Fallen Timbers, Battle of, was a short—but important—battle fought in 1794 between United States forces and a confederacy of Native American nations. The battle took place in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes regions of what is now the north-central United States. About 3,500 troops led by American Major General “Mad Anthony” Wayne defeated more than 1,000 warriors near what is now Toledo, Ohio. The battle took its name from fallen trees—felled by a tornado sometime in the years prior to the fighting—that littered the battlefield. Following the battle, the defeated nations signed a treaty ceding lands along the Ohio River and elsewhere to the United States.
Background.
Following the American Revolution (1775-1783), the United States gained from Britain (now the United Kingdom) a vast tract of land known as the Northwest Territory. The territory lay north of the Ohio River, west of Pennsylvania, and east of the Mississippi River. Under the terms of the treaty that ended the war, the British were permitted to maintain forts in the region until U.S. officials could settle land disputes with British-allied Native Americans there. The United States tried to negotiate several treaties with the region’s Native American chiefs. The treaties called for them to hand over their lands to the United States in exchange for modest payments. Some Native American leaders, however, refused to recognize the treaties, declaring that they had been signed without the leaders’ consent. The British took advantage of this discord between the United States and the Indigenous (native) groups. By retaining their American forts, the British protected their holdings in Canada and allowed Canadian fur traders to continue to operate within American territory. British soldiers staffing such forts also distributed weapons and ammunition to local Native Americans and encouraged them to resist American expansion.
In 1787, the U.S. Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, which provided for the governance of the region. In 1788, a group of settlers founded Marietta, the first town in what became Ohio. Thousands of settlers poured into the territory. Native Americans and settlers on the frontier frequently attacked the others’ settlements. Each side blamed the other for initiating the attacks.
The Miami chief Little Turtle became a leader of a strong confederacy of Ohio Valley and other Great Lakes region tribes, including the Chippewa, Delaware, Miami, Mingo, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Shawnee, and Wyandot. In 1790, Little Turtle soundly defeated Regular Army and militia troops under U.S. Brigadier General Josiah Harmar. The following year, Little Turtle’s warriors nearly wiped out a larger American force led by Arthur St. Clair—a general and territorial governor—near the Wabash River. In 1792, President George Washington appointed Anthony Wayne, an aggressive Revolutionary War officer, to take charge of the U.S. Army. Wayne’s task was to turn the army into a force capable of defeating the Native Americans who had twice stopped the young United States from asserting its authority over present-day Ohio. Wayne subjected his new command—now known as the Legion of the United States—to harsh discipline and long hours of training. After more than a year of preparation, Wayne finally marched his troops north from Cincinnati to present-day Greenville, Ohio, in October 1793. The army built Fort Greene Ville at the site and spent the winter there. In December, Wayne sent a detachment north to the site of the battlefield where St. Clair had been defeated in 1791. There, they built an advance post called Fort Recovery.
The battle.
On July 28, 1794, Wayne’s army left Fort Greene Ville. His force included 2,000 infantry, cavalry, and artillery from the Legion of the United States and 1,500 Kentucky riflemen mounted on horses. The soldiers marched north, reaching Fort Recovery they next day. They arrived at the junction of the Au Glaize and Maumee rivers on August 8. They built a small fort called Fort Defiance at the site and left a small garrison there before advancing up the north bank of the Maumee. On August 19, Wayne’s troops built another small fort at a point called Roche du Bout. Scouts discovered a large force of 1,200 indigenous warriors supported by some Canadian militia camped downriver, in a forest near the rapids of the Maumee. A British fort stood a few miles behind the Native American camp. The main war leader of the confederacy by this time was the Shawnee leader Blue Jacket, although Little Turtle would fight as one of the Miami warriors during the battle.
About 8 a.m. on August 20, Wayne’s army marched toward the Native American camp. Two columns of infantry were supported by several brigades of cavalry. At about 10 a.m., the Native American force, arranged in three lines behind a mass of fallen trees, fired on Wayne’s advance troops. The U.S. cavalry, leaping over the downed trees, then advanced on their enemies’ flanks (sides) as the infantry formed line and attacked with bayonets. The Native American lines broke, and the warriors retreated in disarray. Over the course of about an hour of fighting, Wayne’s forces suffered more than 100 casualties (men killed or wounded). The U.S. forces found the bodies of 30 to 40 Native Americans shot or bayoneted on the battlefield but suspected that the warriors had carried off most of their dead. In the days afterward, Wayne’s army destroyed Native American villages and crops along the Maumee River. The soldiers would go on to construct a fort at present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The short battle demonstrated to the Native American tribes that U.S. forces in the territory were well trained and had developed better tactics than in earlier fights. Some of the retreating Native Americans had fled to the British fort, but the British commander had barred their entry for fear of provoking a war with the United States. This action convinced many Native Americans that they could not rely on British support against the Americans.
Treaty and later developments.
The Treaty of Greenville settled the terms of peace between the United States and the Native American confederation. Little Turtle and other representatives of 12 nations ceded lands that included most of present-day Ohio; southeastern Indiana; Detroit and Michilimackinac in present-day Michigan; Vincennes, Indiana; and Chicago, Illinois. To the Native Americans, the treaty appeared to guarantee them permanent claim to lands west of the Greenville boundary. U.S. settlers, however, largely ignored the boundary. They soon began to build homesteads in present-day Indiana, setting the stage for further conflict in the early 1800’s.
Today, the site of the battle is preserved by the Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historic Site in Maumee, Ohio.
