USA > Indiana > Tippecanoe County > Past and present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 7
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About this time Indiana Territory was organized and he was appointed territorial governor and superintendent of Indian affairs. By virtue of his office he was commander-in-chief of the militia of such territory, appoint- ing all officers below the rank of general. In 1803 he was appointed by Mr. Jefferson sole commissioner for treating with the Indians. He was very suc- cessful in this office, rarely ever failing in the accomplishment of what was for the best interests of all parties concerned. The greatest difficulty he had to contend with was the influence of Tecumseh, the Indian war chief. The matters grew into open warfare and resulted in the battle of Tippecanoe. By common consent, upon the declaration of war with Great Britain. General
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Harrison was appointed to the chief command of the forces in the Northwest, where the English had allied with the Indians against the United States. Sep- tember 17, 1812. having been invested with the entire control of the armies in the Northwest, he directed his attention toward the recapture of Detroit, the reduction of Malden and the protection of the frontier. General Winchester had failed in this work and Harrison took up the work with new zeal. Early in the spring of 1813, it was ascertained that an expedition against Fort Meigs was contemplated by the combined forces of British General Proctor and Tecumseh. By May 3d. ample preparation had been made and an additional force of three thousand men from Kentucky augmented his means of defense. After an active engagement of five days, in which severe losses were sus- tained on both sides, the enemy was driven back from their batteries, notwith- standing the superior number of men they possessed. The final charge on the British and Indian forces, the most fierce and telling of all that war, lasted but forty-five minutes, and not less than one hundred and eighty Americans were killed or wounded and fully double that number of the enemy. The next fight was at Sandusky, where the forces of the British were defeated. September 18th, the fleet under Commodore Perry arrived at Sandusky Bay, and soon after the enemy were again defeated. Proctor was pursued by the Harrison forces up the river Thames to the Moravian towns, and there another engagement resulted in British defeat. Here the celebrated warrior chief, Tecumseh, was killed. The enemy lost in killed and wounded about seven hundred men. In his message to congress, President Madison spoke of it as "signally honorable to Major-General Harrison, by whose military talents it had been accomplished." In congress Mr. Cheever said: "The victory of Harrison was such as would have secured to a Roman general, in the best days of that republic, the honors of a triumph."
Governor Snyder, of Pennsylvania, in his annual message, said : "The blessings of thousands of women and children, rescued from the scalping knife of the ruthless savages of the wilderness and the still more savage Proctor, rests on Harrison and his gallant army."
A gold medal of great size was awarded him by congress.
This ended Harrison's military career, but not his civil life. In 1814. he was appointed by President Madison as one in conjunction with Governor Shelby and General Cass to treat with the Indians at Greenville, Ohio. 1815 he was made commissioner to pacify several tribes who had to do with the treaty of Ghent.
In 1816 he was elected to represent his district in congress. In 1819 he was made state senator in Ohio. In 1824 was a presidential elector from
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COL JOSEPH HAMILI COMMANDING
CAPT BEGGS IND
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CAPT ROBB, IND
COL BARTHOLOMEW. COMMANDING
MAJOR FLOYD,
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TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
Ohio on the Clay ticket. The same year he was seated in the United States senate and placed at the head of the military committee. In 1828 was appoint- ed minister to Colombia, South America, but the following year was recalled by President Jackson's administration. The next six years he followed the peaceful pursuits of a farmer, near Cincinnati, and was many years the clerk of Hamilton county, in which that city is situated.
In 1835 he was made the candidate for President, but owing to the great confusion in parties at that day, he was defeated. He was renominated in 1839, as the Whig candidate, receiving two hundred and thirty-four out of the two hundred and ninety-four electoral votes cast. After a brief illness, he passed to the unknown world, after serving as President just one month. The date of his death was April 4. 1841. The well known journal, The National Intelligencer, of April 9, 1841, said: "Never since the days of Washington has any one man so concentrated upon himself the love and confidence of the American people; and never since the melancholy day which shrouded a na- tion in mourning for his sudden death has any event produced so profound and general a sensation of surprise and sorrow."
THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE. (By Hon. B. Wilson Smith.)
On the 7th of November, IS11, on the banks of Burnett's creek, in Tippe- canoe township, Tippecanoe county, was fought one of the bloodiest battles of our Indian history. The results were far-reaching and eventful. The contest was not simply the wager of prowess between two embattled hosts, of about equal numbers and equal armament, but was the last great struggle, east of the Mississippi, over the vital question whether the red men of the forest should possess and hold the homes of their fathers and kindred, where the Great Spirit had fixed their habitations ; or whether the "pale faces" from beyond the ocean should win and hold this land till the forest should give way to the ax of civilization and the rolling prairies to the plowshare of agriculture ; till the song of civilization should wake the echoes of mountain and valley, over and along which had rolled only the war cry of savage men and the startling scream of wild beasts. It was the last of the contests in which the native savage, led by such mighty chiefs as Philip, of Pokonoket : Red Jacket. of the Iroquois; Cornstalk, of the Shawanoes; Pontiac, of the Ottawas, and lastly and here, Tecuinseh, of the warlike Shawanoes, had conspired and con- federated to turn back the tide of civilization which they saw about to over- whelm and engulf them. To the red men the contest seemed the sublimest
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patriotism ; to the pale face it was a contest not so much of national destiny as of the protection of homes and the lives of loved ones. A strange antithesis- these conflicting views that fill the respective horizon of barbarism and civil- ization. Strange antithesis. these conflicting views of aborigines and the on- coming hosts of civilization from beyond the sea.
The army of Governor Harrison was about nine hundred strong, armed, except the dragoons and riflemen, with muskets and bayonets, and supplied with fixed ammunition. The riflemen were mounted. There was no artillery. The battle, till the final charge. was fought entirely on foot, closing at sunrise with a charge from both right and left flanks. in which the dragoon and mounted riflemen took a conspicuous part.
The army was made up of the following corps: The Fourth Regiment of United States Infantry commanded by Col. John P. Boyd ; a part of a com- pany of the Second United States Rifles and a part of a company of the Seventh United States Regiment united in one company, commanded by Lieu- tenant Albright; three companies of mounted riflemen, two of them from Indiana and one from Kentucky; three companies of dragoons, one from Ken- tucky and two from Indiana; the balance of the army-seven companies- were Indiana militia. Besides these there were a number of distinguished men from Indiana and Kentucky who joined Governor Harrison without official military rank : like Col. Isaac White, colonel Fourth Indiana Militia Regiment, late superintendent of the government saline in Illinois, who fell at the side of Colonel Daviess and was buried in the same grave, and Hon. Thomas Ran- dolph, late of Virginia, who had recently cast in his lot with the new terri- tory. He acted as aide to Colonel Boyd, acting brigadier-general. From Ken- tucky were Colonels Wells and Owen, the former given the command of the mounted riflemen and the latter made aide to Governor Harrison, but fell early in the action at the side of the Governor, and was buried in the same grave with Colonels Daviess and White. Besides these was the most distinguished United States District Attorney Joseph H. Daviess, to whom Governor Harrison gave the command of all the dragoons, but his brilliant career and ardent military hopes were cut off in his first battle. With him came, to share his fortunes, such gallant young men from Kentucky as Croghan. Mead. O'Fallon, Chinn, Edwards, Shipp and Sanders. Several of these latter greatly distinguished themselves, not only in this battle but in the war with Great Britain-1812-15.
This brief summary presents the aggregation of this little army which in this battle proved and. in after years, demonstrated it as the "salvation army" of the Northwest, made up wholly of United States regulars and Indi- ana and Kentucky militia and volunteers.
