"Instead of being awed by the bellowing artillery, the Indians made the gunners a special object of attack. Man after man was picked off, until every officer was killed but one, who was wounded; and most of the privates were slain or disabled. The artillery was thus almost silenced, and the Indians, emboldened by success, swarmed forward and seized the guns, while at the same time a part of the left wing of the army began to shrink back. But the Indians were now on comparatively open ground, where the regulars could see them and get at them; and under St. Clair's own leadership the troops rushed fiercely at the savages, with fixed bayonets, and drove them back to cover. By this time the confusion and disorder were great; while from every hollow and grass patch, from behind every stump and tree and fallen log, the Indians continued their fire. Again and again the officers led forward the troops in bayonet charges; and at first the men followed them with a will. Each charge seemed for a moment to be successful, the Indians rising in swarms and running in headlong flight from the bayonets. In one of these charges Colonel Darke's battalion drove the Indians several hundred yards, across the branch of the Wabash; but when the colonel halted and rallied his men, he found the savages had closed in behind him, and he had to fight his way back, while the foe he had been chasing at once turned and harrassed his rear. He was himself wounded, and lost most of his command. On reentering camp he found the Indians again in possession of the artillery and baggage, from which they were again driven; they had already scalped the slain, who lay about the guns. Major Thomas Butler had his thigh broken by a bullet; but continued on horseback in command of his battalion until the end of the fight. The only regular regiment present lost every officer killed or wounded. The commander of the Kentucky militia, Colonel Oldham, was killed early in the action, while trying to rally his men and berating them for cowards.
"The charging troops could accomplish nothing permanent. The men were too clumsy and ill-trained in forest warfare to overtake their fleet, half-naked antagonists. The latter never received the shock; but though they fled they were nothing daunted, for they turned the instant the battalion did and followed firing, and, indeed, were only visible when raised by a charge.