USA > Indiana > Marshall County > Tippecanoe in Marshall County > The Tippecanoe battle-field monument; a history of the association formed to promote the enterprise, the action of Congress and the Indiana legislature, the work of the commission and the ceremonies at the dedication of the monument > Part 7
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98
Report of Commission.
GENERAL JOHN C. BLACK.
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
hecatomb. Why were these men here ninety-two years ago, far from home, to meet a savage foe? And to answer that question properly I am going to ask you who are young to listen, and you who are older to recall the story of the years preceding 1811. The young republic had freed itself from the political domination of the mother country, but Great Britain, the majestic power that then ruled all the waters of the world, parted reluctantly with her prestige, and, although she had signed a treaty which acknowledged the independence of the United States of America, at the same time in her heart and purpose she held the solemn resolve that if it were possible, by guile or force of arms at a later period, to resume her empire, that would she do. Our little commerce was just struggling into existence, and all of it a commerce of peace. She set her my- riad fleets on trackless waves to drive that commerce back to our shores and out of existence. We have the testimony of a president of the United States, almost a thousand sail. Her pressgangs had invaded our territorial jurisdiction, and in the streets of our cities had sought out the refugees from her political tyranny. They had gone aboard the vessels of the United States at their will and had impressed and removed American citizens from those ships and taken them to fight her wars. At last, upon the open sea, she had assailed the flag of the Union flying at the masthead. Nor was this all.
The great Napoleon, having given to us the empire that now comprises so many of our States, looked with reluctance upon the majestic departing venture of a greater French empire on the west- ern coast, and he, too, longed for the time when Louisiana might be restored to the flag of the tricolor. So, between France and Eng- land in their titanic European war, the commerce of the United States, neither of them fearing her and neither of them respecting her, and both of them hating her-the commerce of the United States, between the decrees in the council and the edicts of Napo- leon, was being shredded to pieces as paper is cut between the strong shears of the cutter. Spain, too, still held her southwestern line and pushed up to the very banks of the Sabine with her ready allies to resume possession in the southern country, if it were possible. An empty treasury, and at last the last warship of the government of the United States sold at public sale, because the government of the United States could no longer pay the men that were to sail it. This was the defenseless attitude upon three sides of the Union. All up and down the Canadian border were the martial posts of that power that boasted even then, Mr. Chairman, that her drum beat was
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Report of Commission.
heard around the world and her cannon from Quebec and Montreal frowned upon Detroit and all the border of the St. Lawrence. She was making friends of the deadliest foe that ever stood in the shadow of battle, and wherever her intrigue, her promises, her ca- jolements or her bribes could influence the Indian he was being ar- rayed against the United States. In the meantime the conspiracy of Burr had been stricken down, but left its deep scars upon the public mind. The young republic had on the western side of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River but a single state, and all the rest was territory to be fought for and held, or fought for and lost.
So there came into existence at that time, as if an instrument of fate, the Indian, Tecumseh, and his superstitious and cunning brother. Right here, almost within sound of my voice, they estab- lished the headquarters of a savage alliance that was to knit the power of Great Britain on the north and Spain on the south with a chain of fire and rapine that should extend up and down from the Mississippi and hold these American settlements in the bond of the tomahawk and the torch. And so 1811 came in the fullness of time. How much effect do you suppose the excursion that reached this battle-field had upon the public mind? How many of the legisla- tors of the United States do you presume at that time knew of the existence of this peril, or knowing, cared for it? I find, by ex- amination of the public documents that on the 5th of November, two days before this engagement was reached, the President of the United States, in a serious message to Congress, declared that, ow- ing partly to several Indian murders and outrages, and more par- ticularly to the formation of a confederation under the lead of a fanatic Shawnee Indian, it had been necessary to dispatch an ex- pedition toward the northwest. No mention was made of its forces or of its purposes, or of its leaders. And into the vast pool of the public mind at the capital dropped this little stone of a message settling toward the bottom and out of sight. Two days later this contest came and seven weeks after that the President of the United States addressed another message to Congress in which he spoke in most glowing terms of the gallantry that had been displayed on this field, and of the losses that had been incurred, bewailing them and hoping that the widows and orphans of those men would re- ceive the special attention of the public legislature. And this was what the Battle of Tippecanoe came to in the contemporary history of that time. But to us who look at it in these later days it was a greater thing than that, for at the touch of the American soldier
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
on this grassy plain, and under these lofty boughs, the trunks of whose trees still display the leaden marks of battle, there was de- livered the deadliest blow to this vast conspiracy that embraced the cabinets of Europe and the council fires of the Indian that ever was administered to a similar coalition upon any battle-field in the world.
