WAR FEELING OF 1811.
Mr. James Madison seems to have been one of the many great Americans
capable of changing his political views without losing public favor. Mr.
Madison, as a delegate to the constitutional convention held at
Philadelphia in May, 1787, was beyond question a Federalist. Of the
convention, a writer of the highest authority says:
"Mr. Madison was prominent in advocating the constitution, and took a
leading part in the debates, of which he kept private notes, since
published by order of congress. His views in regard to the federal
government are set forth at length in a paper still extant in the
handwriting of Gen. Washington. This paper contains the substance of a
letter written to Washington by Mr. Madison before the meeting of the
convention, and proposes a scheme of thorough centralization. The writer
declares that he is equally opposed to the individual independence of
the States and to 'the consolidation of the whole in one simple
republic.' He is nevertheless in favor of investing congress with power
to exercise a negative in all cases whatever on the legislative acts of
the States, as heretofore exercised by the kingly prerogative. He says
further that the right of coercion should be expressly declared; but the
difficulty and awkwardness of operating by force on the collective will
of a State render it particularly desirable that the necessity of it
should be precluded. From these extreme views, Mr. Madison afterward
conscientiously departed; but in the convention he supported them with
zeal and vigor."
It was feared at first that Madison would perpetuate the policy of
Jefferson; but the tone and temper of his inaugural address, delivered
March 4th, 1809, fell like oil on troubled waters. His most implacable
enemies could not refrain from uttering words of approbation; and the
whole nation entertained hopes that his measures might change the gloomy
aspect of public affairs.
Madison's administration was now sustained by a larger majority of the
American people than that of Jefferson had ever been, and the
Federalists, or the opposition, were in a hopeless minority. The
continued aggressions of the British were increasing the Democratic
strength every day; and in 1811, circumstances seemed to make war with
Great Britain an imperative necessity for the vindication of the honor,
rights and independence of the United States.
The Indian tribes on the northwestern frontiers of the United States
became very uneasy, and the machinations of British traders and
government emissaries had stimulated the growth of that discontent into
a decidedly hostile feeling toward the nation of Republicans, then
pressing upon the domain of the savages. The suspension of the world's
commerce had diminished the amount of their traffic in furs, and the
rapid extension of American settlements northward of Ohio was narrowing
their hunting grounds and producing a rapid diminution of game. The
introduction of intoxicating liquors among the savages by white traders
and speculators had widely spread demoralization, with consequent
disease and death.
English emissaries made the savages to believe that all these evils had
been brought upon them by the encroachments of the Americans; and in the
spring of 1811, it became evident that a league was forming among the
tribes for the extermination of the frontier settlers.
Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief, shrewd, crafty and intrepid, endeavored to
emulate Pontiac, the great Ottowa chief, in the formation of an Indian
confederacy in the Northwest, for making war upon the United States. He
had a shrewd twin brother, called the prophet, whose mysterious
incantation and predictions and pretended visions and spiritual
intercourse had inspired the savage mind with great veneration for him
as a wonderful "medicine man." He and Tecumseh possessed almost
unbounded influence over the Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, Miamis,
Kickapoos, Winnebagoes and Chippewas.
The celebrated Shawnee chief Tecumseh, according to Drake, was born a
few years before the Revolution, at the Indian village of Piqua, on Mad
River, about six miles below the site of Springfield, Clark County,
Ohio. His tribe removed from Florida about the middle of the last
century. His father, who was a chief, fell at the bloody battle of Point
Pleasant, in 1774. From his youth, he showed a passion for war. He early
acquired an unbounded influence over his tribe for his bravery, his
sense of justice and his commanding eloquence. Like his great prototype,
Pontiac, humanity was a prominent trait in his character. He not only
was never known to ill-treat or murder a prisoner, but indignantly
denounced those who did, employing all his authority and eloquence in
behalf of the helpless. In 1798, Tecumseh removed with his followers to
the vicinity of White River, Indiana, among the Delawares, where he
remained for a number of years. In 1805, through the influence of
Laulewasikaw, the brother of Tecumseh, a large number of Shawnees
established themselves at Greeneville. Very soon after, Laulewasikaw
assumed the office of a _prophet_; and forthwith commenced that career
of cunning and pretended sorcery, which always enables the shrewd
hypocrite to sway the ignorant, superstitious mind. Throughout the year
of 1806, the brothers remained at Greeneville and were visited by many
Indians from different tribes, not a few of whom became their followers.
