MARCH ON TIPPECANOE. 257 hope for some influence, as his mother had belonged to CHAPTER that tribe. XXIV. Harrison had suggested to the administration the es- 1811. tablishment of a post high up the Wabash, and they had proposed the seizing of Tecumseh and his brother as hostages for peace. Boyd's regiment of regular infantry had been for some time stationed at Pittsburgh, with a view to possible operations in the West. Fresh complaints coming from the Illinois Territory, Boyd was directed to place himself under Harrison's command. Harrison was authorized, should the Prophet commence or July 17. threaten hostilities, to attack him, and to call out militia for that purpose; but considering the threatening state of relations with Great Britain, much anxiety was at the same time expressed for the preservation of peace. The people of Vincennes and its neighborhood, dreaded being suddenly attacked at any time. They were eager to strike a decisive blow; and, though somewhat embarrassed by his orders, Harrison thought that policy the best. With Boyd's regiment, about three hundred strong, and some five hundred militia, partly from Kentucky, including two or three mounted companies, advancing some sixty miles up the Wabash, to Terre Haute, he established a post there, named after himself; and thence he dispatched some Delaware chiefs, that tribe still remaining friendly, on a mission to the Prophet. These messengers were very ill received, and were dismissed with insults and contempt. The troops then advanced, and, after eight days' cautious march, encamped within ten miles of the Prophet's town. The march being resumed the next day, small parties of Indians began to Nov. 5. appear, with whom it was in vain attempted to communicate; but within three miles of the town, some chiefs came forward, who asked the meaning of this hostile XXIV. 1811. CHAPTER movement; urged the Prophet's desire for peace; and ob tained a halt, and the appointment of a council for the morrow. The army encamped in a hollow square, surrounded by a chain of sentinels, the troops sleeping on their arms, with orders, if attacked, to maintain their poNov, 7. sition at all hazards. Just before daybreak-the light of the moon, then in its third quarter, obscured by clouds, with an occasional drizzle of rain-an alarm was given by the discharge of a gun by one of the sentinels, followed by the Indian yell, and a desperate rush and heavy fire upon the left rear angle of the camp. The Indians had crept close to the sentinels, designing to overpower them by surprise. The men stood at once to their arms. All the camp-fires were immediately extinguished, lest they might serve to guide the aim of the Indians. The attack soon extended to almost the whole square, the Indians advancing and retiring at a signal made by the rattling of deers' hoofs. Not being able to break the square, and being charged, soon after daylight, by the mounted men, they presently disappeared, carrying off their wounded, but leaving forty dead on the field. Harrison's loss was upward of sixty killed and twice as many wounded. As it was not known how soon the attack might be renewed, the whole day was spent in fortifying the camp. The mounted men, Nov. 8. sent the next morning to reconnoiter, found the Prophet's town fortified with much care and labor, but entirely deserted. The inhabitants seemed to have fled in great haste, as a large quantity of corn and other Indian valuables, and even a few guns, were left behind. The town was burned; but Harrison, encumbered as he was with wounded, deemed it prudent to make a speedy retreat, and having destroyed a part of his baggage that he might have wagons for the conveyance of those not able to walk, he retired as fast as possible to Vincennes. TWELFTH CONGRESS. 259 XXIV. This expedition gave rise to abundant discussions. CHAPTER Harrison's consenting to suspend his march; his selection of a camp so near the Indians; his omission to fortify 1811. it, for which the want of axes was pleaded in excuse; and his conduct also during the battle, were all very closely canvassed. A dispute also arose as to whether the merits of the repulse belonged to him or to Boyd. Harrison, however, was sustained, and his conduct approved by the president, and by resolutions of the Legislatures of Kentucky and Indiana; and such was the general impression throughout the West as to give him a decided military reputation. Simultaneously with this commencement of Indian hostilities the twelfth Congress had assembled, called to- Nov. 4. gether by proclamation a month, before the regular day of meeting. As in the last Congress, the Federalists were in a hopeless minority in both Houses. In the Senate they had but six members; even Massachusetts was partially represented by a Democrat, that veteran politician Varnum, speaker of the last House, having been chosen by the Democratic Legislature to supersede Pickering. But the ideas of the Federalists were still ably sustained by Bayard, by Lloyd, and by Dana, as successor to Hillhouse; while the large Republican majority was greatly enfeebled by its division into two hostile sections. Smith and Leib, joined now by Giles, and supported by a number of less conspicuous members, seemed, as in the last Congress, to make it an object to thwart in every thing the policy of the administration, at the same time professing, as cover for this hostility, a special zeal for the national interests and honor. By the desertion of Giles, the leadership in the Senate of the administration party proper devolved on Crawford, supported by Campbell, late of the House, but now a senator from Tennessee. CHAPTER In the House the Federalists had but thirty-six mem. bers, of whom the leaders were Quincy, Key, and Mar1811. tin Chittenden, of Vermont. Connecticut and Rhode Island still adhered to that party; but from the rest of New England, as well as from New York, the Democrats had a very decided majority. From Pennsylvania there was but a single Federalist, and he chosen, not by the strength of his own party, but in consequence of the feud in the city of Philadelphia between the Snyder and Aurora factions. Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina furnished ten Federalists. The proportion which had existed in the last House between the more moderate and the more violent section of the majority was now completely changed. Not only had all the more violent members of the last Congress-Porter, of New York; Wright, of Maryland; Williams, of South Carolina; Troup, of Georgia; Desha, Johnson, and M'Kee, of Kentucky-been re-elected; also Langdon Cheves, of South Carolina, who had taken his seat just at its close; but in Henry Clay, of Kentucky; William Lowndes, and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina; and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, appeared new champions of war, young and full of enthusiasm, by whom the old leaders were at once totally eclipsed. With Grundy came also that old pioneer and Indian fighter, hero of King's Mountain and of the State of Frankland, and first governor of Tennessee, John Sevier, stiff and grim as an Indian arrow, not speaking, but looking daggers. The choice of speaker revealed the constitution of the House. Henry Clay was chosen by 75 votes to 35 for William W. Bibb, a member for Georgia since 1806, and the Gallatin and peace candidate. John Quincy Adams having chosen to remain in Russia, the seat on the Supreme Bench which he had deNov. 12. clined was filled by another young member of the rising XXIV school of ultra-Federal war Democrats, Joseph Story, CHAPTER whose share in procuring the repeal of the embargo has been already referred to, and who held at this moment 1811. the place of Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Another vacancy on that bench, occasioned by Chase's death, was somewhat inadequately supplied by the appointment of Gabriel Duvall, of Maryland, Controller of the Treasury, in which office he was succeeded by Richard Rush. Rodney, the attorney general, considering himself slighted in being thus passed over, soon after resigned, and was succeeded by William Pinkney, lately returned from London. The results of the new census having been laid before Congress, after some struggling between the two Houses, the ratio of representation was fixed at 35,000, increas- Dec. 21. ing the number of members by forty, as exhibited in the following table: |