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On the part of the Indians, the assembled host of savages embraced the fierce Winnebagoes ; the warlike Wyandottes, still hot with the blood of Iroquois "kindredhood:" the implacable Ottawas, still smarting with the memory of the defeat and failure of their great chief, Pontiac: multitudinous Pottawat- omies, uninvited occupants-"interlopers" on the soil of the Miamis; treach- erous Kickapoos, who had with a northern audacity seized territory conceded alike by savage usage and civilized treaties to the people of Little Turtle, the Miami. There were also Sacs and Foxes and Chippewas, and lastly a small band of Shawanoes, who were following the fortunes of the false Prophet and the matchless leadership of the great Tecumseh. They had come down from the Auglaize uninvited by the Miamis, owners of the soil.
This army of savages had been drawn together at the Prophet's Town, on the Wabash, about two miles below the mouth of the Tippecanoe; and three-fourths of a mile from the battlefield. by the incantations of the wily. false Prophet, Lau-le-was-i-kau. or Tensk-wau-ta-wa ( the open door), and by the commanding eloquence of his twin brother. Tecumseh ( the shooting star ). who had visited the Indian tribes, far and near, urging them to unite in a confederacy to drive the whites back over the mountains and secure to the red men the whole western country which they said had been given them by the Great Spirit to keep and hold forever, not as the property of individuals, not as the property of tribes, but as the lands and homes of all the Indians in jointure.
In this Indian army were combined the daring, bravery, courage and the cunning of savage life ; and the wild fanaticism of a false prophet, who had completely beguiled them and won their belief that in battle, as he had prom- ised. "the powder of the white men should be turned to ashes, and their bullets fall harmless at the red men's feet." These two armies and this battle will live forever in the memory of Indiana and the Northwest.
This battle was fought once on this bloody field, but it has been fought over and over again, a score of times, on paper, and in the house of debate ; but not a whit of the lustre and glory has been dimmed of either commanders or soldiers of either army. It was a battle where cowards were absent, but where wreaths of fame in rich profusion were woven.
But the question often arises in the minds of intelligent, thinking men- historically uninformed-why was this army of Harrison here on the night of the 6th of November, ISHI? Why encamped in this military array on this soil of the Miamis, which by the solemn treaty of Greenville had been specifically granted to them, and which. for more than a hundred years, had been conceded to be theirs by both French and English authority? The moment this army
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crossed the "line drawn through the mouth of Big Racoon creek to the 10 o'clock sun," they were on territory granted to the Miamis and their in- vited and welcome guests but two years before by the treaty of Fort Wayne, September 30, 1809. The fort built by this army on their way-named by the unanimous request of the officers of the army, Fort Harrison-was but barely within the line separating the Indian domain from ours. Was it not, though on our own soil, a menace to the rights of these loyal. treaty-keeping Miamis? And still the young student of history presses the question, Why were Gor- ernor Harrison and his army in hostile array on the soil of the Weas, a branch of the Miamis, consecrated by long occupation and a solemn treaty, recently repeated ? Was not Governor Harrison a just man and a friend of the Indian ?
The story, in answer, is a long one, but not less necessary is its rehearsal. The causes equally with the issues of the battle should be known. And the one equally with the other is the task of the historian. It was equally in the interest of the Miamis and the Delawares and the safety of the white settlers on treaty-ceded lands that Governor Harrison had gathered this army and had come upon this Indian territory. None of the cohorts of the tribes that had gathered at the Prophet's Town had either treaty title or legitimate Indian concession to the soil. Some of them, like the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos. were "interlopers" on the soil of others, and, with not even color of title them- selves to the soil, they had invited the Prophet and his deluded followers to occupy the Wabash. The others were co-conspirators and a menace to the peace of the country.
