Vigo County, Indiana - Chapter 3: The Old Tort - Tort Harrison and Its Defense, 1908

The preceding pages have sketched the discovery, occupation and different governments of Indiana, through the colonial period to the formation of Indiana Territory, and finally to the impending difficulties between the Americans on the one side and the Indians and British on the other at the beginning of the second war with Great Britain. Born of this war was the first important event that begins the history of Terre Haute and Vigo county. When the war clouds had passed there remained, as the nucleus of permanent growth, the little fort on the Wabash which will always be associated with the begmning of Vigo county.

Preliminary to the transfer of the land included in Vigo county to the American government, several incidents might be mentioned as significant of the encroachment of the whites upon this country. Before the treaty of 1809, an agent for the Wabash Land Company had bought of eleven Piankeshaw chiefs 37,497,000 acres of land, which included Parke and Vigo counties. This purchase was annulled by the government as invalid, but it stands as a record of the first attempt to secure a permanent possession in this county.

General George Rogers Clark led his soldiers over this county before Harrison, when in 1786 he led an expedition up the Wabash toward Ouiatenon, where the Indians were threatening. They passed over the site of Terre Haute and thence to Raccoon creek and across the Wabash, where the force fell into disorder, and Clark began drinking heavily. Again in 1790 Major Hamtramck, commanding at Vincennes, scouted this country and across the Wabash to A^crmillion, where he destroyed a small town.

The expeditions of Generals Scott and Wilkinson in 1791-92, when Ouiatenon was destroyed, ended the Franco-Indian influence if not their very existence on the Wabash. At that date Ouiatenon had eighty good bouses, manv with shingle roofs. The country north of Mncennes was not safe until after Mad Anthony's crushing- defeat of the Indians at Fort Wayne. The treaty made then secured all the Wabash country to the Indians e.xcept small tracts at Fort ^^'ayne, Ouiatenon and \'incennes, and peace lasted until 1810-11.

Harrison, made governor in 1800, began at once to purchase lands, and by 1805 had gained 46,000 square miles from them. But the tribes in the Wabash valley tenaciously clung to their beautiful lands, where they could fish in the streams, find abundant game in the forests, graze their horses on the prairie, and shelter their children and squaws in the hollows and groves during winter.

In 1809 Harrison made a treaty with the chiefs at Fort Wayne for all the lands south of a line which, beginning at a point on the White river east of Vincennes. ran "from the ten o'clock sun to the mouth of Pishewaw (Raccoon) creek." The interested tribes consented to the cession, and the "ten o'clock line" is still to be seen on the map of Parke county, as legally established at that time.

But Tecumseh opposed all his influence and strength to this treaty, and dictated to Harrison at the Vincennes meeting that he would not allow the surveyor to run the line or white men to settle near it.- But the line was run by the surveyors who took their own lives in their hands when they took up their chains. In 181 1, while this was going on and while the Listons were settling on land still claimed by Indians, Tecumseh's scouts were prowling over all the land down to White river.

In the months of September and October, 181 1, General Harrison advanced up the Wabash with a detachment of troops and selected the site of Fort Harrison, a beautiful eminence on the east bank of the Wabash, three miles above this village.

From John Tipton's journal of the Tippecanoe campaign, is one day's record that sets the earliest contemporary accounts of Fort Harrison. Quoting the record without its bad spelling, we read: - "Thursday 3d [Oct.] marched at 9 - four of our horses missing - three men left to hunt them - marched one mile - came to tare holt [Terre Haute] an old Indian village on the east side of Wabash on high land near a large ])rairie - Peach and apple trees growing - the huts torn down by the army that camped here on the 26. - two miles further came up with the army - horses found. Camped on the river on beautiful high ground to build a garrison."

During the months of September and October the trees were felled, the timbers hewn out and the walls of the fort erected. These consisted of a rough palisade or stockade of heavy timber about 150 feet square. The northwest and southwest corners terminated in the blockhouses - small buildings in the corners (forming part of the walls).

The blockhouses and bastions were two stories high and pierced on both faces with embrasures, above and below, through which to fire on the eneni}-. Within the fortifications and forming the western line were the soldiers' barracks - rude, log huts. The gate opened toward the east. On the north side of this was the guard house, on the south the magazine, and near it the well. Along the northern side were the stables, sheds, etc., for the accommodation of the garrison. It is an interesting fact, as shown in the war department records, that previous to 1815 the total sum expended on Fort Harrison was $297.67, and none subsequent.

