USA > Indiana > Marshall County > History of Indiana : containing a history of Indiana and biographical sketches of governors and other leading men. Also a statement of the growth and prosperity of Marshall County, together with a personal and family histry of many of its citizens, Vol. I > Part 9
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Oliver prepared a letter, announcing to Gen. Harrison his safe ar- rival at the besieged fort, and giving an account of its beleaguered situation, which he dispatched by his friendly Shawanees, while he concluded to take his chances at the fort. Brave Logan and his companions started with the message, but had scarcely left the fort when they were discovered and pursued by the hostile Indians, yet passing the Indian lines in safety, they were soon out of reach. The Indians now began a furious attack upon the fort; but the little garrison, with Oliver to cheer them on, bravely met the assault, re- pelling the attack day after day, until the army approached to their relief. During this siege the commanding officer, whose habits of
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intemperance rendered him unfit for the command, was confined in the " black hole," while the junior officer assumed charge. This course was approved by the General, on his arrival, but Capt. Rhea received very little censure, probably on account of his valuable ser- vices in the Revolutionary war.
Sept. 6, 1812, Harrison moved forward with his army to the re- lief of Fort Wayne; the next day he reached a point within three miles of St. Mary's river; the next day he reached the river and was joined at evening by 200 mounted volunteers, under Col. Rich- ard M. Johnson; the next day at "Shane's Crossing " on the St. Mary's they were joined by 800 men from Ohio, under Cols. Adams and Hawkins. At this place Chief Logan and four other Indians offered their services as spies to Gen. Harrison, and were accepted. Logan was immediately disguised and sent forward. Passing through the lines of the hostile Indians,he ascertained their number to be about 1,500, and entering the fort, he encouraged the soldiers to hold ont, as relief was at hand. Gen. Harrison's force at this time was abont 3,500.
After an early breakfast Friday morning they were under march- ing orders; it had rained and the guns were damp; they were dis- charged and reloaded; but that day only one Indian was encount- ered; preparations were made at night for an expected attack by the Indians, but no attack came; the next day, Sept. 10, they ex- pected to fight their way to Fort Wayne, but in that they were hap- pily disappointed; and " At the first grey of the morning," as Bryce eloquently observes, "the distant halloos of the disappointed sav- ages revealed to the anxious inmates of the fort the glorions news of the approach of the army. Great clouds of dust could be seen from the fort, rolling up in the distance, as the valiant soldiery under Gen. Harrison moved forward to the rescue of the garrison and the brave boys of Kentucky and Ohio."
This siege of Fort Wayne of course occasioned great loss to the few settlers who had gathered around the fort. At the time of its commencement quite a little village had clustered around the mili- tary works, but during the siege most of their improvements and crops were destroyed by the savages. Every building out of the reach of the guns of the fort was leveled to the ground, and thus the in- fant settlement was destroyed.
During this siege the garrison lost but three men, while the Indians lost 25. Gen. Harrison had all the Indian villages for 25 miles around destroyed. Fort Wayne was nothing but a military post until about 1819.
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Simultaneously with the attack on Fort Wayne the Indians also besieged Fort Harrison, which was commanded by Zachary Taylor. The Indians commenced firing upon the fort abont 11 o'clock one night, when the garrison was in a rather poor plight for receiving them. The enemy succeeded in firing one of the block-houses, which contained whisky, and the whites had great difficulty in pre- venting the burning of all the barracks. The word " fire " seemed to have thrown all the men into confusion; soldiers' and citizens' wives, who had taken shelter within the fort, were crying; Indians were yelling; many of the garrison were sick and unable to be on duty; the men despaired and gave themselves up as lost; two of the strongest and apparently most reliable men jumped the pickets in the very midst of the emergency, etc., so that Capt. Taylor was at his wit's end what to do; but he gave directions as to the many details, rallied the men by a new scheme, and after about seven hours succeeded in saving themselves. The Indians drove up the horses belonging to the citizens, and as they could not catch thom very readily, shot the whole of them in the sight of their owners. and also killed a number of the hogs belonging to the whites. They drove off all of the cattle, 65 in number, as well as the public oxen.