The great Miami confederacy had, for more than a century, been the con- ceded lords of the soil of Ohio west of the Scioto river, and of all of the ter- ritory of Indiana east of the Wabash and across to Lake Michigan, and east to Detroit. They, long before this, had invited the Delawares, the old Lenni Lennapes, who made the treaty with William Penn under the elm tree at Shackamaxen ( who later had been conquered by the Iroquois, disarmed and made "squaw men"), to come and dwell among them, because they pitied them and also recognized them as their "grandfathers." The Shawanoes had never been invited onto the soil of either Ohio or Indiana by the Miamis, but driven out of Georgia, their home, by the conquering Creeks and Cherokees they had wandered northward into the Carolinas and later into Kentucky and Ohio, appropriating lands wherever unoccupied, or that could be obtained even by the arbitrament of arms. They were a cruel, brave, warlike, faithless race, having in all their category of warrior chiefs but two bright exemplars of other than "Punic faith," Cornstalk and Black Hoof. Now, fifty years after the bloodiest pages of our colonial history, the conspiracy of Pontiac, a
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new hero steps to the front. A warrior ( not a chief ) wise and more eloquent than Pontiac, a very Shawanoe, born in the north and trained in all the sub- tlety of Indian sagacity, and endowed with military capacity of the highest order, and, combined with these qualities, the most relentless hatred of the white race. All of these large endowments of Tecumseh were supplemented by others in his twin brother. the Prophet, who combined with shrewdness sorcery and a claim of direct intercourse with the Great Spirit.
Tecumseh proclaimed a new political dogma which puts to the blush the modern demagogue. He said the Miamis did not own this territory, but that all the Indians owned it, and that it could not be alienated (sokl ) by one tribe, nor by two or three tribes-only by the consent of all the tribes-all of the Indians. That the Great Spirit had forbidden his children to sell their Finds, Hence, the treaty of Greenville, by General Wayne, 1795. was a fraud, that the treaty of Fort Wayne, 1809. was solemn mockery, and an outrage on the Indians. And he declared, again and again, that he would kill the chiefs who signed this treaty, and that the United States surveyors should not run the Io o'clock boundary line. In vain had the Minimis and Delawares urged Gov- ernor Harrison to confirm and establish the integrity of these treaties, and drive these interlopers from their territory. But the more did the Prophet keep up his incantations and the more did the matchless orator-chief keep up his journeyings; the more did the restless, idle and vicious of distant tribes gather here till the Prophet's Town became a dangerously threatening menace to the whole Indiana Territory. even to Vincennes itself. Once Tecumseh had visited this capital with four hundred warriors. Might he not come next time with a thousand. or more?
It was to rid this "Land of the Weas" of this pestiferous assemblage of dangerous fanatics and murderers that Governor Harrison was here. He car- ried both the olive branch and the sword. The one be kept constantly at the front : the other, till the first treacherous shot was fired, he kept sheathed.
His journey hither, the battle and its results are best and most satisfac- torily told by his official report to the secretary of war of November 8th, the day after the battle, and November 18th. immediately after his arrival at Vincennes.
"Vincennes, 18th November. 1811.
"Sir :- In my letter of the 8th inst .. I did myself the honor to communi- cate the result of an action between the troops under my command and the confederation of Indians under the control of the Shawnee Prophet. 1 had previously informed you in a letter of the ed inst .. of my proceedings previous to my arrival at the Vermillion river, where I had erected a block house for
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the protection of the boats which I was obliged to leave, and as a depository for our heavy baggage, and such parts of our provisions as we were unable to transport in wagons.
"On the morning of the 3d inst .. I commenced my march from the block house. The Wabash, above this. turning considerably to the eastward. I was obliged to avoid the broken and woody country, which borders upon it, to change my course to the westward of north, to gain the prairies which lie to the back of those woods. At the end of one day's march, I was enabled to take the proper direction ( N. E.), which brought me, on the evening of the 5th, to a small creek, at about eleven miles from the Prophet's Town. I had, on the preceding day, avoided the dangerous pass of Pine creek, by inclining a few miles to the left. where the troops and wagons were crossed with expedi- tion and safety. Our route on the 6th, for about six miles, lay through prairies, separated by small points of woods.
