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ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN
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in the year previous, so now in 1791 (as well as in later times) there were many who opposed Indian warfare from humanitarian principles. Suffice it to say these opponents of war did not live on the Muskingum or Licking Rivers! Yet peace, for all concerned, if it could be secured at an honorable price, was most desirable, and the United States faced the question fairly and with energy. As early as December, 1790, the famous Seneca chieftain Cornplanter, being in Philadelphia, was urged not only to present the exact feeling of the Government to the Six Nations in New York and on the Allegheny, but was asked to visit the hostile western nations as a peace messenger. The declaration of war by the savages at Big Bottom in no wise deterred the United States from this purpose of obtaining peace at the least price in blood and treasure. In March, 1791, Colonel Thomas Proctor was sent to the Senecas to urge the young men of that tribe not to take the war path, and then was ordered to go with Cornplanter to the Maumee River. The task was dangerous and laborious, but Proctor pushed his way through the forests