Customer Reviews

Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This bio was first published in 1939, so the style is a bit old. But it is still quite readable. As far as I know, it is the only non-juvenile biography of Harrison in print.

The author has an excellent grasp of the details of Harrison's career as a general, governor of Indiana Territory, and Congressman. There is not much to say, of course, about his month-long administration, except for the distribution of the spoils.

The biggest weakness of the book is the author's tendency to view everything Harrison did in a positive light. For example, Harrison made some major mistakes in his battles that cost lives, yet Cleaves glosses over these issues. Clay and Harrison also seem not to have gotten along well, yet Clay is the one at fault, according to Cleaves.

Cleaves also does not clearly explain the turning point in Harrison's career--at age 62 after having left Congress years earlier and while working as a lowly common court clerk to pay off his debts, he somehow became a presidential candidate in the campaign to succeed Jackson. Cleaves attributes it to the widespread reprinting of a letter Harrison wrote defending his generalship during the War of 1812. But he overlooks the question of why it was so widely reprinted. Harrison must have had an organization to get the campaign going--I just can't see it as having been a "draft Harrison" campaign as he was so far from the political limelight. A fascinating question that Cleaves left untouched.

This book contains good material regarding relations with the Indians in the Northwest Territory. Of course, it narrates a lot of tragedy and injustice, but it also gives a dynamic and somewhat sympathetic portrayal of the Indians with whom Harrison dealt. Cleaves describes the different strategies the Indians adopted, ranging from unswerving alliance with the Britith to assimilation into white society. Harrison comes across as sympathetic to the Indians but unwilling to rock the boat to protect them from injustice. I was surprised by the Indians's varying strategies regarding land. Some happily sold, others were pressured into it, and yet others fought to the death. It's not a pretty story and something I'm not proud of as an American, but it's also not the simple story of the white man stealing the Indians' land.

Finally, Cleaves says that Harrison died not as a result of a sickness contracted during his inaugural address but as a result of walks in the cold and slush about three weeks later (something Chitwood confirms in his Tyler bio). This is the first time I have read this, but Cleaves has his point well documented. It would be interesting to read an analysis of the origin of this discrepancy.

Overall, this book is a good (and probably the only serious) bio of Harrison. You won't really understand his personality or what drove him, but you will gain a good view of his career. And the writing is fairly good as well.

This book contained everything I could have reasonably hoped to expect from a presidential biography of the subject. Naurally the book tends to gravitate to the early history of Indiana as pertains to Harison, the military acheivements of General Harrison and the Native Americans he encountered. The presidential portion of Harrison's life, I feel was conveyed fully, since this portion of his life was so breif. I particularly appreciated the way the author expanded subjects of American history around Harrison in an effort to better explain the environment and circumstances from which Harrison would have perceived them.

I enjoyed this book. The majority of the book focuses on WHH's experience as Govenor of Indiana Territory, and as a commander in the war of 1812. The book was written in the 1930's. As is typical of many biographies of its era, little attention is paid to Harrison's family or his personal life. Some may find that a refreshing change from the psychologically based biographies of today. Others may feel that an important facet is missing.

I am currently reading a bio of every President in order. With the more obscure Presidents of the antebellum era, the task of finding a quality biography becomes a bit more difficult. For William Henry Harrison the choice is extremely easy, as I believe Freeman Cleaves' bio is the only non-juvenile one readily available (a new book about Harrison will be available in October called "Mr. Jefferson's Hammer", although it does not appear to be a full biography).

With my task of selection made simple, I am pleased to say that Cleaves' biography is fully satisfactory and is recommendable beyond the fact that it has a monopoly on the subject. Freeman's biography of Harrison is easy to read, well organized, and is as comprehensive and detailed as I believe most readers will desire.

Given that Harrison's Presidency lasted only a month, from the outset of this book I was concerned that I may not learn too much new information about American History. Thankfully, most of this book is dedicated to Harrison's life in Ohio and Indiana and I learned much about frontier life of the early nineteenth century, America's relationship and conflicts with the northwest Indian tribes, and the northern campaigns of the War of 1812 which had not been previously covered in other Presidential biographies that I have read.

While Cleaves' bio is not exceptional enough to merit five stars, it is more than adequate for its task and exceeds reasonable expectations of a biography about an obscure President. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in presidential biography or early nineteenth century American and Native American history.

