The American loss in this brilliant affair was one killed, and seven very slightly wounded. That of the enemy could not have been less than one hundred and fifty; upwards of fifty were found in and about the ditch.

On the tenth of September was fought the naval battle on Lake Erie, in which Commodore Oliver H. Perry obtained a most signal and glorious victory over the British fleet on the Lake. In this contest, which lasted three hours, every British vessel was captured. The American loss in the action was twenty-seven killed, and ninety-six wounded.The British loss was about two hundred killed and wounded.

The Americans having thus obtained the possession of the Lake, active preparations were immediately made for expelling Proctor from Malden, and the recovery of Detroit. General Harrison now called upon Governor Meigs, for the Ohio volunteers who were in readiness, and on the seventeenth of September, the venerable Isaac Shelby, the hero of King's Mountain, arrived at Fort Meigs with a large volunteer force from Mentucky; among these was a regiment of mounted riflemen under Colonel Richard M. Jolinson. As soon as possible, Commodore Perry made preparations to convey the army under General Harrison to the Canadian shore; and on the twenty-eighth of September, General Harrison landed at a point below Malden, with all the infantry and artillery, the mounted men having been ordered to Detroit by the River Raisin. But Proctor and his Indian allies had fled, having burnt the fortress and the public store-house, at Malden. He had fled up the river Thames, and having reached the Moravian villages, had halted with his army. On the twenty-ninth, the army reached Detroit, when it was joined by Colonel Johnson's regiment. It was then resolved by General Harrison and Governor Shelby, to proceed immediately in pursuit of Proctor, and on the second of October, they marched with about three thousand five hundred men, selected for the purpose. The heroic Commodore Perry and General Cass accompanied General Harrison, as volunteer aids. On the fifth of October they found the enemy encamped about eighty miles from Malden, up the Thames, near the Moravian towns. The British were drawn up on a strip of land, narrow in front-their left resting on the river Thames, and their right resting on a morass, beyond which, in a thick forest of undergrowth, was posted Tecumseh and his savage warriors, more than two thousand strong.On this narrow piece of land where the British were posted with their artillery, there were many beech trees. The ground was extremely well chosen by the enemy, and the armies were about equal in numbers.

The American troops were now disposed in order of battle. Gen. Trotter's Brigade constituted the front line; Gen. King's Brigade formed a second line, in the rear of Gen. Trotter; and Gen. Chiles' Brigade was kept as a corps of reserve. These three brigades were under the command of Major General Henry. Desha's division, consisting of two brigades, was formed on the left of Trotter's brigade, each brigade averaged five hundred men, and the whole commanded by Gov. Shelby, in person. The regular troops, formed in two columns, occupied a narrow space between the road and the river. Gen. Harrison, had at first ordered Col. Johnson's mounted Riflemen to form in two lines opposite the Indians. At this moment Col. Wood reported to the Commander-in-Chief, that the Infantry of the enemy was formed in open order. Troops in open order, with three or four feet between the files can never resist a charge of cavalry. Proctor had committed a great error. Gen. Harrison immediately determined that one battalion of the mounted men should charge under the command of Col. James Johnson, on the British regular troops, and the other battalion under Col. R. M. Johnson, should charge on the Indians. The orders being given to charge! the army moved forward, when the enemy fired. This was the signal for the cavalry to charge. The mounted Riflemen under Col. James Johnson moved forward, and although, for a moment the horses faultered, yet, recovering from the momentary panic, they dashed forward, with irresistible fury, broke through the enemy's line, and then wheeling about, formed, and again impetuously charged, and deal death on all sides upon the enemy. In a moment all was over. The British officers finding that all efforts to restore order were vain, immediately surrendered. Gen. Proctor, and about two hundred horse fled, leaving his carriage and official papers behind, and by the fleetness of his horses escaped in the direction of Niagara.

