After the Ordinance of 1787, American pioneers tried to settle the Northwest Territory, but Indians, aided by the British, fought fiercely for their homes. The first United States army sent to break this resistance, commanded by Gen. Josiah Harmar, was defeated in 1790 at the Miami Indian villages, present Fort Wayne. Gen. Arthur St. Clair, the territorial Governor, made a second attempt with a badly trained army, marching north from Fort Washington, Cincinnati, and reaching this place on the evening of Nov. 3, 1791. The next morning his army was surrounded by an Indian force under Chief Little Turtle, and after a furious battle St. Clair's troops broke through the encirclement and retreated southward, leaving about 900 dead and wounded in what was, relatively, the most disastrous defeat ever to befall an American army. In 1793, Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne led a third expedition against the Indians and built Fort Recovery here from Dec. 23 to 26, 1793. Early on June 30, 1794, nearly 2,000 Indians under Chief Little Turtle, together with Canadian militiamen and British officers, attacked a supply convoy near the fort. After losing Maj. William McMahon, the detachment withdrew inside the stockade, and the battle continued into the next day before the attackers retreated, beaten and divided, never again gathering in such force to challenge Wayne. This victory at Fort Recovery was followed by Wayne's decisive defeat of the Indian Confederacy at Fallen Timbers on Aug. 20, 1794, and by the Treaty of GreenVille, signed on Aug. 8, 1795, which placed the Indians under the control of the United States and opened the Northwest Territory, in part, to peaceful American settlement.