Among many other depredations committed by the savages dur- ing this period, was the massacre of the Pigeon Roost settlement, consisting of one man, five women and 16 children; a few escaped. An unsuccessful effort was made to capture these Indians, but when the news of this massacre and the attack on Fort Harrison reached Vincennes, about 1,200 men, under the command of Col. Win. Russell, of the 7th U. S. Infantry, marched forth for the re- lief of the fort and to punish the Indians. On reaching the fort the Indians had retired from the vicinity; but on the 15th of Sep- tember a small detachment composed of 11 men, under Lient. Rich- ardson, and acting as escort of provisions sent from Vincennes to Fort Harrison, was attacked by a party of Indians within the pres- ent limits of Sullivan county. It was reported that seven of these men were killed and one wounded. The provisions of course fell into the hands of the Indians.
EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE INDIANS.
By the middle of August, through the disgraceful surrender of Gen. Hull, at Detroit, and the evacuation of Fort Dearborn and massacre of its garrison, the British and Indians were in possession of the whole Northwest. The savages, emboldened by their suc-
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cesses, penetrated deeper into the settlements, committing great depredations. The activity and success of the enemy aroused the people to a realization of the great danger their homes and families were in. Gov. Edwards collected a force of 350 men at Camp Russell, and Capt. Russell came from Vincennes with about 50 more. Being officered and equipped, they proceeded about the middle of October on horseback, carrying with them 20 day's rations, to Peoria. Capt. Craig was sent with two boats up the Illinois, with provisions and tools to build a fort. The little army proceeded to Peoria Lake, where was located a Pottawatomie village. They arrived late at night, within a few miles of the village, without their presence being known to the Indians. Four men were sent out that night to reconnoiter the position of the village. The four brave men who volunteered for this perilous service were Thomas Carlin (afterward Governor), and Robert, Stephen and Davis White- side. They proceeded to the village, and explored it and the ap- proaches to it thoroughly, without starting an Indian or provoking the bark of a dog. The low lands between the Indian village and the troops were covered with a rank growth of tall grass, so high and dense as to readily conceal an Indian on horseback, until within a few feet of him. The ground had become still more yielding by recent rains, rendering it almost impassable by mounted men. To prevent detection the soldiers had camped without lighting the usual camp-fires. The men lay down in their cold and cheerless camp, with many misgivings. They well remembered how the skulking savages fell upon Harrison's men at Tippecanoe during the night. To add to their fears, a gun in the hands of a soldier was carelessly discharged, raising great consternation in the camp.
Through a dense fog which prevailed the following morning, the army took up its line of march for the Indian town, Capt. Judy with his corps of spies in advance. In the tall grass they came up with an Indian and his squaw, both mounted. The Indian wanted to surrender, but Judy observed that he " did not leave home to take prisoners, " and instantly shot one of them. With the blood streaming from his mouth and nose, and in his agony " singing the death song," the dying Indian raised his gun, shot and mortally wounded a Mr. Wright, and in a few minutes expired! Many guns were immediately discharged at the other Indian, not then known to be a squaw, all of which missed her. Badly scared, and her hus- band killed by her side, the agonizing wails of the squaw were heart-rending. She was taken prisoner, and afterward restored to her nation.
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On nearing the town a general charge was made, the Indians fleeing to the interior wilderness. Some of their warriors made a stand, when a sharp engagement occurred, but the Indians were routed. In their flight they left behind all their winter's store of provisions, which was taken, and their town burned. Some Indian children were found who had been left in the hurried flight, also some disabled adults, one of whom was in a starving condition, and with a voracious appetite partook of the bread given him. He is said to have been killed by a cowardly trooper straggling behind, after the main army had resumed its retrograde march, who wanted to be able to boast that he had killed an Indian.
September 19, 1812, Gen. Harrison was put in command of the Northwestern army, then estimated at 10,000 mnen, with these orders: "Having provided for the protection of the western front- ier, you will retake Detroit; and, with a view to the conquest of upper Canada, you will penetrate that country as far as the force under your command will in your judgment justify."
Although surrounded by many difficulties, the General began immediately to execute these instructions. In calling for volun- teers from Kentucky, however, more men offered than could be received. At this time there were abont 2,000 mounted volunteers at Vincennes, under the command of Gen. Samuel Hopkins, of the Revolutionary war, who was under instructions to operate against the enemy along the Wabash and Illinois rivers. Accordingly, early in October, Gen. Hopkins moved from Vincennes towards the Kickapoo villages in the Illinois territory, with about 2,000 troops; but after four or five days' march the men and officers raised a mutiny which gradually succeeded in carrying all back to Vin- cennes. The cause of their discontent is not apparent.
