A NARRATIVE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE INDIANS...WAS CONDUCTED...TOGETHER WITH HIS OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATEMENTS OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR, AND THE QUARTER MASTER GENERAL...AND THE REPORTS OF THE COMMITTEES APPOINTED TO INQUIRE INTO THE CAUSES OF THE FAILURE THEREOF...

Philadelphia: Printed by Jane Aitken, 1812.. xix,[1],[22],273pp. Half title. Contemporary plain boards. Spine largely perished, front board nearly detached. Contemporary ownership signature on front free endpaper and titlepage. Later advertisement pasted to rear free endpaper, 1866 child's diploma in music on rear pastedown. About very good, untrimmed. Without the extended list of subscribers not found with all copies. The first edition of General St. Clair's decades-later defense of his staggering defeat on the American frontier in 1791, as well as his response to the extended congressional investigation that followed it. In the summer and fall of that year, St. Clair and his admittedly under-prepared force of nearly two thousand men were ground down to barely over a thousand, which walked straight into an ambush on the Wabash River. St. Clair's losses at the hands of the Western Confederacy of native tribes were almost complete, with seventy percent of the force killed and only twenty-four of the survivors unwounded. It was at the time the most decisive defeat suffered by the American military, and remained the greatest military failure suffered on the frontier. Upon hearing the news, Washington immediately demanded St. Clair's resignation, and the first ever congressional inquiry was opened to investigate the disaster.

"All of St. Clair's voluminous defense is rendered nugatory and futile by the passionate ejaculations of Washington, when Major Denny called him from a dinner-party, to announce the defeat. Overcome with surprise and indignation, Washington cursed the beaten general with exceeding fervor, adding, 'Did not my last words warn him against a surprise'" - Field. The work was printed by the important Philadelphia printer, Jane Aitken, daughter of the printer of the first American Bible in English. An important record of a largely forgotten watershed in American history. HOWES S24, "aa." FIELD 1349. SABIN 75020. EBERSTADT 115:892. THOMSON 1012. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 26682.