After building the fort. General Harrison went on to meet the hostile tribes that had gathered under Tecumseh's leadership on the upper Wabash. Xtar the present site of Lafayette, on Tippecanoe river, on the early morning of November 7, he was suddenly and furiously attacked by the Indians under the direction and inspiration of the Prophet. The battle of Tippecanoe, declared to be the most important battle ever fought on Indiana soil, finally broke the power of the Indian confederacy of the middle west. The power of the Prophet was broken, and those Indians that did not disperse to their homes and resume peaceful relations with the whites, fled to Canada and actively joined the British forces in the war of 1812, which soon followed.

Fort Harrison in the meantime continued as an outpost to guard the frontier, and throughout the war with Great Britian a garrison was kept on duty there.

In 1812 the fort was under the command of Captain Zachary Taylor of the Seventh Infantry, U. S. A., garrisoned by a company of that regiment. In the fall of this year there was a general state of sickness throughout the entire Wabash valley. A kind of epidemical fever swept over the whole country. The company at Fort Harrison was nearly all siok, to such a degree as to be incapacitated for service, and this fact became known, it is thought, to the Indians. The wily Prophet slightly recovering from his defeat at Tippecanoe in the November previous, and aided by the British, planned an expedition against Fort Harrison.

There are many accounts of the defense of Fort Harrison by Zachary Tavlor, among the best of which is that by the late General Charles Cruft, in an address delivered by him to a historical society of Terre Haute probably in the early fifties. It was printed in the first Terre Haute directorv published in 1858, of which there are several copies extant in Terre Haute. This history of the little battle at Terre Haute by General Cruft is peculiarly interesting. It indicates the interest, of the then young lawyer, in thrilling military deeds, but how little could that young lawyer, ten years or so before the Civil war, realize that he himself would some years later write reports of battles and of movements and charges of bodies of soldiers far greater in minibcr than any army ever commanded by Captain or General Taylor, and in battles more desperately fought and bloody than any Taylor ever participated in? Uut we will quote here Capt. Z. Taylor's report of the defense of Fort Harrison, as being less accessible than the Cruft version, and because it is the original of all other stories. It is a very graphic, vivid story, of a brilliant deed, and it reveals the great and soldierly qualities of the renowned Indian fighter and conqueror of Santa Anna. Here are shown his bravery, coolness, and resourcefulness, that he was unmoved when others were panic-stricken, had a remarkable ability of inspiring men with courage, and was indeed a general armed at all pitints to meet the most daring or circumvent the most crafty foe.

( )n Thursday, September 3, 1812, immediately after the retreatbeating, the discharge of four guns was heard by the inmates of the fort in the direction in which two }'oung men had been engaged in making hay, only about four hundred yards distant. The commander immediatelv conjectured that these young men had been killed by the Indians, but the lateness of the hour prevented sending out to see. Thev did not return and at 8 o'clock the following morning, a corporal with a small partv was dispatched in search of them, being cautioned against an ambuscade. The party soon discovered their bodies and brought them into the fort. Each had been shot down with two balls, scalped and mutilated in a horrible manner.

Late in the evening of that day (September 4th), an old chief, bv the name of Lenar, with some thirty or forty Indians - principally chiefs of the various tribes comprising the Prophet's party^arrived in sight of the fort, bearing a white flag. A Shawanese Indian, who spoke good English, announced to Captain Taylor that Lenar wished to speak with him in a friendly manner, on the following morning and try to obtain some provisions.

At retreat-beating, next night. Captain Taylor personally examined the soldiers' arms, found them in good order, and distributed cartridges to complete their number to sixteen rounds each. Owing to the illness of the garrison it had been impossible for some time previous to mount a guard of more than six privates and two non-commissioned officers.

"From the unhealthfulness of my company," says Captain Ta^-lor in his dispatches to Governor Harrison, immediately after the battle. "1 had not considered my force adequate to the defense of this fort, shoukl it be vigorously attacked, for some time past."

He had himself just recovered from a severe attack of fever and was unable to be up much during the night. When about to retire, he cautioned the guard to be most vigilant, and ordered one of the non-commissioned officers to walk around the inside during the whole night, as the sentinels could not, from their position see every part of the fortification, and an attack was expected before morning.

