CHAPTER V.
Notwithstanding the hostile spirit on both sides, the winter of 1810–1811 passed without serious disturbance on the Wabash, and the summer of 1811 arrived before Harrison thought proper to take the next step. Then, June 24, he sent to Tecumthe and the Prophet a letter, or speech, intended to force an issue.
“Brothers,” he wrote,[79] “this is the third year that all the white people in this country have been alarmed at your proceedings. You threaten us with war; you invite all the tribes to the north and west of us to join against us. Brothers, your warriors who have lately been here deny this, but I have received the information from every direction. The tribes on the Mississippi have sent me word that you intended to murder me, and then to commence a war upon our people. I have also received the speech that you sent to the Pottawatomies and others to join you for that purpose; but if I had no other evidence of your hostility to us, your seizing the salt which I lately sent up the Wabash is sufficient.”
Except the seizure of five barrels of salt intended for other Indians, in June, 1811, no overt act yet showed the intention to begin a war, and certainly no such immediate intention existed; but two white men were at that moment murdered in the Illinois Territory, a drunken Indian was murdered at Vincennes, and these acts of violence, together with the general sense of insecurity, caused the government officials to write from all quarters to the War Department that Tecumthe must be suppressed. Tecumthe himself seemed disposed to avoid cause for attack. July 4 he sent word that he would come to Vincennes; and to Harrison’s alarm he appeared there, July 27, with two or three hundred warriors for an interview with the governor. The act proved courage, if not rashness. Harrison’s instructions hinted advice to seize the two Indian leaders, if it could be done without producing a war, and Harrison had ample time to prepare his measures.
Tecumthe came and remained two days at Vincennes, explaining, with childlike candor, his plans and wishes. As soon as the council was over, he said, he should visit the Southern tribes to unite them with those of the North in a peaceful confederacy; and he hoped no attempt would be made to settle the disputed territory till his return in the spring. A great number of Indians were to come in the autumn to live at Tippecanoe; they must use the disputed region for hunting-ground. He wished everything to remain in its present situation till his return; he would then go and see the President and settle everything with him. The affairs of all the tribes in that quarter were in his own hands, and he would despatch messengers in every direction to prevent the Indians from doing further mischief.
Tecumthe seemed to think that his wish would prevent Harrison from further aggression for the time. A few days afterward he passed down the Wabash, with some twenty warriors, on his diplomatic errand to the Creeks; but before he was fairly out of sight, July 31, a number of citizens met at Vincennes, and adopted resolutions demanding that the settlement at Tippecanoe should be broken up. Immediate action, before Tecumthe should return, was urged by Harrison’s party, and by many frightened settlers. Harrison’s personal wish could not be doubted.
The Secretary of War had already ordered the Fourth Regiment of U. S. Infantry, under Colonel Boyd, with a company of riflemen,—making in the whole a force of five hundred regular troops,—to descend the Ohio from Pittsburg as rapidly as possible, and place themselves under Harrison’s orders; but Eustis added instructions not easily followed or understood. July 17 he wrote to Harrison,[80]—
“In case circumstances shall occur which may render it necessary or expedient to attack the Prophet and his followers, the force should be such as to insure the most complete success. This force will consist of the militia and regular troops.... If the Prophet should commence or seriously threaten hostilities, he ought to be attacked.”
Under these instructions, Harrison was warranted in doing what he pleased. Not even Tecumthe denied the seriousness of his hostile threats, and Harrison had every reason to begin the war at once, if war must be; but although Eustis spoke his own mind clearly, he failed to reckon upon the President, and this neglect was the cause of another letter to Harrison, written three days later:[81]—
“Since my letter of the 17th instant, I have been particularly instructed by the President to communicate to your Excellency his earnest desire that peace may, if possible, be preserved with the Indians, and that to this end every proper means may be adopted.... Circumstances conspire at this particular juncture to render it peculiarly desirable that hostilities of any kind or to any degree, not indispensably required, should be avoided. The force under Colonel Boyd has been ordered to descend the Ohio, ... and although the force is at the disposal of your Excellency, I am instructed to inform you that the President indulges the hope and expectation that your exertions and measures with the Indians will be such as may render their march to the Indian Territory unnecessary, and that they may remain liable to another disposition.”
