Henry Livingston, Jr.
Henry Livingston's Prose



For the New-York Magazine
ANTICIPATION.

Extract from Maponascon's celebrated history of the rise, declension, and renovation, of the empire of the west. Published in two folio volumes, with splendid engravings, at Qutagamis, in 1885.

The BATTLE of MIAMI.

IN the autumn of the year 1791, the pale men, to the number of five thousand, headed by one of their most experienced chiefs, with seven pieces of brass cannon, and every other implement of war in use at that time, began a march int our country along the banks of the lesser Miami.

Their avowed purpose was to erect fortresses every twenty or thirty miles - destroy our villages at the sources of the two Miami's - and, by keeping possession of that fertile territory, deprive the red men of their principal means of subsistence.

The confederated warriors, whose numbers did not exceed twelve hundred, were commanded by Montolili, grandson of the veteran Pondiac, whose wisdom and prowess would have done honour even to the present enlightened age. This wary chieftain with difficulty checked the ardor of his heroic followers, till the enemy had advanced within fifteen miles of the Maumee towns, when it became impossible to restrain it any longer.

In van was it remonstrated that the enemy were encamped on advantageous ground, with a river in front, and other defences on the right and left wings: that they were well apprized of the neighbourhood of our warriors, and actually stood arrayed in expectation of an attack. The shout of war, terrible as thunder, and pregnant with death, drowned the whispers of ill-timed caution, and destruction rushed on the foe from every quarter.

Numbers fell by the well-aimed fire of the rifles, but many, many more, by that caterer for the grave, the tomahawk. The impetuosity of the red men, like a whirlwind, bore down opposition wherever it was directed.

The slaughter (for it could hardly be called a battle) lasted two hours; when the trembling remains of the vanquished army saved themselves by a flight, to which dreadful apprehension gave unusual precipaitancy. Half a hundred leaders, and upwards of a thousand warriors of the foe, lay dead upon the plain; while the cries of a wounded multitude arose grateful in the ears of Areskoui.

And all the artillery - all the stores - and in short, every appendage of this well appointed army, fell into the conquerers hands: and that every man was not destroyed, was entirely owing to the unwillingness our warriors manifested to butcher an unresisting enemy.

Thus terminated a conflict, not less honourable to the invincible lords of the soil, then disgraceful and humiliating to the palid despoilers of this beautiful garden of nature. R.


New-York Magazine; or, Literary Repository
Anticipation. The Battle of Miami.
Vol. III No. I, pp.22-23; Jan 1792; by R





        
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