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ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN
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when assaulted, but follow back eagerly. Such tactics were all that were necessary. As in Braddock's battle beside the Monongahela, so here, the white array on higher ground in plain sight could not do such fatal execution, by any means, as the Indian army strewn among the standing and fallen trees, the brush and rank grasses of the lower ground, and on the sloping sides of the promontory.

By nine o'clock the army had been exposed for three hours to the merciless Indian fire. Hundreds had fallen; the ground was literally covered with dead and dying. The only question was, Could the remainder escape? The army was cut off from the road. Benjamin Van Cleve, a young man, has left record of this memorable break for the road when order to retreat was at last given: "I found," he says, "the troops pressing like a drove of bullocks to the right. I saw an officer . . with six or eight men start on a run a little to the left of where I was. I immediately ran and fell in with them. In a short distance we were so suddenly among the Indians, who were not apprised of our