Without paying attention to the President’s wishes emphatically expressed in these orders of July 20, Harrison passed the next month in raising forces for an expedition to satisfy the wishes of the Western people. No doubt was felt on the Ohio that Harrison meant to attack the Indians at Tippecanoe; and so serious a campaign was expected that Kentucky became eager to share it. Among other Kentuckians, Joseph H. Daveiss, Aaron Burr’s persecutor, wrote,[82] August 24, to Harrison, offering himself as a volunteer: “Under all the privacy of a letter,” said he, “I make free to tell you that I have imagined there were two men in the West who had military talents; and you, sir, were the first of the two. It is thus an opportunity of service much valued by me.” Daveiss doubted only whether the army was to attack at once, or to provoke attack.
Harrison accepted Daveiss’s services, and gave him command of the dragoons, a mounted force of about one hundred and thirty men from Indiana and Kentucky. The Fourth U. S. Infantry, three hundred strong according to Colonel Boyd who commanded it,[83] arrived in the Territory at the beginning of September. As rapidly as possible Harrison collected his forces, and sent them up the river to a point in the new purchase about sixty-five miles above Vincennes. The exact force was afterward much disputed.[84] Harrison reported his effectives as a few more than nine hundred men. Some sixty Kentucky volunteers were of the number.
The last instructions from the Department, dated August 29,[85] made no change in the tenor of the President’s orders. When Harrison joined his army, October 6, at the camp above Vincennes, he wrote to Eustis,[86]—
“I sincerely wish that my instructions were such as to authorize me to march up immediately to the Prophet’s town. The troops which I command are a fine body of men, and the proportion of regulars, irregulars, infantry, and dragoons such as I could wish it. I have no reason to doubt the issue of a contest with the savages, and I am much deceived if the greater part of both officers and men are not desirous of coming in contact with them.”
In doubt what to do next, Harrison waited while his army built a small wooden fort, to which he gave his own name, and which was intended to establish formal possession of the new purchase. While the army was engaged in this work, one of the sentinels was fired at and wounded in the night of October 10 by some person or persons unseen and unknown. Harrison regarded this as a beginning of hostilities by the Prophet, and decided to act as though war was declared. October 12 he received from Secretary Eustis a letter dated September 18, never published though often referred to,[87] which is not found in the records of the government. Harrison replied the next day:[88]—
“Your letter of the 18th ult. I had the honor to receive yesterday. My views have hitherto been limited to the erection of the fort which we are now building, and to a march, by way of feint, in the direction of the Prophet’s town, as high, perhaps, as the Vermilion River. But the powers given me in your last letter, and circumstances which have occurred here at the very moment on which it was received, call for measures of a more energetic kind.”
With this despatch Harrison enclosed a return of the soldiers present under his command. “You will observe,” he said, “that our effectives are but little over nine hundred.” The rank-and-file consisted of seven hundred and forty-two men fit for duty. Harrison thought this force too small, and sent back to Vincennes for four companies of mounted riflemen. Two of the four companies joined him,[89] but their strength was not reported. These returns showed that the army, with the two additional companies, numbered at least one thousand effectives. One of the officers of the Fourth U. S. Infantry, writing November 21, said that the force was a little upward of eleven hundred men.[90]
While the Americans were determined not to return without a battle, the Indians had been strictly ordered by Tecumthe to keep the peace, and showed the intention to avoid Harrison’s attack. As early as September 25, the Prophet sent a number of Indians to Vincennes to protest his peaceful intentions, and to promise that Harrison’s demands should be complied with.[91] Harrison returned no answer and sent no demands. October 28 he broke up his camp at Fort Harrison, and the army began its march up the river. The governor remained one day longer at the fort, and from there, October 29, sent some friendly Indians to the Prophet with a message requiring that the Winnebagoes, Pottawatomies, and Kickapoos, at Tippecanoe, should return to their tribes; that all stolen horses should be given up, and that murderers should be surrendered. He intended at a later time to add a demand for hostages,[92] in case the Prophet should accede to these preliminary terms.
