The Indians of the Muskingum valley felt secure in their wilderness fastness.

No white soldiers had ever penetrated to their country.

To reach their villages dense woods had to be penetrated, treacherous marshes crossed, and numerous streams bridged or forded.
But by the middle of October Bouquet had led his army, without the loss of a man, into the heart of the Muskingum valley, and pitched his camp near an Indian village named Tuscarawa, from which the inhabitants had fled at his approach.

The Delawares and Shawnees were terrified: the victor of Edge Hill was among them with an army strong enough to crush to atoms any war-party they could muster.
They sent deputies to Bouquet.

These at first assumed a haughty mien; but Bouquet sternly rebuked them and ordered them to meet him at the forks of the Muskingum, forty miles distant to the south-west, and to bring in all their prisoners.