Harrison, but to break
up the Prophet's establishment. On the 27th, the Delaware chiefs
returned to the camp of the governor, and reported that the Prophet
would not listen to their council, and had grossly insulted them. While
at the Prophet's town, the Indians who had wounded the sentinel,
returned. They were Shawanoes and near friends of the Prophet; who was
daily practising certain pretended rites, by means of which he played
upon the superstitious feelings of his followers, and kept them in a
state of feverish excitement. On the 29th, a body of twenty-four Miami
chiefs were sent by governor Harrison, to make another effort with the
Prophet. They were instructed, to require that the Winnebagoes,
Potawatamies and Kickapoos, should leave him and return to their
respective tribes; that all the stolen horses in their possession
should be delivered up; that the murderers of the whites should either
be surrendered or satisfactory proof offered that they were not under
his control. These chiefs, however, did not return, and there is reason
to believe that they were induced to join the confederacy at
Tippecanoe.

On the 5th of November, 1811, governor Harrison, with about nine
hundred effective troops, composed of two hundred and fifty of the 4th
regiment U.S. infantry, one hundred and thirty volunteers, and a body
of militia, encamped within ten miles of the Prophet's town. On the
next day, when the army was within five miles of the village,
reconnoitering parties of the Indians were seen, but they refused to
hold any conversation with the interpreters sent forward by the
governor to open a communication with them. When within a mile and a
half of the town a halt was made, for the purpose of encamping for the
night. Several of the field officers urged the governor to make an
immediate assault on the village; but this he declined, as his
instructions from the President were positive, not to attack the
Indians, as long as there was a probability of their complying with the
demands of government. Upon ascertaining, however, that the ground
continued favorable for the disposition of his troops, quite up to the
town, he determined to approach still nearer to it. In the mean time,
captain Dubois, with an interpreter, was sent forward to ascertain
whether the Prophet would comply with the terms proposed by the
governor. The Indians, however, would make no reply to these enquiries,
but endeavored to cut off the messengers from t