“Thus fell the Indian warrior Tecumseh, in the 44th year of his age.  He was of the Shawanoe tribe, five feet ten inches high, and with more than the usual stoutness, possessed all the agility and perseverance of the Indian character.  His carriage was dignified, his eye penetrating, his countenance, which even in death, betrayed the indications of a lofty spirit, rather of the sterner cast.  Had he not possessed a certain austerity of manners, he could never have controlled the wayward passions of those who followed him to battle.  He was of a silent habit; but when his eloquence became roused into action by the reiterated encroachments of the Americans, his strong intellect could supply him with a flow of oratory that enabled him, as he governed in the field, so to prescribe in the council.  Those who consider that in all territorial questions, the ablest diplomatists of the United States are sent to negociate with the Indians, will readily appreciate the loss sustained by the latter in the death of their champion. * * * * Such a man was the unlettered savage, Tecumseh, and such a man have the Indians lost forever.  He has left a son, who, when his father fell, was about seventeen years old, and fought by his side.  The prince regent, in 1814, out of respect to the memory of the old, sent out as a present to the young, Tecumseh, a handsome sword.  Unfortunately, however, for the Indian cause and country, faint are the prospects that Tecumseh the son, will ever equal, in wisdom or prowess, Tecumseh the father.”

[Footnote A:  Military Occurrences of the Late War.]

Mr. James (p. 295,) asserts, that Tecumseh was not only scalped, but that his body was actually flayed, and the skin converted into razor-straps by the Kentuckians.  We fear there is too much truth in this statement.  It is confirmed by the testimony of several American officers and privates, who were in the battle of the Thames.  It is painful to make an admission of this kind, but truth forbids the suppression of a fact, when fairly established, however revolting to the feelings of humanity, or degrading to a people.  That there was any general participation of our troops in this inhuman and revolting deed, is not for a moment to be supposed.  That it was the act of a few vulgar and brutish individuals, is, we think, just as certain, as that the great mass of the army were shocked at its perpetration.  It is to be regretted that the names of the persons who committed this outrage have not been preserved, that their conduct on this occasion might have been held up to universal condemnation.

CHAPTER XV.

Critical examination of the question “who killed Tecumseh?”—­colonel R. M. Johnson’s claim considered.