Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/107

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

them into submission. With one thousand regular troops and militia, he built Fort Harrison, near the present city of Terre Haute, Indiana, and with part of the force marched toward the Indian village. He was attacked by Tecumseh and his band, while in camp at night, but he defeated them, and was highly complimented by the President. When the war of 1812-14 opened, the Indians sided with the British, who had taken possession of Detroit. The Kentucky legislature commissioned Harrison major- general, though he was not a resident of the state, and he proceeded with the troops furnished him, but was unable to reach Hull, who had surrendered. On September 2. 1 81 2, he was commissioned brigadier-gen- eral, and on returning to \'incennes he was appointed to the command of all troops in the northwest. After an active but futile campaign, he journeyed to Cincinnati to ob- tain supplies. He was commissioned major- general, March 2, 1813. He held Fort Meigs against two severe attacks, and after Perry's naval victory on Lake Erie, led his troops for an expedition into Canada, overtaking the British and Indians, in the battle of the Thames, capturing the British force entire, and killing Tecumseh and dispersing his band. This battle ended the war in Upper Canada, and Harrison was the popular hero. In 1813 he resigned his military commis- sion on account of an affront from the sec- retary of war. He was Indian commis- sioner in 1814-15, and member of Congress from Ohio, 1816-19. In Congress he ad- vocated a general militia bill, which was defeated, but his bill for the relief of sol- diers of the late war was passed. He was a state senator, 1820-21 ; was defeated for Congress in 1822, and a presidential elector

on the Clay ticket in 1824. He was elected United States senator in 1825, succeeded Andrew Jackson as chairman of the military affairs committee, and resigned in 1828 to accept the position of minister to Colombia, under appointment by President John Quincy Adams, but was soon recalled through the influence of General Bolivar. He retired to his farm at North Bend, Indi- ana, and served as president of the County Agricultural Association, and as clerk of the court of common pleas at Cincinnati. He was a Jeftersonian Republican in poli- tics, and when the Whig party was formed in 1834, he joined it, professing states' rights views on the bank, tariff and internal im- provements. In 1835 he was nominated for President by some of the Whig legislatures in the western and middle states, but he was defeated by \*an Buren, the Demo- cratic nominee. He was the successful candidate and was elected four years later, after one of the most exciting canvasses in the history of the country, in which "the log cabin," "hard cider,'* "Tippecanoe and Tyler, tc»o," campaign cries were heard through- out the land. He was inaugurated March 4 1841, selected his cabinet, and on March 17 called an extra session of Congress to take up financial questions. Not believing in the power of Congress to create corpora- tions in the states, he had in mind a bank of the District of Columbia, branching with state assent. The trials of his position and the apprehension of a breach with Henr>' Clay, the leader of the Whigs in Congress, brought on an attack of pneumonia, of which he died April 4. His wife had not yet taken up her residence in the White House, and was not present at his death. His body lay temporarily in the Congres-

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