d with
the most fatal consequences. "If he is thus presumptuous upon our
advance," writes the Governor, "our return without chastising him, or
greatly alarming his fears and those of his followers, would give him an
eclat that would increase his followers, and we would have to wage
through the winter a defensive war which would greatly distress our
frontiers." The Governor's display of force on the Wabash had not had
the desired effect. While some of the Weas were returning to their
villages, and the Wyandots were reported to be urging the tribes to fall
away from the Prophet, still the spirit of treachery was abroad in the
whole Wabash country. The Miami chiefs arrived for an apparently
friendly council, but the Stone Eater was vacillating, and already under
the influence of the Prophet. Winamac, who had made so many professions
of friendliness towards the government, was now rallying his forces on
the side of the Shawnee. Reinforcements of savage Kickapoos and
Potawatomi from the Illinois river were beating down the great trails on
the way to Tippecanoe. The constant and continued influence of the
British, the "ridiculous and superstitious pranks" of the Shawnee
impostor, and the natural fear and jealousy of all the tribesmen, on
account of their lands, had at last cemented the savage union. The young
men and braves of all the clans were ranged in either open or secret
hostility against the United States.

The forces at the Prophet's Town were estimated at about six hundred. At
a council of the officers it was decided to send for a reinforcement of
four companies, but without waiting for their return, to at once take up
the march, as all forage for the horses would soon disappear. On the
twenty-ninth of October the army moved forward. It consisted of about
six hundred and forty foot and two hundred and seventy mounted men. Two
hundred and fifty of these were regulars, about sixty were Kentuckians,
and the remainder were Indiana militia, raised at Corydon, Vincennes,
and points along the Wabash and Ohio rivers. "The militia," says
Harrison, "are the best I ever saw, and Colonel Boyd's regiment is a
fine body of men." Along with the army rolled nineteen wagons and one
cart to transport the supplies, as the winding course of the river and
the nature of the ground near it, rendered their further transportation
by boats impracticable. The Governor at the last moment sent forward a
message to the Prophet's Town requiring th