Details
HARRISON, William Henry (1773-1841), President. Autograph letter signed ("W. H. Harrison"), as Presidential contender, to Moses B. Corwin, North Bend, 14 February 1840. 2½ pages, 4to, repaired, chipped along edge, with some losses affecting a few words.
A FURIOUS HARRISON BLASTS FOES WHO CLAIM HE WAS NOT PRESENT AT THE PIVOTAL BATTLE OF THE THAMES
"I think it is absolutely necessary," Harrison tells Congressman Corwin, "to probe this matter to the bottom & it shall be done." A colleague of Corwin, Rep. Flood, "uttered in his place [that is, the Ohio House of Representatives] an assertion that I was not in the sortie of the Thames. I immediately addressed a note to him which I enclosed to Genl. Vance demanding to known whether he had made such an assertion & the ground upon which it was made. In answer to my letter to him the General expressed the opinion that I gave too much importance to the matter & declined delivering my note to Flood until he would hear from me again." But Harrison well understood "the importance of the matter." His political fame going into the 1840 election season rested largely on his victory over the British forces at Thamesville and the reconquest of the Great Lakes region. He is worried that, "If it were passed over when the charge is made so openly & in such a place as the House of Reps. of Ohio it would be referred to every where as conclusive evidence of its truth."
Democratic partisans published histories of the battle that denigrated Harrison while giving all the credit to his subordinate, Col Richard Johnson (whom Harrison mistakenly refers to here as "Johnston"). But Harrison refers to "four distinguished men now of [sta]ture who were by my side during the whole of the battle & who know everything I said or did from the commencement to the end of the action." They are Col. Charles Todd, Gen. James O'Fallon, John Chambers, and John Speed Smith. "All of them," Harrison says, "are opposition men but Smith." Politics, he realizes, and not historical accuracy, are the key issues in this effort to rewrite the historical record. Harrison closes with some nasty shots at Johnson, and his presumptuous claim to having designed the winning battle strategy: "he could no more have drawn up the Army in the way it was drawn up than you could who must have been a child at the time. Indeed he did not know what the plan was. His rank did not entitle him to have it communicated to him."
A FURIOUS HARRISON BLASTS FOES WHO CLAIM HE WAS NOT PRESENT AT THE PIVOTAL BATTLE OF THE THAMES
"I think it is absolutely necessary," Harrison tells Congressman Corwin, "to probe this matter to the bottom & it shall be done." A colleague of Corwin, Rep. Flood, "uttered in his place [that is, the Ohio House of Representatives] an assertion that I was not in the sortie of the Thames. I immediately addressed a note to him which I enclosed to Genl. Vance demanding to known whether he had made such an assertion & the ground upon which it was made. In answer to my letter to him the General expressed the opinion that I gave too much importance to the matter & declined delivering my note to Flood until he would hear from me again." But Harrison well understood "the importance of the matter." His political fame going into the 1840 election season rested largely on his victory over the British forces at Thamesville and the reconquest of the Great Lakes region. He is worried that, "If it were passed over when the charge is made so openly & in such a place as the House of Reps. of Ohio it would be referred to every where as conclusive evidence of its truth."
Democratic partisans published histories of the battle that denigrated Harrison while giving all the credit to his subordinate, Col Richard Johnson (whom Harrison mistakenly refers to here as "Johnston"). But Harrison refers to "four distinguished men now of [sta]ture who were by my side during the whole of the battle & who know everything I said or did from the commencement to the end of the action." They are Col. Charles Todd, Gen. James O'Fallon, John Chambers, and John Speed Smith. "All of them," Harrison says, "are opposition men but Smith." Politics, he realizes, and not historical accuracy, are the key issues in this effort to rewrite the historical record. Harrison closes with some nasty shots at Johnson, and his presumptuous claim to having designed the winning battle strategy: "he could no more have drawn up the Army in the way it was drawn up than you could who must have been a child at the time. Indeed he did not know what the plan was. His rank did not entitle him to have it communicated to him."