Harrison did not inform the friendly Indians where they would find him, or where they were to bring their answer.[93] Crossing to the west bank of the Wabash to avoid the woods, the troops marched over a level prairie to the mouth of the Vermilion River, where they erected a blockhouse to protect their boats. The Vermilion River was the extreme boundary of the recent land-cession; and to cross it, under such circumstances, was war. Harrison looked for resistance; but not an Indian was seen, and November 3 the army resumed its march, keeping in the open country, until on the evening of November 5 it arrived, still unmolested, within eleven miles of the Prophet’s town. From the Vermilion River to Tippecanoe was fifty miles.
The next morning, November 6, the army advanced toward the town, and as the column approached, Indians were frequently seen in front and on the flanks. Interpreters tried to parley with them, but they returned no answer except insulting or threatening gestures. Two miles from the town the army unexpectedly entered a difficult country, thick with wood and cut by deep ravines, where Harrison was greatly alarmed, seeing himself at the mercy of an attack; but no attack was made. When clear of the woods, within a mile and a half of the town, he halted his troops and declared his intention to encamp. Daveiss and all the other officers urged him to attack the town at once; but he replied that his instructions would not justify his attacking the Indians unless they refused his demands, and he still hoped to hear something in the course of the evening from the friendly Indians sent from Fort Harrison. Daveiss remonstrated, and every officer in the army supported him. Harrison then pleaded the danger of further advance. “The experience of the last two days,” he said,[94] “ought to convince every officer that no reliance ought to be placed upon the guides as to the topography of the country; that, relying on their information, the troops had been led into a situation so unfavorable that but for the celerity with which they changed their position a few Indians might have destroyed them; he was therefore determined not to advance to the town until he had previously reconnoitred.”
The candor of this admission did not prove the military advantages of the halt; and neither of Harrison’s reasons was strengthened by a third, which he gave a month afterward in a letter to the Governor of Kentucky. “The success of an attack upon the town by day,” he said,[95] “was very problematical. I expected that they would have met me the next day to hear my terms; but I did not believe that they would accede to them, and it was my determination to attack and burn the town the following night.” Daveiss and the other officers, looking at the matter only as soldiers, became more urgent, until Harrison at last yielded, and resolving no longer to hesitate in treating the Indians as enemies,[96] ordered an advance, with the determination to attack. “I yielded to what appeared the general wish,” he said in his official report,[97] “and directed the troops to advance.” They advanced about four hundred yards, when three Indians sent by the Prophet came to meet them, bringing a pacific message, and urging that hostilities should if possible be avoided. Harrison’s conscience, already heavy-ladened, again gave way at this entreaty.[98] “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 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 mean time no hostilities should be committed.”
Had Harrison’s vacillation been due to consciousness of strength, his officers would have had no just reason for remonstrance; but he estimated his force at about eight hundred effective men, and the Indians at more than six hundred.[99] He knew that no victory over the Northern Indians had ever been won where the numbers were anything like equal.[100] Before him was an unknown wilderness; behind him was a line of retreat, one hundred and fifty miles long, and he had supplies for very few days. He could not trust the Indians; and certainly they could not trust him, for he meant in any case to surprise their town the next night. Delay was dangerous only to the whites,—advantageous only to the Indians. Daveiss felt so strongly the governor’s hesitation that he made no secret of his discontent, and said openly not only that the army ought to attack,[101] but also that it would be attacked before morning, or would march home with nothing accomplished.[102] Indeed, if Harrison had not come there to destroy the town, he had no sufficient military reason for being there at all.
