Runners from Brigadier General Tecumseh spread the news. The Indians waited no longer. The Potawatomis rose, the Miamis rose, the Ottawas and Winnebagos and Kickapoos rose. Sioux of Minnesota and Sacs of Illinois hastened forward. General Tecumseh ruled.
To the Miamis and Winnebagos was assigned the task of taking Fort Harrison near present Terre Haute of Indiana; to the Potawatomis and Ottawas, aided by Tecumseh and some English, was assigned the task of taking Fort Wayne.
But the Shooting Star's old foe, William Henry Harrison, was out upon the war trail again. He lifted the siege of Fort Wayne. The attack upon Fort Harrison also failed. From now on he and Tecumseh fought their fight, to a finish.
This fall and winter of 1812 Tecumseh traveled once more. From Canada he journeyed south across a thousand miles of forest, prairie and waters clear to the Indians of Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. He did not now come with word from any Prophet, to make the red people one nation and a better nation.
He came as a British officer, to bid the Southern Indians join the king's standard, and fight the Americans into the sea while he and the English did the same work in the north.
He distributed bundles of red sticks for them to count—one stick a day. With the last stick, they were to strike.
The Creeks and Cherokees were persuaded, and strike they did. A bloody trail they made, which many rains did not wash clean.
Back to the war in the spring of 1813, Tecumseh brought into camp six hundred fresh warriors from the Wabash. Now two thousand fighting men obeyed his orders alone. His command frequently out-numbered the British command. He was not a general in name only; he knew military strategy—"he was an excellent judge of position," admitted the British officers. He was consulted in the war councils.
The British thought much of him; the Americans were obliged to think much about him. But the star of Harrison also was marching on. The two stars came together, in the trail.
Tecumseh with his Indians, and the British General Proctor with his soldiers besieged the troublesome American general at Fort Meigs, near by the battle field of Fallen Timbers. So again the two rival chiefs were face to face.