In my letter to the Secretary it is asserted that the Indians had penetrated to the center of the encampment. I believe, however, that not more than two Indians got within the lines men were certainly killed near the center of the camp, but it must have been from balls fired from without.

From this letter and my official despatch to the Secretary of War, you will be enabled, my dear General, to form a correct opinion of the battle of Tippecanoe. When an action is over, and we have time to meditate upon the circumstances that attended it, there is no great judgment necessary to discover some error in the conduct of it, some thing that was done, which might have been better done, or something that was omitted, which if done might have produced great advantage. I believe the greatest generals have admitted that they could fight a second battle upon the same ground, much better than the first. If this is true with respect to them ought it not to be a motive to shield me from the severity of criticism with which some of my fellow citizens are desirous of scanning my conduct.

A victory has been gained, and the army which gained it impute it in part at least to the measures of the commander, but this is not sufficient it should have been achieved without loss on our side. There is certainly no man more fully impressed with the exalted merits of those brave men who fell in the action, than I am among them were many for whom I felt the warmest regard and friendship but they were exposed to no dangers but what were common to the whole army, and if they were selected by divine providence, as the price of our important victory, there is nothing left us but to honor their memory, and bow submissively to a decree which we can not alter.

It would, however, imbitter the remaining part of my life, if I could suppose that their fate was produced by any misconduct of mine. But upon this subject I have nothing to accuse myself. I am satisfied that all my weak powers were exerted to the utmost, for the safety and glory of my troops. In deed no commander had ever greater reason to do so, for none ever received greater confidence and attachment from any army, than I many of the corps forgetful of their own danger, seemed only anxious for me and a sentiment springing from personal attachment alone was imputed by them to a belief that their fate was intimately connected with mine. For such troops it was impossible that I should not be willing to shed the last drop of my blood.

Your friendship, my dear General, will pardon the egotism contained in this letter perhaps I ought to disregard the idle tales that have been circulated to my prejudice; knowing as I do that there are not ten persons who served under me upon the late expedition that will not be ready to contradict them; I have sufficient stoicism, however, to rest easy under unmerited reproach, and with the consciousness of having rendered some service to my country, I can not bear to be deprived of the good opinion of my fellow-citizens.

P. S. I should have covered my troops every night with a breast work of trees, but axes were so scarce (after having procured every one that the Territory afforded) that it was with difficulty that a sufficiency of wood could be procured to make the men comfortable ; and the militia were without tents, and many of them without blankets. The story which has been circulated in some of the papers, of officers fighting without any clothes but their shirts, is absolutely false.