It is March 14th. Welcome to Episode 73 of History in a Year. Today, the dream of a united Native American empire goes up in flames. With the brilliant military leader Tecumseh hundreds of miles away, Indiana Governor William Henry Harrison seizes his chance. He marches an army of 1,000 men directly toward the Native American capital of Prophetstown. We witness the catastrophic mistake made by Tenskwatawa (The Prophet), the desperate and bloody pre-dawn ambush that shatters the Native American alliance, and how the smoking ruins of Prophetstown force Tecumseh into the arms of the British, practically guaranteeing the start of the War of 1812.
STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is March 14th. Welcome to Episode 73. Yesterday, we watched the Shawnee leader Tecumseh build a massive, pan-Indian confederacy to stop American expansion in the West.
LEAH:
But in the fall of 1811, Tecumseh made a fateful decision. He left his capital city, Prophetstown, to travel south and recruit more tribes into his alliance.
STEPHEN:
Before he left, he gave his brother, the religious leader known as The Prophet, one absolute, unbreakable order: “Do not attack the Americans while I am gone. Keep the peace until we are ready.”
LEAH:
But the Governor of the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison, knew exactly what was happening. He had spies everywhere. He knew Tecumseh was gone, and he knew Prophetstown was incredibly vulnerable without its military mastermind.
STEPHEN:
Harrison saw a golden opportunity to crush the Native American resistance before it could fully unite.
LEAH:
He gathered an army of about 1,000 men. This was a mix of regular United States Army infantry and rugged Kentucky and Indiana militiamen.
STEPHEN:
In late October 1811, Harrison marched his army deep into the wilderness, heading straight for Prophetstown. By November 6th, his army arrived on a high, wooded hill just about a mile outside the Native American city, right where the Tippecanoe River meets the Wabash.
LEAH:
Harrison ordered his men to set up camp. But he was a seasoned frontier fighter. He didn’t just pitch tents; he arranged his men in a massive, defensive rectangle, with sentries posted in the woods, and ordered his soldiers to sleep with their loaded muskets right next to them.
STEPHEN:
Back in Prophetstown, absolute panic was setting in.
LEAH:
The Prophet, Tenskwatawa, was terrified. He was a spiritual leader, not a general. His brother had told him not to fight, but there was a massive American army sitting right on his doorstep.
STEPHEN:
The younger warriors in the town were furious. They didn’t want to wait to be attacked. They demanded to strike first.
LEAH:
So, Tenskwatawa made a catastrophic mistake. He caved to the pressure. He gave the order to attack the American camp before the sun came up.
STEPHEN:
But to get his warriors to charge a heavily armed American encampment, he had to give them something to believe in. He performed a massive religious ritual around the fire.
LEAH:
He told the warriors that the Master of Life was on their side. He promised them that his magic would confuse the Americans, that half of the American army was already dead or insane, and most importantly…
STEPHEN:
He promised that the American bullets would be soft as rain. He told his warriors they were physically invulnerable to American lead.
LEAH:
At 4:00 in the morning on November 7, 1811, roughly 600 Native American warriors crept through the freezing, pitch-black woods toward Harrison’s camp.
STEPHEN:
It was raining, and the darkness was absolute. The warriors managed to get incredibly close to the American lines before a single American sentry finally saw them and fired his musket.
LEAH:
Instantly, the woods erupted. The Battle of Tippecanoe had begun.
STEPHEN:
The Native Americans charged out of the darkness, screaming battle cries. The fighting was completely chaotic and terrifying. It was hand-to-hand combat in the pitch black, illuminated only by the blinding flashes of musket fire.
LEAH:
The warriors broke through the American lines in two different places. Harrison’s men were stumbling out of their tents, firing wildly into the dark, sometimes hitting their own men.
STEPHEN:
William Henry Harrison jumped onto his horse and rode back and forth across the battlefield, desperately plugging the holes in his defensive line. He actually had the foresight to order his men to extinguish their campfires, so they wouldn’t be perfectly illuminated targets for the warriors in the woods.
LEAH:
The battle raged for over two agonizing hours. But as the sun finally started to rise, the Native American warriors realized a horrifying truth.
STEPHEN:
The Prophet’s magic had failed. The American bullets were not soft as rain. They were deadly iron and lead, and dozens of warriors were bleeding out on the wet grass.
LEAH:
Their morale completely broke. As daylight broke over the battlefield, Harrison ordered his dragoons—his mounted cavalry—to charge.
STEPHEN:
The cavalry swept into the woods, and the Native American forces scattered and retreated back toward Prophetstown.
LEAH:
The battle was over. It was a bloody, costly fight for both sides. Harrison lost about 62 men, with over 120 wounded. The Native American casualties were roughly the same.
STEPHEN:
But tactically, it was a massive American victory. Because the next day, Harrison marched his surviving troops into Prophetstown, and he found it completely abandoned.
LEAH:
The Native Americans had fled in the night, leaving almost everything behind.
STEPHEN:
Harrison didn’t hesitate. He ordered his men to burn the entire city to the ground. They burned the lodges, and worst of all, they burned the massive stores of corn and beans the tribes had saved for the brutal winter.
LEAH:
Tenskwatawa’s credibility was completely destroyed. His followers realized he was a fraud, and they threatened to kill him.
STEPHEN:
A few months later, Tecumseh finally returned from his recruiting trip in the South. He rode into the Ohio Valley expecting to find a thriving, united capital city.
LEAH:
Instead, he found ashes. His brother was disgraced, his warriors were scattered, and his life’s work was completely in ruins.
STEPHEN:
Tecumseh was heartbroken, and he was furious. He realized that the Native Americans could no longer fight the United States on their own. They needed an ally with deep pockets and big guns.
LEAH:
So, Tecumseh crossed the border into Canada, and he formally allied himself with the British Army.
STEPHEN:
And back in Washington D.C., the War Hawks were celebrating. When Harrison’s men had searched the ruins of Prophetstown, they found brand-new British muskets that had been supplied to the tribes from Canada.
LEAH:
For Henry Clay and the War Hawks, that was the final piece of evidence they needed. The British weren’t just kidnapping sailors on the ocean; they were actively arming Native Americans to slaughter American citizens on the frontier.
STEPHEN:
The diplomatic games were officially over. The United States was going to war.
LEAH:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 74. The War of 1812 Begins. President James Madison finally caves to the pressure and signs a declaration of war against the greatest empire on Earth. We explore the disastrous, embarrassing, and completely botched American invasion of Canada, and how the US military proved it was entirely unprepared for the fight of its life.
STEPHEN:
I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.