When on the morning of the 7th of November that red host that in the night had drawn, with. Indian cunning, close up to the camps of the sleeping soldiers, was parted and rolled away, all along the line of the St. Lawrence fell the gloom. In the councils of the southwest, where the Spaniard waited for successful results, there was consternation, and the mighty Indian conspiracy against the American, which Pontiac fifty years before had initiated, and which Tecumseh had almost consummated, disappeared, and with it for- ever the last great obstacle of the aborigine to the advent and progress of the American citizen. True, there have been other bat- tles since, other Indian wars, but this was the most formidable one of which American history bears record. Who were the men who stood on this battle-field on the defensive? Oh, Mr. Chairman, in these later days it is worth our while to remember that the nucleus of that mighty force was the regular army of the United States, an army that has never raised its hand against the people or the public institutions or the sanctity of this republic. (Applause. ) And, thank God, it never will. (Renewed applause. ) In that little bat- talion of regulars were gathered the men of Ohio and Kentucky and Illinois, all with one single purpose, and in one single brother- hood, the great type of the union and power that was, and is, and, please God, will be to the end of his records. (Applause.) I wish I could picture them to you as they were, the simplest soldiers in the line of time, unlettered, untaught in arms, unlearned in the schemes of government, yet they knew they were a part and par- cel of a mighty people that the Almighty had set them on the fron- tiers to keep watch and ward over that people, and that they would perform that duty. They were frugal, ununiformed, plain in at- tire, insensible to fatigue, watchful as a catamount, resolute as men, heroic as martyrs, and they set their homespun shoulders to the mighty wheel of civilization. At the command of their govern- ment they came up this valley for the purpose of preserving their frontier, and they camped here in the security of that November night.
And who were those against them? The original owners of the soil is sometimes the answer. Sentiment says "the poor Indian." Poesy speaks of him as "the dispossessed lord of the soil." And ro-
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Report of Commission.
heard around the world and her cannon from Quebec and Montreal frowned upon Detroit and all the border of the St. Lawrence. She was making friends of the deadliest foe that ever stood in the shadow of battle, and wherever her intrigue, her promises, her ca- jolements or her bribes could influence the Indian he was being ar- rayed against the United States. In the meantime the conspiracy of Burr had been stricken down, but left its deep scars upon the public mind. The young republic had on the western side of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River but a single state, and all the rest was territory to be fought for and held, or fought for and lost.
