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5 SEPTEMBER 1812 · INSIDE THE FORT, UNDER A FLAG OF TRUCE
The scene: The strangest scene of the 1812 siege of Fort Wayne happened indoors, under a flag of truce, with wine on the table. Winamac, a Potawatomi chief who co-led with Five Medals the force of roughly five hundred Potawatomi and Miami then besieging the fort, had come to a parley on 4 September and drunk wine with the fort's commander, Captain James Rhea. The next day Winamac was admitted to the fort with thirteen men — and drew a hidden knife on the Indian agent Benjamin Stickney. The trader Antoine Bondie knocked the blow aside. The fort's orderly book and Stickney's own account preserve the chief's part, which is why the episode stands in the record rather than in legend. The siege ran from 5 to 12 September; the final attack came on 11 September, and the besiegers withdrew across the Maumee on the 12th ahead of Harrison's relief column. No verified birth or death dates for Winamac were found in the People research, and none are printed there — the knife, at least, is dated.
Sources: the People section of this history (Winamac profile) — the fort's orderly book and Benjamin Stickney's account, as carried in the Ball State account drawn from Stickney's manuscript and the siege record in the Events section.