Timeline: Fall of Fort Wayne

 

August 20th, 1812 – Antoine Bondie warns Stickney of an attack.  The Potawatomie Metea has warned him because of his Miami wife.  Stickney then tells Capt. Rhea, who does not listen.  Bondie and Stickney take refuge in the fort.

 

August 22nd, 1812  Colonel Johnston asks for the women and children to be brought from Fort Wayne to Piqua.  Among the women are Ann, Rebecca, and Mary Wells, and the wives and children of Antoine Bondie, William Bailey, and Stephen Johnston.  He calls on Johnny Logan and sends letters to the commander of the fort with him to prove the request is legit.  Their conference was a night.  Logan says he will not sleep until it is done and will die in the attempt if necessary.

 

August 23rd, 1812  By noon the next day Logan and a group of Indians travel, mounted to get them. 

 

August 24th, 1812  Stephen Johnston (brother of John Johnston) writes that they have 400 suspicious Indians at the Fort and he can no longer conduct business.  If not for Stickney’s health and needs, he would leave.

 

August 25th,1812  General Thomas Worthington orders Sam Wells to relieve Fort Wayne.

 

August 26th, 1812  Johnston reports that the frontier is in complete panic and that Worthington has – at his urging – raised 700 volunteers who have proceeded to St. Mary’s for the relief of Fort Wayne.

 

August 27th, 1812 (app)  Harrison is appointed major general by brevet in Kentucky.  He has 2200 men.  He uses Sam Wells’ order to relieve Fort Wayne as a reason for him to set out for there.  

 

Stephen Johnston plans to leave to join his wife.  He accepts  messages from Rhea asking for ‘succor’ and stating that the situation is ‘critical’ and agrees to carry them to Harrison. 

 

August 28th, 1812 Stephen leaves the fort at 10 o’clock.  He travels along with Peter Oliver and a discharged soldier.  ½ mile south of the fort they are attacked.  Stephen is shot.  His corpse is then mutilated and brutalized.  The others return to the fort. 

 

August 29th, 1812  A reward of 20 dollars is offered by Antoine Bondie for the return of Stephen’s body to the fort.  This task is performed by a young chief, White Raccoon.  When the body is brought in they discover Stephen was scalped and tomahawked in a most brutal manner.  

 

The army marches away from Cincinnati.

 

August 30th, 1812 (app.) William Oliver, trader, sutler at Fort Wayne, is in Cincinnati.  He enlists with the Ohio troops and offers his services to General Harrison.  Oliver, leading a body of sixty-eight militia and sixteen Shawnee braves, starts for Fort Wayne.  

 

August 31st, 1812  General Harrison, starting a day or two later, passes his army between Lebanon and Dayton. 

 

September 1st, 1812  Worthington with eight other whites dressed as Indians, set out with seven Indian guides to explore the country adjacent to Fort Wayne.  On the march, from Dayton to Piqua an express informs Harrison that he has been appointed Brig General and assigned to the command of all forces in Indiana and Illinois.  Harrison declines.  Before accepting, he wants to know how much will he be subordinate to James Winchester.  Harrison's troops reach Piqua.  Governor Meigs leaves Piqua for Urbana.  Wm. Oliver, who had volunteered his services to Gen. Harrison, leaves to find out if Fort Wayne still holds.  Winchester is expected to arrive at Piqua on September 4th.  Harrison and John Johnston send some Shawnee Indians to the site of Fort Defiance to see if the British have passed up the Maumee toward Fort Wayne.  

 

Johnston gives Captain Logan 20 dollars to select enough Indians to go to Fort Wayne and return his brother’s body to Piqua for burial.

Indian chiefs placed the blame for the murder upon their ‘young men’ asserting that they could not control them.  Afterward, John Johnston accused White raccoon of having the blood of his brother on his hands.  It was actually two Pottawatomies and a half breed, who were the murderers.

 

September 2nd, 1812  Oliver and his party see within 24 miles of the fort that the siege forces are massive and any hope of an immediate relief of the garrison is abandoned.  Along with Captain John Logan, Captain Johnny, and Brighthorn, he goes on to spy on the Indians. They are afraid of being spotted and urge their horses on up a hill, making the Indians think there was a larger force about.  Eventually the gate of the fort is opened to allow these three horsemen to dash out along the trail along the Maumee.

September 3rd, 1812  Worthington is 30 miles into Indian territory when he meets a runner from Fort Wayne.  The native scouts traveling with him desert out of fear and take false rumors back to the army.  Worthington and his party go 4 miles farther and then turn back as word reaches hi that the natives in Piqua are going to leave if he does not appear.

 

September 4th, 1812 Worthington goes to St. Mary's again for the troops.  They are afraid due to the false reports.  William Oliver returns from his harrowing time scouting Fort Wayne.

 

September 5th, 1812  (app.) The siege of Fort Wayne begins in earnest.  Worthington reaches Piqua.

 

Harrison receives information that a British party of 140 men and four hundred Indians had left Malden on August 18 with the ultimate purpose of attacking Fort Wayne.  He determines to go to the relief of Fort Wayne and encourages Winchester to either follow or head for Detroit.  Harrison sends nine hundred choice men to join the mounted men of Ohio at St. Mary’s to relieve Fort Wayne.  He only awaits ‘sufficient cartridges and muskets’ before joining them.  Harrison ordered that the troops should prepare for a rapid march to the ‘front’, all heavy baggage to be left behind (in Piqua).  He calls for the Kentucky mounted volunteers to hurry from Kentucky and Cincinnati to follow him.  Harrison gives a speech.  One of the men declines to go.  He is plunged ‘in the waters’ by which his fellows’ absolve him of obligations of courage and patriotism, and then give him leave of absence.”  Harrison writes to Meigs and asks for additional troops, lamenting that he had not ‘sufficient fixed ammunition for half the troops within (his) reach.’

 

September 6th, 1812  The spies sent out by Johnston and Harrison return from Defiance.  On learning the British have not been that way, and having received the much needed supply of flints, Harrison leaves Piqua with his troops at noon and heads to Fort Wayne.

 After a few days in camp on Johnston’s farm, awaiting a supply of flints for their flintlock rifles, the army moved toward Fort Wayne on the afternoon of September 6.  Before he goes he rallies the troops and one young man is dumped in the river.

 

September 7th, 1812  Worthington closed the Council of Piqua.