The prophet dreamed many wonderful dreams and claimed to have had many
supernatural revelations made him. The great eclipse of the sun that
occurred in the summer of this year, a knowledge of which he had by some
means attained, enabled him to carry conviction to the minds of many of
his ignorant followers, that he was really the earthly agent of the
Great Spirit. He boldly announced to the unbelievers, that, on a certain
day, he would give them proof of his supernatural powers by bringing
darkness over the sun. When the day and hour of the eclipse arrived, and
the earth, even at midday, was shrouded in the gloom of twilight, the
prophet, standing in the midst of his party, significantly pointed to
the heavens and cried out:
"Did I not prophesy truly? Behold! darkness has shrouded the sun!"
It may readily be supposed that this striking phenomenon, thus adroitly
used, produced a strong impression on the Indians, and greatly increased
their belief in the sacred character of their prophet.
In the spring of 1808, Tecumseh and the prophet removed to a tract of
land on the Tippecanoe, a tributary of the Wabash, where the latter
continued his efforts to induce the Indians to forsake their vicious
habits, while Tecumseh was visiting the neighboring tribes and quietly
strengthening his own and the prophet's influence over them. The events
of the early part of the year 1810 were such as to leave but little
doubt of the hostile intentions of the brothers. The prophet was
apparently the most prominent actor, while Tecumseh was in reality the
mainspring of all the movements, backed, it is supposed, by the
insidious influence of British agents, who supplied the Indians gratis
with powder and ball, in anticipation, perhaps, of hostilities between
the two countries, in which event a union of all the tribes against the
Americans was desirable. Tecumseh had opposed the sale and cession of
lands to the United States, and he declared it to be his unalterable
resolution to take a stand against the further intrusion of the whites
upon the soil of his people.
So menacing had the Indians become in the Spring of 1810, that General
W.H. Harrison, a son of Benjamin Harrison, one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, and then governor of the Territory of
Indiana, invited the brothers to a council at Vincennes, in August.
Tecumseh appeared with four hundred well-armed warriors. The inhabitants
were greatly alarmed at this demonstration of savage military power.
Harrison was cool and cautious, while the bearing of the chief was bold
and haughty. He refused to enter the place appointed for holding the
council saying:
"Houses were built for you to hold councils in; Indians hold theirs in
the open air." He then took a position under some trees in front of the
house, and, unabashed by the large concourse of white people before him,
he opened the business with a speech marked by great dignity and native
eloquence. When he had concluded, one of the governor's aids said to
him, through an interpreter, as he pointed to a chair by the side of
General Harrison:
"Your father requests you to take a seat by his side."
The chief drew his blanket around him and, standing erect, said, with a
scornful tone:
"My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother; on her
bosom I will recline;" and he seated himself on the ground.
The chief declared it his intention to form a confederacy for the
purpose of preventing any further cessions of lands to the white
people, and to recover what had been ceded.
"Return those lands," he said, "and Tecumseh will be the friend of the
Americans. He likes not the English, who are continually setting the
Indians on the Americans." The governor replied that the lands had been
received from other tribes, and that the Shawnees had no business to
interfere. Tecumseh sprang to his feet, cast off his blanket and, with
violent gestures, pronounced the governor's words false. He accused the
United States of cheating and imposing upon the Indians; and then,
giving a sign to his warriors near him, they sprang to their feet,
seized their war clubs and brandished their tomahawks. The governor
started from his seat and drew his sword, while the citizens seized any
weapons or missiles they could find. It was a moment of great peril to
the white people. A military guard of twelve men, under some trees a
short distance off, was ordered up. A friendly Indian, who had secretly
loaded his pistol while Tecumseh was speaking, now cocked it to shoot
the chief. The guards were also about to fire when Harrison restrained
them and prevented a bloody encounter. The interpreter, whom all the
Indians respected, told Tecumseh that he was a bad man. The council was
broken up. Tecumseh expressed regret that his violent temper had gotten
the better of him; but prudent men knew from his conduct that war was
inevitable.
In the spring of 1811, the hostile savages began to roam over the Wabash
region, in small parties, plundering the white settlers and
friendly Indians.
Soon after the council at Vincennes, Tecumseh went South among the
Creeks to extend the confederacy of the people of Indiana among them.
There is a tradition among the Tuckabachees that Tecumseh, failing to
enlist them in his enterprise, in his wrath said:
"When I return to the North, I will stamp on the earth and make it
tremble." When the effects of the earthquake of New Madrid were felt,
the Tuckabachees said:
"Tecumseh has reached the North."
