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The most popular campaign song, which I soon learned to sing lustily, was ``Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too, and sundry lines of it expressed, not only my own deepest political convictions and aspirations, but also those cherished by myriads of children of far larger growth. They ran as follows: ``Oh, have you heard the great commotion-motion-motion Rolling the country through?
To appreciate properly the hazard of this journey of two weeks through an untamed wilderness, across rivers and through dense forests, camping at night in the solitude of the woods, and exposed at all time to the attacks of the savages, one must take into consideration that already Tecumseh and the Prophet were forming their confederacy and preaching a new crusade at Tippecanoe; that they were fast filling the minds of their savage hearers with that fierce malice and hatred which was to break forth in the flame of revolt in a little over two years hence; that the British agents at Maiden were loading the Indians with presents and filling their ears with falsification as to the intentions of Harrison; that they were already arming them with guns, bullets, knives and tomahawks, and that there were those among them who would not hesitate at assassination, if they might hope to reap a British reward.
Tecumseh returned from the south through Missouri, visited the tribes on the Des Moins, and crossing the head waters of the Illinois, reached the Wabash a few days after the disastrous battle of Tippecanoe. It is believed that he made a strong impression upon all the tribes visited by him in his extended mission; and that he had laid the foundation of numerous accessions to his confederacy.
About the time it would have taken him to reach Detroit, the great earthquake of 1810 shook the Seminoles with terror of the man whose arguments they had rejected. In fact, Tecumseh and the Prophet constantly played into each other's hands, but in one of Tecumseh's absences the Prophet made the mistake of attacking General Harrison at Tippecanoe, and the savages were severely beaten.
"Captain Bull," says Scott, "the warrior who discovered me in the morning, had gained the main town, and given the alarm a short time before me; but the villages to my left were uninformed of my approach, and had no retreat." The first day of fighting had been very encouraging. The next morning Scott determined to destroy Kethtipecanunck, or Tippecanoe, eighteen miles up the river.
Then came an overture from Thurlow Weed and Benedict, and Greeley founded the Log Cabin, a campaign paper advocating the election of General Harrison as president, and sent out the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." Politics was his passion and delight. An ardent Whig, he loved Henry Clay as an enthusiast, and worshipped him like a disciple.
It was the great political year of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," when the grandfather of our President Harrison was elected President; but the wild hard-cider campaign roared by my boy's little life without leaving a trace in it, except the recollection of his father wearing a linsey-woolsey hunting-shirt, belted at the waist and fringed at the skirt, as a Whig who loved his cause and honored the good old pioneer times was bound to do.
George Croghan, who described the Wabash as running through "one of the finest countries in the world," mentions the deer as existing in great numbers. On the march of General Harrison's men to Tippecanoe, the killing of deer was an every day occurrence, and at times the frightened animals passed directly in front of the line of march. Raccoons were also very plentiful.
Moreover, the British were not in a position to give the Indians open assistance and they would learn from a few battles fought without their aid how little trust was to be put in British promises. For these reasons, Harrison wrote to the War Department urging immediate action and asking for troops and authority to march against Tippecanoe.
For Van Buren's friends tried very hard to have him re-elected, and Harrison's friends worked just as hard on his behalf. Harrison was the general who had led his men to victory at Tippecanoe, and he immediately became first favourite with the people. He was an old man now of nearly seventy, and since he had left the army had been living quietly on his farm in the country.
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