The lives of the presidents...

Contents

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

Chapter I

A Patriotic Ancestry — Boyhood in Stirritia^ Times — Going to College — Studying Medicine — Stories of the Indian Wars—Decidiiig ''to be a Soldier — Commissioned by President Washi}igton

CHAPTER H.

A Boy Officer— St. Clair s Defeat— A Trip through the Woods — Public Despondency — The Legion of the United States — Mad Anthony — Harrison's Temperance Lectures — The hidian War

CHAPTER HI.

A Forward Movement — Battle of the Miami — Studying the Indians — Captain Harrison — In Command of Fort Washington — Marriage — Death of Wayne — Harrison Secretary of the Northwestern Territory — Delegate to Congress 1 7

CHAPTER IV.

Land Reform — Harrison made Governor of the Indiana Territory — Vast Power — Miscellatteous Duties — Upper Louisiana Added — The Indians and Fire-water — Tecutnseh and the Prophet — A Libel Suit 25

CHAPTER V.

Indian Treaties — Growth of the New Country — Correspondence with Tecumseh — The Council at Vincennes — The Indian View of the Land Question — Harrisons Intrepidity 43

IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

PAGB

Condition of the Country — Attitude of Great Britain — The War Party — Growing Statesmen — More Councils with Tecumseh — Border Warfare — Battle of Tippecanoe — The Story of Ben 59

CHAPTER Vn.

Tecumseh' s Return — War Declared with England — The Rising of the Tribes — Htdl's Surrender — Harrison a General — A very New Commissioti — Wide Authority — Quelling Discotitented Volunteers 76

CHAPTER Vni.

Preparing for a Campaigtt — Wide Authority — The Massacre of the Raisin — A Navy for the Lakes — Siege of Fort Meigs — The Battle of Lake Erie — The Battle of the Thames — Death of Tecumseh — Harrison Retnoved from Command 87

CHAPTER IX.

General Harrison's Resigttation — Indian Commissio7ter Once More — A Medal of Honor — Member of Congress — State Senator — Presidential Elector — United States Senator — Minister to Colo7nbia — Removed by General fackson — Clerk of Common Pleas — President — The End. loi

JOHN TYLER.

CHAPTER I.

The Tyler Family — Birth of fohn Tyler — Early Education — Admitted to the Bar — Sent to the State Legislature — Elected to Congress — Old- Time Politics

CONTENTS.

Chapter II. Page

The Political Situation— State Rights and Strict Construction— Adams and Jackson— John Tyler Governor oj Virginia — United States Senator — Webster and Hayne— Nullification— Tyler' s Vote against the Force Bill— Re-elected. ^3

Chapter III

Tyler against Jackson— Acting ivith Whig Leaders— The Expungi7ig Resolutions— Resigning his Seat in the Senate — Elected Vice-President — Death oJ General Harrison— Tyler's Position as President of the United States

JAMES KNOX POLK.

Chapter I. Chapter IV

Separation of Mr. Tyler from the Whig Party— Vetoes of Party Measures— Changes in the Cabinet— Calhoun Secretary of State— Texan Annexatioti—Polk Elected —Retirement of Mr. Tyler— The Peace Convention— The End 49

The Pollock Family— Birth of James Knox Polk— Moving to Tennessee — Life in the Backwoods— Hungry for Brooks— Clerk in a Cou?itry Store— At School at Last- Graduated frojn the U7iiversity I

Chapter IX

The Wilmot Proviso Again — General Scott and his Plans — Buena Vista — Scott's March to the City of Mexico — The Treaty of Peace — Election of President Taylor — Death of Mr. Polk 85

Lives of the Preside?its of the United States.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

NINTH PRESIDENT.

By WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

Chapter I

A Patriotic Ancestry — Boyhood in Stirring Times — Goiitg to College — Studying Medicine — Stories of the Indian Wars — Deciding to be a Soldier — Commissioned by President Washington.

