[1] Harmar wrote "the expenses which must necessarily be incurred in living in, and in viewing this magnificent city [Paris] demand for the benefit of the United States my speedy embarkation".

[8] Harmar reported to Congress in September 1784 that his emphasis upon Prussian-style drill and discipline was having results as "the troops begin to have a just idea of the noble profession of arms".

[8] Harmar was not impressed with the people of Fort Pitt, writing that they "lived in dirty log cabins and were prone to find joy in liquor and fighting".

"[6] Harmar also enjoyed the strawberries growing in the wild, writing: "The earth is most luxuriantly covered with them – we have them in such plenty that I am almost surfeited with them; the addition of fine rich cream is not lacking".

[13] Harmar described the evictions as a painful process as his soldiers had to force the settlers off their newly build homesteads and in his letters to Congress, the general asked that the land be promptly surveyed and sold before the entire Northwest was overrun by "lawless bands whose actions are a disgrace to human nature".

[11] In November 1785, Harmar reported to Congress that the early arrival of winter together with the fact that soldiers who were guarding the surveyors from Indians and squatters were "barefoot and miserably off for clothing" had ended the surveying for that year.

[15] One Indian tribe who refused to sign a treaty giving up their lands was the Shawnee, and Harmar was ordered in October 1785 to advance to the Great Miami River against them.

Short-sightedness on the part of the military was the reason that no preparatory training in guerrilla warfare was ever imposed on the Army... no federal unit under Harmar or St. Clair was ever instructed in the frontiersmen's method of war".

[11] Harmar, having no practical experience in Indian fighting, doggedly chose to train his men in this increasingly outmoded style rather than adapting them to the rigors of wilderness combat.

[17] On 17 July 1787, Harmar visited Vincennes, at the time a mostly French-Canadian town, where he was welcomed by the "principle French inhabitants" and where he informed them that the area was now part of the United States.

[18] During his time at Vincennes, several Indian chiefs came to visit him, where Harmar sought to "impress upon them as much as possible the majesty of the United States" and the wish of the U.S. government "to live in peace with them".

[23] At Fort Harmar, he built a "commodious fine house...an elegant building for this wooden part of the world", where his wife and his son Charles joined him.

[22] Harmar complained that the government was tardy with paying his men or furnishing needed supplies, to which he was informed that because fewer than the requisite nine states were represented in Congress due to political disputes, it was impossible to pass a military budget.

[25] Harmer directed the construction in 1789 of Fort Washington on the Ohio River (located in modern-day Cincinnati), which was built to protect the southern settlements in the Northwest Territory.

By August 1789, enough reports had reached President Washington of widespread violence in the Northwest that he decided the situation required the "immediate intervention of the General Government".

[26] President Washington's War Secretary, Henry Knox, was a firm believer that the nation's first line of defense should be the state militias and was hostile to the very idea of a standing army.

[26] Journalist and historian James Perry wrote that "even Harmar" saw the "danger" of Washington's and Knox's attempts to fight war in the Northwest on the cheap by forcing him to use independent state militiamen instead of U.S. Army troops under his direct control.

[6] Furthermore, the Montreal-based North West Company had taken over the old French fur trading routes together with the services of the French-Canadian voyageurs, and thus had a vested interest in keeping the Northwest for their Indian suppliers.

[29] Knox, who stood to greatly profit if the Indians were cleared out of the Northwest, seemed to have ordered the expedition in a moment of rage at the obstinate resistance of the Miami, Shawnee and Potawatomi peoples who fought his attempts to evict them; he didn't bother asking Harmar's opinion before making this decision.

[31] The state militias were paid $3/day, which led Warner to note that for a typical farmer, merchant, or craftsman, this would mean neglecting his property and leaving his family and friends behind to go on a dangerous mission across the Northwestern frontier for weeks, during which time he would earn little more than $60 for his troubles.

[32] Harmar had hoped to reach Kekionga fast enough to capture the British and French-Canadian fur traders, whom he called the "real villains" for their support of the Indian tribes, but his sluggish advance precluded this.

[28] Much to Harmar's surprise, the preeminent Miami chieftain Little Turtle refused to give battle, instead retreating and burning the tribe's villages and crop fields.

[33] Like many Americans of his time, the general considered the Indians racially inferior; he failed to see any tactical intent in their constant retreats and instead believed that they were merely cowards unwilling to face his superior forces.

[35] Denny wrote in his diary that Hardin "showed displeasure at Trotter's return without executing the orders he had received, and desired the General to give him command of the detachment".

[37] On 20 October, Denny wrote in his diary that: "The army all engaged burning and destroying everything that could be of use: corn, beans, pumpkins, stacks of hay, fencing and cabins, &c".

[37] Harmar finally agreed and in Denny's words "ordered out four hundred choice men, to be under the command of Major John Wyllys, to return to the towns, intending to surprise any parities that might be assembled there".

I expect to have not a very agreeable campaign... Tis probable the Indians will fight us in earnest, the greater part of our force will consist of militia; therefore there is some reason to apprehend trouble.

Under the sky free of clouds and a full moon, Harmar sent out 60 U.S. Army soldiers and 340 militiamen under Wyllys, with Hardin as second in command, on the evening of October 21 back to Kekionga.

Upon entering spread out helter-skelter in a cornfield, the Americans were astonished to hear what one veteran later recalled was a "hideous yell" as a huge number of Miami emerged from the underbrush.

[45] The general sent false reports to Knox omitting the disaster, but the truth soon came out, with militiamen giving interviews to the press accusing Harmar of alcoholism, cowardice and incompetence.