the Potawatomi in the
region of Chicago were on the warpath. A party of surveyors employed by
the surveyor-general to divide the New Purchase into townships, were
seized and bound by a party of Weas, their arms taken from them, and the
engineers driven in terror to Cincinnati. In the fore part of June, a
pirogue sent up the Wabash with the annual supply of salt for the Indian
tribes was seized by the Prophet and every barrel taken. The excuse
given was, that the Prophet had two thousand warriors to feed, and that
he had taken none on the previous year. Pierre La Plante, Harrison's
agent at the Prophet's Town, reported that only about one hundred
warriors were present at the time, but that Tecumseh was shortly
expected to arrive with a considerable reinforcement from the lakes.
About the twentieth of June, five Shawnees and ten Winnebagoes of the
Prophet's party invaded Vincennes bringing a number of rifles and
tomahawks to be repaired. They were boldly accused by some Potawatomi of
Topenebee's faction to be meditating war against Harrison and to be
making observations on the situation of affairs within the town.

So threatening and warlike were the actions of the Shawnee leaders that
the Governor now addressed a communication to the Secretary of War,
demanding that the Fourth United States Regiment at Pittsburgh, under
the command of Colonel John Parke Boyd, be sent forward immediately for
the defense of the frontiers. The government was in part aroused from
its state of lethargy. Recent advices from Governor Edwards had
announced a series of murders and depredations on the Illinois frontier,
and the citizens of Vincennes were in constant dread and apprehension.
The Governor said that he could not much longer restrain his people, and
that there was danger of them falling on the Indians and slaying friend
and foe alike, from their inability to discriminate the various tribes.
By a letter of the seventeenth of July, the Governor received word that
the aforementioned regiment, with a company of riflemen, had been
ordered to descend the Ohio, and that Colonel Boyd was to act under the
advice and command of the Governor himself. If necessary, this force was
to be employed in an attack upon the Prophet, but the Governor was given
positive orders not to march them up the river or to begin hostilities,
until every other expedient had failed. Hedged about by timid
restrictions and foolish admonitions, the course of the Governor w