Tippecanoe: The Battle That Made a President
Indiana
On November seventh, eighteen eleven, General William Henry Harrison led nine hundred fifty soldiers to a settlement on the Tippecanoe River called Prophetstown, home to a pan-tribal confederacy assembled by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, known as the Prophet. Tecumseh was away recruiting. The Prophet's followers struck first in a pre-dawn attack, after he assured them that Harrison's bullets would not harm them.
They did. After hours of fighting, Harrison held his position. The next day he burned Prophetstown to the ground.
Tecumseh returned weeks later to find his dream of a unified Native resistance shattered. The battle made Harrison a national hero, and twenty-nine years later he rode the slogan Tippecanoe and Tyler Too all the way to the White House, winning the eighteen forty presidential election by a landslide.