In the notable year 1774 the Virginia House of Burgesses took upon itself the character of a State Convention and elected seven delegates to the Continental Congress. This body of patriotic legislators was to meet in Philadelphia, and was to do a great deal more and better work than anybody dreamed of beforehand. Thomas Jefferson knew all the Virginia delegates, and said of them that they had been selected remarkably well. They were representative men, he said, and not one of them was a more perfect representative of the people than was big, burly, bluff Ben Harrison. He was a planter in moderate circumstances, his plantation being at a place called Berkeley, on the James River, in Charles City County, about twenty-five miles below Richmond. He was a brother-in-law of Peyton Randolph, who was made first President of Congress, and he was related by marriage and otherwise to several of the leading families of the Virginia colony. Ben Harrison was no royalist or aristocrat, however, for he was a direct descendant of brave Colonel Harrison, a distinguished officer of the army which Oliver Cromwell led for the Parliament and against the King. It had been very natural that when Benjamin, not yet twenty-one, was sent to the House of Burgesses, he should at once begin to distinguish himself by a course of outspoken colonial patriotism which resulted in his becoming Speaker of the House, and afterward in his going to the rebel Congress as one of its most zealous members. He very narrowly missed being made President of Congress when Peyton Randolph died, but he insisted upon withdrawing in favor of John Hancock, of Massachusetts, in order to promote harmony between the Northern and Southern delegates. By his exertions Hancock was unanimously elected, but he, with a very reasonable diffidence, hesitated about accepting the difficult and dangerous eminence thrust upon him. Ben Harrison settled the matter by picking up the new President in his own brawny arms and placing him bodily in the chair of office, remarking :

"We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her by making a Massachusetts man our President, whom she has excluded from pardon by public proclamation."

There are many anecdotes extant illustrating the character of Ben Harrison, and the high esteem in which he was held by the best men of his country. His children were almost sure to inherit, with his good name, strong characteristics of head and heart. His third and youngest son, William Henry Harrison, born at Berkeley, February 9th, 1773, was but a baby in the cradle when the Continental Congress met. Little William was three years old, however, when his father, on June loth, 1776, as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, reported to Congress the resolution declaring the independence of the British colonies.

Those were stirring days for the country people of the Old Dominion. From the Western frontier came terrible tales, season after season, concerning the murderous doings of the savages. From the Carolinas and Georgia floated up endless rumors and reports of the wavering struggle there, which seemed to end at last in defeat for the cause of liberty. From the North, more frequently and more authentically came tidings of the long and seemingly disastrous campaigns of Washington's army. The Virginia coast was threatened continually by hovering fleets and cruisers, but no very serious damage was done, after the burning of Norfolk, in 1775, until the closing weeks of the year 1780. With the first days of the new year, January 3d, 1781, Benedict Arnold landed his raiders at Westover, only a short ride from Berkeley, and all the James River plantations were in peril. More British and more Hessians arrived a little later, and there were larger fleets along the coast, while the army under Lord Cornwallis came pouring northward over the Carolina border to coop itself up in Yorktown and be captured by General Washington.

During all the years of the war, and even later, there were many privations to be endured by all Americans. Foreign importations were practically cut off, only the very rich being able to pay for the few costly luxuries which escaped the British blockade. Such families as that of patriotic Ben Harrison were also continually called upon to deny themselves in every possible manner, that they might give to the cause of independence. Whatever and whoever were the other teachers of William Henry Harrison's boyhood, there were great lessons to be learned in such a school of patriotism and self-sacrifice, and he learned them well, as he was yet to prove.

There were books at Berkeley, and there were competent instructors in its neighborhood. So good a use was made of them by the boy-patriot that he was prepared for college at a very early age. There is no perfect record of the precise date of his entrance at Hampden-Sidney College nor of the length of his stay. That he had been a studious lad and was now regarded as somewhat bookish is well attested. When he afterward turned his attention to the study of medicine, his father's friends and his own declared the choice eminently fitting, not only on account of the student's marked ability, but by reason of his great natural kindness and gentlener.s of character. There was nothing in his appearance which suggested that he had in him the material for one of the most successful Indian fighters of the American frontier. He was but sixteen when Washington became President, in 1789, but it was a time when the very few educated young men of the new Republic matured early. On the death of his father he had been placed under the guardianship of Robert Morris, the celebrated financier, who had high hope for his bright young ward's success in the medical profession.

