Harrison now determined to break up the prophet’s camp. Accordingly, at the head of about 900 men, including about 250 regulars, he marched from Vincennes, and on the 5th of November, 1811, encamped within a few miles of the prophet’s town. The Indians had fortified the place with great care and labor. It was sacred to them as the spot where the rites of the new religion had been so long enacted, and by these rites they believed it had been rendered impregnable to the attacks of the white man. The next day he approached still nearer, and was met by messengers from the town, who stated that the prophet was anxious to avoid hostilities and had already sent a pacific message by several chiefs, who had unfortunately gone down on the other side of the river and thus had failed to find the general. A truce was accordingly agreed on until the next day, when terms of peace were to be arranged between the governor and the chiefs. The army encamped on a spot pointed out by the Indians, an elevated piece of ground rising out of a marshy prairie, within a mile of the town. Although Harrison did not believe that the Indians would make a night attack, yet as a precaution he had the troops sleep on their arms in order of battle.
At 4 o’clock in the morning of the 7th, Governor Harrison, according to his practice, had risen preparatory to the calling up the troops, and was engaged, while drawing on his boots by the fire, in conversation with General Wells, Colonel Owen, and Majors Taylor and Hurst. The orderly drum had been roused for the purpose of giving the signal for the troops to turn out, when the attack of the Indians suddenly commenced upon the left flank of the camp. The whole army was instantly on its feet, the campfires were extinguished, the governor mounted his horse and proceeded to the point of attack. Several of the companies had taken their places in the line within forty seconds from the report of the first gun, and the whole of the troops were prepared for action in the course of two minutes, a fact as creditable to their own activity and bravery as to the skill and bravery of their officers. The battle soon became general, and was maintained on both sides with signal and even desperate valor. The Indians advanced and retreated by the aid of a rattling noise, made with deer hoofs, and persevered in their treacherous attack with an apparent determination to conquer or die upon the spot. The battle raged with unabated fury and mutual slaughter until daylight, when a gallant and successful charge by our troops drove the enemy into the swamp and put an end to the conflict.
Prior to the assault the prophet had given assurances to his followers that in the coming contest the Great Spirit would render the arms of the Americans unavailing; that their bullets would fall harmless at the feet of the Indians; that the latter should have light in abundance, while the former would be involved in thick darkness. Availing himself of the privilege conferred by his peculiar office, and perhaps unwilling in his own person to attest at once the rival powers of a sham prophecy and a real American bullet, he prudently took a position on an adjacent eminence, and when the action began, he entered upon the performance of certain mystic rites, at the same time singing a war song. In the course of the engagement he was informed that his men were falling. He told them to fight on—it would soon be as he had predicted. And then, in louder and wilder strains, his inspiring battle song was heard commingling with the sharp crack of the rifle and the shrill war whoop of his brave but deluded followers. ([Drake], Tecumseh, 6.)
Drake estimates the whole number of Indians engaged in the battle at between 800 and 1,000, representing all the principal tribes of the region, and puts the killed at probably not less than 50, with an unusually large proportion of wounded. Harrison’s estimate would seem to put the numbers much higher. The Americans lost 60 killed or mortally wounded, and 188 in all. ([Drake], Tecumseh, 7.) In their hurried retreat the Indians left a large number of dead on the field. Believing on the word of the prophet that they would receive supernatural aid from above, they had fought with desperate bravery, and their defeat completely disheartened them. They at once abandoned their town and dispersed, each to his own tribe. Tecumtha’s great fabric was indeed demolished, and even its foundations rooted up.
The night before the engagement the prophet had performed some medicine rites by virtue of which he had assured his followers that half of the soldiers were already dead and the other half bereft of their senses, so that the Indians would have little to do but rush into their camp and finish them with the hatchet. The result infuriated the savages. They refused to listen to the excuses which are always ready to the tongue of the unsuccessful medicine-man, denounced him as a liar, and even threatened him with death. Deserted by all but a few of his own tribe, warned away from several villages toward which he turned his steps, he found refuge at last among a small band of Wyandot; but his influence and his sacred prestige were gone forever, and he lived out his remaining days in the gloom of obscurity.
