Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/150

 310 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS companions that they agreed with him to not repeat the act. This resolution Tecumseh never altered ; time and time again he protected women and children from his infuriated followers. At the battle of Fort Meigs a party of Americans was captured by the British and Indians. Though they had surrendered as pris- oners of war, yet the savages were firing into them promiscuously, or selecting such as they chose to tomahawk in cold blood. This dreadful scene was inter- rupted by Tecumseh, who came spurring up and, springing from his horse to the ground, dashed aside two Indians who were about to murder an American, threatening to slay anyone who would dare to injure another prisoner. Turning to the British General, Proctor, he asked why such a massacre had been permit- ted. "Sir," said Proctor, "your Indians cannot be commanded." "Begone," was the angry reply of the outraged Tecumseh, "you are unfit to command. Go, put on petticoats." This was only one incident of many showing how far he was above the ordinary Indian in magnanimity of character. At the already mentioned Vincennes conference Tecumseh agreed with General William Henry Harrison his unrelenting foe and who judged him as harshly as any of the frontiersmen who feared and hated him that in case of an outbreak of hostilities the women and children on both sides were to be protected and respected. Cer- tain it is that General Harrison would have made no such agreement had he not believed that his adversary would keep it. To understand the life and work of Tecumseh it is necessary to look into the history of his times. His career was embraced between the period of the Reva lution and our second war with Great Britain. The destiny of the Great West was not then assured. Ohio and Kentucky were frontier States, vastly farther from the seat of government than is the most remote of our Western outposts to-day. They could be reached only by a toilsome journey over the Allegha- nies and a trip down the Ohio. A journey to-day to the Yellowstone, or to the regions beyond the Black Hills, does not mean, in the way of time, danger, or ad- venture, one-tenth what a journey to Fort Washington (Cincinnati) meant in 1800. Indiana was a Territory, and the Territorial Governor, first of the North- west, and then of Indiana, was William Henry Harrison, a born fighter, a palav- erer, and who, in the difficult position which he occupied in dealing with unruly settlers on the one hand and turbulent Indians on the other hand, displayed sin- gular tact and ability. He was eminently the right man in the right place. But in spite of the claims the United States made of the West, the country was but little known, nor was its real importance even suspected. That the Mississippi Valley would one day be peopled by millions, and be the greatest, wealthiest, and most productive part of the country, was not thought of even by the most san- guine of Americans. The Eastern States in those days had affairs enough of their own on hand, and the Western frontier was not regarded as essentially im- portant. The national idea the Nation with a big N, as recent humorous news- paper writers have put it had not been evolved. It was difficult for even a man of the persuasive powers of General Harrison, to induce the General Government to furnish half enough troops to adequately guard the outposts. If there was