So there came into existence at that time, as if an instrument of fate, the Indian, Tecumseh, and his superstitious and cunning brother. Right here, almost within sound of my voice, they estab- lished the headquarters of a savage alliance that was to knit the power of Great Britain on the north and Spain on the south with a chain of fire and rapine that should extend up and down from the Mississippi and hold these American settlements in the bond of the tomahawk and the torch. And so 1811 came in the fullness of time. How much effect do you suppose the excursion that reached this battle-field had upon the public mind? How many of the legisla- tors of the United States do you presume at that time knew of the existence of this peril, or knowing, cared for it? I find, by ex- amination of the public documents that on the 5th of November, two days before this engagement was reached, the President of the United States, in a serious message to Congress, declared that, ow- ing partly to several Indian murders and outrages, and more par- ticularly to the formation of a confederation under the lead of a fanatic Shawnee Indian, it had been necessary to dispatch an ex- pedition toward the northwest. No mention was made of its forces or of its purposes, or of its leaders. And into the vast pool of the public mind at the capital dropped this little stone of a message settling toward the bottom and out of sight. Two days later this contest came and seven weeks after that the President of the United States addressed another message to Congress in which he spoke in most glowing terms of the gallantry that had been displayed on this field, and of the losses that had been incurred, bewailing them and hoping that the widows and orphans of those men would re- ceive the special attention of the public legislature. And this was what the Battle of Tippecanoe came to in the contemporary history of that time. But to us who look at it in these later days it was a greater thing than that, for at the touch of the American soldier
101
Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
on this grassy plain, and under these lofty boughs, the trunks of whose trees still display the leaden marks of battle, there was de- livered the deadliest blow to this vast conspiracy that embraced the cabinets of Europe and the council fires of the Indian that ever was administered to a similar coalition upon any battle-field in the world.
When on the morning of the 7th of November that red host that in the night had drawn, with. Indian cunning, close up to the camps of the sleeping soldiers, was parted and rolled away, all along the line of the St. Lawrence fell the gloom. In the councils of the southwest, where the Spaniard waited for successful results, there was consternation, and the mighty Indian conspiracy against the American, which Pontiac fifty years before had initiated, and which Tecumseh had almost consummated, disappeared, and with it for- ever the last great obstacle of the aborigine to the advent and progress of the American citizen. True, there have been other bat- tles since, other Indian wars, but this was the most formidable one of which American history bears record. Who were the men who stood on this battle-field on the defensive? Oh, Mr. Chairman, in these later days it is worth our while to remember that the nucleus of that mighty force was the regular army of the United States, an army that has never raised its hand against the people or the public institutions or the sanctity of this republic. (Applause. ) And, thank God, it never will. (Renewed applause. ) In that little bat- talion of regulars were gathered the men of Ohio and Kentucky and Illinois, all with one single purpose, and in one single brother- hood, the great type of the union and power that was, and is, and, please God, will be to the end of his records. (Applause.) I wish I could picture them to you as they were, the simplest soldiers in the line of time, unlettered, untaught in arms, unlearned in the schemes of government, yet they knew they were a part and par- cel of a mighty people that the Almighty had set them on the fron- tiers to keep watch and ward over that people, and that they would perform that duty. They were frugal, ununiformed, plain in at- tire, insensible to fatigue, watchful as a catamount, resolute as men, heroic as martyrs, and they set their homespun shoulders to the mighty wheel of civilization. At the command of their govern- ment they came up this valley for the purpose of preserving their frontier, and they camped here in the security of that November night.
And who were those against them? The original owners of the soil is sometimes the answer. Sentiment says "the poor Indian." Poesy speaks of him as "the dispossessed lord of the soil." And ro-
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Report of Commission.
mance pictures the gallant warrior standing with his eagle plumes in the sunshine, shouting his death cry of defiance against the open foe. But that is not the Indian of American history-let us pass his faults by-superstitious, ignorant, blood-thirsty, thoughtless, cruel in success, merciless in warfare, he claimed the land and in- tended to hold it by force of arms. What title had he? Long ago He who created man and put him on this goodly earth, said "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," and he or she who holds a title to the freehold, holds it in trust from the Almighty, for the good of the human race. (Applause.) The Indian's claim was that this mighty continent, the most fertile in the world, whose springs gush with the richness of Pacolus, whose forests are filled with resources and plenty for the race, whose untilled fields had been storing away for millions of years the bread and corn and wine that was to sustain this people; the Indian said that this vast hemisphere was for his "hunting ground." And there were 400,000 of them, and they proposed to hold that land to the exclusion of those who have come after, and who today, one hundred million strong between the gulf and the poles, are occupying the land in peace and plenty. The Indian proposed that his warpath should be forever a dividing line between savagery and civilization, that no locomotive, that no emigrant wagon, that no lone pioneer should ever cross it on the journey toward the west, or toward comfort. The Indian proposed that his tepee should stand where today the cities that hold millions of laborers, and thinkers and lovers of their kind are reared, and there have been those who, upon such claims have justified the resistance that was made here, and the attack that was made here by the Indians under Tecumseh.
