Chapter X: Tecumseh, or "the Shooting Star." (2)

Tecumseh wrote to General Harrison that he desired to go to Washington and see the Great Father. The request was granted, but he was required to go alone. This wounded the spirit of the disappointed man. The would-be emperor refused to go without a retinue. Filled with unutterable fury, he joined the English army in Canada. When invited to take part in a peace council, he said: "No! I have taken sides with my father, the King, and I will suffer my bones to bleach on this shore before I will recross that stream to take part in any council of neutrality."

Tecumseh took an active part in the war and before long found himself at the head of seven hundred warrior's. Nearly all the war-chiefs followed his lead and went over to the British side. Shortly after this, because of bravery in what is known as the battle of Brownstown, and in recognition of his eminent ability, Tecumseh was made a brigadier-general in the British army. He is thought to have been the only American Indian who ever held so high a position, except Gen. Ely S. Parker, of the Rebellion.

Major-General Brock, a brave and generous gentleman, was now in command of the British army. He was as much honored and respected by his Indian ally as General Proctor, his successor, was afterward despised.

General Brock and Tecumseh, with their combined force, took a position at Sandwich, a place opposite Detroit. Here the commander-in-chief asked his ally what sort of a country he would have to pass through in order to get to Detroit. Tecumseh, taking a roll of elm bark, and extending it on the ground and securing it in place by four stones, drew his scalping-knife, and, with the point, etched upon the bark a plan of the country, showing its hills, rivers, woods, morasses and roads. Pleased with this unexpected talent in Tecumseh, as well as by the fact that he induced the Indians not of his immediate party to cross the river first. General Brock took off his splendid sash and, in the presence of the army, placed it around the body of the chief. Tecumseh received the honor with evident gratification; but was next day seen without his sash. General Brock, fearing something had displeased the chief, sent his interpreter for an explanation. The latter soon returned with the report that Tecumseh, not wishing to wear such a mark of distinction, when an older, and as he said, abler warrior than himself was present, had transferred the sash to Roundhead, the Wyandot chief.

In this the great chief showed his shrewdness, knowing the Indian's love of display and the tendency in human nature to jealousy. Moreover, he would not be so conspicuous in battle.

As is well known, the American general, Hull, made a cowardly surrender of Detroit. He was court-martialed and sentenced to be shot, but was pardoned because of his age and his services during the Revolution.

At the time of the surrender, General Brock asked Tecumseh not to allow the Indians to abuse the prisoners. "Have no fear," he replied; "I despise them too much to meddle with them."

The surrender of Detroit exposed the whole Northwestern frontier to the ravages of the enemy. General Brock was killed at the battle of Queenstown and the command of the British army devolved upon General Proctor. He had under him in the spring of 1813 fourteen hundred British and eighteen hundred Indian allies, commanded by Tecumseh. The Americans to meet this force had only twelve hundred troops and a small force of Indians, under the command of General Harrison; but they were _Americans,_ and many of them from _Kentucky._

{Illustration: Red Cloud, noted Sioux Chief.}

One of the most disastrous affairs of the war was in connection with the attack upon Fort Meigs. It seems that Colonel Dudley and his force had been sent to the opposite side of the river to seize a battery erected by the enemy and spike the cannon. They gained possession of the battery, but before they could complete their work the enemy rallied in overwhelming numbers. Nearly every one who escaped the rifle and tomahawk was captured, Dudley being one of those who was tomahawked and scalped.

The prisoners were taken to Proctor's headquarters, where the Indians tomahawked such as they pleased. More than twenty were murdered in this horrible manner. General Proctor made no attempt to restrain them, but was looking calmly upon the fiendish work, when he heard a voice in the Indian tongue shouting something at the rear. Turning his head he saw Tecumseh dashing forward, his horse at full speed. The instant he reached the spot he leaped off, and seeing two Indians in the act of killing an American, seized one by the throat and the other by the breast and hurled them to the ground. Drawing his tomahawk and scalping-knife he sprang between the Indians and their victims, and, brandishing the weapons with the fury of a madman dared any one of the blood thirsty savages to attempt to injure another prisoner. His consuming wrath cowed all, and they slunk away from him. Turning to Proctor, he sternly demanded why he had not stopped the massacre.

"Sir," replied the British general, "your Indians can not be restrained."

