Under Fire (or the Influence): Fort Wayne's Officer Corps, 1800-1815
Captain John Whipple took command in late September of 1803. Whipple would serve a longer term at Fort Wayne, remaining through 1807. He would be the first commander of Fort Wayne to have no experience during the Revolution. Due to his longer stay, Whipple did bring his wife to join him from their home in Detroit. Archange Pelletier, Whipple’s wife, was representative of much of the region’s colonial history. Archange was part of the Pelletier family that was famous in Detroit and reflected the heavy French influence that still remained decades after the land had changed hands. Under Whipple’s administration the Quaker mission to the Myaamia (Miami) took place, a major project in the U.S. government’s project to bring the region’s Native Americans into white civilization.[3]
Whipple was certainly another example of an officer bringing the culture of foundling American upper class to the frontier, as his administration provides one of the more unique entries into the garrison orderly book, from January 8th of 1804:
The Commanding Officer has lately Observed that the Soldiers not only Dine without table-cloath’s but without knives forks or Plates. It is as necessary a Soldier in Garrison should have these articals as a Citezen in Private life. Orders will be given tomorrow on the store of Mr. Abbott for half a months Pay, where every Mess will Purchase, two table-cloaths and two towels; and those who have not knives forks or Plates will Purchase one of each - The tablecloaths and towels are to be all the same size, as the Commanding Officer means that every Mess shall have a table of the same size.[4]
Clearly Whipple had much to occupy his time with.
After Whipple’s resignation in January of 1807, Lieutenant (later Captain) Nathan Heald took command. Heald was a New Hampshire man who had served in the army since 1799, with much of his time being spent recruiting on the east coast. He was one of the Fort’s youngest commanding officers, starting the job at the age of 32, and married his wife at the post. Rebekah Wells, niece of William Wells and Heald’s bride, followed Heald to Fort Dearborn (Chicago) when he transferred there in 1810.[5]
Heald seems to have been one of the Fort’s stricter commanding officers, with the orderly book from his reign filled to the brim with court martials covering anything from profanity to theft to fighting, all being dealt with using liberal doses of lashes or hard labor sentences (the profanity charge alone leaving Private John Green with a sentence of forty lashes!).[6] Heald also dealt with the same ration quality control issues of his predecessors, using the expertise of the post surgeon Dr. Abraham Edwards at the time, to inspect the beef that had been delivered to the Fort.[7]
It was common for commandants at frontier posts to allow some lax behavior amongst their fellow officers. These men were ultimately the highest authority around, with inspections from higher ups being infrequent and methods for the enlisted men to seek justice limited. Heald, however, was free from this form of corruption. He held his officers accountable for things necessary for military function, like being in full uniform when serving as officer of the day, while also keeping them from abusing their positions by causing the enlisted extra work using too much firewood.[8]
Heald’s tenure as Fort Wayne’s commander ended on the 16th of May, 1810. He left the Fort with one last order:
Capt. Heald tenders his thanks to the officers who have served under him for their uniform good conduct and to do justice to the non commissioned officers and privates, he cannot but observe that they have conducted [themselves] with respect towards their officers and have faithfully discharged their duty with few exceptions.[9]
With that, Captain James Rhea took command. Rhea had served since 1791 with a brief stint commanding Fort Industry, a post that is located in the modern day limits of Toledo, Ohio. While indicating in his reports he was excited for his new command, both him and his wife were ill upon arriving to Fort Wayne. Rheumatism had been keeping Rhea from sleeping. This affliction he seems to have tended to with alcohol, which is surprising juxtaposed to his first orders to the garrison:
The Commanding officer is much hurt to see so much intoxication amongst the men. It is an abominable practice. He is in hopes they will check themselves or he will be under the disagreeable necessity to stop giving them permission for liquor.[10]
It was also clear to Rhea that war was on the horizon. Efforts began to strengthen the Fort’s defenses and put the garrison on war footing. The biggest fear was an accidental fire (or sabotage), which would leave the all wooden Fort indefensible at best or destroyed at worst.[11] The Fort’s cannon, consisting of a few brass howitzers, were cleaned and inspected while strangers, anyone that did not live in the Fort, were banned from entering.[12] News of the Battle of Tippecanoe followed months later by a formal declaration of war against the British Empire put the Fort on war footing. When war came, Rhea was not up to the task (information about the Siege can be found here).
After Rhea is relieved of command at the end of the siege, Lieutenant Philip Ostrander briefly commanded the Fort until the arrival of Captain Hugh Moore in late November of 1812. Moore served under William Henry Harrison throughout his campaign in 1812 and only briefly served as the Fort’s commander until the summer of 1813.[13] His command was short but holds one of the more mysterious incidents during Fort Wayne’s operational history. Lieutenant Ostrander, who had a good service record and had by all accounts performed well during the Siege, was arrested by Moore. Circumstances surrounding the arrest are largely speculative as many of the records do not survive. The last record of Ostrander at the post implicates him as being in a room with two soldiers in the garrison lying on the floor together.[14] Shortly after this, Ostrander is arrested and dies in his room. Some records suggest Ostrander was arrested for shooting at a bird flying over the Fort, but this leaves little reason for him to die.[15] Ostrander could have also been a gay man and, due to the cultural atmosphere of the time, this fact was avoided and covered up in official records. This would offer a more probable explanation for his death, as many gay men at the time died to suicide to avoid the shame of societal pressure.
After Moore the Fort was briefly under the command of Major Joseph Jenkinson, who ran the post for six months in 1813. His short tenure is only noteworthy for his struggles with the local inhabitants of the village around the Fort over the issue of slavery. Sympathetic to the plight of the officer’s enslaved servants, it seems that the French descended merchants in the area spread ideas of liberty and equality to Jenkinson’s slave Ephraim. Jenkinson responded with two extreme floggings for Ephraim and hastened his return to Kentucky, accepting a new post there in the state’s militia.[16]
Brevet Major John Whistler took over in May of 1814. As the architect of the final Fort, his tenure and background will be covered in the next section of the project, the Fort from 1815-1819.
[1] Bert J. Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813 (Indianapolis: Indiana Library and Historical Department, 1927), 87.
[2] Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 135.
[3] Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 144.
[4] Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 4 January, 1804 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 159.)
[5] Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 249.
[6] Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 11 March, 1808 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 265.)
[7] Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 17 May, 1808 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 268.)
[8] See Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 19 October, 1808 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 276.); Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 23 October, 1808 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 277.)
[9] Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 16 May, 1810 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 301.)
[10] Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 20 May, 1810 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 302.)
[11] See Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 6 August, 1810 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 309.); Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 27 January, 1811 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 321.)
[12] See Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 20 April, 1811 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 326.); Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 3 May, 1811 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 327.)
[13] Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 375.
[14] Fort Wayne Garrison Orderly Book, 27 April, 1813 (as transcribed in Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 388-389.)
[15] Griswold, Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813, 390-391.
[16] Charles Poinsatte, Outpost in the Wilderness: Fort Wayne, 1706-1828 (Fort Wayne: Allen County - Fort Wayne Historical Society, 1976), 73.
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