There was a change in course of preparation, however. All the years of young Harrison's life had made him familiar with tales of Indian warfare, but the terrible record now grew darker. The peace with England, formally declared in 1783, was of a sadly imperfect nature. On land or sea it was at times but little better than a condition of mitigated hostilities, sure to lead at last to an open rupture. Along the Northern frontier and the shores of the great lakes the British retained possession of several fortified posts within the territory of the United States. They had no sufficient pretext for holding these places, but one important reason for so doing was that each was a centre of profitable trade with the red men and of influence over them. By means of the garrisons and of agencies employed through their commanders and the fur-traders, the old British domination over many tribes even increased rather than diminished. It was for the interest of the British fur trade that a state of hostilities, which British agents had created during the war for independence, should continue indefinitely after the separate national existence of the United States had been acknowledged.

The savage tribes claimed also to be independent nations, and had but a faint perception of the political idea that they lived inside of another nation. They listened readily to traders and agents who brought presents from the British power, to which they had so long been friendly. On the other hand, the treaties which they from time to time entered into with the United States " Long Knives" were quickly rendered worthless by the fact that a sort of retaliatory frontier war went on almost without intermission. The state of affairs grew worse and worse. The western borders of Pennsylvania and the new settlements in what is now Ohio suffered direful ravages. It was estimated that between the peace in 1783 and the beginning of the year 1791, not less than two thousand horses were stolen by the Indian raiders, and fifteen hundred men, women, and children were murdered or carried captives into the wilderness.

The Northern Indian tribes most dreaded at this period were the Six Nations,- in New York and beyond, who, with the Delawares, in Ohio, were sometimes fairly peaceable ; the Hurons, or Wyandots, along the southern shore of Lake Erie ; the Shawnees, who occupied Northern Ohio ; and the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawattamies, of what is now Michigan. Other tribes were heard of from time to time, however, and the state of affairs was almost as bad in the regions south of the Ohio as it was in the Northwestern Territory itself.

No census was ever taken of these Indians, but their warriors were known to number several thousands, led by capable chiefs, and well supplied with arms and ammunition by the British traders. One of the first duties of Washington's administration was to make an effort for the protection of the frontier. The effort was made, but resulted in a succession of military disasters, which increased the pride and arrogance of the savages, while it impressed upon most white men an exaggerated estimate of the number and prowess of the men of the woods. It was not easy to obtain recruits for the army because of the general dread of service upon the frontier. The tide of westward progress threatened to cease or at least to suffer a prolonged and injurious check.

The effect of all this terrible news was very remarkable upon the mind of the mild-mannered medical student, for he shortly announced his determination to enter the army. Mr. Morris opposed the unlooked-for change of purpose with much persistency, and went to consult the President as to the best means of counteracting it. So promising a young doctor ought not to be sent out, he said, to lose his scalp in the backwoods. George Washington thought differently. He was himself one of the best Indian fighters in the country, and was a capital judge of the kind of men required for that peculiar service. He had been a lifelong friend of Ben Harrison, and understood the sterling patriotism which bade the son of such a man volunteer for perilous duty. He overruled the objections of the great banker, and, in April, 1791, he caused a commission to be issued to William Henry Harrison as Ensign in the First Regiment, United States Artillery. This command was at that date stationed at Fort Washington, in the heart of the Indian country, on the site of the present city of Cincinnati.

Chapter II

A Boy -Officer — St. Clair s Defeat — A Trip through the Woods — Public Despondency — The Legion of the United States — Mad A ?itho7ty — Harrison s Temperance Lecturers — The Indian War.

It is not easy to estimate correctly the change involved, in the year 1791, in abandoning the quiet career of a physician for that of a soldier in the Ohio River country. All the friends and connections of young Harrison — George Washington, apparently, alone excepted — had urged him strenuously to give up his wildly romantic notion. Even the slenderness and seeming delicacy of his bodily frame were urged against him, but his will was immovably fixed, although his natural modesty was little short of excessive diffidence. He joined his regiment at Fort Washington early in the autumn of 1791, and it was not long before one of General St. Clair's veterans wrote home concerning him :

" I would as soon have thought of putting my wife into the army as this boy, but I have been out with him, and I find that those smooth cheeks are on a wise head and that slight form is almost as tough as my own weather-beaten carcass."

