Crawford and his surgeon, Dr. John Knight, were personally invited into the Delaware Nation's Wingenim tribal village by Chiefs Pipe and Wyngenim under the guidance of Simon Girty.

Some Native leaders urged neutrality, while others entered the war because they saw it as an opportunity to halt the expansion of the American colonies and to regain lands previously lost to the colonists.

General Edward Hand led 500 Pennsylvania militiamen on a surprise winter march from Fort Pitt towards the Cuyahoga River, where the British stored military supplies that were distributed to Native raiding parties.

Eventually, Captain Pipe turned against the Americans and moved his followers west to the Sandusky River, where he received support from the British in Detroit.

[13] George Rogers Clark of Virginia responded in August 1780 by leading an expedition that destroyed two Shawnee towns along the Mad River, but did little damage to the Native war effort.

When George Washington, the American commander-in-chief, learned of the Gnadenhütten massacre, he warned soldiers not to let themselves be taken alive by Natives, but by that time the Sandusky expedition had already begun.

[22] Although a major British army under Lord Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781, virtually ending the war in the east, the conflict on the western frontier continued.

[25] Washington replied that the bankrupt U.S. Congress would be unable to finance the campaign, writing that "offensive operations, except upon a small scale, can not just now be brought into contemplation.

Detroit was too distant and too strong for a small-scale operation, but militiamen such as David Williamson believed that an expedition against the American Indian towns on the Sandusky River was feasible.

Irvine wrote detailed instructions for (as yet unselected) commander of the volunteers: The object of your command is, to destroy with fire and sword (if practicable) the Indian town and settlement at Sandusky, by which we hope to give ease and safety to the inhabitants of this country; but, if impracticable, then you will doubtless perform such other services in your power as will, in their consequences, have a tendency to answer this great end.

By examining pension files and other records, historian Parker Brown concluded as many as 583 men may have taken part in the expedition, though an unknown number of these deserted before reaching Sandusky.

The candidates for the top position were David Williamson, the militia colonel who had commanded the Gnadenhütten expedition, and William Crawford, an experienced soldier and frontiersman who had resigned from the Continental Army in 1781.

[45][46] Although Williamson was popular with the militia, Irvine made it known he favored Crawford's election as commander[47] because he hoped to avoid a repetition of the Gnadenhütten massacre.

[50][51][note 3] At Crawford's request, Irvine allowed Dr John Knight, a Continental Army officer, to accompany the expedition as surgeon.

Unknown even to Irvine until several years later,[55] Rose was actually Baron Gustave Rosenthal, a Baltic German nobleman from the Russian empire who had fled to America after killing a man in a duel.

Thanks to information from a captured American soldier, on April 8 British agent Simon Girty relayed to Detroit an accurate report of Crawford's plans.

In command at Detroit was Major Arent Schuyler DePeyster, responsible to Sir Frederick Haldimand, the Governor General of British North America.

In a council at Detroit on May 15, DePeyster and McKee told a gathering of Natives about the Sandusky expedition and advised them to "be ready to meet them in a great body and repulse them."

[74] Captain William Caldwell was dispatched to Sandusky with a company of mounted soldiers from Butler's Rangers, a Loyalist provincial unit, as well as a number of Natives from the Detroit area led by Matthew Elliott.

The scouting party led by John Rose encountered Captain Pipe's Lenapes on the Sandusky plains and conducted a fighting retreat to a grove of trees where they had stored their supplies.

[90][94] The British and Natives had suffered a setback early in the battle when William Caldwell, commander of the rangers, was wounded in both legs and was compelled to leave the field.

[98][99] Simon Girty, the British Indian Department agent and interpreter, rode up with a white flag and called for the Americans to surrender, which was refused.

[113][114][note 8] Fortunately for the Americans, the pursuit of the retreating army was disorganized because Caldwell, overall commander of the British and Native forces, had been wounded early in the battle.

[95][117] As the retreat continued, a force of Natives finally caught up with the main body of Americans on the eastern edge of the Sandusky Plains, near a branch of the Olentangy River.

"[152] Historian Parker Brown identified the names of forty-one Americans who were killed (including executed prisoners), seventeen who were wounded, and seven who were captured but later escaped or were released.

[155] On July 13, 1782, the Mingo leader Guyasuta led about 100 Natives and several British volunteers into Pennsylvania, destroying Hannastown, killing nine and capturing twelve settlers.

In July 1782, more than 1,000 Natives gathered at Wakatomika, but the expedition came to a halt after scouts reported that George Rogers Clark was preparing to invade the Ohio Country from Kentucky.

In November 1782, George Rogers Clark delivered the final blow in the Ohio Country, destroying several Shawnee towns, but inflicting little damage on the inhabitants.

[163][164] In 1783, John Knight's eyewitness account of Crawford's torture, along with Slover's captivity narrative, were published in Francis Bailey's Freeman's Journal and in a separate pamphlet.

[166] By suppressing the Natives' motivation, Brackenridge was able, according to historian Parker Brown, to create "a piece of virulent anti-Indian, anti-British propaganda calculated to arouse public attention and patriotism.