Josiah Harmar - WikiHQ

thumb|upright=1.5|[[Fort Harmar]]

Josiah Harmar (November 10, 1753August 20, 1813) was an officer in the United States Army during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. He was the senior officer in the Army for six years and seven months (August 1784 to March 1791).

Early life

Josiah Harmar was born in Philadelphia, Province of Pennsylvania, and educated at a Quaker school.

American Revolution

Harmar started his military career during the Revolutionary War, receiving a commission as a captain in 1775. In 1775, Harmar first saw action during the American invasion of Canada, fighting in the Battle of Quebec. He served primarily under George Washington and "Light-Horse" Henry Lee. Harmar also served as a staff officer of Washington's during the 1777-1778 winter at Valley Forge.

Harmar was an original member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati when it was founded on October 4, 1783. The same day, he was elected as the Society's first secretary, a position he held for two years. Harmar married Sarah C. Jenkins on 10 October 1784 in Philadelphia.

Service in the Northwest Territory

In the 1780s, many Americans wished to settle the "Old Northwest" as the Midwest was known at the time, which of course meant displacing the Indian tribes living there. Supported by the British who still held fur-trading forts in the Old Northwest, the Indians of the Western Confederacy were resolved to oppose the Americans. In 1784, the entire United States Army comprised just 55 artillerymen at West Point and 25 regulars at Fort Pitt (modern Pittsburgh). The weak central government was thus dependent on state militias, which were notoriously undertrained, ill-disciplined, badly funded, and loath to fight outside their home states. Harmar's first task was to train the First American Regiment, imposing a rigorous training regime to create what was intended to be the core of a new United States Army. The general was known as a strict disciplinarian who would punish his soldiers harshly if their uniforms were dirty or rust appeared on their weapons.

As commander of the First American Regiment, Harmar was the senior officer in the United States Army from 1784 to 1791, commanding from the Revolutionary-era Fort McIntosh. Initially, the First American Regiment was to be based in Fort Pitt, but as the Indian chiefs he was to negotiate with did not want to travel far from their homes, Harmar relocated his command to Fort McIntosh. He continued to struggle with alcohol; fellow officers noted that he drank excessive amounts of wine, cognac, whiskey and rum with meals. In a letter to his patron Mifflin, Harmar stated that stories of "Venison, two or three inches deep cut of fat, turkey at once pence per pound, buffalo in abundance and catfish of one hundred pounds that are by no means exaggerated", going on to write that "cornfields, gardens &c, now appear in places which were lately the habitation of wild beasts. Such are the glories of industry."

Until the creation of the Northwest Territory in 1787, the Northwest had no government beyond the U.S. Army, and even after the creation of the Northwest Territory, the area was administered by the War Department for several more years. Harmar described the evictions as a painful process as his soldiers had to force the settlers off their newly build homesteads and in his letters to Congress, the general asked that the land be promptly surveyed and sold before the entire Northwest was overrun by "lawless bands whose actions are a disgrace to human nature". In May 1785, Thomas Hutchins was appointed "Geographer of the United States" by Congress and was ordered to go to the Northwest to conduct surveys, starting with the Seven Ranges. At Fort Harmar, he supplied himself with expensive luxuries such as Windsor chairs, which led the American historian Wiley Sword to write that Harmar's "considerable urbanity may have rendered him somewhat suspect as an Indian fighter". The Indians did not share this viewpoint that they were defeated peoples living on a land that rightfully belonged to the Americans, and many began to resist efforts to evict them.

As a commander, Harmar was a stern martinet who was much influenced by Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben's manual Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, better known as the "Blue Book" for the training of American troops. On 17 July 1787, Harmar visited Vincennes, at the time a mostly French-Canadian town, where he was welcomed by the "principle French inhabitants" and where he informed them that the area was now part of the United States. The people of Vincennes' previous encounters with the Americans had been with the lawless Kentucky militia, which led Harmar, in a letter to the people of Vincennes, to tell them that the men they met before were "not real Americans". Harmar then visited Cahokia and Kaskaskia whose inhabitants had not seen any representatives of the U.S. government since the Revolutionary War, and who Harmar reported had shown "decent submission & respect" for the U.S. government. Harmar was finally received at St. Louis by Major Francisco Cruzat of the Spanish Army where Harmar reported he was "politely entertained" while noting that the entire Spanish garrison at St. Louis numbered only 20 men. Harmar reported in June 1788 that between December 1787-June 1788 at least 6,000 settlers had passed through Fort Harmar on their way to found settlements beyond the Ohio river, writing "The Emigration is almost incredible". At the new village of Marietta, Harmar celebrated the Fourth of July in 1788 with Putnam, having his regiment march down the street in a parade. At Fort Harmar, he built a "commodious fine house...an elegant building for this wooden part of the world", where his wife and his son Charles joined him.

