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General · Commander of the 1790 expedition against Kekionga
On the record
His 1,453-man expedition against Kekionga was mauled in detachments by Little Turtle’s forces, 19–22 October 1790, with 200+ American casualties — Harmar’s Defeat, the disaster whose fourth anniversary marked the fort’s dedication in 1794.
The disaster is documented by a printed primary record: the Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry into Harmar’s conduct, Philadelphia, 1791.
Josiah Harmar was born 10 November 1753 in Philadelphia and orphaned at three months; educated at Robert Proud's Quaker school, he rose through the Continental Army and in 1784 carried the ratified peace treaty to Paris. From 12 August 1784 to 4 March 1791 he was the senior officer of the United States Army, with a brevet as brigadier general from 31 July 1787, and the Ohio frontier fort chain he built included the post named Fort Harmar for him. His 1790 expedition against Kekionga is the Fort Wayne connection: the army reached and burned the Miami towns at the head of the Maumee, but Little Turtle's warriors mauled Harmar's detached columns on 19–22 October 1790, and the expedition fell back to Fort Washington by 3 November, reporting a loss of 183 men. At his own request a court of inquiry examined his conduct in September 1791 and exonerated him, finding that his conduct "merits high approbation." He resigned on 1 January 1792, served as Pennsylvania's adjutant general from 1793 to 1799, and died in Philadelphia on 20 August 1813.
Find them on this page
- § 02 — the Story of Fort Wayne section
From the timeline in § 02 and the 1791 Court of Enquiry record cited there; Society of the Cincinnati of Pennsylvania, Harmar sketch; U.S. Army Center of Military History; Dictionary of American Biography via Encyclopedia.com.