"Begone!" thundered Tecumseh; "you are not fit to command! Go home and put on the petticoat of a squaw!"

Call him barbarian, if you will, but remember, that of the two commanders the fiend who looked on complacently during this cruel butchery of defenseless white prisoners, was _white;_ while he who risked his life to prevent it, was a _red man._

Another instance in the career of this truly great man is given by Drake. Shortly after he had stopped the slaughter of the captives he noticed a small group of Indians interested in something. Colonel Elliott said to him: "Yonder are four of your people who have been taken prisoners you may do what you please with them." Tecumseh walked over to the group and found four Shawnees, who, while fighting on the side of the Americans, had been captured. "Friends," said Tecumseh, "Colonel Elliott has placed you under my charge and I will send you back to your nation, with a talk to your people."

Accordingly, he took them with the army as far as Raisin, from which point their return home would be less dangerous, and then sent two of his warriors to accompany them with a friendly message to their chiefs. They were thus discharged, under their parole not to fight against the British during the war.

Tecumseh was an unruly ally, because he despised Proctor. One day, provisions being scarce, salt beef was given the English soldiers, while the Indians received only horse-flesh. Angered at the outrage, Tecumseh strode to Proctor's tent and demanded an explanation. Seeing the English general about to treat the complaint with indifference, Tecumseh significantly struck the hilt of the commander's sword, touching at the same time the handle of his tomahawk, and said: "You are Proctor. I am Tecumseh." This hint at a mode of settling the difficulty brought Proctor to terms at once.

After an unsuccessful attempt to reduce Fort Stephenson, then garrisoned by one hundred and sixty men commanded by Major Croghan, Proctor and his forces retreated to Malden.

About this time, an American citizen, Captain Le Croix, was arrested by order of the British commander and confined on board a ship, to be sent to Montreal. Tecumseh had an especial friendship for Le Croix, and it may have been because of his influence with the chief that he was seized. Tecumseh, suspecting that Le Croix had been imprisoned, called on General Proctor, and asked if he knew anything of his friend. He even ordered the British general to tell him the truth, adding, "If I ever detect you in a falsehood, I, with my Indians, will immediately abandon you." The general was obliged to acknowledge that Le Croix was a prisoner. Tecumseh then demanded that his friend should be instantly liberated. General Proctor wrote a line stating that the "King of the Woods" desired the release of Captain Le Croix, and that it must be done at once. The order was obeyed. Tecumseh treated the American commander with equal contempt. A recent writer gives a challenge which that great chief sent to General Harrison at the first siege of Fort Meigs. It was as follows:

"General Harrison: I have with me eight hundred braves. You have an equal number in your hiding place. Come out with them and give me battle. You talked like a brave when we met at Vincennes, and I respected you, but now you hide behind logs and in the earth, like a ground-hog. Give me answer.

"Tecumseh."

The Americans always had great confidence in Tecumseh, though he was an enemy. Once when the English and Indians were encamped near the River Raisin, some Sauks and Winnebagos entered the house of a Mrs. Ruland and began to plunder it. She immediately sent her little daughter to ask Tecumseh to come to her assistance. The chief was in council and was making a speech when the child entered the building and pulled the skirts of Tecumseh's hunting-shirt, saying, "Come to our house, there are bad Indians there." Tecumseh did not wait to finish his speech, but walked rapidly to the house. At the entrance he met some Indians dragging a trunk away. He knocked down the first one with a blow from his tomahawk. The others prepared to resist. "Dogs!" cried the chief, "I am Tecumseh!" The Indians immediately fled and Tecumseh turned upon some English officers who were standing near: "You," said he, "are worse, than dogs, to break your faith with prisoners." The officers immediately apologized to Mrs. Ruland, and offered to put a guard around her house. She declined this offer, however, saying that she was not afraid so long as that man, pointing to Tecumseh, was near.

The ill success which attended the efforts of the British caused Tecumseh not only to lose heart, but dissipated what little faith he had felt in Proctor. He seriously meditated a withdrawal from the contest. Assembling the Shawnees, Wyandots and Ottawas, who were under his command, he declared his intention to them. He told them that when they had taken up the tomahawk and joined their father, the King, they were promised plenty of white men to fight with them; "but the number is not now greater," said he, "than at the commencement of the war; and we are treated by them like the dogs of snipe hunters; we are always sent ahead to start the game. It is better that we should return to our own country, and let the Americans come on and fight the British."