About the same time Col. Russell, with two small companies of U. S. rangers, commanded by Capts. Perry and Modrell, marched from the neighborhood of Vincennes to unite with a small force of mounted militia under the command of Gov. Edwards, of Illinois, and afterward to march with the united troops from Cahokia toward Lake Peoria, for the purpose of cooperating with Gen. Hopkins against the Indian towns in that vicinity; but not find- ing the latter on the ground, was compelled to retire.
Immediately after the discharge of the mutinous volunteers, Gen. Hopkins began to organize another force, mainly of infantry, to reduce the Indians up the Wabash as far as the Prophet's town. These troops consisted of three regiments of Kentucky militia,
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commanded by Cols. Barbour, Miller and Wilcox; a small company of regulars commanded by Capt. Zachary Taylor; a company of rangers commanded by Capt. Beckes; and a company of scouts or spies under the command of Capt. Washburn. The main body of this army arrived at Fort Harrison Nov. 5; on the 11th it pro- ceeded up the east side of the Wabash into the heart of the Indian country, but found the villages generally deserted. Winter set- ting in severely, and the troops poorly elad, they had to return to Vincennes as rapidly as possible. With one exception the men behaved nobly, and did much damage to the enemy. That exception was the precipitate chase after an Indian by a detach- ment of men somewhat in liquor, until they found themselves sur- rounded by an overwhelming force of the enemy, and they had to retreat in disorder.
At the close of this campaign Gen. Hopkins resigned his command.
In the fall of 1812 Gen. Harrison assigned to Lieut. Col. John B. Campbell, of the 19th U. S. Inf., the dnty of destroying the Miami villages on the Mississinewa river, with a detachment of about 600 men. Nov. 25, Lieut. Col. Campbell marched from Franklinton, according to orders, toward the scene of action, cau- tiously avoiding falling in with the Delawares, who had been ordered by Gen. Harrison to retire to the Shawanee establishment on the Auglaize river, and arriving on the Mississinewa Dec. 17, when they discovered an Indian town inhabited by Delawares and Miamis This and three other villages were destroyed. Soon after this, the supplies growing short and the troops in a suffering condition, Campbell began to consider the propriety of returning to Ohio; but just as he was calling together his officers early one morning to deliberate on the proposition, an army of Indians rushed upon them with fury. The engagement lasted an hour, with a loss of eight killed and 42 wounded, besides about 150 horses killed. The whites, however, succeeded in defending themselves and taking a number of Indians prisoners, who proved to be Mun- sies, of Silver Heel's band. Campbell, hearing that a large force of Indians were assembled at Mississinewa village, under Teeum- seh, determined to return to Greenville. The privations of his troops and the severity of the cold compelled him to send to that place for re-enforcements and supplies. Seventeen of the men had to be carried on litters. They were met by the re-enforcement about 40 miles from Greenville.
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Lieut. Col. Campbell sent two messages to the Delawares, who lived on White river and who had been previously directed and requested to abandon their towns on that river and remove into Ohio. In these messages he expressed his regret at unfortunately killing some of their men, and urged them to move to the Shaw- anee settlement on the Auglaize river. He assured them that their people, in his power, would be compensated by the Government for their losses, if not found to be hostile; and the friends of those killed satisfied by presents, if such satisfaction would be received. This advice was heeded by the main body of the Delawares and a few Miamis. The Shawanee Prophet, and some of the principal chiefs of the Miamis, retired from the country of the Wabash, and, with their destitute and suffering bands, moved to Detroit, where they were received as the friends and allies of Great Britain.
On the approach of Gen. Harrison with his army in September, 1813, the British evacuated Detroit, and the Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Miamis and Kickapoos sued for peace with the United States, which was granted temporarily by Brig. Gen. Mc- Arthur, on condition of their becoming allies of the United States in case of war.