The hostile demonstrations on the part of the Indians in Indiana alarmed
the people of that territory, and General Harrison therefore took
measures to increase his regular force. He warned the Indians to obey
the treaty at Greeneville; but at the same time he prepared to break up
the prophet's establishment if necessary. In September, the prophet sent
assurances to the governor that his intentions were pacific. About the
same time, he dispatched a message to the Delawares, who were friendly,
asking them to join him in a war against the United States, stating that
he had taken up the tomahawk and would not lay it down but with his
life, unless their wrongs were redressed. The Delaware chiefs
immediately visited the prophet to dissuade him from commencing
hostilities and were grossly insulted. On the 6th of November, 1811,
Governor Harrison, with about nine hundred and fifty effective troops,
composed of two hundred and fifty of the 4th Regiment U. S. Infantry,
one hundred and thirty volunteers and a body of militia, being within a
mile and a half of the prophet's town, was urged to make an immediate
assault upon the village; but this he declined, as his instructions from
the president were positive not to attack the Indians as long as there
was a probability of their complying with the demands of the government.
The Indians, in the course of the day, endeavored to cut off his
messengers and evinced other hostile symptoms, which determined Harrison
to at once march upon the town, when he was met by three Indians, one of
them a principal counselor of the prophet, who avowed that the prophet's
designs were pacific. Accordingly a suspension of hostilities was agreed
upon, and the terms of peace were to be settled on the following morning
by the governor and the prophet's chief. At night the army encamped
about three fourths of a mile from the prophet's town.
The governor was well convinced of the hostility of the prophet. He
believed that after attempting to lull his suspicions he intended to
make a treacherous attack on the Americans. Little anticipation of a
night attack was indulged, yet every precaution was taken to resist one
if made. All the guards that could be used in such a situation, and all
such as were used by Wayne, were employed on this occasion. That is,
camp guards, furnishing a chain of sentinels around the whole camp at
such a distance as to give notice of the approach of an enemy in time
for the troops to take their position, and yet not far enough to prevent
the sentinels from retreating to the main body if overpowered. The usual
mode of stationing picket guards at a considerable distance in advance
of the army or camp, would be useless in Indian warfare, as they do not
require roads to march upon, and such guards would be inevitably cut
off. Orders were given in the event of a night attack, for each corps to
maintain its position at all hazards until relieved or further orders
were given to it. The whole army was kept during the night in the
military position called lying on their arms. The regular troops lay in
their tents with their accoutrements on, and their guns at their sides.
The militia had no tents, but slept with their clothes and bullet
pouches on, and their guns under them, to keep them dry. The order of
the encampment was a line of battle to resist a night attack; and so,
as every man slept opposite to his post in the line, there was nothing
for the troops to do, in case of an assault, but to rise and take their
position a few steps in the rear of the fires around which they had
reposed. The guard of the night consisted of two captains' commands of
forty-two men and of four non-commissioned officers each and two
subalterns' guards of twenty men and non-commissioned officers each--the
whole amounting to about one hundred and thirty men, under command of a
field officer of the day. The night was dark and cloudy, and after
midnight there was a drizzling rain.
At four o'clock in the morning of Nov. 7, 1811, Governor Harrison,
according to practice, had risen, preparatory to the calling up of the
troops, and was engaged, while drawing on his boots by the fire, in
conversation with General Wells, Colonel Owens, and Majors Taylor and
Hurst. The orderly drum had been roused to sound the reveille for the
troops to turn out, when there came the report of a sentry's rifle on
the left flank, followed by a score of shots, and the morning air rang
loud with the wild war-whoops of savages.
In an instant the army was in line, the campfires were extinguished, and
the governor mounted his horse and proceeded to the point of attack.
Several companies had taken their places in the line within forty
seconds after the report of the first gun, and in two minutes the whole
army was ready for action; a fact as creditable to their own activity
and bravery, as to the skill and energy of their officers. The battle
soon became general, and was maintained on both sides with signal and
even desperate valor. The Indians advanced or 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 on
the spot. The battle raged with unabated fury and mutual slaughter until
daylight, when a gallant and successful charge by the troops drove the
enemy into the swamp, and put an end to the conflict.
Prior to the assault, the prophet had given his followers assurance,
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 test 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. Soon after
the engagement commenced, he was informed that his men were falling. He
told them to fight on, it would soon be as he predicted; and then in,
wilder and louder 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. Some of the Indians who were in the
conflict, subsequently informed the agent at Fort Wayne, that there were
more than a thousand warriors in the battle, and that the number of
wounded was unusually great. In the precipitation of their retreat, they
left thirty-eight on the field. Some were buried during the engagement
in their town. Others no doubt subsequently died of their wounds. Drake
places their number in killed at not less than fifty.