To this proposition his followers agreed; but the Sioux and Chippewas discovering his intention, went to him, and insisted that inasmuch as he had first united with the British, and had been instrumental in bringing their tribes into the alliance, he ought not to leave them; and through their influence he was finally induced to remain.

Tecumseh's last grudge against Proctor was on account of the retreat of the English from Malden, after Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie. The Indians did not understand the movements of a naval battle, and General Proctor, who doubtless dreaded the influence of a defeat upon them, said to Tecumseh, "My fleet has whipped the Americans, but the vessels being much injured have gone to Put-in-Bay to refit, and will be here in a few days."

The suspicions of Tecumseh were soon aroused, however, when he thought he perceived indications of a plan to retreat from Maiden. When he spoke to Proctor on the subject, that cringing coward told him that he was only going to send all his valuables up the Thames, where they would be met by a reinforcement and be safe. Tecumseh, however, felt sure that the commander was meditating a retreat. He demanded, in the name of his Indians, that he be heard by General Proctor. Audience was granted him on September 18, and the Indian orator delivered his last speech, a copy of which was afterward found in Proctor's baggage when it was captured. We can only quote two paragraphs from it here:

"You always told us," said he, "you would never draw your foot off British ground; but now, father, we see that you are drawing back, and we are sorry to see our father doing so without seeing the enemy. We must compare our father's conduct to a fat dog that carries its tail on its back, but when affrighted drops it between its legs and runs off. Father, listen! The Americans have not yet defeated us by land; neither are we sure they have done so by water; we, therefore wish to remain here and fight our enemy, should they make their appearance. If they defeat us, we will then retreat with our father.

"Father, you have got the arms and ammunition which our great father sent to his red children. If you have an idea of going away, give them to us and you may go, and welcome. For us, our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are determined to defend our lands, and if it be his will, we wish to leave our bones upon them."

In spite of Tecumseh's protest, Proctor burned Malden and began a retreat. He pretended from time to time that he would halt and give battle. When the retreat commenced, Tecumseh said, "We are now going to follow the British, and I am sure that we shall never return." At last, on October 5, Proctor was forced to halt and oppose the pursuing Americans in the battle of the Thames. Just before the engagement Tecumseh said to the group of chiefs around him: "Brother warriors, we are about to enter into an engagement, from which I shall never come out--my body will remain on the field of battle." Unbuckling his sword and handing it to a chief, he said, "When my son becomes a noted warrior and able to wield a sword, give this to him."

The battle which followed was for a time fiercely contested, and the position selected was well adapted for defense. The Indians, under their indomitable leader, stood their ground longer than the British regulars.

Proctor fled, like the coward he was, leaving the great chief and his warriors to receive the brunt of the battle. The flight of the British commander was too rapid for him to be overtaken, though they captured his baggage.

With one arm bleeding and almost useless, Tecumseh, too proud to fly, stood his ground, dealing prodigious blows right and left, and inspiring his warriors with his loud commanding war-whoop, which was heard above the din of the battle.

Col. Richard M. Johnson and his Kentucky cavalry were ordered to charge the Indians. This they did with such fury that the savage warriors fled; but not until their intrepid leader had received a bullet through his head, which stilled his clarion voice in death.

The discussion as to who killed Tecumseh became a singularly heated one in subsequent political campaigns, the chief recommendation for office in that day being skill as an Indian fighter.

The friends of Col. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, claimed that _honor_ for their hero when he was a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. This, indeed, constituted one of his chief claims to the suffrage of his party, just as Harrison's victories at Tippecanoe and the Thames elevated him to the Presidency. Johnson himself never made the claim, saying that his assailant was so close upon him that he did not stop to ask him his name before shooting him.

It may be doubted whether anybody ever did know who fired the shot that killed the great chief. Those who saw him shot, from the American side, did not know him from any other Indian, for there was nothing in his dress to distinguish him from his warriors, and the Indians who saw him fall did not know his slayer. Many mistook the body of a gayly dressed and painted warrior for that of Tecumseh.