In June, 1813, an expedition composed of 137 men, under com- mand of Col. Joseph Bartholomew, moved from Valonia toward the Delaware towns on the west fork of White river, to surprise and punish some hostile Indians who were supposed to be lurking about those villages. Most of these places they found deserted; some of them burnt. They had been but temporarily occupied for the purpose of collecting and carrying away corn. Col. Bartholo- mew's forces succeeded in killing one or two Indians and destroy- ing considerable corn, and they returned to Valonia on the 21st of this month.
July 1, 1813, Col. William Russell, of the 7th U. S., organized a force of 573 effective men at Valonia and marched to the Indian villages about the month of the Mississinewa. His experience was much like that of Col. Bartholomew, who had just preceded him. He had rainy weather, suffered many losses, found the villages de- serted, destroyed stores of corn, etc. The Colonel reported that he went to every place where he expected to find the enemy, but they nearly always seemed to have fled the country. The march from Valonia to the mouth of the Mississinewa and return was about 250 miles.
Several smaller expeditions helped to "checker" the surrounding
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country, and find that the Indians were very careful to keep them- selves out of sight, and thus closed this series of campaigns.
CLOSE OF THE WAR.
The war with England closed on the 24th of December, 1814, when a treaty of peace was signed at Ghent. The 9th article of the treaty required the United States to put an end to hostilities with all tribes or nations of Indians with whom they had been at war; to restore to such tribes or nations respectively all the rights and possessions to which they were entitled in 1811, before the war, on condition that such Indians should agree to desist from all hostilities against the United States. But in February, just before the treaty was sanctioned by our Government, there were signs of Indians accumulating arms and ammunition, and a cautionary order was therefore issned to have all the white forces in readiness for an attack by the Indians; but the attack was not made. During the ensuing summer and fall the United States Government ac- quainted the Indians with the provisions of the treaty, and entered into subordinate treaties of peace with the principal tribes.
Just before the treaty of Spring Wells (near Detroit) was signed, the Shawanee Prophet retired to Canada, but declaring his resolu- tion to abide by any treaty which the chiefs might sign. Some time afterward he returned to the Shawanee settlement in Ohio, and lastly to the west of the Mississippi, where he died, in 1834. The British Government allowed him a pension from 1813 until his death. His brother Tecumseh was killed at the battle of the Tliames, Oct. 5, 1813, by a Mr. Wheatty, as we are positively in- formed by Mr. A. J. James, now a resident of La Harpe township, Hancock county, Ill., whose father-in-law, John Pigman, of Co- shocton county, Ohio, was an eye witness. Gen. Johnson has gener- ally had the credit of killing Tecumseh.
TECUMSEH.
If one should inquire who has been the greatest Indian, the most noted, the " principal Indian " in North America since its discov- ery by Columbus, we would be obliged to answer, Tecumseh. For all those qualities which elevate a man far above his race; for talent, tact, skill and bravery as a warrior; for high-minded, honorable and chivalrous bearing as a man; in a word, for all those elements of greatness which place him a long way above his fellows in savage life, the name and fame of Tecnmseh will go down to posterity in the West as one of the most celebrated of the aborigines of this continent,-as one who had no equal among the tribes that dwelt in the country drained by the Mississippi. Born to command him- self, he used all the appliances that would stimulate the courage and nerve the valor of his followers. Always in the front rank of battle, his followers blindly followed his lead, and as his war-cry rang clear above the din and noise of the battle-field, the Shawnee warriors, as they rushed on to victory or the grave, rallied around him, foemen worthy of the steel of the most gallant commander that ever entered the lists in defense of his altar or his home.
The tribe to which Tecumseh, or Tecumtha, as some write it, be- longed, was the Shawnee, or Shawanee. The tradition of the nation held that they originally came from the Gulf of Mexico; that they wended their way up the Mississippi and the Ohio, and settled at or near the present site of Shawneetown, Ill., whence they removed to the upper Wabash. In the latter place, at any rate, they were found early in the 18th century, and were known as the "bravest of the brave." This tribe has uniformly been the bitter enemy of the white man, and in every contest with our people has exhibited a degree of skill and strategy that should characterize the most dangerous foe.
