Our Loss Was Heavy: Brigadier General Josiah Harmar's Kekionga Campaign of 1790 – Frontier Indian Battles in Ohio River Valley, Campaign Plan Ignored Strategic Context, Extirpate the Banditti

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. In the fall of 1790, Brigadier General Josiah Harmar led the nascent US Army on a campaign designed to defeat a confederation of Indians blocking white settlement north of the Ohio River. Over the course of a month, Harmar's forces travelled over 350 miles along widely separated axes, destroyed hundreds of Indian homes and over 20,000 bushels of agricultural goods, and killed between 100-120 warriors in two major engagements. Yet, Harmar ended the campaign having failed impose a peace on the frontier.

While many histories assign blame for the US Army's failure in the Harmar campaign to poor leadership, unreliable militia, or faulty logistics among others—these reasons may fail to identify and explain the impact of a commander's understanding of his strategic guidance and the ensuing planning and execution of a campaign. This monograph evaluates the Harmar campaign against the current US Army operations process and the concepts of understand, visualize, describe, and direct. In doing so, it argues that the US Army lost against the Northwest Indian Confederation in 1790 due to Brigadier General Harmar's construction of a campaign plan that failed to recognize its strategic context, while also neglecting to account for the limitations of American organization and capabilities.

Part 1 - The Historiography of Harmar's Campaign * Part 2 - Spiraling Violence: The Northwest Territory from 1783 – 1790 * Part 3 - "Extirpate the Banditti": The Harmar Campaign of 1790 * Plans and Preparations * Operations * Aftermath * Part 4 - Assessment: Harmar's Failure and the Operations Process * Understand * Visualize * Describe * Direct

Despite his experience in the Revolutionary War, despite having spent over six years leading the army in the Ohio River Valley, and despite the detailed guidance from both the president of the United States and the secretary of war; Harmar still failed in dramatic fashion when given the opportunity to combat his long time Indian antagonists. But, why did this happen? Common explanations for the US Army's poor performance during the 1790 campaign range from poor leadership at all levels, to unreliable militia, to faulty logistics among many others. While these reasons are compelling, they may fail to identify and explain the impact of a commander's understanding of his strategic guidance and the ensuing planning and execution of a campaign. By evaluating the 1790 campaign against the current US Army operations process and the concepts of understand, visualize, describe, and direct, it becomes apparent that the US Army lost against the Northwest Indian Confederation in 1790 due to Brigadier General Harmar's construction of a campaign plan that failed to recognize strategic context, while also neglecting to account for the limitations of American organization and capabilities.