[10] William Henry Harrison was a son of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was born in Virginia in 1773, served in the Indian campaigns under St. Clair and Wayne, commanded Fort Washington on the site of Cincinnati, was secretary of the Northwest Territory, and then delegate to Congress, and did much to secure the law for the sale of public land on credit. He was made governor of Indiana Territory in 1801, and won great fame as a general in the War of 1812.
[11] Tecumthe's efforts in the South led to a war with the Creeks in 1813- 14. These Indians began by capturing Fort Mims in what is now southern Alabama, and killing many people there; but they were soon subdued by General Andrew Jackson. Read Edward Eggleston's Roxy; and Eggleston and Seelye's Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet.
[12] Gerry was a native of Massachusetts and one of the delegates who refused to sign the Constitution when it was framed in 1787. As a leading Republican he was chosen by Adams to represent his party on the X. Y. Z. Mission. As governor of Massachusetts he signed a bill rearranging the senatorial districts in such wise that some towns having Federalist majorities were joined to others having greater Republican majorities, thus making more than a fair proportion of the districts Republican. This political fraud is called Gerrymandering. Gerry died November 23, 1814, the second Vice President to die in office.
[13] Eighteen states cast electoral votes at this election (1812). The electors were chosen by popular vote in eight states, and by vote of the legislature in ten states, including Louisiana (the former territory of Orleans), which was admitted into the Union April 8, 1812. The admission of Louisiana was bitterly opposed by the Federalists. For their reasons, read a speech by Josiah Quincy in Johnston's American Orations, Vol. I, pp. 180-204.
[14] Perry's flagship was named the Lawrence, after the gallant commander of the Chesapeake, captured a short while before off Boston. As Lawrence, mortally wounded, was carried below, he said to his men, "Don't give up the ship." Perry put at the masthead of the Lawrence a blue pennant bearing the words "Don't give up the ship," and fought two of the largest vessels of the enemy till every gun on his engaged side was disabled, and but twenty men out of a hundred and three were unhurt. Then entering a boat with his brother and four seamen, he was rowed to the Niagara, which he brought into the battle, and with it broke the enemy's line and won.
[15] The story of the naval war is told in Maclay's History of the Navy, Part Third; and in Roosevelt's Naval War of 1812.
[16] In this battle the great Indian leader Tecumthe was killed.
[17] In New England the ruin of commerce made the war most unpopular, and it was because of this that the British did not at first blockade the New England coast. British goods came to Boston, Salem, and other ports in neutral ships, or in British ships disguised as neutral, and great quantities of them were carried in four-horse wagons to the South, whence raw cotton was brought back to New England to be shipped abroad. The Republicans made great fun of this "ox-and-horse-marine."
[18] For a description of the scenes in Washington, read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. IV, pp. 138-147; or Adams's History of the U. S., Vol. VIII, pp. 144-152; or Memoirs of Dolly Madison, Chap. 8.
[19] Read Holmes's poem Old Ironsides.