There had been no effeminating influences in the life of a Virginia planter's son during the trying, stirring years which began with 1773. Every occulO WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

pation and recreation out of doors, and the current of news and of conversation, had been of a kind to strengthen any healthy, bodily and mental, constitution, and the young ensign had kept himself singularly free from bad habits of every description.

The Western army, at the time of his receiving his commission, was under the command of General St. Clair, a Revolutionary veteran of high reputation, to whom Washington had entrusted the important undertaking of inflicting merited chastisement upon the defiant tribes of the Ohio country. What was then deemed a considerable force had been given him, and with it the most urgent instructions to " guard against surprise." On November 1st, 1791, however, he and his army suffered both surprise and defeat, nearly six hundred men and officers perishing, and one of Harrison's first lessons concerning the true nature of the military career he had chosen was received when the shattered remnants of the routed army came straggling into Fort Washington.

His first duties were those of garrison life in an enemy's country, and were calculated to impress upon him lessons of watchfulness ; but before long he was ordered to command the escort of a train of pack-horses on a perilous journey of thirty miles through the wilderness to Fort Hamilton. Trustworthy officers must indeed have been scarce when such a duty could have been assigned to one so young and so lacking in experience, but it was performed in a manner which drew upon him the notice of the general who was appointee to command the army in place of St. Clair.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. Ii

The defeat and massacre of the force from which so much had been expected deepened the feeling of horror with which the whole nation regarded the war with the Indians. Newspaper writers and even legislators declared that it was a mere waste of men and money to send troops to be butchered in the woods. There were sharp expressions of dissatisfaction with the administration and with its management of affairs upon the frontier.

No other man had felt more intensely the disaster to St. Clair than had Washington himself, and he determined that its evil effects should be thoroughly remedied. It was necessary to organize a new and stronger army and to plan a more extended campaign. The new force received the name of the Legion of the United States, and consisted of five thousand one hundred and twenty non-commissioned ofificers and privates, with suitable staff and line officers. The whole was divided into four sublegions, under four brigadier-generals, with Major- General Anthony Wayne in chief command. There were those who questioned the safety of any men commanded by Mad Anthony Wayne, and they were partly right ; but Washington, with better knowledge of him, questioned still more the safety of any men, white or red, who might be opposed to him. He was really a very prudent as well as very ||j!l

impetuous leader.

General Wayne received his instructions from the President, through the Secretary of War, May 2d, 1792, with the assurance that "another defeat would be inexpressibly ruinous. ' ' In order to avoid disaster, it was necessary to organize success and to turn bodies of uncommonly raw and timid recruits into soldiers. All sorts of fellows brought up in the older settlements were to be prepared for the duty of facing warriors thoroughly trained in forest warfare, accustomed to win victories, and sure to be well armed and well commanded. The army rendezvoused at Pittsburg in the Summer of 1792, and General Wayne toiled incessantly for the perfection of its organization, drill, and discipline. The men, even after gathering in the camp of instruction, were so infected with dread of the Indians that desertions were numerous, and sentries would abandon their posts upon purely imaginary alarms. Wayne took a wise course for increasing their confidence in themselves, for he made each company a school of rifle practice and of instruction in all the arts and wiles of savage warfare. At the same time, it was important to Ensign Harrison that he was to see his first fighting under a general who taught his cavalry to rely upon the sabre and his infantry to trust the bayonet, determining to meet the enemy hand to hand.

The army wintered at a fortified camp, called Legionville, twenty-two miles below Pittsburg, and when Spring returned the raw recruits had become accustomed to the use of arms, had acquired confidence in themselves, and were ready for active service. On April 30th, 1793, the camp was abandoned, and the entire force went down the Ohio River in boats to Fort Washington. The enemy had been within striking distance of them all winter, rORTRAIT OF JOHN TYLER.

PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

but there had been no fighting of any importance, and now all that part of the Legion of the United States under Wayne's immediate command was ordered into the woods to find the Indians.

