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.