army debarked on Hartley's Point, three or four miles below Fort Malden, without opposition. It immediately moved forward, and as it approached Amherstburg, where Fort Malden was situated, instead of being confronted by armed foes, Shelby and his staff, who were in the advance, met a deputation of modest, well-dressed women, who came to implore mercy and protection. Proctor, who was in command at Malden, taking counsel of prudence and fear, and acting contrary to the solemn advice, earnest entreaties, and indignant remonstrances of his more courageous brother officer, Tecumtha, had fled northward, with his army, leaving Fort Malden, the navy buildings, and the public store-houses smoking ruins. The Americans occupied the deserted village that night. They entered it with the bands playing Yankee Doodle. The loyal portion of the inhabitants had fled. tion revived the martial spirit of Shelby, and he | morning, and at about four in the afternoon the resolved to lead not to send his countrymen to the war, at the same time refusing Harrison's generous offer of command. He issued a proclamation to the Kentuckians, saying, "I will lead you to the field of battle, and share with you the dangers and the honors of the campaign." His words were electrical. Kentucky immediately blazed with enthusiasm: "Come," said the young men and veterans, "let us rally round the eagle of our country, for Old King's Mountain will certainly lead us to victory and conquest." Twice the required number flocked to his standard, and with General John Adair, and the now venerable John J. Crittenden as his aids, and wearing upon his thigh a sword just presented to him by Henry Clay in behalf of the State of North Carolina, in testimony of his gallantry at King's Mountain in the old War for Independence, he led thirty-five hundred mounted men, including Colonel Richard M. Johnson's troop, in the direction of Lake Erie. Pressing forward with his staff, he heard, at Fort Ball (now Tiffin, Ohio), of Perry's victory. Thrilled with joy, he sent couriers to his commanders with orders for them to hasten forward. Hope and promise every where prevailed. Energy marked every movement; and on the 16th of September, the whole army of the Northwest, excepting the troops at Fort Meigs and minor posts, were on the borders of Erie, camped on the pleasant peninsula between Sandusky Bay and the lake below the mouth of the Portage River, now Port Clinton. The embarkation of the troops commenced on the 20th. There were not vessels enough to convey the horses and forage; so the Kentuckians were all dismounted excepting Johnson's corps, which was sent by land toward Detroit. The peninsula was inclosed by a fence across its neck, and there the horses were left while the army invaded Canada. On a lovely autumnal day, a gentle breeze rippling the bosom of the lake, and filling the sails, the invading army moved northward in sixteen armed vessels and almost one hundred boats. It was a sublime and beautiful spectacle. They left their anchorage at nine o'clock in the ISAAC SHELBY. When Harrison's army entered Amherstburg, the rear-guard of the enemy had not been gone an hour; Colonel Ball immediately sent an officer and twenty of his cavalry after them, to prevent their destroying the bridge over the Aux Canards or Ta-ron-tee River. They had just fired it when the pursuers approached. A single volley scattered the incendiaries, and the bridge was saved. Early on the following morning Harrison's army moved up the river to Sandwich. At the same time the American flotilla went up the river to Detroit, and Colonel Johnson and his mounted men, who had kept abreast the vessels, on the west side of the Detroit, also arrived there. The British had fled. Detroit was taken possession of by the Americans without a battle; martial law was succeeded by civil law; and the splendid territory lost the year before was recovered. On the morning of the 2d of October the pursuit of Proctor was renewed. It was known that he had fled along the borders of Lake St. Clair toward the River La Tranche or Thames, with the evident intention, if hard pushed, to make his way to Burlington Heights, at the head of Lake Ontario, where the British had a considerable force. Leaving M'Arthur and his brigade to hold Detroit, and Cass's brigade and Ball's corps at Sandwich, the rest of the army, including Johnson's regiment, pressed forward, the armed vessels at the same time making their way to the River Thames. They frequently heard of the fugitive enemy, but could not overtake him. They came near doing so at Dolsen's, a little above the great prairie that skirts the lower Thames, and a short distance below Chatham, on that river, to which point a part of the American flotilla penetrated. But he eluded their grasp and pushed into the interior. At Dolsen's Perry left his vessels, mounted a horse, and joined Harrison as his volunteer aid. On the morning of the 4th Proctor fled up the Thames from Dolsen's, cursed by Tecumtha for his cowardice; and at Chatham, where a deep stream, called M'Gregor's Creek, flows into the river between high banks, he prepared to make a stand, according to a promise given to the Indian leader. But he again fled in mortal dread of the vengeance of Kentuckians in pursuit. Sixty dusky warriors, under Walk-in-the-Water, then deserted him. He destroyed the bridges over M'Gregor's Creek, and