At 1 1 o'clock at night the garrison was alarmed by the firing of one of the sentinels. Captain Taylor immediately sprang up and ordered the men to their posts. It was soon discovered that the Indians had fired the lower blockhouse, containing the property of the army contractor. The discharge of guns soon commenced briskly on both sides, but the alarm of "Fire" spread great consternation within the fort and the men were slow in executing the orders given. Such was the extreme darkness of the night that, although the upper part of the block house was occupied by a corporal's guard as an alarm post, yet it was fired, undiscovered, in several holes made by the cattle in licking out the salt stored there.

In a few minutes the flames reached a quantity of whisky contained below, and ascending to the roof spread with fearful rapidity, baffling every effort to stay them.

As the block house adjoined the barracks, which constituted one line of the fortifications, most of the men gave themselves up for lost. Indeed, the raging of the fire, the hideous yells of the blood-thirsty savages, the cries of the women and children who had taken refuge in the fort, the shrill reports; of the rifles, the darkness of the night, the weakness of the garrison and the vast superiority of the enemy, were enough to appall the stoutest heart.

Fortunately, however, the presence of mind of Captain Taylor never forsook him. While the fire was raging he ordered water to be brought and placed a number of men upon the roof of the barracks, with orders to tear off that part next adjoining the burning house, while the remainder poured a heavy fire upon the Indians from the block house and bastions.

The roof was torn oft' under a shower of bullets with a loss of but one man killed and two wounded. This success inspired the desponding soldiers and prevented the flames from spreading.

The garrison then set to work with such alacrity that they had before day erected a temporary breastwork across the gap occasioned by the burning of the block house, although the Indians continued to pour a heavy fire of balls and showers of barbed arrows into every part of the fort, during the whole seven hours that the attack lasted.

On the first appearance of the fire two of the best soldiers leaped over the pickets, in despair ; towards day one of them returned, shockingly wounded ; the other was cut to pieces by the savages. After keeping up a constant fire until 6 o'clock in the morning which was returned with great effect by the garrison after daylight, the Indians retreated beyond the reach of the guns of the fort. They then drove together all the horses and hogs belonging to the garrison and citizens,, and shot them in their sight. They drove off with them all the cattle belonging to the fort, amounting to seventy or more head.

In this attack the garrison had but six killed and wounded, the loss of the Indians was much greater and as they were sufficiently strong to carry oft' their dead and wounded their loss never could be accurately ascertained. At the time of the attack there were but fifteen effective men in the garrison, the remainder being either sick or convalescent, while the force of the Indians amounted to several hundred.

Disheartened by the ill success of their first attack, the Indians made no further attempt on the fort, although they remained during the next day in the vicinity and at length retreated to White river, committing depredations on a small settlement in that vicinity.

The garrison of the fort, however, were still in a perilous situation from want of provisions. Having lost their stores by fire, and cattle bv the Indians, they were compelled to live on green corn.

Captain Taylor immediately attempted to send intelligence of his situation to Governor Harrison at Vincennes, and dispatched two men in a canoe down the river. They were intercepted by the Indians and forced to return. He next dispatched his orderly sergeant and another man by land through the woods. They reached the governor, and the garrison was soon relieved by a force of Kentucky volunteers under General Hopkins, amounting to nearly 4,000 men, which after the relief of Fort Harrison were ordered to make a campaign against the Indians in the vicinity of the Peoria towns.

Captain Taylor, for his gallant conduct in defense of the fort was upon recommendation of General Harrison, promoted to a brevet major, being the first brevet upon the army register.

A. C. Duddleston, in an article published in the Magazine of American History, July, 1892, gave the subsequent history of Fort Harrison as follows :

"After Taylor gave up the command of Fort Harrison, Major Sturgis of the regulars was in charge of the post until 1816; he was succeeded by Major John Chunn, who had been in command of Fort Knox, at Vincennes. Dr. Benjamin F. Swaft'ord, an old and well-known physician of this city, w'ho spent his boyhood in the neighborhood of the old fort, and who is replete with interesting facts concerning it, has in his posession [1892] the original order by which Major Chunn was transferred from Fort Knox to Fort Harrison. It was yellow with the roll of years, a document prized highly b_v its owner, who will not allow it out of his possession. It reads :

Sir: Having been informed by Major Morgan that he has marched out of the department by order of General Jackson, and that in consequence Major Morgan thought it his duty to order you to occupy with your command the fort he had left, you will continue to make Port Harrison your station, and consider yourself commandant thereof. Such of the publick property that without great expense be removed from Port Harrison you will cause to be removed and placed in as much security from depredation and from the weather as your stores will admit. If the quantity of small arms is very great you will communicate with the officer of the ordnance department nearest to you to learn if any arrangements have been made by his department for the removal of the arras and supplies of ordnance stores. Take care, however, to have your command as well furnished as possible with the means of defense, and always be on your guard against Indians, never permitting them to take any undue liberties, and punish promptly any insult they may offer - it is the best way to keep on good terms with them. You will at the same time prevent any person from abusing or maltreating the Indians, considering yourself their protector in all that regards their rights and privileges.

