St. Clair

U.S. Army commander · The 1791 expedition

• 4 November 1791

On the record

His army was destroyed by the Northwestern Confederacy on 4 November 1791 — the worst defeat the U.S. Army ever suffered at Native hands. Congress investigated: its first investigation of the executive branch. The battle was near modern Fort Recovery, Ohio — not at Fort Wayne.

Arthur St. Clair was born 23 March 1737 at Thurso, Scotland, and first came to America in British uniform, fighting in the French and Indian War at Louisbourg and on the Plains of Abraham. He settled in Pennsylvania, served the Revolution at Trenton, Princeton, and Ticonderoga, and in 1787 was president of the Continental Congress that stood behind the Northwest Ordinance. As the first governor of the Northwest Territory (1788–1802) he organized the government of the country that included Fort Wayne and renamed the settlement at Losantiville "Cincinnati," for the Society of the Cincinnati. Commissioned major general on 4 March 1791 to succeed Harmar, he led the army that Miami and allied warriors under Little Turtle and Blue Jacket destroyed on 4 November 1791 near present Fort Recovery, Ohio — some 623 soldiers killed, still the worst defeat the United States Army ever suffered at Native hands. The congressional inquiry that followed — the first investigation of the executive branch in the republic's history — exonerated him, but he resigned his commission on 7 April 1792 — the date of his own letter to Washington, written after the President's letter of 4 April pressed the matter; the 5 March date carried in a Wikipedia infobox is wrong. Jefferson removed him as governor on 22 November 1802 for opposing Ohio statehood. He died in poverty at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on 31 August 1818.

Find them on this page

• § 02 — the Story of Fort Wayne section

From the timeline in § 02; Wikipedia, "Arthur St. Clair"; Society of the Cincinnati of Pennsylvania; Founders Online (St. Clair to Washington, 7 April 1792); Levin Center, Portraits in Oversight.