Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 8).djvu/208

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204
MILITARY ROADS

found. A strong fort was built and very appropriately named Fort Recovery, Captain Alexander Gibson commanding the garrison. On the sixth day, a portion of the party returned to Fort Greenville. The erection of Fort Recovery was another leap toward the Maumee and soon Indians began to arrive at Fort Greenville bearing white flags and talking of an armistice and peace. Wayne, obeying orders from the Secretary to end the war without another campaign if possible, received the emissaries as though he believed their lying rôle. Deceived by Wayne's attitude, one of the Allegheny chiefs, Big Tree, committed suicide. He had sworn to kill three hostile Indians to avenge the death of his "very dear friend" General Butler; exasperated at the hint of peace he made way with himself.

The peace emissaries, and all talk of an armistice, faded with the winter snows, and by early summer every plan for the crucial campaign had been made both by the Indians and by Wayne. It was July before Scott's fifteen hundred mounted volunteers arrived at Greenville. Already one bloody