort Jefferson some forty-four miles north. During the night of the fort's completion, three hundred of the militia desert. The families of many of the soldiers have followed and now the three hundred fighting men and their families - some five hundred...