You will be pleased to send me sketch of the fort and grounds in the vicinity, stating the number the barracks will contain, the nature of the soil about the fort and the general quality of the land near you. Also, whether the position Is well chosen, whether It is healthy, and the quality of the water. Be pleased, also, to give a statement of the different tribes of Indians in your neighborhood, and the amount of warriors in each tribe. Also the state of the fort as to comfort and defense. And, finally, any information touching the command.

"Major Chunn remained in command of the post untill 1819, when he was transferred to Detroit. He afterwards returned to the fort and was in command of it from some time in 1821 until it was dismantled by order of the government in 1822. He lived in the vicinity of Terre Haute until his death, which occurred in 1847. A married daughter and other descendants bearing his name still [1892] reside in A'^ermilion county. He was of the highest standing in the Masonic fraternity, and assisted in the organization of Terre Haute lodge in 1819, one of the oldest lodges in the state, on wljose records his name may be found.

"Traces of fortifications existed here as late as the fifties, and the block houses were preserved nearly intact until 1849. After these disappeared the logs were for a long time to be seen lying about the old site, but for years the only thing that has served to define the location of the fort is the well, now in the last stages of disuse."

Captain James Hite, body-.s:uard to Harrison, helped select the site of Fort Harrison. Born in Kentuck)' in 1794, an army quartermaster at 17, captain at 18. he was in the Indian and British war of 1812, was at the battle of Tippecanoe, rode in one of the vessels captured from the British by Commodore Perry, and after the battle of the Thames, saw Tecumseh dead on the battlefield. As private in a cavalry company he went to \'incennes in 181 1, and was present when Tecumseh with twenty or thirty of his followers gathered in the door yard of the govenor's mansion. On the march north preceding" the battle of Tippecanoe, the troops camped two miles below the city and Harrison took a body-guard 'of twenty privates and several officers, Hite among them, to select a site for the fort. They proceeded north fifteen miles, camping at a beautiful spring, and returning met the main body at a spot which pleased Harrison as the best site for the fort. Hite's testimony is that it took two weeks to build the fort, which enclosed about two acres. The block house and the pickets were made of logs eighteen or twenty feet long, set upright three feet in the ground, and as closely as possible. Jack-oak trees and grape vines abounded.

Hite asserted that Tecumseh's body, when he saw it lying on the Thames battlefield, had slabs of skin removed from the side. Soldiers declared that an Indian's skin made the best razor strops in the world. Though he had seen the chief at Vincennes, Hite was unable to identify him, but when Harrison came he said there should be a scar over the right eye, which proved true. Some years later when Colonel Dick Johnson made a speech in Terre Haute, he was banteringly asked, "Who killed Tecumseh?'' and quickly responded, "Tf Brother Jimmy [Hite] was alive he could tell."

James JModesitt ( sometimes said to be the second child, or boy, born in Terre Haute) and Luther Hayes made the original picture of Fort Harrison from which all the pictures now seen are copies. It is possible that Mr. Modesitt saw the old fort in his boyhood, and the picture is correct an'd corresponds with all descriptions of the log fortress.

It was told years afterward that during the attack on the fort, when the women were crying to Taylor that they would be taken and butchered by the savages and implored him to prevent such a catastrophe, "Certainly," said the unmoved captain, " I will prevent it, I will set fire to the magazine and blow up the fort if I can't whip the red savages."

The origin of the name Honey Creek goes back, according to one story, to the time of the attack on Fort Harrison. A company of soldiers the night before the battle, while camped on the banks of the stream, found a bee tree in which was a large quantity of honey. They cut off the section of the trunk holding tlie honey, and running a stick through the hollow started to carry it to camp on their shoulders. But in crossing the creek on a log they fell in, and most of the honey went to sweeten the waters of the creek. Hence the origin of the name. This story was told by Thomas H. Files, one of the soldiers who fell in the stream, but another pioneer, Mr. Ross, was of the opinion that the name came from the honev locust trees that used to abound in the county.