Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/225

 " The Indian warriors, led by the undaunted Te-cum-seh, rushed upon the enemy's front line of infantry, and ' for a moment/ says the general, (Harrison,) ' made some impression upon it.' It was not, in short, till the infantry was reinforced by the whole of Go- vernor Shelby's, and a part of Colonel Johnson's regiment ; nor, till the fall of their lamented chief, and upwards of thirty of their war- riors, that the brave foresters retired from the field of battle. Had the men of the 41st regiment at all emulated the Indians, the fate of the clay might have been changed ; or, did the enemy's great numerical superiority render that an improbable event, the Ame- rican general would not, in the very paragraph in which he admits that he contended with an inferiority of force, have dared to claim for his troops ' the palm of superior bravery.' — Ibid. p. 282.

" Let us now ascend in the scale of human beings, from a ' member of congress ' to a ' savage,' — from Mr. Cheeves to the late Indian warrior, Te-cum-seh. It seems extraordinary that General Harrison should have omitted to mention, in his letter, the death of a chief, whose fall contributed so largely to break down the Indian spirit, and to give peace and security to the whole north-western frontier of the United States. Te-cum-seh, although he had received a musket- ball in the left arm, was still seeking the hottest of fire, when he encountered Colonel R. M. Johnson, member of congress for Kentucky. Just as the chief, having discharged his rifle, was rushing forward with his tomahawk, he received a ball in the head from the colonel's pistol. Thus fell the Indian warrior Te-cum-seh, in the forty-fourth year of his age. He was of the Shawanee tribe ; five feet ten inches high ; and, with more than the usual stoutness, possessed all the agility and perse- verance, of the Indian character. His carriage was dignified ; his eye penetrating ; his countenance which, even in death, betrayed the indications of a lofty spirit, rather of the sterner cast. Had he not possessed a certain austerity of manners, he could never have controlled the wayward passions of those who followed him to bat- tle. He was of a silent habit ; but, when his eloquence became roused into action by the reiterated encroachments of the Ameri- cans, his strong intellect could supply him with a flow of oratory, that enabled him, as he governed in the field, so to prescribe in the council. Those who consider that, in all territorial questions, the ablest diplomatists of the United States are sent to negotiate with the Indians, will readily appreciate the loss sustained by the latter in the death of their champion. — Ibid. pp. 287, 288.

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