Lochry's Defeat
1781 battle in Indiana, USA
Lochry's Defeat, also known as the Lochry massacre, was a battle fought on August 24, 1781, near present-day Aurora, Indiana, in the United States. The battle was part of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which began as a conflict between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies before spreading to the western frontier, where American Indians entered the war as British allies. The battle was short and decisive: about one hundred Indians of local tribes led by Joseph Brant, a Mohawk military leader who was temporarily in the west, ambushed a similar number of Pennsylvania militiamen led by Archibald Lochry. Brant and his men killed or captured all of the Pennsylvanians without suffering any casualties.
Lochry's force was part of an army being raised by Brigadier General George Rogers Clark for a campaign against Detroit, the British regional headquarters. Clark, the preeminent American military leader on the northwestern frontier, worked with Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia in planning an expedition to capture Detroit, by which they hoped to bring an end to British support of the Indian war effort. In early August 1781, Clark and about 400 men left Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania by boat, floating down the Ohio River a few days ahead of Lochry and his men, who were trying to catch up.
Joseph Brant's force was part of a combined British and Indian army being raised to counter Clark's offensive. Brant had too few men to challenge Clark, but when he intercepted messengers traveling between Clark and Lochry, he learned about Lochry's smaller group bringing up the rear. When Lochry landed to feed his men and horses, Brant launched his overwhelmingly successful ambush.
The public source identifies “Lochry's Defeat” as 1781 battle in Indiana, USA. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lochry's, Defeat and battle.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6665169. The Library of Congress control number is sh85026675. Authority coordinates are 39.026, -84.886. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1781, 1775 and 1783.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lochry's Defeat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.