Having decided to wait, Harrison had next to choose a camping-ground. The army marched on, looking for some spot on the river where wood as well as water could be obtained, until they came within one hundred and fifty yards of the town, when the Indians, becoming alarmed, called on them to stop. Harrison halted his men and asked the Indians to show him a place suitable for his purpose, which they did;[103] and the troops filed off in front of the town, at right angles to the Wabash, till they reached a creek less than a mile to the northwest. Next to the town was a marshy prairie; beyond the marsh the ground rose about ten feet to a level covered with oaks; and then about a hundred yards farther it suddenly dropped to the creek behind, where the banks were thick with willow and brushwood. No spot in the neighborhood was better suited for a camp than this saddle-back between the marsh and the brook, but Harrison saw that it offered serious disadvantages. “I found the ground destined for the encampment,” he reported, “not altogether such as I could wish it. It was, indeed, admirably calculated for regular troops that were opposed to regulars, but it afforded great facility to the approach of the savages.”
There Harrison camped. The troops were stationed in a sort of triangle, following the shape of the high land,[104]—the base toward the northeast, the blunt apex toward the southwest; but at no part of the line was any attempt made to intrench, or palisade, or in any way to cover the troops. Harrison afterward explained that he had barely axes enough to procure firewood. The want of axes had been discovered at Fort Harrison, and hardly excused the neglect to intrench at Tippecanoe, for it had not prevented building the fort. The army pitched its tents and lighted its fires for the night, with no other protection than a single line of sentries, although the creek in the rear gave cover to an attack within a few yards of the camp.
The night was dark, with light rain at intervals; the troops slept on their arms, and their rest was disturbed by no sound. Many accounts have been given of what passed in the Prophet’s town,[105] but none of them deserve attention. During the night neither Harrison nor his sentinels heard or saw anything that roused their suspicions. Harrison, in a brief report of the next day,[106] said that the first alarm was given at half-past four o’clock in the morning. His full report of November 18 corrected the time to a few minutes before four. Still another account, on the day after the battle, named five o’clock as the moment.[107] Harrison himself was about to leave his tent, before calling the men to parade, when a sentinel at the farthest angle of the camp above the creek fired a shot. In an instant the Indian yell was raised, and before the soldiers at that end of the camp could leave their tents, the Indians had pierced the line, and were shooting the men by the light of the camp-fires. Within a few moments, firing began along the whole line, until the camp, except for a space next the creek, was encircled by it. Fortunately for Harrison, the attacking party at the broken angle had not strength to follow up its advantage, and the American line was soon reformed in the rear. Harrison rode to the point, and at the northeast angle met Daveiss and his dismounted dragoons. Daveiss reported that the Indians, under cover of the trees, were annoying the troops severely, and asked leave to dislodge them. The order was given; and Daveiss, followed by only a few men, rushed forward among the trees, where he soon fell, mortally wounded. The troops, after forming, held their position without further disaster till daybreak, when they advanced and drove the Indians into the swamp. With this success the battle ended, having lasted two hours.
For the moment the army was saved, but only at great cost. Daveiss, who held an anomalous position almost as prominent as that of Harrison himself, died in the afternoon. Captain Baen, acting major of the Fourth Regiment, two lieutenants, and an ensign of the same regiment, were killed or wounded; two lieutenant-colonels, four captains, and several lieutenants of the Indiana militia were on the same list, and the general’s aid-de-camp was killed. One hundred and fifty-four privates were returned among the casualties, fifty-two of whom were killed or mortally wounded. The total loss was one hundred and eighty-eight, of whom sixty-one were killed or mortally wounded.[108] The bodies of thirty-eight Indians were found on the field.