On the left the battle was begun with Tecumseh with great fury.— The galling fire of the Indians did not check the advance of the American columns; but the charge was not successful, from the miry character of the soil and the closeness of the thickets which covered it. Col. Johnson, therefore, ordered his men to dismount, and leading them up a second time, succeeded, after a desperate contest, in breaking through the line of the Indians and gaining their rear.

The Indians now quickly collecting their principal strength on the right, attempted to penetrate the line of Infantry commanded by Gen. Desha. At first they made an impression upon it, but Gov. Shelby brought up a regiment of volunteers and they were signally repulsed.

The combat now raged with increasing fury. The Indians determined to maintain their ground to the last. The terrible voice of Tecumseh, could be distinctly heard encouraging his warriors; and although beset on every side, except the morass, they fought with more determined courage than they had ever before exhibited. The gallant Col. Johnson, having rushed towards the spot, where the Indians, clustering around their undaunted chief, resolved to perish by his side; his uniform, and the white horse which he rode, rendered him a conspicuous object. In a moment his holsters, dress and accoutrements were pierced with bullets; and he fell to the ground severely wounded. Tecumseh, at the same time fell.(1) After the rescue and removal of the wounded Colonel, the command devolved on Major Thompson. The Indians maintained the fight for more than an hour, but no longer hearing the voice of their great captain, they at last gave way on all sides, and fled for more than five miles before they halted. Near the spot where Colonel Johnson was wounded and Tecumseh was killed, thirty Indians and six white men were found dead. (2)

In this engagement the British loss was nineteen killed, fifty wounded and about six hundred taken prisoners. The Indians left one hundred and twenty dead on the field. The American loss in killed and wound

(1) In this action Tecumseh was killed, which circumstance has given rise to innumerable fictions--wby, we can hardly tell, but it is so. The writer's opportunities for knowing the truth, are equal to any person's now living. He was personally, very well acquainted with that celebrated warrior. He accompanied Tecumseh, Elsquataway, Fourlegs and Caraymaunee, on their tour among the Six Nations of New York, in 1809, and acted as their interpreter among those Indians. In 1829, at Praire Du Chien, the two latter indians, both then civil chiefs of the Winnebagoes, were with the writer, who was then acting as commissioner of Indian affairs in the United States service. From the statements of those constant companions of Tecumseh, during nearly twenty years of his life, I proceed to state, that Tecumseh lay with his warriors, at the commencement of the battle, in a forest of thick underbrush, on the left of the American army. That those Indians were at no period of the battle, out of their thick underbrush; that Nawcaw saw no officer between them and the American army; that Tecumseh fell the very first fire of the Kentucky dragoons, pierced by thirty bullets, and was carried four or five miles into the thick woods, and there buried by the warriors, who told the story of his fate. This account was repeated to me, three several times, word for word, and neither of the relators ever knew the fictions to which Tecumseh's death had given rise. Some of these fictions originated in the mischievous design of ridiculing Col. Johnson, who is said to have killed this savage.' **"I could easily write this warrior's whole history, as be often requested me to do." "A few Mohawks, and some other Indian chiefs and warriors belonging to the Canada Indians, about Lake Ontario, were mixed with the British regulars in the front line of the enemy. Some of these savages were killed in the action, and the remainder of these Indians on horse back, fled with Proctor. The Indian found dead, belonged to these Indians, not to the Winnebagoes or Shawanese, who in this battle lay in ambush, beyond a morass on the left of the American army."-History of Ohio by Caleb Atwater, pp. 236, 237.

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ed was about fifty. Several pieces of brass cannon, the trophies of the revolution, and which had been surrendered by Hull, at Detroit, were once more restored to our country.

By this splendid achievement, Gen. Harrison, and the brave men under his command, rescued the whole northwestern frontier from the depredations of the savages, and the horrors of war. The national gratitude burst out in one loud voice of applause. The Commander-inChief was complimented by Congress, and by various public bodies; and the distinguished Langdon Cheves, asserted on the floor of the National House of Representatives, that this victory, "was such as would have secured to a Roman General, in the best days of the Republic, the honors of a triumph."

