Henry Knox

"It is not easy to conceive the difficulties we have had."

"I most earnestly beg you to spare no trouble or necessary expense in getting these."

"It is a melancholy reflection that our modes of population have been more destructive to the Indian natives than the conduct of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru. The evidence of this is the utter extirpation of nearly all the Indians in the most populous parts of the Union. A future historian may mark the causes of this destruction of the human race in sable colors. Although the present Government of the United States cannot with propriety be involved in the oppropbrium, yet it seems necessary however, in order to render their attention upon this subject strongly characteristic of their justice, that some powerful attempts should be made to tranquilize the frontiers, particularly those south of the Ohio."

"Trusting that...we shall have a fine fall of snow....I hope in sixteen or seventeen days to be able to present to your Excellency a noble train of artillery."

"We shall cut no small figure through the country with our cannon."

"The eyes of all America are upon us, as we play our part in posterity will bless or curse us."

"We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged."

"Were an energetic and judicious system to be proposed with your signature it would be a circumstance highly honorable to your fame . . . and doubly entitle you to the glorious republican epithet, The Father of your Country."

"Secretary of War Henry Knox told the army commander of Fort Washington (where Cincinnati is today) that "to extend a defensive and efficient protection to so extensive a frontier, against solitary, or small parties of enterprising savages, seems altogether impossible. No other remedy remains, but to extirpate, utterly, if possible, the said Banditti." These orders could not be implemented with a conventional army engaged in regular warfare. Although federal officers commanded the army, the fighters were nearly all drawn from militias made up primarily of squatter settlers from Kentucky. They were unaccustomed to army discipline but fearless and willing to kill to get a piece of land to grab or some scalps for bounty."