But in the sober light of reason, all such theorizings and de- fenses are idle as the wind. The men who were here from Ohio and Indiana and Kentucky, and from the Union, were here in the high purpose of preserving that Union, preserving these frontier set- tlements from the scalping knife and the torch, and making peace reign throughout the borders of a great State and the vast ter- ritory that lay near it. And they succeeded, my countrymen. (Ap- plause.) On other occasions you have doubtless heard from other orators the story of this contest. It is not mine to give it in detail. The marks upon the trees here tell us where the contest raged. The pages of history devoted to the annals of this spot tell the number that were sacrificed, the grandeur of the assault, and the heroism of the defense. They tell you how the chieftain led the attack, and afterward as his lines were closed in upon by
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
the savage foe, baring his breast beside his plainest comrades to the stroke of battle and death. The records show that in this en- closure 188 of the sons and fathers of the settlers were killed or wounded, to break the mighty coalition of savagery and feudalism. Yonder Jo Daviess fell, the highest single sacrifice of all the trou- blous Indian wars. For when he fell a lawyer, poet, orator, mighty advocate, true patriot, was laid to rest. Here also Spier Spencer fell, and although his name has been perpetuated, he was a costly sacrifice upon this battle-field, and back from this raging point through all the great region which they saved the messengers of victory were also the messengers of loss and individual mourning. It was through the scattered homes of the Wabash and the Ohio, the death angel passing touched the foremost ones, and mouring came upon the bereaved homes. But it was well that they then and there laid down their lives. For
Whether on the scaffold high, Or in the battle's van; The noblest place for man to die, Is where he dies for man.
And that is what each and every one of these men who fell here did. They died that a great republic might live; that its enemies : might be destroyed, and that way might be made for the feet of the emigrant into and across this mighty and fertile land of ours. And after these ninety-two years we can look back and thank God that it is our privilege to stand here, and it is your high privilege, citi- zens of this county, to shelter here this shrine and mausoleum. That battle had to be fought somewhere; that savage combination had to be broken somewhere, and it is well for us that we are able to stand in the midst of those scenes, and sacrifices and triumphs.
We, my gray companions and comrades, have been accustomed to stories of battles. Many of us have passed over the borders of the greatest battle-fields of all time. We have seen the hosts of right and wrong engaged in conflicts that have shaken the earth ; that have destroyed intrenched wrong; that have changed the dyn- asties of the world. As we look back through the mists of ninety- two years to this spot and remember that only a few men fell here, and that all the forces engaged in both sides were fewer than two of the stalwart regiments Indiana sent out to maintain the flag from 1861 to 1865, this apparently diminishes the value and majesty of the action. But the thoughtful man knows that great victories are not always measured by the numbers of men who are engaged.
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Report of Commission.
I remember that in Roman history the brightest single exploit of the early days was when Horatius stood at the bridge and asked for two strong men to keep the bridge with him against the Sabine array, and from that time to this his name has been typical of all that the Romans did, and all that valor could accomplish. I re- member that history says that three hundred men stood in the pass of a small mountain and bade defiance to the barbaric hordes of Asia and died, and only a messenger remained, but in their deaths they made Thermopyla immortal and rescued the civilization of Europe from the domination of wrong. I remember that in the his- tory of the United States in the far southwest a lonely church pul- pit on the borders of a Texas town became the citadel where Ameri- can valor under Crockett and Bowie and their compatriots set themselves against the barbarism of Mexico and died to a man and made their names immortal and gave the great southwest to the American flag and American purposes, kindling a flame that reached the Atlantic, and ceased not to burn until the Rio Grande had been crossed by the barbarian and the borders of the republic were set upon natural lines in the southwest, and yet those that struggled in the Alamo were not half as many as those who struggled here.