With low-level warfare in the Northwest between the Indians and the settlers now the norm, Harmar, joined by Governor of the Northwest Territory Arthur St. Clair, started talks in January 1789 with Indian leaders representing the remaining Iroquois, the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandot, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Lenape peoples, where the Indians were informed that they could either sell their land for a set price or face war. Both St. Clair and Harmar refused the Indian demand that no more white settlement be allowed beyond the Ohio River, and the resulting Treaty of Fort Harmar saw more land ceded to the United States. President Washington's War Secretary, Henry Knox, was a firm believer that the nation's first line of defense should be the state militias and was hostile to the very idea of a standing army. One of Harmar's subordinates, Major Ebenezer Denny, called the Kentucky militia out to assist with conquering the Old Northwest "raw and unused to the gun or the woods; indeed, many are without guns".

Campaign against the Miamis

In 1790, Harmar was sent on expeditions against Native Americans and the remaining British in the Northwest Territory, who continued to supply them with guns and ammunition. The British quickly passed on this information to the local tribes and released as much gunpowder, ammunition, and firearms to them as they could. Knox, in his letters to Harmar, repeatedly advised him to move fast, strike hard, and avoid drinking, saying that sober generals were victorious generals. The frequency of the last warning indicated that Knox did not have much confidence in Harmar, which led Warner to question just why he was given the command in the first place given the evident doubts that both Washington and Knox had about him. The state militias were paid $3/day, which led Warner to note that for a typical farmer, merchant, or craftsman, this would mean neglecting his property and leaving his family and friends behind to go on a dangerous mission across the Northwestern frontier for weeks, during which time he would earn little more than $60 for his troubles.

Campaign

Harmar's inept training of his forces meant that they were expected to march in formation at all times. This led to the Americans getting quickly bogged down in the dense forest, averaging less than ten miles per day. On 13 October 1790, a frustrated Harmar sent out a light company commanded by Hardin to continue the pursuit. Afterwards, the colonel received reports from a scout that he had seen at least 50 Miami out in the woods, and he immediately ordered his men to withdraw back to camp. Hardin, who loathed Trotter, denounced him openly as a rank coward, even insulting him by claiming that he would stayed and fought the Miami if he was in Trotter's position. Cut off from retreat, Armstrong and his regulars, joined by only nine militiamen, stood their ground and managed to return fire.

On 20 October, Denny wrote in his diary that: "The army all engaged burning and destroying everything that could be of use: corn, beans, pumpkins, stacks of hay, fencing and cabins, &c". On 21 October, Harmar ordered his men to return to Fort Washington, much to the general relief of his hungry and frightened soldiers. After leaving Kekionga, Hardin suggested to Harmar that the Americans make a surprise advance to Kekionga to try and ambush the returning Miami. It was known that the Indians would usually avoid combat except on the most advantageous terms, with the only exception being when their women and children were in danger. Harmar and his officers believed that by attacking the Indian villages directly, Little Turtle would be forced into a pitched battle where they would have the upper hand. Warner described the concept behind the plan as sound, but noted its execution left too much unplanned; there was no co-ordination between the three wings advancing on Kekionga, and no contingency plans if the element of surprise was lost. They then broke rank to pursue fleeing tribesmen down the St. Joseph's River, leaving Wyllys to lead his attack unsupported. One officer testifying at Harmar's court-martial in 1791 stated that the militia's impulsiveness caused Indian women and children to go "flying in all directions" from Kekionga, and stated that in his opinion, Harmar should have called off the attack and retreated while he still had the chance. Wyllys, along with 50 U.S. regulars and 68 militiamen, fell as a consequence of the uncoordinated attack, and their bodies were all scalped. Harmar ordered Major James Ray to find the dead Americans, but only 30 men volunteered, and he turned back after marching just three miles. The general then ordered a full retreat, leaving the fallen soldiers unburied. Harmar's failure to recover the bodies of the dead was disastrous for morale, as it persuaded his men that he was both a coward and indifferent to their lives. The American dead of Kekionga were not finally buried until 1794, when the Battle of Fallen Timbers decisively ended the war.

In the national rage caused by the debacle, bashing Harmar become a favorite pastime of the newspapers, but Perry wrote that Harmar was a scapegoat, and the ultimate responsibility rested with President Washington.</blockquote>

Court martial

Harmar was subsequently court-martialed at his own request, on various charges of negligence, and exonerated by a court of inquiry. During the trial, he had a run in with author and Revolutionary veteran John Robert Shaw, who wrote about the general in his autobiography John Robert Shaw: An Autobiography of Thirty Years 1777–1807.

Later life

Harmar was removed from full command in March 1791, but remained in the Army until resigning on January 1, 1792. He returned to Pennsylvania, where Mifflin, by then governor, appointed him as the state's adjutant general; he served from 1793 until retiring in 1799. Harmar was popular in Philadelphia during his last years, being described as "well regarded by all who knew him, for he was of genial manner".

Notes

References

Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography
Shaw, John Robert, Oressa M. Teagarden, and Jeanne L. Crabtree. John Robert Shaw: An Autobiography of Thirty Years, 1777–1807. Athens: Ohio, 1992. Print.

External links

The papers of General Josiah Harmar, by Howard Henry Peckham, 1937
Ohio History Central bio of Harmar
American Revolution Institute
Josiah Harmar at Findagrave