The Native coalition intended to keep them from using either advantage properly.
Dawn destroyed the Kentucky militia first
The attack began shortly before or around sunrise on November 4.
The militia camp across the stream absorbed the first shock.
Warriors struck quickly from more than one direction.
Most of the Kentucky militiamen fired little before breaking toward St. Clair's main lines. Army history describes roughly 270 militia soldiers fleeing almost immediately.
Their retreat did more than remove them from the battle.
It carried panic directly into the main American position.
Men who had been forming for the morning suddenly saw armed militia rushing toward them with Native warriors close behind.
The space available inside the camp narrowed instantly.
The artillery crews attempted to respond.
They became obvious targets.
Warriors using trees, logs, terrain, and mobility could fire at men gathered around exposed cannon.
William Darke, one of the surviving American officers, later told Washington that Native fighters advanced so close that they reached the mouths of the guns. He remembered artillerymen dying around their pieces and the camp being penetrated repeatedly.
The cannon remained powerful weapons.
Power did not matter if crews could not stay alive long enough to serve them.
The encirclement turned the American camp into a trap
The attack spread around the main position.
Warriors fired from forest cover.
The Americans returned fire into trees and smoke.
Because the Native line was dispersed, the U.S. troops often lacked dense formations to target.
The soldiers, by contrast, occupied a confined camp filled with men, horses, wagons, artillery, wounded troops, camp followers, and equipment.
Every minute increased the crowding.
The militia who had fled into the main camp added to the confusion.
Officers tried to form units.
Soldiers fired volleys.
Artillery crews attempted to operate their cannon.
The Native force maintained pressure around the perimeter.
This was not a simple charge in which one mass of warriors rushed directly into bayonets.
The coalition used cover and fire to weaken the American position.
When American troops attempted to drive warriors back with bayonet charges, Native fighters could withdraw into the woods rather than remain in a fixed line.
The soldiers might gain several hundred yards.
Then they had to return toward camp or risk separation.
Once the Americans pulled back, the Native fighters closed again.
Darke described exactly this problem.
His men charged successfully and pushed warriors away from part of the position. When they returned, the soldiers could not reorganize quickly enough to turn that local success into control of the battlefield.
The Americans could win a few hundred yards.
They could not break the circle.
St. Clair was sick before the battle but remained mounted under fire
Arthur St. Clair was in poor health during the campaign.
Army histories describe him suffering from gout, rheumatism, asthma, and severe digestive illness during the expedition.
His illness later became part of the debate about responsibility.
It would be misleading, however, to portray him as hiding helplessly while his men fought.
St. Clair mounted a horse and tried to direct the defense.
Contemporary and later accounts describe horses being shot beneath him and bullets passing through his clothing.
His problem was not lack of personal exposure.
His problem was that the army was collapsing faster than command could restore it.
Richard Butler, the second-ranking officer, was mortally wounded.
Many other officers were killed or injured.
Orders became harder to transmit.
Units lost their original structure.
The battlefield increasingly consisted of small groups trying to survive inside a position whose edges were disappearing.
Every officer casualty weakened the organization further
Early armies depended heavily on visible officers.
There were no radios.
No portable electronic communications existed.
A captain's voice, a drum, a flag, a mounted messenger, or direct personal contact carried instructions.
When officers fell, soldiers did not merely lose leaders they respected.
They lost part of the system through which the army functioned.
The casualty rate among St. Clair's officers was severe.
An Army Center of Military History study records that out of 124 officers engaged, 69 were killed, wounded, or missing.
The 2nd Infantry suffered especially badly.
The longer the fight continued, the less the American formation resembled the one that had gone into camp the previous evening.
The Native force experienced its own losses, but available estimates suggest they were far lighter. One U.S. Army historical study gives approximately 35 Native dead, though exact totals remain uncertain because the confederacy did not produce a centralized casualty return comparable to an Army muster.
The difference was enormous.
The Americans were losing their ability to function as an organized army.
The Native force retained enough cohesion to keep closing around them.
The bayonet became one of the few tools still capable of opening space
American soldiers possessed an important close-combat advantage in the bayonet.
A musket with a fixed bayonet could be used as a spear after firing.
Officers ordered several charges in attempts to break the surrounding pressure.