Already, in 1792, Ensign Harrison's uniform good conduct had procured his promotion to the rank of lieutenant, and he had ceased to be regarded as a mere boy. He had, moreover, learned one important lesson of life which was more than military and which made its good mark upon his whole career. He had been advised by Washington himself, his father's friend, against the prevailing vice of intemperance. General Wayne had repeated the good counsel. In camp and fort there had been only too sad and disgusting a succession of object lessons to enforce the warnings of the Father of his Country and of wise Mad Anthony. Drunken ofHcers, drunken soldiers, and drunken Indians joined in convincing Harrison of the danger of beginning to drink. He therefore determined never to begin, and maintained his character for perfect sobriety in spite of all temptations. There was solid strength of principle in the boy-officer who could do that in the hard-drinking days of the old frontier wars.

General Wayne had not spent all of his time with his men at Pittsburg or at Legionville. In March, 1792, he had held a great council at Fort Washington with the chiefs of the Six Nations, headed by Cornplanter, and with some chiefs of other tribes. The red men had arrogantly demanded that the Ohio River should be a boundary line beyond which the white men should not come. They claimed all the land beyond that barrier, and it was impossible for the United States Government to acknowledge their shadowy, uncertain ownership. During the Summer of that year another council was held, at Sandusky, with no better results, for the demands of the Indians grew rather than diminished, in spite of the efforts of some of their wiser chiefs.

While Wayne did his best to obtain peace without fighting, he was getting his force into good condition for rapid movements, and his younger officers had work to do which kept them in daily training for the sharp campaign before them. In July about a thousand mounted volunteers came up from Kentucky. They were men of the kind that afterward followed Andrew Jackson through the Creek and Seminole War, and were a capital re-enforcement. In October General Wayne advanced about eighty miles along the southwestern branch of the Miami River and fortified a camp which he called Greenville. All the while there were opportunities for hard service and exposure, but no diaries were kept, and the skirmishes and individual adventures are almost altogether unrecorded. On December 23d, 1793, in midwinter, a strong detachment of infantry and artillery was sent to occupy the ground upon which St. Clair had been defeated, and Lieutenant Harrison joined the expedition as a volunteer. There was no fighting, but the bones of the dead were buried, the cannon abandoned by the routed army were recovered, and a fort was built which received the name of Fort Recovery. In the general order of thanks for the excellent manner in which

SO perilous a duty had been performed, Lieutenant Harrison received especial mention.

The Kentucky volunteers went home because there seemed no prospect of any fighting for them to do that season, and the Indians were evidently unprepared to cope at once with so strong a column as that under Wayne. They were watching it closely, however, and now and then found an opportunity to make themselves felt. For instance, one detachment escorting a provision train was attacked so suddenly that two officers and thirteen men were killed at the outset, and the remainder escaped only by hard running.

There were other skirmishes here and there and constant alarms among the border settlements, in testimony that the hostile chiefs had no thought of peace or of surrendering their claim to the disputed hunting-grounds. Through the Spring of 1794 they continued to prepare themselves, stimulated and aided by the white enemies of the United States in every British fort and trading station along the Northern frontier. On June 30th, 1794, a combined force of about fifteen hundred Indians, British, and Canadians made an attack upon Fort Recovery, but were repulsed with loss. All the while, nevertheless, the formerly harassed American border enjoyed increasing security. Settlements grew in the rear of Wayne's army. His forts and fortified camps became centres of trade and of future population. The army acquired an almost unbounded confidence in their leader, and a general acquaintance also with their regimental officers and with each other. This

1 6 WILLIAM HENRY HA R A' I SON.

fact became of political importance in after years, for nine men out of every ten who served under Wayne became settlers upon the lands they rescued from the savages. When the time came for veteran soldiers to vote as citizens, they knew very well how to select their civil leaders from among their old military commanders.

Chapter III

A Forward Movement — Battle of the Miami — Studying the Indians — Captain Harrison — In Command of Fort Washington — Marriage — Death of Waytie — Harrison Secretary of Northwestern Territory — Delegate to Congress.