James, the English historian, and Eggleston, both assert that from the body of this Indian much of the skin was actually flayed and converted into razor-strops by some of the pioneer Kentuckians, who had become almost as barbarous as the savages against whom they fought. The truth of this statement is confirmed by the testimony of several American officers and privates who were in the battle of the Thames. They state, however, that it was the work of a few brutish individuals, and that the great mass of the army were shocked at its perpetration. {FN}

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{FN} The author when a youth was told by Dr. William A. Moore, of Milford, Kentucky, a member of the Legislature and an old-school gentleman of the highest integrity, that he (the Doctor) had seen a razor-strop made from the skin that covered Tecumseh's backbone. It has been demonstrated that Tecumseh's body was not harmed, but another Indian mistaken for him was both scalped and flayed.

A short distance from where Tecumseh fell, the body of his friend, Wasegoboah, the husband of Tecumapease, was found. They had often fought side by side, and now, in front of their men, bravely battling the enemy, they side by side closed their mortal careers.

The British historian, James, in his account of the battle of the Thames, makes the following remarks upon the character and personal appearance of the subject of this sketch.

"Thus fell the Indian warrior, Tecumseh, in the forty-fourth year of his age. He was of the Shawnee tribe, five feet ten inches high, and with more than the usual stoutness, possessed all the agility and perseverance of the Indian character. His carriage was dignified, his eye penetrating, his countenance, which even in death betrayed the indications of a lofty spirit, rather of the sterner cast.

"Had he not possessed a certain austerity of manners, he could not have controlled the wayward passions of those who followed him to battle. He was of a silent habit; but when his eloquence became roused into action by the reiterated encroachments of the Americans, his strong intellect could supply him with a flow of oratory that enabled him, as he governed in the field, so to prescribe in the council.

"Such a man was the unlettered savage, Tecumseh. He has left a son, who, when his father fell, was about seventeen years old, and fought by his side. The prince regent in 1814, out of respect to the memory of the old, sent out as a present to the young Tecumseh, a handsome sword. Unfortunately, however, for the Indian cause and country, faint are the prospects that Tecumseh, the son, will ever equal, in wisdom or prowess, Tecumseh, the father."

The name of Tecumseh's son was Pugeshashenwa. The prince regent also settled upon him an annual pension, in consideration of his father's services. He was treated with much respect, because he was the son of his father, and removed to Indian Territory with the remnant of the Shawnee nation.

Tecumseh is described as a perfect Apollo in form, his face oval, his nose straight and handsome, and his mouth regular and beautiful. His eyes, singularly enough, were "hazel, clear and pleasant in conversation, but like balls of fire when excited by anger or enthusiasm." His bearing was that of a lofty and noble spirit, a true "King of the Woods," as the English called him. He was temperate in his habits, loving truth and honor better than life. He was an ideal Indian, and both in body and mind the finest flower of the aboriginal American race.

Possessing a genius which must have made him eminent in any age or country, like Brant, Pontiac and King Philip, his illustrious predecessors, he had failed yet like them he was great in defeat. He was the first great chieftain to prohibit the massacre of prisoners.

Trumbull, in his "Indian Wars," thus refers to this renowned leader: "He was the most extraordinary Indian that has ever appeared in history. His acute understanding very early in life informed him that his countrymen had lost their importance that they were gradually yielding to the whites, who were acquiring an imposing influence over them. Instigated by these considerations, and perhaps by his natural ferocity and attachment to war, he became a decided enemy to the whites, with an invincible determination to regain for his country the proud independence she had lost.

"Aware, at length, of the extent, number and power of the United States, he became fully convinced of the futility of any single nation of red men attempting to cope with them."

{Illustration: Death of Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames.}

"He formed, therefore, the grand scheme of uniting all the tribes east of the Mississippi into hostility against the United States. This was a field worthy of his great and commanding genius."

Besides several towns in different States christened in his honor, his name was also borne by one of the greatest of American generals.

At the meeting of the Republican National Committee in Washington, November 23, 1891, to select a city in which to hold a Presidential convention, President Palmer, of the World's Fair Commission, gave in an eloquent plea for the selection of Detroit, the promise to take the visitors thirty miles over into Canada to view the spot where Tecumseh, "the greatest Indian the American continent ever knew, was slain."

Paradoxical as it may seem, he was a savage, yet one of nature's noblemen.

The words of Hamlet apply to this "King of the Woods" in a striking manner:

"See, what a grace was seated on this brow
Hyperion's locks; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man."