maintain peace on the frontiers-battle of Tippecanoe on the

citing the Indians to hostility against the United States." The President accordingly placed the 4th regiment U.S. infantry, commanded by colonel Boyd, and a company of riflemen, at the disposal of governor Harrison. The Secretary of War, under date of 20th October, 1811, in a letter to him, says: "I have been particularly instructed by the President to communicate to your excellency, his earnest desire that peace may, if possible, be preserved with the Indians; and that to this end, every proper means may be adopted. By this, it is not intended that murder or robberies commit

and that to all the tribes he would repeat the declaration, that the United States have manifested through a series of years, the utmost justice and generosity towards their Indian neighbors; and have not only fulfilled all the engagements which they entered into with them, but have spent considerable sums to civ

o use all possible means to recall them to a sense of duty. He also wrote to the governors of Illinois and Missouri, on

, requiring, them to say whether they would or would not join him in the war against them; 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 148 immediately visited the Prophet, for the purpose of dissuading him from commencing hostilities. Under these circumstances there seemed to be no alternative for governor Harrison, but to break up the Prophet's establishment. On the 27th, the Delaware chiefs returned to the camp of the governor, and reported that the Prophet would not listen to their council, and had grossly insulted them. While at the Prophet's town, the Indians who had wounded the sentinel, returned. They were Shawanoes and near friends of the Prophet; who was

cut off the messengers from the army. When this fact was reported to the governor, he determined to consider the Indians as enemies, and at once march upon their town. He had proceeded but a short distance, however, before he was met by three Indians, one of them a principal counsellor to the Prophet, who stated that they were sent to know why the army was marching upon their town-that the Prophet was desirous of avoiding hostilities-that he had sent a pacific message to governor Harrison by the Miami and Potawatamie chiefs, but that those chiefs had unfortunately gone down on the south side of the Wabash, and had thus failed to meet him. 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 chiefs. In moving the army towards the Wabash, to encamp for the night, the Indians became again alarmed, supposing that an attack was about to be made on the town, notwithstanding the armistice which had just been concluded. They accordingly began to prepare for defence, and some of them sallied out, calling upon the advanced corps, to halt. The governor immediately rode forward, and assured the Indians that it was not his intention to attack them, but that he was only in search of a suitable piece of gro

ng 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 captain's commands of forty-two men, and four non-commissioned officers each; and two subaltern's guards of twenty men and non-commissioned officers each-the whole amounting to about one hundred and thirty men, under the command of a field officer of the day. The night was dark and cloudy, and after midnight there was a drizzling rain. It was not anticipated by the governor or his officers, 151 that an attack would be made during the night: it was supposed that if the Indians had intended to act offensive

hole army was instantly on its feet; the camp-fires were extinguished; the governor mounted his horse and proceeded to the point of attack. Several of the companies had taken their places in the line within forty seconds from the report of the first gun; and the whole of the troops were prepared for action in the course of two minutes; a fact as creditable to their own activity and bravery, as to the skill and energy of their officers. The battle soon became g

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ling himself of the privilege conferred by his peculiar office, and, perhaps, unwilling in his own person to attest at once 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 tim

although their spiritual leader was not actually in the battle, he did much to encourage his followers in their gallant attack. Of the force of the Indians engaged, there is no certain account. The ordinary number at the Prophet's town during the preceding summer, was four hundred and fifty; but a few days before the action, they had been joined by all the Kickapoos of the prairie, and by several bands of the Potawatamies, from the Illinois river, and the St. Joseph's of lake Michigan. Their number on the night of t

sequently of their wounds: the total number of killed and wounded was one hundred and eighty-eight.

ison throughout the engagement. The peril to which he was subjected may be inferred from the fact that a ball passed through his stock,

illiant action. The tribes which had already joined in the confederacy we