If the army had cause for anxiety before the battle, it had double reason for alarm when it realized its position on November 7. If Harrison’s own account was correct, he had with him only eight hundred men. Sixty-one had been killed or mortally wounded, and he had near a hundred and fifty wounded to carry with him in his retreat. His effective force was diminished more than one fourth, according to his biographer;[109] his camp contained very little flour and no meat, for the few beeves brought with the army were either driven away by the Indians or stampeded by the noise of the battle; and his only base of supplies was at Vincennes, one hundred and seventy miles away. The Indians could return in greater numbers, but his own force must steadily grow weaker. Harrison was naturally a cautious man; he felt strongly the dangers that surrounded him, and his army felt them not less.[110]
The number of Indian warriors engaged in the night attack was estimated by Harrison at six hundred.[111] The law of exaggeration, almost invariable in battle, warrants belief that not more than four hundred Indians were concerned in the attack. The Prophet’s Indians were few. Tecumthe afterward spoke of the attack as an “unfortunate transaction that took place between the white people and a few of our young men at our village,”[112]—as though it was an affair in which the young warriors had engaged against the will of the older chiefs. Tecumthe commonly told the truth, even with indiscretion; and nothing in the American account contradicted his version of the affair at Tippecanoe. Harrison’s ablest military manœuvre had been the availing himself of Tecumthe’s over-confidence in quitting the country at so critical a moment.
Although Harrison did not venture to send out a scout for twenty-four hours, but remained in camp waiting attack, no further sign of hostilities was given. “Night,” said one of the army,[113] “found every man mounting guard, without food, fire, or light, and in a drizzling rain. The Indian dogs, during the dark hours, produced frequent alarms by prowling in search of carrion about the sentinels.” On the morning of November 8, the dragoons and mounted riflemen approached the town and found it deserted. Apparently the Indians had fled in haste, leaving everything, even a few new English guns and powder. The army took what supplies were needed, and set fire to the village. Meanwhile every preparation had been made for rapid retreat. The wagons could scarcely carry all the wounded, and Harrison abandoned the camp furniture and private baggage. “We managed, however, to bring off the public property,” he reported. At noon of November 9 the train started, and by night-fall had passed the dangerous woods and broken country where a few enemies could have stopped it. No Indians appeared; the march was undisturbed; and after leaving a company of the U. S. Fourth Regiment at Fort Harrison, the rest of the force arrived, November 18, at Vincennes.
The battle of Tippecanoe at once became a point of pride throughout the Western country, and Harrison received the official applause and thanks of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois; but Harrison’s account of his victory was not received without criticism, and the battle was fought again in the press and in private. The Fourth Regiment more than hinted that had it not been for their steadiness the whole party would have been massacred. At Vincennes, Harrison was severely attacked. In Kentucky criticism was open, for the family and friends of Joseph Daveiss were old Federalists, who had no interest in the military triumphs of a Republican official. Humphrey Marshall, Daveiss’s brother-in-law, published a sharp review of Harrison’s report, and hinted plainly that Daveiss had fallen a victim to the General’s blunders. With characteristic vigor of language, Marshall called Harrison “a little, selfish, intriguing busybody,” and charged him with having made the war without just cause, for personal objects.[114] These attacks caused the Western Republicans to sustain with the more ardor their faith in Harrison’s military genius, and their enthusiasm for the victory of Tippecanoe; but President Madison and Secretary Eustis guarded themselves with some care from expressing an opinion on the subject.
Whatever his critics might say, Harrison gained his object, and established himself in the West as the necessary leader of any future campaign. That result, as far as it was good, seemed to be the only advantage gained at Tippecanoe. Harrison believed that the battle had broken the Prophet’s influence, and saved the frontier from further alarm; he thought that in the event of a British war, the Indians would remain neutral having “witnessed the inefficacy of British assistance;”[115] he expected the tribes to seek peace as a consequence of what he considered the severest defeat they had ever received since their acquaintance with the white people;[116] and the expectation was general that they would deliver the Prophet and Tecumthe into the hands of the American government. For a time these impressions seemed reasonable. The Prophet lost influence, and the peace was not further disturbed; but presently the Western people learned that the Prophet had returned to Tippecanoe, and that all things had resumed their old aspect, except that no one could foresee when the Indians would choose to retaliate for Harrison’s invasion.
Toward January, Tecumthe returned from the South, and sent word that he was ready to go to Washington. March 1, 1812, a deputation of some eighty Indians visited Vincennes, and told Harrison that the whole winter had been passed in sending messages to the different villages to consult on their future course, and that all agreed to ask for peace. They blamed the Prophet for the affair at Tippecanoe, and asked leave to visit Washington to obtain peace from the President. Harrison gladly assented, for a delegation of Indians sent to Washington was a guaranty of peace during the time of their absence. He expected them to appear at Fort Wayne in April, ready for the journey.
