who are the fiercest in wanting to disobey Tecumseh’s orders not to fight.
It is four o’clock, the night still dark and overcast, a light rain rustling the bushes. On the left flank, directly in front of Captain Robert Barton’s infantry company, a shivering picket, Private William Brigham, on his knees, his musket on charge, nervously tries to pierce the gloom. He cannot see farther than three feet. Suddenly—footsteps. Brigham raises his musket and almost shoots his fellow picket, William Brown, who has imprudently left his own post in a state of near terror, certain that Indians are lurking in the bushes ahead. His instinct is to flee at once.
“Brigham,” he whispers, “let us fire and run …”
But Brigham fears a false alarm.
Suddenly something swishes past them. An arrow? Terrified, they turn and dash back toward the camp. Beside them a rifle barks.Another sentry, Stephen Mars, has fired at something moving in the gloom and also dashed toward safety.
The Battle of Tippecanoe
In Tent No. 1, Sergeant Montgomery Orr springs awake. Somebody has just rushed past, touching the corner of his tent. He jogs his corporal, David Thompson, awake. Something strikes the tent. Thompson leaps up, seizes his gun as four shots ring out accompanied by a high screaming and yelling. The corporal tumbles back upon the sergeant.
“Corporal Thompson, for God’s sake don’t give back!” cries Orr, then realizes he is talking to a dead man. He plunges out of the tent, gets a confused impression of a melee—soldiers and Indians firing at each other, Captain Barton trying vainly to form up his men.
Harrison is pulling on his boots when he hears a cacophony of yells and a burst of musketry. One of his officers and two of his men have already been tomahawked and scalped. He calls for his terrified black servant, George, to bring up his favourite mount—a pale grey mare. The boy cannot find her, so Harrison borrows another officer’s horse—a black one—and rides into confusion. His men, perfect silhouettes in front of the fires, are falling about him. On the left, Barton’s company is already badly mauled. Another has broken. When one of his colonels, mounted on a pale grey mare similar to his missing animal, tumbles to the ground, dead from an Indianmusket ball, Harrison realizes that the Indians have mistaken the dead man for himself. An aide rides out on a similar horse; Harrison shoos him back for a black one.
Harrison moves swiftly to reinforce his shattered flank, rides from point to point trying to control the battle. After it is over he will write a careful account, describing the action as if it were a set piece, reconstructing all the movements, making them sound like parade-ground manoeuvres. But at this moment, with the blackened Indians shrieking, the musket fire deafening, the steam rising from fires quickly doused, the clouds of black gun smoke adding to the general overcast, it is impossible for anyone to tell exactly what is happening.
As in every battle, there are moments of horror and moments of heroism.
The Indians are acting in a most un-Indian-like fashion, responding with considerable discipline to signals made by the rattling of deer horns, firing a volley, retreating out of range to reload, advancing again. As Harrison approaches Captain Spier Spencer’s company of Kentuckians, known as Yellow Jackets, on the right flank, he can hear the veteran Spencer crying, “Close up, men! Steady! Hold the line!” The Indians have mounted a third attack, so fierce that the balls are shredding the bark from the trees. One strikes Spencer in the head. He continues to shout. Another tears into his thigh, and then another. He calls out for help, and two men rush over, raise him up just as another ball penetrates his body, killing him.
Harrison rides up, sees young John Tipton sighting down a barrel.
“Where’s your captain?”
“Dead, sir!”
“Your first-lieutenant?”
“Dead, sir!”
“Your
It is four o’clock, the night still dark and overcast, a light rain rustling the bushes. On the left flank, directly in front of Captain Robert Barton’s infantry company, a shivering picket, Private William Brigham, on his knees, his musket on charge, nervously tries to pierce the gloom. He cannot see farther than three feet. Suddenly—footsteps. Brigham raises his musket and almost shoots his fellow picket, William Brown, who has imprudently left his own post in a state of near terror, certain that Indians are lurking in the bushes ahead. His instinct is to flee at once.
“Brigham,” he whispers, “let us fire and run …”
But Brigham fears a false alarm.
Suddenly something swishes past them. An arrow? Terrified, they turn and dash back toward the camp. Beside them a rifle barks.Another sentry, Stephen Mars, has fired at something moving in the gloom and also dashed toward safety.
The Battle of Tippecanoe
In Tent No. 1, Sergeant Montgomery Orr springs awake. Somebody has just rushed past, touching the corner of his tent. He jogs his corporal, David Thompson, awake. Something strikes the tent. Thompson leaps up, seizes his gun as four shots ring out accompanied by a high screaming and yelling. The corporal tumbles back upon the sergeant.
“Corporal Thompson, for God’s sake don’t give back!” cries Orr, then realizes he is talking to a dead man. He plunges out of the tent, gets a confused impression of a melee—soldiers and Indians firing at each other, Captain Barton trying vainly to form up his men.
Harrison is pulling on his boots when he hears a cacophony of yells and a burst of musketry. One of his officers and two of his men have already been tomahawked and scalped. He calls for his terrified black servant, George, to bring up his favourite mount—a pale grey mare. The boy cannot find her, so Harrison borrows another officer’s horse—a black one—and rides into confusion. His men, perfect silhouettes in front of the fires, are falling about him. On the left, Barton’s company is already badly mauled. Another has broken. When one of his colonels, mounted on a pale grey mare similar to his missing animal, tumbles to the ground, dead from an Indianmusket ball, Harrison realizes that the Indians have mistaken the dead man for himself. An aide rides out on a similar horse; Harrison shoos him back for a black one.
Harrison moves swiftly to reinforce his shattered flank, rides from point to point trying to control the battle. After it is over he will write a careful account, describing the action as if it were a set piece, reconstructing all the movements, making them sound like parade-ground manoeuvres. But at this moment, with the blackened Indians shrieking, the musket fire deafening, the steam rising from fires quickly doused, the clouds of black gun smoke adding to the general overcast, it is impossible for anyone to tell exactly what is happening.
As in every battle, there are moments of horror and moments of heroism.
The Indians are acting in a most un-Indian-like fashion, responding with considerable discipline to signals made by the rattling of deer horns, firing a volley, retreating out of range to reload, advancing again. As Harrison approaches Captain Spier Spencer’s company of Kentuckians, known as Yellow Jackets, on the right flank, he can hear the veteran Spencer crying, “Close up, men! Steady! Hold the line!” The Indians have mounted a third attack, so fierce that the balls are shredding the bark from the trees. One strikes Spencer in the head. He continues to shout. Another tears into his thigh, and then another. He calls out for help, and two men rush over, raise him up just as another ball penetrates his body, killing him.
Harrison rides up, sees young John Tipton sighting down a barrel.
“Where’s your captain?”
“Dead, sir!”
“Your first-lieutenant?”
“Dead, sir!”
“Your
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