In July, 1794, the mounted riflemen of Kentuckycame again to re-enforce the Legion of the United States. General Wayne decided that the time had arrived for his long-intended dash. He made a swift march of seventy miles to Grand Glaise, and built Fort Defiance at the confluence of the Miami of the Lakes with the Auglaize.

The red warriors were gathering fast in this vicinity, with the British post and garrison of Detroit as their military base of operations. It is a well-established fact that when the time came for Wayne to strike his blow he found Canadian militia acting with the Indians, but it is probable that the uniforms worn by the two kinds of warriors were much alike. At all events, his forward movement discovered the enemy, about two thousand strong, waiting for him in a well-chosen position behind timber, very near Detroit. The battle of the Miami followed. It was fought August 20th, 1794, and it was won in a manner peculiarly belonging to the genius of General Wayne. The lurking savages had

1 8 WILLIAM HENRY IIAKRISOM.

no opportunity to employ their customary tactics. They were charged upon in their coverts with what seemed reckless rashness, and were bayoneted or scattered in a fashion entirely new to them. The victory was won swiftly and thoroughly, and a lasting lesson was given to the warriors and chiefs who had so haughtily refused all terms of peace.

The part taken by Harrison in the battle of the Miami offers the first clear indication of the estimation in which he was held as an ofificer. It is almost sure that Washington asked Wayne to keep an eye upon the son of Ben Harrison, but it is yet more certain that stern old Anthony was not a man to be guilty of favoritism. It was because of capacity and good conduct, therefore, that Lieutenant Harrison had been chosen as one of the General's aides. In the battle of the Miami he was under constant and great exposure, and won the marked approbation of General Wayne, who said of him in despatches to the War Department :

" My faithful and gallant aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Harrison, rendered the most essential service by communicating my orders in every direction, and by his conduct and bravery exciting the troops to press for victory."

That was high praise to be earned in so hot a fight by a young fellow of twenty-one who had been deemed of so gentle and retiring a nature as to be fitted only for a very mild-mannered physician. It was afterward discovered that the men themselves agreed with the General, and had formed an excellent opinion of the dashing aide-de-camp.

WILLIAM IIENKY HARRISON. ig

With the battle of the Miami Lieutenant Harrison may fairly be said to have finished his apprenticeship in frontier warfare. He had assisted in building forts of the rough patterns called for in repelling savages, and had seen a great deal of watchful garrison duty. He had led small escort parties of men upon perilous expeditions through forests infested by the enemy. He had toiled with his commander in the drill and discipline of raw recruits, obtaining much military knowledge for his own future uses while teaching others. He had learned the methods and the difficulties of moving and supplying troops in the wilderness. Now, at last, under the eyes of General Wayne, he had distinguished himself in a hot engagement of great importance. He had fully justified his instinctive choice of a career, as well as the opinion formed of him by Washington.

Hardly was the battle over before an opportunity was given to General Wayne for something approaching statesmanship. Had he been the hotheaded, reckless soldier so many deemed him, he would surely have come to an open collision with the unwise British commander of the fort at Detroit. If he had been unduly elated by the victory he had gained, he might even have been tempted to capture the post, and all the current diplomacy between the United States and Great Britain would thereby have been thrown into disastrous confusion. The General kept his temper, behaving with commendable firmness and moderation, and at the same time his aide-de-camp was given a fine opportunity to study the Northern boundary question.

The beaten red men disappeared in the wilderness, a large part of their force engaged in the battle escaping into British territory, and there was no more heavy fighting during the year 1794. On the first day of the new year, 1795, the several tribes began negotiations for peace, and a treaty was soon afterward concluded at Greenville, by which a vast tract of the territory they had fought for was forever relinquished to the United States. It was part of the region of country which at no distant day was to have William Henry Harrison for its first civil magistrate and ruler, but his share in the ceremonies and discussions relating to the making of the treaty was altogether that of a thoughtful subordinate. Still, from his position upon the staff of the commanding general and with his advantages of early political training, he must have acquired at this time much of the intimate knowledge of all the negotiations, agreements, and transfers made on either side which he afterward displayed and which were on many occasions of so great a value to the country.