A Child of the Revolution: William Henry Harrison and His World, 1773–1798

14 Toward a Showdown

toward a showdown 135 chapter fourteen Toward a Showdown t For most of the occupants of Fort Greenville—two thousand men trying to maintain military order in the squalid isolation of what their commander called “a cold and dreary wilderness”—9 February was an ordinary day. It was a Sunday, but since the Legion had no chaplain, there was no divine service; there was only army routine. For Harrison, however, it was a special day, his twenty-first birthday. Possibly he marked his arrival at legal manhood in some way, with a small gift to the private who waited on him or a bottle of wine shared with a few friends at dinner ; officers occasionally celebrated in this way to break the monotony of life on a frontier post.1 Although his birthday confirmed that he was, according to social custom and civil law, an adult, within the circumscribed world of the Legion he was already much more: he was one of the two or three dozen most important men at Fort Greenville, a young man in the central office with a reliable understanding of his commander’s thoughts and moods. Other officers referred to him with respect, as a person of consequence: “Mr. Harrison was so obliging as to offer laying [my accounts] before Your Excellency when you should be at leasure”; “Mr. Harrison informed me that a large number of officers had applyed [for leave].” Harrison was only the second aide-de-camp; the senior aide was Captain Henry DeButts, who was even closer to General Wayne. But when DeButts was absent, as he was during January and February, Harrison was the officer with his finger most accurately on the commander’s pulse.2 135 Booraem text.indb 135 5/22/12 1:53 PM 136 a child of the revolution Harrison probably did not consider that his rise had been unusually rapid. In the world of Tidewater planters, it was quite common for young men to achieve honor and responsibility early. His own father, Benjamin Harrison V, had been twenty-one when he took his seat in the House of Burgesses. George Washington had been twenty when he became military adjutant for the entire southern district of Virginia. Harrison probably had the pleasant feeling that his military career was going just about as it should. As an intimate of the commander, he sometimes received delicate assignments . Perhaps he was not aware just how delicate they were. One of the few officers on equally intimate terms with Wayne and Wilkinson, he regularly carried messages and papers between the two generals, sometimes riding the six miles between Forts Greenville and Jefferson after dark. (Doing so was not wholly safe; even during the truce, the woods were full of Indians looking for chance opportunities to attack. In January 1794, two servants of Major Buell who had gone hunting in the woods and been overtaken by nightfall were jumped; one was killed and scalped.) Wayne, who had become aware during January of Wilkinson’s increasing disaffection, was rather clumsily trying to mend fences by showering the Wilkinsons with social invitations and sending James Wilkinson copies of newspapers for his amusement. “Mr. Harrison showed me a note from you,” Wayne wrote 7 February, “in which you mention a wish to send a Detachment of Dragoons as an Escort to Mrs. Ernest. . . . It is with extreme pleasure I agree to that proposition.”3 Wayne was too late. At some point in the winter, Wilkinson’s dissatisfaction had crystallized into enmity, and from February on he began using all the arts he had employed successfully in Kentucky politics and the Continental Army to undermine his chief’s reputation and bring about his removal. He wrote a paragraph, very unflattering to Wayne, on the Legion’s recent activities, and arranged to have it published anonymously in Kentucky newspapers, from which he knew it would be copied into Eastern publications. He also began trying to undermine Secretary Knox’s confidence in the general. At the same time, he maintained a façade of cordial cooperation with his commander. Doubtless he pumped Harrison whenever the aide visited Fort Jefferson for information about Wayne’s plans and attitudes.4 Wilkinson’s anonymous-letter technique was not entirely successful; there were men in the West who recognized his style. One of these was Booraem text.indb 136 5/22/12 1:53 PM toward a showdown 137...