"My order of march hitherto had been similar to that used by General Wayne: that is, the infantry was in two columns of files on either side of the road, and the mounted rifle men and cavalry in front, in the rear and on the flanks. Where the ground was unfavorable for the action of the cavalry, they were placed in the rear ; but where it was otherwise, they were made to change positions with one of the mounted rifle corps.
"Understanding that the last four miles were open woods, and the proba- bility being greater that we should be attacked in front. than on either flank. I halted at that distance from the town, and formed the army in order of battle. The United States infantry placed in the center, two companies of militia infantry and one of mounted rifle men on each flank, formed the front line. In the rear of this line was placed the baggage, drawn up as compactly as possible, and immediately behind it a reserve of three companies of militia infantry. The cavalry formed a second line, at the distance of three hundred yards in the rear of the front line, and a company of mounted riflemen. the advanced guard at that distance in front. To facilitate the march, the whole were then broken off into short columns of companies-a situation the most favorable for forming in order of battle with facility and precision.
"Our march was slow and cautious, and much delayed by the examina- tion of every place which seemed calculated for an ambuscade. Indeed. the ground was for some time so unfavorable that I was obliged to change the po- sition of the several corps three times in the distance of a mile. At half-past two o'clock, we passed a small creek at the distance of one mile and a half from town, and entered an open road, when the army was halted, and again drawn up in the order of battle.
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"During the whole of the last day's march, parties of Indians were con- stantly about us, and every effort was made by the interpreters to speak to them, but in vain. New attempts of the kind were now made, but proving equally ineffectual, a Captain DuBois, of the spies and guides, offering to go with a flag to the town. I dispatched him with an interpreter, to request a conference with the Prophet. In a few moments a messenger was sent by Captain DuBois to inform me that in his attempts to advance, the Indians appeared on both his flanks and. although he had spoken to them in the most friendly manner, they refused to answer, but beckoned him to go forward, and constantly endeavored to cut him off from the rest of the army. Upon this information I recalled the Captain, and determined to encamp for the night and take some other measures for opening a conference with the Prophet.
"Whilst I was engaged in tracing the lines for the encampment, Major Daviess, who commanded the dragoons, came to inform me that he had pene- trated the Indian fields; that the ground was entirely open and favorable ; that the Indians in front had manifested nothing but hostility, and had answered every attempt to bring them to a parley with contempt and insolence. I was immediately advised by all the officers around me to move forward; a similar wish, indeed, pervaded all the army. It was drawn up in excellent order and every man appeared eager to decide the contest immediately.
"Being informed that a good encampment might be found upon the Wabash, I yielded to what appeared to be the general wish, and directed the troops to advance, taking care, however, to place the interpreters in front to invite a conference with any Indian they might meet with. We had not ad- vanced above four hundred yards, when I was informed that three Indians had approached the advance guard and had expressed a wish to speak to me. I found upon their arrival that one of them was a man in great estimation with the Prophet. He informed me that the chiefs were much surprised at my advancing upon them so rapidly; that they were given to understand by the Delawares and Miamis, whom I had sent to them a few days before, that I would not advance to their town until I had received an answer to my de- mands made through them ; that this answer had been dispatched by the Pot- tawatomie chief, Winnemac, who had accompanied the Delawares and Mi- amis on their return ; that they had left the Prophet's Town two days before with a design to meet me, but had unfortunately taken the road on the south side of the Wabash.
"I answered that I had no intention of attacking them until I discovered that they would not comply with the demands that I had made : that I would
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go on and encamp at the Wabash : and in the morning would have an interview with the Prophet and his chiefs, and explain to them the determination of the President : that in the meantime. no hostilities should be committed. He seemed much pleased with this, and promised that it should be observed on their part. I then resumed my march. We struck the cultivated ground about five hundred yards below the town, but as these extended to the bank of the Wabash. there was no possibility of getting an encampment which was pro- vided with both wood and water.
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