thus somewhat checked pursuit. But the delay was temporary, and on the 5th, at noon, Harrison with his whole army forded the Thames, and was directly in the rear of Proctor, and only a few miles behind. As they approached the Moravian Town on the river, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, it was evident that the enemy was almost overtaken. Colonel Johnson dashed forward to obtain information. He captured a wagoner, and from him learned that the enemy, in battle-array, had halted across the pathway of the pursuers only three hundred yards further on, their position being masked by the forest. A reconnoissance corroborated the statement, and General Harrison arranged his army in battle order. It consisted of a part of the Twenty-seventh regiment of Regulars, five brigades of Kentucky Volunteers under Governor Shelby, and Colonel Johnson's mounted militia -a little more than three thousand in number. The number of the British and Indians did not exceed two thousand. It is said that Tecumtha compelled Proctor to make a stand by threatening to desert him with his whole Indian force. The ground chosen by the enemy was well selected. On his left was the River Thames, with a high and precipitous bank, and on his right a marsh running almost parallel with the river for about two miles. Between these, and two or three hundred yards from the river, was a small swamp, quite narrow, with a strip of solid ground between it and the large marsh. The whole space between the river and the great swamp was covered with timber, with very little undergrowth. The British Regulars were formed in two lines between the small swamp and the river, their artillery being planted in the road near the bank of the stream. The Indians were posted between the two swamps, where the undergrowth was thicker, their right extending some distance DOLSEN'S. along and just within the borders of the large swamp, and so disposed as to easily flank Harrison's left. Their left, commanded in person by Tecumtha, occupied the isthmus between the two swamps. In the disposition of his army Harrison made arrangements for the horsemen, who were in front, to fall back, allow the infantry to make the attack, and then charge upon the British lines. For this purpose General Marquis Calmes's brigade, five hundred strong, under Colonel Trotter, was placed in the front line, which extended from the road on the right toward the greater marsh. Parallel with these, one hundred and fifty yards in the rear, was General John E. King's brigade; and in the rear of this was General David Chile's brigade, posted as a reserve. These three brigades were under the command of Major-General King. Two others (Allen's and Caldwell's) and Simrall's regiment, forming General Desha's division, were formed upon the left of the front line, so as to hold the Indians in check and prevent a serious flank movement by them. At the crochet formed by Desha's and the front line of Henry's division the venerable Shelby, then sixty-six years of age, took his position. In front of all these, between the road and the smaller swamp, were Johnson's mounted men, in two columns, one commanded by himself and the other by his brother James, the lieutenant-colonel. A small corps of Regulars, one hundred and twenty in number, under Colonel Paul, were posted between the road and the river, for the purpose of advancing, in concert with some Indians under the wooded bank, to attempt the capture of the enemy's cannon. Just as the Americans were about to make the attack Harrison was informed of an unexpected disposition of the enemy's force. Con VIEW ON THE THAMES AT THE BATTLE-GROUND. trary to all precedent he incurred the peril of changing his plan of attack at the last moment. He ordered Johnson to charge the British line with his mounted men. That gallant soldier immediately prepared to do so, when he found the space between the smaller marsh and the river too limited for his corps to act efficiently. In the exercise of discretion given him he led his second column across the little marsh to attack the Indian left, leaving the first battalion, under his brother and Major Payne, to fall upon the British Regulars. The latter battalion was immediately formed in four columns of double files, with spies in front, while Colonel Johnson formed his battalion in two columns in front of Shelby, with a company of footmen before him. Harrison, accompanied by acting Adjutant-General Butler, Commodore Perry, and General Cass, took position on the extreme right, near the bank of the river, where he could observe and direct the movements. At the sound of a bugle the cavalry on the right moved steadily to the charge, receiving the fire of the enemy, when, with a tremendous shout, they dashed forward, fell furiously upon the British line, broke it, and scattered it in all directions. The second British line, thirty paces in the rear, was likewise broken and confused. The horsemen then wheeled, poured in a destructive fire upon the rear, right, and left, and caused the terrified foe to surrender as fast as they could throw down their arms. In less than five minutes after the first shot of the battle was fired the whole British force of white men, more than eight hundred strong, were totally vanquished, and most of them were made prisoners. Only a single officer and fifty men of the Fortyfirst regiment escaped. The