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I love our past. Looking back and seeing what our area was like in history is something I do quite often. I am fortunate to be able to do this in my position at Historic Fort Steuben. I know I am a little biased, but we are fortunate to have this museum right here in our backyard that explores the history of our early years.
I am often astonished that these local history places, like Fort Steuben, can exist because almost all the time these smaller history organizations were founded by very devoted volunteers who gave so much because they believed in the work that they did. These organizations were built from just an idea.
For example, the idea for the fort came from the work Professor Jack Boyde did to excavate and investigate the site of the fort. His work inspired Elizabeth King and others to take on the mammoth task of starting the Old Fort Steuben Project and rebuilding the fort 40 years ago. Talk about community pride and involvement. I have written a lot on the fort for obvious reasons, but it is always an interesting topic to cover more than once.
Legitimately, the history of the fort is pretty neat, and for many years I have been interested in stories of the regular soldiers who served here in 1786-87. Just after the American Revolution, the government had a hard time encouraging folks to join the Army. Most of the 150 soldiers at Fort Steuben were teenagers. Most could not read or write.
One of the biggest reasons these young men joined the Army at that time was for regular meals, clothing and a roof over their heads. There were never any casualties at Fort Steuben that we know of, and there were no outright attacks on the fort while it was in operation.
We do know, however, that while the soldiers were out on patrol, they did have encounters with Native American groups. It was a hard life for these men. Most of the officers at Fort Steuben were veterans of the American Revolution and had seen action in their careers, while at Fort Steuben, the soldiers were cold, somewhat hungry and probably bored.
The regular enlisted men were paid $4 a month, although there wasn’t much to buy out in the Northwest Territory at this time.
The clothing that the soldiers had was worn out by the time the fort was resupplied in February 1787. The men had to share shoes, as there were only 33 pairs among the enlisted men.
Any food that the soldiers needed had to be brought in from Fort Pitt, at what is today Pittsburgh. Before November 1786, the river was the main highway through the area, but early in the winter the river was frozen and any travel on it was impossible.
The soldiers were not permitted to hunt for themselves; they had a finite amount of gunpowder and lead ammunition. The officers of the fort hired a gentleman from across the river in Holliday’s Cove to hunt when the need would arise. This fellow was Col. Swearingen, who was the officer in charge of Fort Holliday.
The soldiers at the fort did have some cattle that they brought in with them from Pittsburgh, which helped with some provisions as well. One thing the men did not lack at Fort Steuben was whiskey. The men were granted a ration of whiskey as they were for their food.
The officers at the fort had a different experience when it came to provisions. They were permitted to buy things from outside the fort from farmers across the river in Virginia. Although that side was also pretty rustic, there were settlements that had existed over there for at least 10 years before the soldiers arrived at the fort.
Members of the 1st American Regiment, although their main duty was to protect the surveyors who were working to open the Northwest Territory, were also tasked with removing any illegal squatters from the Ohio side of the river, sometimes going so far as burning these folks out of their houses if they refused to go willingly.
The men who were at Fort Steuben moved on from the fort when the survey work was complete in May 1787. Many of the young men were later involved with the Battle of the Wabash, better known as St. Clair’s Defeat, in November 1791 when the First American Regiment, along with local militia of around 1,000 men under Arthur St. Clair, faced a Native American force of more than 1,000 warriors under Little Turtle of the Miami tribe, Blue Jacket of the Shawnee and Buckongahelas of the Delawares.
This battle was an outright disaster for the American forces. Reports stated that of 52 officers engaged, 39 were killed and seven were wounded. The soldier casualty rate was 97%, with more than 832 Americans killed or wounded. Because of the small size of our forces at that time, more than a quarter of the entire Army was destroyed at that single event.
I am sure that a lot of our soldiers who were stationed at Fort Steuben were part of that defeat.
It is sad to imagine that many of these soldiers who were here could have been killed in St. Clair’s Defeat. Spending as much time as I do here at the fort, you start to get a feel for what life was like for these folks at that time.
Those connections are what the founders of the fort had hoped for: making history come alive for all of us here at home.
(Zuros is the executive director of Historic Fort Steuben.)