William Henry Harrison and the Conquest of the Ohio Country by David Curtis Skaggs (review)

A professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University, the author is a distinguished scholar of the Old Northwest. The present book provides a valuable look at the role Harrison played in the War of 1812 on the Ohio River—Great Lakes frontier. Skaggs emphasizes the significance of Harrison’s use of mounted Kentuckians in his invasion of Canada and the crucial role of logistics in the successful conduct of any military campaign. He has an extensive knowledge of the period, and his forty some pages of footnotes cover most of the relevant primary and secondary sources.

The opening two chapters are the weakest. Here the author tends to paint with too broad a brush instead of focusing on significant events that are more relevant to his thesis. The central theme of the book is the role of the militia in fighting Indians. The “well-regulated militia” of the Constitution was an exercise in wishful thinking. In reality, the militia were notoriously “ill-equipped, ill-led, and ill-disciplined.” The author’s brief references to Harmar’s Defeat in October of 1790 and St. Clair’s Defeat on November 4, 1791, leave out the behavior of the militia in those battles, which resulted in 180 and 650 deaths respectively. Instead he cites Charles Scott’s “devastating raids on native villages” as Harrison’s model. Scott led a single raid in 1791 against Wea and Kickapoo villages on the Wabash, claiming to have killed thirty-eight warriors; in truth, the dead were old men, women, and children. James Wilkinson attacked the Miami on the Eel River later that summer. These raids did demonstrate how quickly Kentuckians could ride into northern Indiana and destroy villages, but in neither case did they engage a significant number of warriors in a real battle. Harrison also admired Anthony Wayne, who held the militia in low regard and used them as little as possible. Nonetheless, Harrison was indeed convinced that mounted Kentuckians could play a significant role on the frontier.

The second chapter focuses on events leading up to the battle of Tippecanoe. Here again more detail would be helpful. The author praises Harrison’s “talent for negotiations” with the Indians, but never looks closely at his suspect tactics, especially in the all-important Fort Wayne Treaty of 1809, where he deliberately kept the Shawnees away and used Potawatomi warriors as leverage. (Robert M. Owens’s Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer takes a more critical look at Harrison’s conduct.) Neither does Skaggs discuss secretary of war Henry Knox’s faulty Indian policy and the unfair treaties that led up to President Washington’s costly Indian war in the 1790s. The result is that few of the just grievances of the Indians are presented. The author assumes Native Americans were “doomed” by demographics regardless of what the United States did or didn’t do. Harrison’s complex relationship to the Shawnee Prophet and his brother Tecumseh is too sketchy, as is the sequence of events that led up to Tippecanoe. We need a better sense of how Harrison outmaneuvered President Madison in order to provoke a battle.

Although the causes of the War of 1812 are underplayed, once hostilities begin the book gains momentum. Harrison’s initial “campaign” to win command of the army from James Winchester is covered in telling detail. The greatest drawback in this part is that the book jumps around in time, thus losing narrative sequence. The siege of Fort Wayne, Hull’s surrender of Detroit, Indian raids on the frontier, and so forth are discussed in several places. There are also factual errors: in the battle of Fort Dearborn some ninety-five citizens and soldiers were involved, not two hundred; most of them, including William Wells, were killed during the fight, not afterwards. On the other hand, the author rightly stresses Robert Dickson’s role in keeping the Lake Indians on the British side as well as the strategic...