From the south Tecumtha returned through Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois, everywhere making accessions to his cause, but reached the Wabash at last, just a few days after the battle, only to find his followers scattered to the four winds, his brother a refugee, and the great object of his life—a confederation of all the tribes—brought to nothing. His grief and disappointment were bitter. He reproached his brother in unmeasured terms for disobeying his instructions to preserve peace in his absence, and when the prophet attempted to reply, it is said that Tecumtha so far forgot his dignity as to seize his brother by the hair and give him a violent shaking, threatening to take his life.
Early in 1812 Tecumtha sent a message to Governor Harrison, informing him of his return from the south, and stating that he was now ready to make the proposed visit to the President. To this Harrison replied, giving his permission, but refusing to allow any party to accompany him. This stipulation did not please the great leader, who had been accustomed to the attendance of a retinue of warriors wherever he went. He declined the terms, and thus terminated his intercourse with the governor. In June, 1812, he visited the agent at Fort Wayne, and there reiterated the justice of his position in regard to the ownership of the Indian lands, again disclaimed having had any intention of making war against the United States, and reproached Harrison for marching against his people in his absence. In return, the agent endeavored to persuade him now to join forces with the United States in the approaching conflict with England. “Tecumtha listened with frigid indifference, made a few general remarks in reply, and then with a haughty air left the council house and took his departure for Malden, where he joined the British standard.” ([Drake], Tecumseh, 8.) His subsequent career is a part of the history of the war of 1812.
Formal declaration of war against Great Britain was made by the United States on June 18, 1812. Tecumtha was already at Malden, the British headquarters on the Canadian side, and when invited by some friendly Indians to attend a council near Detroit in order to make arrangements for remaining neutral, he sent back word that he had taken sides with the king, and that his bones would bleach on the Canadian shore before he would recross the river to join in any council of neutrality. A few days later he led his Indians into battle on the British side. For his services at Maguaga he was soon afterward regularly commissioned a brigadier general in the British army.
We pass over the numerous events of this war—Maguaga, the Raisin, Fort Meigs, Perry’s victory—as being outside the scope of our narrative, and come to the battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813, the last ever fought by Tecumtha. After Perry’s decisive victory on the lake, Proctor hastily prepared to retreat into the interior, despite the earnest protests of Tecumtha, who charged him with cowardice, an imputation which the British general did not dare to resent. The retreat was begun with Harrison in close pursuit, until the British and Indians reached a spot on the north bank of the Thames, in the vicinity of the present Chatham, Ontario. Here, finding the ground favorable for defense, Tecumtha resolved to retreat no farther, and practically compelled Proctor to make a stand. The Indian leader had no hope of triumph in the issue. His sun had gone down, and he felt himself already standing in the shadow of death. He was done with life and desired only to close it, as became a warrior, striking a last blow against the hereditary enemy of his race. When he had posted his men, he called his chiefs about him and calmly said, “Brother warriors, we are now about to enter into an engagement from which I shall never come out—my body will remain on the field of battle.” He then unbuckled his sword, and, placing it in the hands of one of them, said, “When my son becomes a noted warrior and able to wield a sword, give this to him.” He then laid aside his British military dress and took his place in the line, clothed only in the ordinary deerskin hunting shirt. ([Drake], Tecumseh, 9.) When the battle began, his voice was heard encouraging his men until he fell under the cavalry charge of the Americans, who had already broken the ranks of the British regulars and forced them to surrender. Deprived of their leader and deserted by their white allies, the Indians gave up the unequal contest and fled from the field. Tecumtha died in his forty-fourth year.
After the close of the war the prophet returned from Canada by permission of this government and rejoined his tribe in Ohio, with whom he removed to the west in 1827. ([Schoolcraft], Ind. Tribes, 2.) Catlin, who met and talked with him in 1832, thus speaks of him:
This, no doubt, has been a very shrewd and influential man, but circumstances have destroyed him, as they have many other great men before him, and he now lives respected, but silent and melancholy, in his tribe. I conversed with him a great deal about his brother Tecumseh, of whom he spoke frankly, and seemingly with great pleasure; but of himself and his own great schemes he would say nothing. He told me that Tecumseh’s plans were to embody all the Indian tribes in a grand confederacy, from the province of Mexico to the Great Lakes, to unite their forces in an army that would be able to meet and drive back the white people, who were continually advancing on the Indian tribes and forcing them from their lands toward the Rocky mountains; that Tecumseh was a great general, and that nothing but his premature death defeated his grand plan. ([Catlin], 2.)