194 TE-CUM-SEH.
were united the prowess of Achilles and authority of Agamemnon."* These gallant warriors did not, however, give way until Te-cum-seh was shot dead in the act of advancing to close with Colonel Johnson, who, although wounded, continued on horseback, animating his men, and they retired slowly, disputing the ground with much obstinacy for some distance. They left thirty-three slain on the field, besides many killed in the retreat.
Te-cum-seh was slain in his forty-fourth year, and of the many Indian chiefs who distinguished themselves in the wars of the whites, he was undoubtedly the greatest since the days of Pontiac.f In early life he was addicted to inebriety, the prevailing vice of the Indians, but his good sense and resolution conquered the habit, and, in his later years, he was remarkable for temperance. Glory became his ruling passion, and in its acquisition he was careless of wealth, as, although his presents and booty must have been of con- siderable value, he preserved little or nothing for himself. In height he was five feet ten inches, well formed, and capable of enduring fatigue in an extraordinary degree. His carriage was erect and commanding, and there was an air of hauteur in his countenance, arising from an elevated pride of soul, which did not forsake it when life was extinct. He was habitually taciturn, but when excited, his eloquence was nervous, concise, and figurative, as will be seen by the subjoined specimens, suffering as they do under all the disadvantages of translation. His dress was plain, and he was never known to indulge in the gaudy decoration of his person, which is the common practice of the Indians. On the day of his death, he wore a dressed deer skin coat and pantaloons. He was present in almost every action against the Americans, from the period of Harmer's defeat, to the battle of the Thames, — was several times wounded, — and always sought the hottest of the fire. After the victory, his lifeless corpse was viewed with great interest by the American officers, who declared that the contour of his fea- tures was majestic even in death. And notwithstanding it is said by an American writer, that " some of the Kentuckians disgraced themselves by committing indignities on his dead body. He was scalped, and otherwise disfigured."
- American History.
t Mrs. Grant, in her " Memoirs of an American Lady," in the second volume, describes the deeds of Pondiac, as she spells his name, who, in 1764, waged war against the British in Canada, and nearly captured Detroit by surprise. Before the capture of Quebec, by Wolfe, in 1759, his alliance was anxiously courted both by the French and English. — Ed.
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