Defending the prisoners with knife and tomahawk, he sprang for the British general.
"Who dares permit such acts!"
"Sir, your Indians cannot be controlled."
"Begone!" roared Tec.u.mseh. "You are unfit to command; go and put on petticoats."
After that he openly despised General Proctor.
He sent a note in to his American foeman:
"General Harrison: I have with me eight hundred braves. You have an equal number in your hiding place. Come out with them and give me battle. You talked like a brave when we met at Vincennes, and I respected you; but now you hide behind logs and in the earth, like a ground-hog. Give me answer. Tec.u.mseh."
But General Harrison knew his business, and carried on to the successful end.
That end was not far distant. General Tec.u.mseh and General Proctor together failed to take Fort Meigs. General Proctor ordered a retreat.
General Harrison followed on the trail. General Tec.u.mseh hated to retreat. At every step he was abandoning Indian country.
The retreat northward to Canada continued. Tec.u.mseh was fighting the battle of his people, not of the English; he wished to go no farther.
He proposed to his warriors that they leave for another region, and let the Americans and British fight their own war.
"They promised us plenty of soldiers, to help us. Instead, we are treated like the dogs of snipe-hunters; we are always sent ahead to rouse the game."
"You got us into this war by your promises," retorted the Sioux and the Chippewas. "You have no right to break us."
Any appeal to Tec.u.mseh"s honor was certain to win; he stuck. Then American ships under Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry fought British ships under Commodore Barclay, on Lake Erie, and gained a great victory.
From an island near sh.o.r.e the Tec.u.mseh warriors peered eagerly, to the sound of the heavy guns.
"A few days since you were boasting that you commanded the waters," had said Tec.u.mseh, to General Proctor. "Why do you not go out and meet the Americans? They are daring you to meet them; you must send out your fleet and fight them."
Now, after the battle, the British general a.s.serted:
"My fleet has whipped the Americans, but the vessels are injured and have gone to Put-in Bay, to refit. They will be here in a few days."
Tec.u.mseh was no fool. He had before caught the general in a lie. Here at Fort Maiden opposite Detroit he challenged him in a hot speech.
Father! Listen to your children. You have them now all before you.
The war before this, our British father gave the hatchet to his red children, when our old chiefs were alive. They are now dead. In that war our father was thrown flat on his back by the Americans, and our father took them by the hand without our knowledge. We are afraid that our father will do so again.
Summer before last, when I came forward with my red brothers, and was ready to take up the hatchet in favor of our British father, we were told not to be in a hurry--that he had not yet decided to fight the Americans.
Listen! When war was declared, our father stood up and gave us the tomahawk, and told us that he was then ready to strike the Americans--that he wanted our aid--and that he would surely get us our lands back, which the Americans had taken from us.
Listen! When we were last at the Rapids [Fort Meigs] it is true that we gave you little a.s.sistance. It is hard to fight people who live like ground-hogs.
Father, listen! Our ships have gone out; we know they have fought; we have heard the great guns; but we know nothing of what happened. Our ships have gone one way, and we are much astonished to see our father tying up everything and preparing to run away the other, without letting his red children know what it is about.
You always told us to remain here, and take care of our lands; it made our hearts glad to hear that was your wish. You always told us you would never draw your foot off British ground. But now, father, we see you are drawing back, and we are sorry to see our father doing so without seeing the enemy. We must compare our father"s action to a fat dog, that carries its tail upon its back, but when frightened, drops it between its legs and runs off.
Father, listen! The Americans have not yet defeated us by land; neither are we sure that they have done so by water.
We wish to remain here, and fight the enemy, should they appear. If they defeat us, we will then retreat with our father.
At the battle of the Rapids [Fallen Timbers] last war, the Americans certainly defeated us; and when we returned to our father"s fort at that place, the gates were shut against us. Now instead of that, we see our British father making ready to march out of his garrison.
Father! You have got the arms and ammunition which our great father sent for his red children. If you have an idea of going away, give them to us, and you may go and welcome. Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are resolved to defend our lands, and if it be his will, we wish to leave our bones upon them.
General Proctor writhed under this speech, but he had to swallow it.
He might have done better by taking council with Tec.u.mseh and attacking the Americans at the instant of their landing on the Canadian sh.o.r.e.
The Indians would have fought very hard, even yet, for him. But he ordered the retreat again, he burned Fort Maiden, and marched inland up the Thames River of southwestern Ontario.
Tec.u.mseh went unwillingly. His Indians were down-hearted. General Harrison crossed from Detroit, and pursued. Tec.u.mseh felt the sting.
"We are now going to follow the British," he said to Jim Blue-jacket, son of old Chief Blue-jacket, "and I believe we shall never return."
He rode with General Proctor in a buggy, and suggested several places that looked good for making a stand.
Once General Proctor agreed. It was indeed an excellent spot, where a large creek joined the Thames.
"We will here defeat General Harrison or leave our bones," he declared.
That was a talk right to Tec.u.mseh"s liking.
"When I look upon these two streams they remind me of the Wabash and the Tippecanoe of my own country," he said hopefully.
But after Tec.u.mseh had gladly arranged his warriors, General Proctor decided to leave them as a rear guard and to march on with his soldiers. The Americans brought up ten cannon, and Tec.u.mseh was wounded in the left arm, and the Indians had to retreat, also.
On the fourth of October, which was a few days afterward, at another good place Tec.u.mseh said that he would go no farther into Canada. This was British soil, not Indian soil. Unless the Americans were whipped and the trail home was opened, how were his Indians ever to help the other Indians fight?
On the morning of the next day, October 5, 1813, he and General Proctor made their battle plans.
"Shall we fight the Americans, father?" asked Sagaunash, or Billy Caldwell. He was half English and half Potawatomi, and acted as Tec.u.mseh"s secretary, to translate Shawnee into French or English.
Tec.u.mseh was gloomy. He had no faith in the British general.
"Yes, my son. Before the sun sets we shall be in the enemy"s smoke.
Go. You are wanted by Proctor. I will never see you again."
He posted his men. Then he addressed his chiefs.
"Brother warriors! We are about to enter a fight from which I shall not come out. My body will remain." He handed his sword and belt to a friend.