Expedition Against the

Mac-o-chee Towns

Call to Liberty Fall Encampment October 21-23, 2005

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        In the fall of 1786 an expedition led by General Benjamin Logan destroyed the Mac-o-chee towns situated on the bank of the Mad River.  Here the great sachem to the Shawnees, Moluntha, was brutally murdered by Col. Hugh McGary.

                Since the first interaction between the Ohio Native Americans and the first Europeans in 1650, the relationship between the whites and the Native Americans over the next century and a half fluctuated between peaceful co-existence and warfare.  Tension between the Native Americans and whites escalated during the 1750s and 1760s.

                The Native Americans fought to save their homelands as the whites encroached on the hunting grounds in Kentucky and villages in Ohio.  The whites reacted to the Native Americans’ attacks by leading expeditions against them, destroying and plundering Native American villages.  When the Shawnee refused to accept a treaty in 1785, Gen. Clarke raised forces for the Wabash expedition.

                Gen. Logan was detached from the army to proceed against the Native Americans on the headwaters of Mad River and the Great Miami.  General William Lytle, a sixteen year-old lad at the time, volunteered his services to the expedition and later wrote an account of the events.  The following details have been taken from his accounts:

                “We came in view of the first two towns one of which stood in the bank if Mad River, and the other on the northeast of it.  They were separated by a prairie half a mile in extent.  The town on the northeast was situated on a high, commanding point of land that projected a small distance into the prairie at the foot of which eminence broke out several fine springs.  This was the residence of the famous chief of the nation.”

                According to Lytle’s account, Logan cautioned his colonels against, “killing any among the enemy that they might suppose to be prisoners.”  When Logan’s troops arrived, however, most of the warriors were on a hunting expedition, leaving primarily the elderly, women, and children in the villages.  Lytle writes:

                “Fifty of my companions followed me.  I had not advanced more than a mile, before I discovered some of the enemy running along the edge of the thicket of hazel and plum bushes.  I made signs to the men in my rear to come on.  At the same time, pointing to the flying enemy, I obliqued across the plain so as to get in advance of them.  When I arrived within fifty yards of them I dismounted and raised my gun.  I discovered, at this moment, some men of the right wing coming up on the left.  The warrior I was about the shoot held up his hand in token of surrender, and I heard him order the other Indians to stop.  By this time the men behind me had arrived and were in the act of firing upon the Indians.  I called to them not to fire, for the enemy had surrender.  The warrior that had surrendered to me came walking towards me, calling his woman and children to follow him.  I advanced to meet him, with my right hand extended; but before I could reach him the men of the right wing of my force had surrounded him.  I rushed in among their horses. While he was giving me his hand several of our men wished to tomahawk him.  I informed them they would have to tomahawk me first.  We led him back to the place where his flag had been.  We had thirteen prisoners.  Among them were the chief, his three wives—one of them a young and handsome woman—another of them the famous grenadier squaw.  Upwards of six feet high—and two or three fine young lads.  The rest were children.

                When we arrived at the town a crowd of our men pressed around to see the chief.  I stepped aside to fasten my horse, and my prisoner lad clung close to my side.  A young man by the name of Curner had been to one of the springs to drink.  He discovered the young savage at my side, and came running towards us.  The young Indian supposed he was advancing to kill him.  As I turned around in the twinkling of an eye he let an arrow fly at Curner, for he was armed with a bow.  I had just enough time to catch his arm, and he discharged the arrow.  It passed through Curner’s dress, and grazed his side.  The jerk I gave his arm undoubtedly prevented his killing Curner on the spot. I took away his arrows, and sternly reprimanded him.  I then led him back to the crowd which surrounded the prisoners.  At the same moment Col. McGary, the same man who had caused the disaster at Blue Licks some years before, coming up, Gen. Logan’s eye caught that of McGary. ‘Col. McGary,’ said he.  ‘You must not molest this prisoners.’  ‘I will see to that,’ said McGary in reply.  I forced my way through the crowd to the chief, with my young charge by the hand.  McGary ordered the crowd to open and let him in.  He came up to the chief and the first salutation was in the question, ‘Were you at he defeat of Blue Licks?’  The Indian, not knowing the meaning of the words, or not understanding the purport of the question, answered, ‘Yes.’  McGary instantly seized an axe from the hands of the grenadier squaw, and raised it to make a blow at the chief.  I threw up my arm, to ward off the blow.  The hand of the axe struck me across the left wrist, and came near breaking it.  The axe sunk in the head of the chief to the eyes, and he fell dead at my feet.  Provoked beyond measure at this wanton barbarity, I drew my knife, for the purpose of avenging his cruelty by dispatching him.  My arm was arrested by one of our men, which prevented me inflicting the thrust.  McGary escaped from the crowd.”

                By the end of the expedition, eight large towns had been destroyed.  A large number of cornfields had been burned and the Native American’s winter provisions had been taken.  Troops took 70 or 80 prisoners and killed some 20 “fighting men.”  Native Americans who managed to retreat from the villages before the attack returned to find their villages in ashes.  The following year resulted in a meager existence for the Shawnee. 

~Written by Bridget Early