Controversy grows

            “Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Vincennes to his friend in this place, dated Vincennes, November 13, 1811.  Dear Sir, We have just received an express from the army under the command of governor Harrison--and contrary to all expectations, they have had a severe action with the Indians.  Our army tho’ victorious, has suffered considerably.  A number of our bravest men have fallen, Col. Daviess is amongst the slain; he fell at the head of his dragoons, whilst endeavouring with a few others, to break the Indians by charging upon them….
            “From the best information I can obtain either by letters or from the Messengers the little band of gov Harrison, both officers and men, behaved with the greatest bravery & firmness.  Col. Boyd and his regiment of Yankees particularly distinguished themselves-my informant states that the strict discipline and daring Intrepidity of the Regulars saved the army-he observes:  They stood like a wall the galling fire of the Indians; and when ordered to charge they advanced rapidly in a solid phalanx, and with a resolution that down all resistance.  The Regulars have suffered much-what number are killed or wounded of them I do not known….”  From an article that appeared in a Lexington, Kentucky, newspaper on November 16, 11 days after the Battle of Tippecanoe had taken place near present-day Lafayette, Indiana.
            In the last article, we looked at the controversy which had grown out of the Battle of Tippecanoe.  Although the army of approximately 300 Regulars and 700 militia commanded by Governor William Henry Harrison had repulsed the surprise attack of the Indians after a hard-fought struggle, reports not entirely complimentary to Harrison or the militia portion of his force began to circulate across the country.  Many of these accounts were either initiated or repeated by Harrison’s political enemies.  This dispute also was heightened by the rivalry normally displayed when Regular Army and militia units served together.
            Interest in the battle was high in Kentucky because a contingent of more than a hundred volunteers had been part of Harrison’s army.  Friends of Abraham Owen and Joseph Daviess, prominent Kentuckians who had been killed, were particularly concerned regarding the way in which the battle had been conducted.
            This concern is reflected in a letter written to Harrison by Kentucky Governor Charles Scott on November 27:
            “It is with sincere pleasure I have heard of your safe arrival at Vincennes with the troops under your command, after the rough play you have been engaged in.  You have, so far as I can learn, acquitted yourself like a man, and the men you commanded have really done wonders, considering the circumstances.
            “That you would not be wanting on your part was what every one who knew you would naturally expect, and especially one who knew your worth as well as I do….I should be pleased to be favored by you with as detailed an account of your engagements as your convenience will permit; and I the more wish this, to be enabled to do you justice against the cavils of ignorance or presumption,  I am, as I ever shall be, your sincere friend.”
            By the 28th of November word of the battle had reached Nashville, where Andrew Jackson, then a major-general in the Tennessee militia, wrote the following to Harrison:  “With deep and heart felt regret I received the information of the loss you sustained on the morning of the seventh instant, by the attack of the Indians upon your encampment.  Upon the receipt of this information and hearing that you were slowly retreating I issued orders to my respective Brigades to hold themselves in readiness to march to your support, in case the safety of your frontier and your request might make it necessary and proper.
            “Should the aid of part of my division be necessary to enable you to revenge the blood of our brave heroes, who fell by the deceitfull hands of those unrelenting barbarians-I will with pleasure march with five hundred or one thousand brave Tenneseans.  The blood of our murdered countrymen must be revenged.  That banditti ought to be swept from the face of the earth….”
            Back in Vincennes, on December 7, Harrison’s friends took the offensive by responding to an address that had been made earlier by political enemies of Harrison to Regular Army Colonel John P. Boyd praising the actions of the Regular Army soldiers in the battle and slighting the efforts of the Indiana militia trained by Harrison.  Meeting at Beckes’ Inn, a group of Knox County militia issued the following statement:  “A paper purporting to be ‘an address from a number of the citizen of Vincennes and its vicinity’ and signed by Henry Vanderburgh, as Chairman to Col. John P. Boyd, being read, the following resolutions were unanimously agreed to.
            “1. Resolved unamiously, that we cannot consider the said Address in any other light than as one amongst the many attempts which have flowed from the same source, to wound the feelings and injure the character of Governor Harrison.
            “2. Resolved, That the said Address in attempting to bestow the merit of the masterly conduct in the direction and manoevering of the troops in the late action to any other than the Commander in chief asserts a notorious untruth, which will be acknowledged as such by the whole army.
            “3. That our indigation is justly excited at the false and contemptuous manner in which the Militia who served under Governor Harrison are treated, in the said address; being there represented as an untutored, undisciplined band possessing indeed courage, but none of the other requisites of soldiers; and owing eternal gratitude to the Col. Boyd and his Regiment, for the preservation of their lives….
            “8. That we have the most perfect confidence in the Commander in Chief, and shall always feel a cheerfulness in serving under him whenever the exigences of the country may require it….”