Crawford expedition

Crawford expedition
Part of the American Revolutionary War
Illustration of Crawford's execution
Date May 25, 1782 – June 12, 1782 Location Ohio Country Result British-Indian victory
Belligerents
Lenape Wyandot Shawnee Ojibwe Odawa Potawatomi  Great Britain	United States
Commanders and leaders
Captain Pipe Dunquat Snake William Caldwell Alexander McKee Matthew Elliott	William Crawford  David Williamson Thomas Gaddis John McClelland  Gustave Rosenthal James Brenton John Hardin
Strength
340–640 Indians 100 provincials	500+ militia
Casualties and losses
6 killed 10–11 wounded	~70 killed

The Crawford expedition, also known as the Battle of Sandusky, the Sandusky expedition and Crawford's Defeat, was a 1782 campaign on the western front of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the final operations of the conflict. The campaign was led by Colonel William Crawford, an experienced officer who had served in the Continental Army and a childhood friend of George Washington. Crawford's goal was to destroy enemy Native American towns along the Sandusky River in the Ohio Country, with the hope of ending Native attacks on American settlers. The expedition was one in a series of raids against enemy settlements that both sides had conducted throughout the war.

In late May 1782, Crawford led about 500 volunteer militiamen, mostly from Pennsylvania, deep into Native American territory, with the intention of surprising the Natives. The Indigenous groups and their British allies from Detroit learned of the expedition and gathered a force to oppose the Americans. A day of indecisive fighting took place near the Sandusky towns on June 4, with the Americans taking refuge in a grove that came to be known as "Battle Island." Native and British reinforcements arrived the following day. The Americans, finding themselves surrounded, retreated that night. The retreat became disorganized, with Crawford becoming separated from most of his men. As the retreat became a rout, another skirmish was fought on June 6. Most of the Americans managed to find their way back to Pennsylvania. Around 70 Americans were killed in both the fighting and subsequent executions; Native and British losses were minimal.

During the retreat, Crawford and an unknown number of his men were captured. The Indigenous combatants executed many of these captives in retaliation for the Gnadenhütten massacre that occurred earlier in the year, in which about 100 peaceful Indigenous people were murdered by Pennsylvanian militiamen. Crawford and surgeon Dr. John Knight were personally invited into the Delaware Nation village of Wingenim by the Native chiefs under the guidance of woodsman Simon Girty, a former Loyalist. As they sat, Crawford and Knight noticed the severed head of an American officer, Lt. John McKinley, which tribal members were kicking around as a ball for entertainment.

The two men were led by Girty to the tribal fire, where Crawford "was stripped naked, ordered to sit down by the fire and then beaten." At the chiefs' direction, Crawford was held down while his ears were cut off. In Knight's first-hand sworn testimony, Crawford pleaded with Girty to shoot him, to which the man "laughed heartily, and by all his gestures seemed delighted at the horrid scene."^[1] Crawford's subsequent execution was particularly brutal: he was tortured for at least two hours before being burned at the stake.^[2] His execution was widely publicized in the United States, worsening the already-strained relationship between Indigenous groups and Americans.