As a result, President George Washington forced St. Clair to resign his post, and Congress initiated its first investigation of the executive branch.

The young United States government, deeply in debt following the Revolutionary War and lacking the authority to tax under the Articles of Confederation, planned to raise funds via the methodical sale of land in the Northwest Territory.

[7] During the mid and late 1780s, a cycle of violence in Indian-American relations and the continued resistance of Native nations threatened to deter American settlement of the contested territory, so John Cleves Symmes and Jonathan Dayton petitioned President Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox to use military force to crush the Miami.

[8] A force of 1,453 men (320 regulars from the First American Regiment and 1,133 militia) under Brigadier General Josiah Harmar marched northwards from Fort Washington on 7 October 1790.

[11] In May 1791, Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson led a subsequent raid in August 1791, intended to create a distraction that would aid St. Clair's march north.

[18] Little Turtle is often credited for the victory, but this may have been due to the influence of his son-in-law, William Wells, who later served with the United States as an Indian agent and interpreter.

The United States command structure was as follows:[11] U.S. Army – Major General Arthur St. Clair U.S. levies – Major General Richard Butler † Kentucky militia – Lieutenant Colonel William Oldham † Washington was adamant for St. Clair to move north in the summer months, but various logistics and supply problems greatly slowed his preparations in Fort Washington (now Cincinnati, Ohio).

[citation needed] The Army under St. Clair included 600 regulars, 800 six-month conscripts, and 600 militia at its peak, a total of around 2,000 men.

[22] Desertion took its toll; when the force finally got underway, it had dwindled to around 1,486 total men and some 200–250 camp followers (wives, children, laundresses, and prostitutes).

Going was slow, and discipline problems were severe; St. Clair, suffering from gout, had difficulty maintaining order, especially among the militia and the new levies.

[1] On the evening of 3 November, St. Clair's force established a camp on a high hill near the present-day location of Fort Recovery, Ohio, near the headwaters of the Wabash River.

[23] Adjutant General Winthrop Sargent had just reprimanded the militia for failing to conduct reconnaissance patrols when the natives struck, surprising the Americans and overrunning their ground.

The center, consisting of the Miami, Shawnee, and Lenape, first attacked the militia,[27] who fled across the Wabash and up the hill to the main camp without their weapons.

The regulars immediately broke their musket stacks, formed battle lines, and fired a volley into the natives, forcing them back.

[28] The left and right wings of the Native American formation flanked the regulars and closed in on the main camp, meeting on the far side.

After three hours of fighting, St. Clair called together the remaining officers and, faced with total annihilation, decided to attempt one last bayonet charge to get through the native line and escape.

[39] Another account tells a similar story, where a baby abandoned in the snow by a fleeing mother was found and adopted by pursuing Native Americans.

Hiding beneath a tree, Littell reported that they ate the abandoned food, divided the spoils, and killed the wounded.

Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson assumed command of the Second Regiment in January 1792 and led a supply convoy to Fort Jefferson.

[53] A grand council was held on the banks of the Ottawa River to determine whether to continue the war against the United States or negotiate peace from a strong position.

[17] The British, surprised and delighted at the success of the Natives they had been supporting and arming for years, stepped up their plans to create a pro-British Indian barrier state that would be closed to further settlement and encompass what was then known as the Northwest Territory.

[55] The plans were developed in Canada, but in 1794, the government in London reversed course and decided it was necessary to gain American favor since a major war had broken out with France.

London put the barrier state idea on hold and opened friendly negotiations with the Americans, leading to the Jay Treaty of 1794.

Blaming Quartermaster General Samuel Hodgdon, as well as the War Department, St. Clair asked for a court-martial to gain exoneration and planned to resign his commission after winning it.

Knox brought that matter to Washington's attention, and because of the significant issues of separation of powers involved, the president summoned a meeting of all of his department heads.

[60] Washington established, in principle, the position that the executive branch should refuse to divulge any papers or materials that the public good required it to keep secret and that at any rate, it was not to provide any originals.

[67] In December 1793, the Legion of the United States built Fort Recovery at the battlefield site and spent the following months reinforcing the structure and searching for the abandoned artillery from St. Clair's defeat.

The following year, the United States and the Northwestern Confederacy negotiated the Treaty of Greenville, which used Fort Recovery as a reference point for the boundary between American and Native settlements.

[70] One of the more significant effects of the Native American victory was the expansion of a standing, professional Army and militia reforms in the United States.

A story was published years after the defeat of St Clair about a skeleton of Captain Roger Vanderberg and his diary that were supposedly found inside a tree in Miami County, Ohio.