I remember that when the British forces marched out from Bos- ton to engage the farmers of New England they who stood against that force were fewer in numbers by far than those who struggled here under Harrison, and yet they fired the shot that not has only been heard around the world, but that has been felt in the bosom and purposes of mankind wherever man is known and carries out his high destiny. I remember that when the mighty hosts of the rebellion had been drawn from all the resources of the south and stood massed against the armies of the Tennessee and the Cumber- land and the Ohio and in the Atlanta campaign, and that which fol- lowed, that there came a time when the holding of Altoona pass meant success or the prolongation of disastrous continued war, and I remember how all day long back and forward by those low yel- low walls and those slender defenses the strength and core of the rebellion surged, until every man within the heroic defense was either almost dead or dying, and lay down at last in victory under a triumphant flag. (Applause. ) And yet the men that held Altoona pass with all its consequences were scarcely more than those who waged this battle here. Had Harrison failed here and Tecumseh succeeded there would have been no mourning along the St. Law- rence and no bitter withdrawal to the Rio Grande, but instead, pushing forward to the very foot of the Alleghenies the uprising
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
power of Great Britain would have helped to choke and destroy the- infant republic that she hated. I think a great deal of Great Brit- ain now. I think that, humbled and chastened as she was during- two wars, she is a great big mother to be proud of. (Applause.) But in those days, under her guns and under her flag, were all. cruelties and all feudalism, and all oppresions of liberty, and all retroaction. Under her flag was the throne; back of the throne- the pressgang, and the battleships loaded with thunder for Ameri- can commerce. Back of her throne was every retroaction that con- demned democracy and the great republic that was to be, and when. her allies fell on this field her plans for the control of the North American continent were dispelled, and forever. The longer I live- the more thoroughly convinced I become that there are no mistakes in the lives of great nations; that the purposes of the Almighty,. obscured though they may be temporarily, still go on and on through seeming disaster and seeming victories, and that either by the great or the small, with the host or the detachment, He still ad -. vances His high plans, and I believe furthermore that this Ameri- can people has set before it a destiny and purpose which will not be taken from them by the Almighty commander until it is ac- complished.
I believe that the welding blows delivered in favor of our civili- zation here have been felt in the added strength of our people from? that day to this. I believe that from this battle-field as a point of sacrifice the American soldier educated by ten thousand humble firesides has been strengthened, renewed and refreshed for all the- contests that belong to his time, and to his race and his govern- ment. Look today upon all about us ; a free land, a happy people,. a splendid and merciful government, correcting its own wrongs and® punishing its own criminals, and rewarding its own faithful and devoted sons and daughters ; a land conserved to humanity, where- woman is queen of the world-(Applause)-not by virtue of her- birth, or breeding, or her beauty, but because she is an American woman. (Applause.) A land where the little children have opened. to them every pathway of progress and opportunity ; where wealth. can not hedge the career of the truly great, nor intrigue destroy the strength of the truly patriotic; a land where manhood can- win still as it has through 125 years the highest prizes of social and political and moral existence ; a land whose future seems as bound- less and brilliant as the most ardent lover of his kind and his coun -- try could desire, a land of learning, and law and order and peace,. not due wholly to this battle-field, but due in that small part which?
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Report of Commission.
belongs to a noble field well fought by sacrificial men, by honest men, by unselfish men. Let Indiana, then, here in the time that is to come, or let the nation, if such shall better serve the purpose, rear a shaft that shall not speak one word of compliment, that shall not speak one word of vainglorifying, but shall tell how the Ameri- can soldier in the emergency caught the high purposes of his coun- try and carried them to success; set the standard of the country upright in the graves of the fallen, and then returned again like the teacher of his kind, and the emulated of his country, to his quiet home. Let Indiana tell or all the nation tell, not with any closing words of praise, the simple story of the 7th of November, 1811. (Great applause. )
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