CHAPTER XX.

TREATIES MADE WITH THE INDIANS AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE THAMES, IN WHICH SEVERAL MILLIONS OF ACRES OF LAND WERE CEDED TO THE UNITED STATES-THE NUMBER OF INDIANS IN 1820, IN OHIO, MICHIGAN, ILLINOIS, INDIANA, AND WISCONSIN-TREATY OF 1823-MURDER OF M. METHODE AND FAMILY -IMPRISONMENT OF RED BIRD, BLACK HAWK, AND OTHERS-MURDERS ON IN DIAN CREEK-BLACK HAWK WAR-DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF BLACK HAWKBLACK HAWK DEPOSED.

After the battle of the Thames, on the fifth day of October, 1813, the Indians sued for peace. General Harrison, General Cass, and Governor Shelby, were appointed commissioners by the government, to enter into a treaty with them. Governor Shelby not accepting the commission, General Harrison and General Cass concluded a treaty at Greenville, with the Indians, in which they ceded to the United States several millions of acres of land, comprising the whole territory then claimed by them in Ohio and Indiana, with some small reservations, and the whole of Illinois, south of Lake Michigan. Afterwards treaties were entered into at Chicago and Detroit, in which the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowatamies, relinquished more than five millions of acres in the southern part of the peninsula of Michigan.

The Pottowatamies still possessed the country adjacent to Lake Michigan, in Indiana and Illinois, and in 1820 numbered 3,400. The Sacs and Foxes lived west of the Pottowatamies, generally on Rock River, between the Illinois and the Mississippi, amounting to about 3,000 persons, one-fifth of whom were warriors. The Winnebagoes inhabited the country on the Wisconsin, and were estimated at 1,550, while

the Menomenies lived further north, between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, numbering about 550. In 1820, these 8,000 Indians were all that remained of the once powerful tribes that held the country north of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi, and south of the Great Lakes.

In the year 1823, the agents of the United States held a treaty at Prairie Du Chien, with the Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, Chippewas, and some other tribes, for the purpose of bringing about a peace between some of the tribes who were then at war with each other. To effect this object, bounds were set to the territory of each tribe, and it was also stipulated by the treaty, that the United States should protect any of the Indian nations from the hostile attacks of the others, whenever visiting a garrison of the United States.

About this time the lead mines, near Galena, attracted great attention, and avarice and speculation drew several thousand miners beyond the limits of the United States, into the adjacent lands of the Winnebagoes. This gave offence to the Indians, and a whole family, consisting of M. Methode, his wife and five children, were murdered near Prairie Du Chien, by a party of Winnebagoes, two of whom were afterwards taken and committed to the jail of Crawford county, Illinois.

In addition to this, in the summer of 1827, in defiance of the treaty of Prairie Du Chien, a band of the Sacs fell upon twenty-four Chippewas, on a visit at Fort Snelling, and killed and wounded eight of them. The commandant at Fort Snelling captured four of the Sacs, and delivered them into the hands of the Chippewas, who immediately shot them. RED BIRD, a Chief of the Sacs, immediately led a band against the Chippewas, and was defeated. Enraged against his ill success, with only three desperate companions, like himself, he repaired to Prairie Du Chien, and killed two white persons, and wounded a third, and then retired to the mouth of Bad-axe river. Here he augmented his force, and waylaid two keel boats that had been conveying stores to Fort Snelling. One boat came into the ambush in the day time, and after a fight of four hours, escaped with the loss of two killed and four wounded.The other boat arrived in the night, and escaped without much injury.

Not long after, General Atkinson, at the head of a large force, marched into the Winnebago country. Here he succeeded in making prisoners of RED BIRD, his SON, BLACK HAWK, KANONEKAH, and others. These were imprisoned, and Red Bird died in prison. Some of the others were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death, but Black Hawk, Kanonekah, and the son of Red Bird, charged with the attack on the boats,