In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

anthony wayne takes over 97 chapter ten Anthony Wayne Takes Over t Toward the end of the first week in June, a small river convoy began assembling at the foot of the bluffs below the fort—two large boats, capable of carrying a hundred soldiers, who were being transferred to the new command post at Pittsburgh and on the way could provide protection for General Wilkinson’s family, and two light, mobile canoes. Inside the big boats were accommodations for Mrs. Wilkinson and her sons, for Ensign Harrison, and also for the former quartermaster general, Samuel Hodgdon, who had decided to join the party. Hodgdon had been roughly handled in the report of the congressional committee that had investigated St. Clair’s Defeat, and was headed for Philadelphia to try to clear himself. The river was low, as it generally was in summer, and hence suitable for upstream travel. In the fresh warmth of early June, it would (barring Indian attacks) be a pleasant journey for the passengers—none of whom, of course, had to worry about propelling the boats against the current of the Ohio.1 Since the trip was upriver, the boats were keelboats rather than flats: hulking, overgrown craft built of timbers and planks, sometimes seventy feet long and ten feet wide. Along their bottoms ran the keels, heavy beams four inches square, designed to absorb the shock of sunken obstructions . Along each side were the narrow walkways called running boards, where, all day long, six or nine men on each side labored in unison to drive the boat forward, planting their poles on the bottom at the command “set,” walking slowly from prow to stern with the 97 Booraem text.indb 97 5/22/12 1:53 PM 98 a child of the revolution pole held firmly in a socket on their shoulders, lifting at the command “lift,” and returning to the prow to repeat the operation. It was slow going; a foot traveler on the bank, had there been a clear path, could easily have overtaken them. It was also hard, sweaty work for the men who performed it, and the boat carried generous supplies of whiskey to recompense them.2 On13 June, the convoy set off on the long voyage to Pittsburgh. General Wilkinson, solicitous as always of his wife’s welfare, accompanied them on the first leg, as far as Limestone. The journey from there on proved uneventful. No Indians attacked; the splendid, luxuriant forests of the riverbank turned out to conceal nothing more ferocious than deer or bear, which they occasionally saw coming down to the shore in the early morning. No doubt they passed a few flatboats traveling downriver crowded with emigrants, their livestock, and their goods, for even the news of an Indian victory in the West had been unable to stem entirely the flow of westward movement. Wilkinson’s boys, thirteen-year-old Jackie, eleven-year-old James, and seven-year-old Biddle, lounged on the keelboat’s flat roof or fished desultorily in the still water. Ensign Harrison sat in the stern chatting with Hodgdon and Mrs. Wilkinson, perhaps sipping coffee or chocolate from a tin cup, and observing the fertility of the rich river bottoms gliding past. “The sycamore, the elm, the beach, the aspin, the hicory, the walnut, and the maple, or sugar tree, are large beyond credibility,” a New England officer was to write the following spring. “The herbiage which covered the surface of the bottom, was nearly two feet high.” Mrs. Wilkinson, in both looks and manners, was agreeable company. The daughter of a rich Philadelphia family, she had been out west with her husband for eight years, and was now using the privileges of his new rank to revisit her native city; before 1792, the Wilkinsons had been unable to afford the expenses of the trip. Doubtless many of her connections in the capital were people Harrison also knew.3 On 22 June they passed the night at Marietta. By 2 July they were at Pittsburgh, where Harrison reported to the new commander of the Western army, General Wayne. Fleshy, middle-aged, rather overbearing and solemn in manner, with the high-colored complexion of a steady drinker, Wayne much resembled Harrison’s ex-Revolutionary comradesin -arms at Fort Washington. He was courtesy itself, however, as he provided conveyance for the Wilkinson family’s trip east: a two-horse Booraem text.indb 98 5/22/12 1:53 PM [3.143.218.146] Project...

Share