cowardly Proctor fled in his carriage, with his personal staff, a few dragoons, and some mounted Indians, hotly pursued by a part of Johnson's corps under Major Payne. They chased him until dark, but could not overtake him. He was so hotly pressed, however, that he abandoned his car riage, left the road, and escaped by some by-path. So vigorous was his flight that, within twenty-four hours after the battle, he was sixty miles from the scene of conflict. The pursuers captured his carriage. When the bugle sounded for the attack on the British left the notes of another on the American left rang out in the clear autumn air. Colonel Johnson and his battalion charged upon the Indians under Tecumtha, and a desperate battle ensued, in which the gallant Kentucky leader was severely wounded, and the Shawnoese warrior was slain. This occurred early in the action. Tradition and history relate that he had just wounded Colonel Johnson with a rifle-bullet, and was springing forward with a tomahawk to dispatch him, when the latter drew a pistol from his belt and shot him dead. This scene is represented in bas relief on a marble monument erected to the memory of Johnson in a beautiful cemetery on the high bank of the Kentucky River, near Frankfort, Kentucky. The fall of Tecumtha, and the utter discomfiture of the British columns, caused the Indians to fly in terror. The battle was ended very soon after it was commenced. The loss on the part of the Americans was about fifteen killed and thirty wounded. The British lost about eighteen killed, twenty-six wounded, and six hundred made prisoners, twenty-five of whom were officers. On the battle-ground and in the pursuit from Lake St. Clair Harrison had captured more than five thousand small-arms, nearly all of which had been taken from the Americans at Detroit, Frenchtown, and Dudley's defeat. He had also captured six brass cannon, three of which were taken from the British in the War | A few dead and half-dead stems of the old trees, of the Revolution, and retaken from Hull at blackened by fire, remain. The large swamp Detroit. is still there, but the smaller one, opened to the sun by clearing the trees and bushes from it, has almost disappeared. When I visited the spot, on a cold blustering day in October, 1860, a corn-field, thickly dotted with ripe pumpkins, covered a portion of the scene of conflict; and near the place where, tradition says, Tecumtha fell, I made the accompanying sketch. General Harrison intended, on his return to Detroit, to proceed at once against Mackinack with a land-force, transported and convoyed by a part of Perry's flotilla under Captain Elliot. A heavy storm and the lateness of the season compelled him to relinquish the design. He and Perry sailed down the lake to Erie, where they were received with public demonstrations of joy; and on the 24th of October the General Harrison's success, and the annihilation of the allied armies of the foe westward of Lake Ontario, following so quickly upon the victory on Lake Erie, produced unbounded joy throughout the United States. The hopes of the Americans were revived, for they felt that a really able general was in the field. His praises were on every lip. In the chief cities, from Maine to Georgia, and all over the West, bonfires and illuminations attested the public satisfaction; and in many places joint honors were paid to the heroes of Lake Erie and the Thames. They were every where toasted; and the American Congress, in testimony of their appreciation of Harrison's services, afterward gave him their cordial thanks, and voted him a gold medal. Proctor, who meanly attempted to lay the bur-arrived at Buffalo on his way to the mouth of den of the disgrace of defeat upon the shoulders of his gallant soldiers, received his reward, when the truth became known, in the form of a public reprimand and suspension from rank and pay for six months-a punishment which the Prince Regent virtually declared to be inadequate. the Niagara River, there to prepare for leading an expedition against the British at Burlington Heights. His arrangements were nearly completed when he and his troops were ordered to Sackett's Harbor. An expedition was about to move against Montreal from that point, and it was important to have a force sufficient at the from British invasion. Chauncey's fleet conveyed the troops to Sackett's Harbor, and the Secretary of War gave General Harrison unasked-for permission to visit his family near Cincinnati. Harrison journeyed homeward by way of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and every where received the warm plaudits of his countrymen. The victory in itself, and its subsequent effects, was complete. It broke up the Indian Confed-east end of Lake Ontario to protect that region eracy of the Northwest, and caused the disheartened warriors to forsake their white allies and sue humbly for peace and pardon at the feet of the Americans. Harrison returned to Detroit with his army, where he was welcomed as Victor and Liberator; and General Cass, duly installed civil and military Governor of Michigan, remained there with his brigade. There he still (May, 1863) resides at the age of eighty-one years. The battle-ground of the Thames, then covered with the forest, is now a cultivated farm. The campaign of 1813, under the old Generals Dearborn, Hampton, and Wilkinson, having been fruitless of