Battle of Fallen Timbers

Background. President Washington commissioned Major General "Mad" Anthony Wayne to recruit and train a larger, more effective force after earlier setbacks in the struggle for the Northwest Territory. In spring 1793 Wayne moved his Legion from Pennsylvania downriver to Fort Washington, establishing a camp he named Hobson's Choice. By January 1794 he reported to Knox that eight companies and an artillery detachment under Major Henry Burbeck had claimed a position.

Approach and Dispositions. Wayne left Fort Recovery on 17 August 1794, pushing north with roughly 1,000 mounted Kentucky militia under General Charles Scott. His Legion built Fort Adams and Fort Defiance, then Fort Deposit as a baggage camp so it could fight as light infantry. Blue Jacket, suspecting Wayne would march along the Maumee River, took a defensive position near present-day Toledo among trees felled by a storm. Native forces numbering about 1,500 took positions on 17–18 August and fasted in preparation.

Aftermath. Though the United States suffered significant losses, Wilkinson dismissed the engagement as a mere skirmish. Within a month most Miami had returned to Kekionga, and Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Odawa, and Wyandotte representatives sought out the Legion to "bury the hatchet." In summer 1795 the confederacy negotiated the Treaty of Greenville with a U.S. delegation led by Wayne, signed on 3 August. Veterans later included William Clark and William Henry Harrison, and Tecumseh, who lost his brother Sauwauseekau in the battle, later organized a new confederacy.