Of the whites, thirty-five were killed in the action, and twenty-five
died subsequently. The total number of killed and wounded was one
hundred and eighty-eight,--probably as great and possibly greater than
the loss of the Indians. Among the slain were Colonel Abraham Owen and
Major Joseph Hamilton Davies of Kentucky.
Though the battle of Tippecanoe, considered as a conflict from the
losses on each side, would to-day be regarded only as a skirmish, yet it
had a great moral influence in restraining the savages in the
northwest, and, but for the meddling of the British agents, a permanent
peace with the Indians could have been established.
Harrison burned the prophet's town. The prophet lost caste with his
people. When reproached for his falsehoods, he cunningly told them that
his predictions had failed of fulfilment, because, during his
incantations, his wife touched the sacred vessels and broke the charm.
His followers, superstitious as they were, would not accept such a
flimsy excuse and deserted him, flying to secure hiding-places where the
white man could not find them. After his town was burned, the prophet
took shelter among the Wyandots.
The events in the northwest aroused a war spirit among the patriotic
Americans, which could not be suppressed. Not only did British
emissaries incite the Indians to make war, but British orders in council
continued to be vigorously enforced. Insult was offered to the American
flag by British cruisers, and the press of Great Britain insolently
declared that the Americans "could not be kicked into a war."
Forbearance ceased to be a virtue; it became cowardice. President
Madison found himself the standard-bearer of his party, surrounded by
irrepressible young warriors eager for fight. Like a cautious
commander, he sounded a careful war note in his annual message to
congress at the beginning of November, 1811. The young and ardent
members of the house of representatives, who had elected Henry Clay,
then thirty-four years of age, speaker, determined that indecision
should no longer mark the councils of the nation. The committee on
foreign relations, of which Peter B. Porter was chairman, intensified
that feeling by an energetic report submitted on the 29th of November,
in which, in glowing sentences, the British government was arraigned on
charges of injustice, cruelty, and wrong. They said:
"To sum up, in a word, the great cause of complaint against Great
Britain, your committee need only say, that the United States, as a
sovereign and independent power, claims the right to use the ocean,
which is the common and acknowledged highway of nations, for the
purposes of transporting, in their own vessels, the products of their
own soils and the acquisition of their own industry to any market in the
ports of friendly nations, and to bring home, in return, such articles
as their necessities or convenience may require, always regarding the
rights of belligerents as defined by the established laws of nations.
Great Britain, in defiance of this incontestable right, captures every
American vessel bound to or returning from a port where her commerce is
not favored; enslaves our seamen, and, in spite of our remonstrances,
perseveres in these aggressions. To wrongs so daring in character and so
disgraceful in their execution, it is impossible that the people of the
United States should remain indifferent. We must now tamely and quietly
submit, or we must resist by those means which God has placed within our
reach.... The sovereignty and independence of these States, purchased
and sanctified by the blood of our fathers, from whom we received them,
not for ourselves only, but as the inheritance of our posterity, are
deliberately and systematically violated. And the period has arrived
when, in the opinion of your committee, it is the sacred duty of
congress to call forth the patriotism and the resources of the country.
By the aid of these and with the blessing of God, we confidently trust
we shall be able to procure that redress which has been sought for by
justice, by remonstrance and forbearance, in vain."
The report went over the land as fast as the mails in that day of stage
coaches could carry it, and made a profound impression on the minds of
the people. Resolutions, drawn in accordance with the spirit of the
report, were appended to it, and these led to earnest debates. In these
debates, the brilliant John C. Calhoun, then less than thirty years of
age, engaged. It marked the beginning of his long and illustrious
career. He made his maiden speech in favor of war, and charmed his
listeners. John Randolph, always happy when in opposition to everybody,
spoke vehemently against the report and resolutions.
The Federalists, having always advocated a policy of being prepared for
war, could not from principle oppose these resolutions as they
recommended only such preparations. The resolutions were adopted and
bills prepared for augmenting the military force of the country.
The regular army was increased to twenty-five thousand men; also two
major-generals and live brigadier-generals, in addition to those then in
office were authorized. A million dollars were appropriated for the
purchase of arms, ammunition and stores for the army, and four hundred
thousand dollars for powder, cannon and small arms for the navy.
War was not yet declared, and, with a proper course of treatment from
Great Britain, it would not have been; yet the war feeling of 1811 was
strong. It needed but a breath to fan the flame to a terrible
conflagration.