The Indian hesitation was probably due to doubt whether war would take place between the United States and England. The whole influence of the British agents was exerted to unite the Indians and to arm them, but to prevent a premature outbreak. The British Indian agent at Amherstburg sent Tecumthe a message blaming the attack on Harrison. Tecumthe replied:[117]—
“You tell us to retreat or turn to one side should the Big Knives come against us. Had I been at home in the late unfortunate affair I should have done so; but those I left at home were (I cannot call them men) a poor set of people, and their scuffle with the Big Knives I compared to a struggle between little children who only scratch each other’s faces. The Kickapoos, Winnebagoes have since been at Post Vincennes and settled the matter amicably.”
The situation was well understood. “If we have a British war, we shall have an Indian war,” wrote the commandant from Fort Wayne.[118] “From the best information I can get, I have every reason to believe we shall have an Indian war this spring, whether we have a British war or not.” Harrison must himself have felt that the campaign to Tippecanoe could only add to his dangers unless it was followed up. After April 1, 1812, illusions vanished; for Indian hostilities began all along the border. April 6 two settlers were murdered within three miles of Fort Dearborn, at Chicago; several murders were committed near Fort Madison, above St. Louis, on the Mississippi; but the warning which spread wild alarm throughout Indiana was the murder of a whole family early in April within five miles of Vincennes, and April 14 that of a settler within a few miles of the Ohio River. Another murder a few weeks afterward, on the White River, completed the work of terror.
Then a general panic seized the people. The militia dared not turn out; for while they collected at one spot, the Indians might attack their isolated cabins. Even Vincennes was thought to be in danger, and the stream of fugitives passed through it as rapidly as possible on their way southward, until depopulation threatened the Territory.[119] “Most of the citizens in this country,” reported Harrison, May 6,[120] “have abandoned their farms, and taken refuge in such temporary forts as they have been able to construct. Nothing can exhibit more distress than those wretched people crowded together in places almost destitute of every necessary accommodation.” Misled by the previous peaceful reports, the Government had sent the Fourth Regiment to Detroit; not even a company of militia could be procured nearer than the falls of the Ohio; and Harrison called for help in vain.
Fortunately, Tecumthe was not yet ready for war. Six weeks after the hostilities began he appeared at a grand council, May 16, at Massassinway on the Wabash, between Tippecanoe and Fort Wayne. His speech to the tribes assembled there was more temperate than ever.[121]
“Governor Harrison made war on my people in my absence,” he said. “It was the will of God that he should do so. We hope it will please God that the white people may let us live in peace; we will not disturb them, neither have we done it, except when they came to our village with the intention of destroying us. We are happy to state to our brothers present that the unfortunate transaction that took place between the white people and a few of our young men at our village has been settled between us and Governor Harrison; and I will further state, had I been at home there would have been no bloodshed at that time.”
He added that the recent murders had been committed by Pottawatomies not under his control, and he offered no excuse for them.
“Should the bad acts of our brothers the Pottawatomies draw on us the ill-will of our white brothers, and they should come again and make an unprovoked attack on us at our village, we will die like men; but we will never strike the first blow.... We defy a living creature to say we ever advised any one, directly or indirectly, to make war on our white brothers. It has constantly been our misfortune to have our views misrepresented to our white brethren. This has been done by pretended chiefs of the Pottawatomies and others that have been in the habit of selling land to the white people that did not belong to them.”
This was the situation on the Wabash in May and June, 1812. Not only was Tecumthe unwilling to strike the first blow, but he would not even retaliate Harrison’s invasion and seizure of the disputed territory. He waited for Congress to act, but every one knew that whenever Congress should declare war against England, war must also be waged with the Indians; and no one could doubt that after provoking the Indian war, Americans ought to be prepared to wage it with effect, and without complaint of its horrors.