Tecumseh's notoriety and that of his brother, the Prophet, mnutu- ally served to establish and strengthen each other. While the Prophet had unlimited power, spiritual and temporal, he distributed his greatness in all the departments of Indian life with a kind of fanaticism that magnetically aroused the religious and superstitious passions, not only of his own followers, but also of all the tribes in
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this part of the country; but Tecumseh concentrated his greatness upon the more practical and business affairs of military conquest. It is doubted whether he was really a sincere believer in the preten- sions of his fanatic brother; if he did not believe in the pretentious feature of them he had the shrewdness to keep his unbelief to him- self, knowing that religious fanaticism was one of the strongest im- pulses to reckless bravery .
During his sojourn in the Northwestern Territory, it was Tecum- seh's uppermost desire of life to confederate all the Indian tribes of the country together against the whites, to maintain their choice hunting-grounds. All his public policy converged toward this sin- gle end. In his vast scheme he comprised even all the Indians in the Gulf country,-all in America west of the Alleghany moun- tains. He held, as a subordinate principle, that the Great Spirit had given the Indian race all these hunting-grounds to keep in common, and that no Indian or tribe could cede any portion of the land to the whites without the consent of all the tribes. Hence, in all his councils with the whites he ever maintained that the treaties were null and void.
When he met Harrison at Vincennes in council the last time, and, as he was invited by that General to take a seat with him on the platform, he hesitated; Harrison insisted, saying that it was the "wish of their Great Father, the President of the United States, that he should do so." The chief paused a moment, raised his tall and commanding form to its greatest height, surveyed the troops and crowd around him, fixed his keen eyes upon Gov. Harrison, and then turning them to the sky above, and pointing toward heaven with his sinewy arm in a manner indicative of supreme contempt for the paternity assigned him, said in clarion tones: " My father? The sun is my father, the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline." He then stretched himself, with his war- riors, on the green sward. The effect was electrical, and for some moments there was perfect silence.
The Governor, then, through an interpreter, told him that he un- derstood he had some complaints to make and redress to ask, etc., and that he wished to investigate the matter and make restitution wherever it might be decided it should be done. As soon as the Governor was through with this introductory speech, the stately warrior arose, tall, athletic, manly, dignified and graceful, and with a voice at first low, but distinct and musical, commenced a reply. As he warmed up with his subject his clear tones might be heard,
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as if " trumpet-tongued," to the utmost limits of the assembly. The most perfect silence prevailed, except when his warriors gave their guttural assent to some eloquent recital of the red man's wrong and the white man's injustice. Tecumseh recited the wrongs which his race had suffered from che ti.ne of the massacre of the Moravian Indians to the present; said he did not know how he could ever again be the friend of the white man; that the Great Spirit had given to the Indian all the land from the Miami to the Mississippi, and from the lakes to the Ohio, as a common property to all the tribes in these borders, and that the land could not and should not be sold without the consent of all; that all the tribes on the continent formed but one nation; that if the United States would not give up the lands they had bought of the Miamis and the other tribes, those united with him were determined to annihi- late those tribes; that they were determined to have no more chiefs, but in future to be governed by their warriors; that unless the whites ceased their encroachments upon Indian lands, the fate of the Indians was sealed; they had been driven from the banks of the Delaware across the Alleghanies, and their possessions on the Wabash and the Illinois were now to be taken from them; that in a few years they would not have ground enough to bury their war- riors on this side of the "Father of Waters;" that all would perish, all their possessions taken from them by fraud or force, unless they stopped the progress of the white man westward; that it must be a war of races in which one or the other must perish; that their tribes had been driven toward the setting sun like a galloping horse (ne-kat a-kush-e ka-top-o-lin-to).
The Shawnee language, in which this most eminent Indian states- man spoke, excelled all other aboriginal tongues in its musical ar- ticulation; and the effect of Tecumseh's oratory on this occasion can be more easily imagined than described. Gov. Harrison, although as brave a soldier and General as any American, was over- come by this speech. He well knew Tecumseh's power and influ- ence among all the tribes, knew his bravery, courage and determi- nation, and knew that he meant what he said. When Tecumseh was done speaking there was a stillness throughout the assembly which was really painful; not a whisper was heard, and all eyes were turned from the speaker toward Gov. Harrison, who after a few moments came to himself, and recollecting many of the absurd statements of the great Indian orator, began a reply which was more logical, if not so eloquent. The Shawnees were attentive un-
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