much good to the American cause, the eyes of the people were turned toward he was a gallant young soldier, stationed in command at Cincinnati, he wooed and won and wedded sweet Anna Symmes, the daughter of the proprietor of the “Great Miami Purchase,” who was then living in a spacious log-house at the North Bend of the Ohio, a dozen miles or so by railway westward of the "Queen City of the West." The father frowned on their betrothal, for the young Virginian, though a scion of an honored stock, was a soldier, and would be likely to take his beloved Anna far away. But love laughs at such obstacles. One fine day, when Judge Symmes returned home after a brief absence, he found Captain Harrison there, and was informed that the alchemy of legal pow er, in the hands of Dr. Stephen Wood, a magistrate, had made him his son-in-law. "Well, Sir," he said, somewhat sternly, "I understand you have married Anna." "Yes, Sir," respond port her?" the father inquired. "By my sword and my own right arm," quickly responded the young officer. The Judge was pleased with the reply, and, like a sensible man, gave them his blessing. He lived to be proud of that son-in Harrison, the successful leader, as the future acting commander-in-chief of the American army, or at least of the division of it on the Northern frontier. Such was the expectation of his companions in arms. "Yes, my dear friend," Perry wrote to him, "I expect to hail you as the chief who is to redeem the honor of our arms in the north." "You, Sir," wrote M'Arthur to him from Albany in New York, "stand the highest with the militia of this State of any general in the service, and I am confident that no man can fight them to so great advantage; and I think their extreme solicitude may be the means of calling you to this frontier." But these expectations were not realized. The professed kindly feelings of the Secretary of War toward General Harrison became suddenly changed, and his permission to visit his family assumed the practical form of a relief from command. He interfered with Har-ed the Captain. "How do you expect to suprison's prerogatives as the commander-in-chief of the Eighth Military District; and the General became so well convinced, by circumstances not necessary to mention here, that the Secretary intended to virtually deprive him of all command, that on the 11th of May, 1814, in a let-law as Governor of the Indiana Territory and ter to that functionary, and in another to President Madison, he offered to resign his commission. The President was absent from Washington when the letter arrived, and the Secretary of War, assuming authority never exercised before, accepted the resignation without consulting his superior. The latter expressed his sincere regret in a letter to Governor Shelby, who had written to him when he heard of Harrison's intention, saying, "Having served in a campaign with General Harrison, by which I have been enabled to form some opinion of his military talents and capacity to command, I feel no hesitation to declare to you that I believe him to be one of the first military characters I ever knew; and in addition to this, he is capable of making greater personal exertions than any officer with whom I have ever served." Harrison was then forty years of age. His military services were lost to the country during the remainder of the war. He left the army; and, during the ensuing summer, was appointed, in conjunction with Governors Shelby and Cass, to treat with the Indians of the Northwest concerning all things in dispute between the tribes and the United States. the hero of Tippecanoe, Fort Meigs, and the Precisely one The tomb of Harrison is upon a beautiful knoll about two hundred feet above the Ohio River, near the North Bend station. It is built of brick; is ten by twelve feet in size, and is surrounded by trees, shrubbery, and green sward. At its foot is a noble mulberry-tree, and at its head is an entrance door slightly inclined. The only tenants of the tomb when I was there in 1860 were the remains of General Harrison and his second daughter, Mrs. Doctor Thornton; for his widow still survives, and retains much of the beauty of her middle life, although past eighty years of age. In this and the preceding paper, in which is given an outline of the principal events in the campaigns of General Harrison in the Northwest, that officer is represented as one of the best At the foot of gentle hills, about three hunmilitary commanders then in the service of the dred yards from the Ohio, and in full view of United States. Truth declares this verdict from the North Bend station, is the site of the resithe testimony of contemporary history. He was dence of General Harrison, the half-fabled "Lognot a novice in the art of war when he took Cabin" of the politicians in 1840. It was set command of the little army that gained victory on fire, it is believed, by a dismissed servant-girl and renown at the Tippecanoe. He had been a few years ago, and entirely consumed. All an honored soldier under the impetuous Wayne, of General Harrison's military and other valuand planned the march and the scheme of bat- able papers were burned; also many presents tle which resulted in victory over the Indians that were sent to him by political friends during at the Rapids of the Maumee in 1794. While the presidential canvass that resulted in his elecVOL. XXVII.-No. 159.-U |