In 1791, General Arthur St. Clair led the United States army in a
campaign to destroy a complex of Indian villages at the Maumee River
in northwestern Ohio. Almost within reach of their objective, St.
Clair's 1,400 men were attacked by about one thousand Indians. The
U.S. force was decimated, suffering nearly one thousand casualties in
killed and wounded, while Indian casualties numbered only a few dozen.
But despite the lopsided result, it wouldn't appear to carry much
significance; it involved only a few thousand people, lasted less than
three hours, and the outcome, which was never in doubt, was
permanently reversed a mere three years later. Neither an epic
struggle nor a clash that changed the course of history, the battle
doesn't even have a name. Yet, as renowned Native American historian
Colin Calloway demonstrates here, St. Clair's Defeat--as it came to be
known-- was hugely important for its time. It was both the biggest
victory the Native Americans ever won, and, proportionately, the
biggest military disaster the United States had suffered. With the
British in Canada waiting in the wings for the American experiment in
republicanism to fail, and some regions of the West gravitating toward
alliance with Spain, the defeat threatened the very existence of the
infant United States. Generating a deluge of reports, correspondence,
opinions, and debates in the press, it produced the first
congressional investigation in American history, while ultimately
changing not only the manner in which Americans viewed, raised,
organized, and paid for their armies, but the very ways in which they
fought their wars. Emphasizing the extent to which the battle has been
overlooked in history, Calloway illustrates how this moment of great
victory by American Indians became an aberration in the national story
and a blank spot in the national memory. Calloway shows that St.
Clair's army proved no match for the highly motivated and well-led
Native American force that shattered not only the American army but
the ill-founded assumption that Indians stood no chance against
European methods and models of warfare. An engaging and enlightening
read for American history enthusiasts and scholars alike, The Victory
with No Name brings this significant moment in American history back
to light.
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The Native American Defeat of the First American Army
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780199388011
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic US
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter