Really Cool Stuff about William Henry Harrison
1. After the Revolutionary War, the army, in repose, became quite addicted to the sport of dueling. In a time when dueling was all the rage, young William, an Ensign in Cincinnati, stood up to fashion and eschewed its practice as injurious to his health. “After witnessing a sorrowful scene at the bedside of a dying officer who whispered a few last words of forgiveness to his triumphant and unashamed slayer, Harrison vowed to take no part whatsoever in the pastime” (p.10).
2. While serving as aide-de-camp under Mad Anthony Wayne, Harrison struck up a friendship with two other young officers, Ensign Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark.
3. As staid and steady as Harrison was to become, he was young once too. In his youth, he met Anna Symmes and married her directly against the wishes of her father. “Despite the stern injunction from a man of influence in Northwest Territory Harrison still contrived to meet his love and after General Wayne gave the would-be bridegroom his blessing, a runaway marriage was agreed to. November 25, Symmes mounted his horse and rode from North Bend to Cincinnati on business and upon that day also a wedding party gathered at the home of Doctor Stephen Wood, a tenant of Symme’s. Wood, who was treasurer of the Northwest Territory and a justice of the peace, married William and Anna in the parlor of his log house and watched them ride away to Fort Washington” (p. 25).
4. When Harrison finally was able built a house for his family, he kept in mind his proximity to the frontier and constructed it primarily for safety. “Harrison paid particular attention to details of defense. The outer walls, eighteen inches of solid brick, were slit for portholes, the broad-silled attic windows designed for sharp-shooters…in the cellar was constructed a powder magazine with walls of heavy masonry and an arched brick ceiling, and a trap-door led to a look-out station on the roof” (p. 45).
5. With Vincennes, the capital of the Indiana Territory, becoming more cosmopolitan, Harrison, as Governor, tried to initiate a higher level of civility into peoples’ lives. “The town of Vincennes now contained nearly a thousand souls. With the arrival of a better class of immigrants from the East, the Governor and his associates, many of them Virginians, were endeavoring to introduce a degree of civilization to the frontier. During the sixth year of his rule, Harrison helped to establish a circulating library in the town…Plans for the organization of a university at Vincennes were also underway” (p. 51).
6. Like Andrew Jackson, Harrison was also approached by Aaron Burr, on his crazy scheme to take over Texas, but Harrison didn’t bite. “Some months before, Burr had visited Grouseland, apparently to enlist the Governor’s interest and aid, but he never returned a second time and the true purpose of the visit was left vague” (p. 56).
7. During the War of 1812, Harrison defeated the British at the Battle of the Thames and thereafter forced the British into a rout. Because of that, the British were unable to pack their bags, leaving a good amount of intelligence behind to fall into Harrison’s hands. “Most of Proctor’s [the British General] official papers may be found in the Library of Congress and War Department archives today” (p. 203).
8. As Ambassador to Columbia, Harrison proved that he was an avid gardener. “Harrison engaged a sizeable mansion, the Garden of James, and spent much time in cultivating rows of vegetables new to that country, the seed imported from North Bend. His garden flourished abundantly in a moist soil at some 60 degrees F. The produce, freely dispensed, was in great demand at legation dinners” (p. 267).
9. William Henry Harrison became a passionate prohibitionist. “Always a temperate man, Harrison had become something of a prohibitionist, abandoning the corn distillery common to every large western farm” (p. 280).
10. Harrison was the grandfather to United States President #23, Benjamin Harrison.
11. Harrison was the first president to die while in office. However, he did not die from his inaugural address as popular legend admits. I love being all Mythbusters around here! Move over, Dan Brown!
Well I can’t honestly say that I would recommend this book to anyone. On the one hand, it sucks having to read three hundred and fifty pages on William Henry Harrison (which is 250 pages too long) but it’s even worse with the scent of musty attic assailing your nostrils. I’m not kidding here…what kind of toxin in 1939 publishing ink produces such a terrible smell!?! The book is also pretty confusing. The author does not keep up with dates and sometimes I lost the thread of what was happening and when. Granted, I don’t go by dates normally but sometimes it does matter. For instance, Harrison resigning his commission of Commander of the Army in May of 1814 made a hellava lot of difference to Andrew Jackson who then reaped the benefits. You see? The dates in the book are very unclear and too ambiguous to give you a good account of the general’s life. I’m almost ashamed but I have to admit that I wikied him a good deal.
I know I have to take into consideration the 1939 publication date, but old Freeman Cleaves is…um…how do I put this…not very politically correct. Ha! When describing the Indians of the west, he uses some terms that are no longer quite in vogue. Here’s a great example on p. 66. “Harrison discussed with these painted savages the subject of present British kindness.[italics added]” When I read this sentence for the first time, I got that electric shock that I hadn’t felt since reading King Solomon’s Mines! Nowadays we’re so coddled that I can’t even read a good old-fashioned pejorative and not cringe. I thought that “painted savages” was just something made up for movies but apparently it was an indelible part of the vernacular of the 30s. In fact, Cleaves strews the word “savages” through the entire book and undermines the American Indians almost continuously. “Fourteen hundred savages, more or less, were now assembled about Fort Wayne, a treaty assemblage exceeding in numbers that of Greenville in 1795. A defeat for Harrison at this juncture would mean an unhappy loss of prestige. Was the government’s commissioner unable to cope with such a representative throng? Harrison talked for two hours in reply to The Owl, reviewing the known conduct of the British and Americans toward the savage tribes. The British, he reminded the savages, had always encouraged them to fight the Americans, yet, if the lands they had lost in these wars had been sold the annuities thus gained would have satisfied their every want” (p. 66-7). And it goes on, of course.
I also find it interesting that even though Harrison lived through a rough part of our nation’s affairs regarding slavery, it is not even mentioned in the index.
Something else that bothered me about this book was that there was very little in it about Harrison’s private life or indeed, about himself at all. What I mean is that Harrison never really comes alive through the book. The author does all the right things by giving us a picture of Harrison’s life but he never really goes the entire distance. I don’t mean that I want the author to conjure up false emotions and ideas to make the general seem alive but I sit here today and really have no idea what this guy was like. I can say that he was an upright man, for the most part, but don’t really know for sure. Maybe he didn’t know for sure. “Harrison’s public letter explained his stand, distinguishing between his championship of ‘human liberty’ and his votes against restricting the spread of slavery” (p. 253). So, yes, the same guy who fought for human liberty also has no problem owning slaves. Maybe Freeman Cleaves just didn’t have any good information on the man inside the man. But I do know this—I barely got any information at all about his home life. I read about his runaway marriage (thrilling stuff) and that is positively the last thing you read about his wife. Anna is alluded to briefly and you really only hear about his children when they’re born….and that’s 10 kids he had! Plus the end of the book was rather abrupt. WHH died, there was a funeral, and…and the book ends there. It’s weird.
One good thing about the book is the plethora of maps, pictures and portraits sprinkled throughout it. I love being able to see the stuff that I usually have to imagine. Cleaves also gives a really detailed and interesting background on the Harrison family that brings a saga-like feel to the book. He starts with Benjamin Harrison the first and winds us up with Benjamin Harrison V and the birth of WHH. Being able to picture William within the context of the larger Harrison clan was really interesting from a psychological standpoint.
The author also goes into great descriptive narrative over the conditions of the common soldier during the War of 1812. It’s really rather horrific but I prefer this to the author ignoring it altogether. I enjoyed getting the western perspective during the War of 1812 and all the triumphs and defeats that were going on there while Washington burned and Andrew Jackson fought at New Orleans.
While William Henry Harrison was not president for very long, he played a major role in the course of our nation’s history, heavily influencing the events in the West. For that alone, we should always remember him.
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