eh. It is possible that some of the friendly Indians, commanded
by Shane, may have known him; but it does not appear that any of them
undertook to identify the body after the battle was over. Shane was
under the impression, on the evening of the action, that he had found
the body of Tecumseh among the slain; but, as Mr. Wall testifies,
expressed himself with caution. General Harrison himself was not, on
the following day, enabled to identify with certainty the body of this
chief, as appears from the testimony of a member of the general's
military family, which we here quote, as having a direct bearing on the
question under consideration:

"I am authorised," says colonel Charles S. Todd,[A] "by several
officers of general Harrison's staff, who were in the battle of the
Thames, to state most unequivocally their belief, that the general
neither knew nor could have known the fact of the death of Tecumseh, at
the date of his letter to the war department. It was the uncertainty
which prevailed, as to the fact of Tecumseh's being killed, that
prevented any notice of it in his report. On the next day after the
battle, general Harrison, in company with commodore Perry and other
officers, examined the body of an Indian supposed to be Tecumseh; but
from its swollen and mutilated condition, he was unable to decide
whether it was that chief or a Potawatamie who usually visited him at
Vincennes, in company with Tecumseh; and I repeat most unhesitatingly,
that neither commodore Perry nor any officer in the American army,
excepting general Harrison, had ever seen Tecumseh previously to the
battle; and even though he had recognized the body which he examined to
be that of the celebrated chief, it was manifestly impossible that he
could have known whether he was killed by Johnson's corps, or by that
part of the infantry which participated in the action. No official or
other satisfactory report of his death, was made to him by those
engaged on that part of the battle ground where he fell. It was not
until after the return of the army to Detroit, and after the date of
general Harrison's despatches,[B] that it was ascertained from the
enemy, that Tecumseh was _certainly_ killed; and even then the opinion
of the army was divided as to the person by whose hands he fell. Some
claimed the credit of it for colonel Whitley, some for colonel Johnson;
but others, constituting a majority, including governor Shelby,
entertained the opinion that he fe