Battle of Peckuwe
The Battle of Peckuwe was the largest battle of the American Revolution to occur west of the Allegheny Mountains.
During the summer of 1780, George Rogers Clark led approximately 1,050 men, primarily militiamen from Kentucky, against Shawnee Indian settlements at Old Chillicothe and Peckuwe. The Shawnee destroyed Old Chillicothe as Clark's men approached on August 6. On August 8, the militiamen arrived at Peckuwe, a Shawnee village that was located just west of present-day Springfield, Ohio on the Mad River. Most of the natives resided in log cabins. Clark's men succeeded in driving the Shawnee from Peckuwe and proceeded to destroy the town. Clark had fourteen men killed and an additional thirteen wounded. Exact native casualties are unknown, but Clark estimated that they were three times the number that his own men had suffered.
The Battle of Peckuwe sometimes is confused with the Battle of Piqua, which occurred more than two years later. These two battles, as well as the other conflicts between white and Native Americans, only further enhanced the tensions between the two groups both during and following the American Revolution.
References and Suggested Reading
- Bakeless, John Edwin. Background to Glory: The Life of George Rogers Clark. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1957.
- Barr, Daniel P., ed. The Boundaries Between Us: Natives and Newcomers Along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750-1850. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006. - Available from Amazon.com
- Bond, Beverley W., Jr. The Foundations of Ohio. Columbus, OH: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1941.
- Flavell, Julie, and Stephen Conway, eds. Britain and America go to War: The Impact of War and Warfare in Anglo-America, 1754-1815. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. - Available from Amazon.com
- Harrison, Lowell Hayes. George Rogers Clark and the War in the West. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976. - Available from Amazon.com
- Hurt, R. Douglas. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996. - Available from Amazon.com
- James, James Alton. The Life of George Rogers Clark. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1928.
- Knepper, George. Ohio and Its People. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003. - Available from Amazon.com
- Nester, William R. The Frontier War for American Independence. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2004. - Available from Amazon.com
- O'Donnell, James H., III. Ohio's First Peoples. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. - Available from Amazon.com
- Palmer, Frederick. Clark of the Ohio: A Life of George Rogers Clark. New York, NY: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1930. - Available from Amazon.com
- Ricky, Donald B., ed. Encyclopedia of Ohio Indians. St. Clair Shores, MI: Somerset Publishers, Inc., 1998. - Available from Amazon.com
- Waller, George Macgregor. American Revolution in the West. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall, 1976. - Available from Amazon.com
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Citation
"Battle of Peckuwe", Ohio History Central, November 11, 2008, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=3315
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