Okay, the author isn't David McCullough; his writing style isn't THAT good. But very few biographers are, and this one is surprisingly readable especially given that he wrote in the 1930s. Also, he suffers slightly from a tendancy to over-lionize his subject, but again, not nearly as much as many authors, particularly from that time period. But this biography's strong suit is that it provides a wealth of information about a president who most Americans know next to nothing about. Some might remember the campaign slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too", and be able to extrapolate from that and the fact that his successor was John Tyler that Harrison's nickname was "Tippecanoe"; a very few might know that the Tippecanoe in question was a battle at which Harrison fought. A particularly knowledgeable layman might be able to remember or figure out that said battle was in the War of 1812, based on the timing of Harrison's presidency (before the Civil War, well after the Revolution). What I suspect most Americans who would admit to having ever heard of Harrison will remember is that he died of pneumonia 30 days after becoming president, as a result of giving a long inaugural speech in the cold without wearing a hat or an overcoat, and according to this biography, even this piece of information is partially inaccurate; he DID die of pneumonia 30 days after his inaugural, and he DID give a long speech while disdaining a coat or hat, but he didn't become ill for 2-3 weeks after that, so it is doubtful that there is a causal relationship between the two facts.

There are biographies that I've read that were more informative and/or better written. But I have never read a biography that did a better job of increasing my knowledge of the subject, because my knowledge of this subject was so small coming in. That is why I give this book five stars rather than four.

If the reader is interested in a chronological presentation of Harrison's life, this biography may be fine. For those seeking an analysis of his life and times, Cleaves makes several factual errors and contextual omissions in his biography.

Cleaves describes Tecumseh, Harrison's principal foe in several battles for control of the Ohio Valley, as a triplet and he claims that Tecumseh's mother was a Creek. Neither is true. Methotasa, born Cherokee, was captured and then adopted into the Shawnee tribe. She married Tecumseh's father in about 1753. Tecumseh was born in 1768, nearly three years before his mother gave birth to the triplets. In order of birth, they were Kumskaka, Sauwaseekau and Lowawluwaysica. It is the third triplet, later called Tenskwatawa the Prophet, and the circumstances of his birth, that Cleaves confuses with Tecumseh.

Tecumseh is also described as the Shawnee war chief, which he was not nor ever claimed to be. The Shawnee Nation was divided into five "septs," Maykujays, Packuwes, Thawegilas, Kispokothas and Chalahgawthas. Each sept had its specific charge. The Kispokothas were the warrior sept. Tecumseh was Chalahgawtha. Tecumseh, by tribal tradition, was of the wrong sept to ever be considered for the position.

To understand Harrison's place in American history, a biography must include an analysis of Harrison's approach to western lands acquisition, his relationship with the several Indian nations and the the broader context of these events in American/European diplomacy.

There is certainly a place for a new biography of Harrison.

Harrison is probably one of the least known presidents. Serving in office for only a month, very little is written about him, and this book was the only volume I was able to find on his life written for adults.

It portrays his earlier career as an indian fighter in a very enlightening way, and lets the reader get a feel for the times that is often missed in more conventional biograhpies.

I wish the author had spent a little more time on Harrison's home life with his wife and children, but the book does shatter many of the myths surrounding Harrison's life that were published about him during the election of 1840.

The biography at times is a little slow, but overall is a good read and is an excllent insight into the 9th president of the United States.

Verbose, cumbersome, and hardly readable. Cleaves, like many authors of this period, must have felt compelled to overwrite this work so that it would appear "scholarly" to his contemporary readers. We have a new name for it in the 21st century: Bad. He repeatedly makes reference to characters not previously introduced. After page 200 or so he frequently lapses into what can best be described as listing, in no particular order, strings of otherwise unrelated facts. The only reason to read this book is that there are few if any complete biographies of Harrison's life available, so we must do with what we have. I can only hope that someone will produce a well written treatment of this very interesting figure in the future.

Despite the memorable slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" and the thirty-day presidency that will forever guarantee him immortality with those who love lists, William Henry Harrison's real importance lies in his service as first Governor of Indiana Territory and as Commander in Chief of the Army of the Northwest during the War of 1812. This well-researched (despite a few inevitable errors) book does a good job of explaining Harrison's contributions in both roles. Possibly Harrison's principal "legacy," if that is the word, was the negotiated removal of the Indian tribes from much of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Cleaves does a good job, borne out by my own reading of the surviving documents, in showing how genuinely sympathetic Harrison was to the plight of the tribes, without, however, ever succumbing to the modern temptation to romanticize them. Harrison was solicitous of the safety of friendly Indians, insisted that his soldiers show mercy to defeated enemies, and if there was anything that especially filled him with fury, it was the refusal of white juries to convict white murderers of Indians, whatever the evidence. Harrison was a hard negotiator, but, with the possible exception of an 1804 treaty at St. Louis made with some bewildered and unrepresentative Sauks, a fair one by the standards of the times. Cleaves makes the point, striking if true, that midwestern Indians who knew Harrison mourned his death soon after his succession to the presidency, since they believed that he would have been a "Great Father" whose word could be trusted. Coming so soon after the brutal Indian removal policies of Andrew Jackson, this hope may have been a reasonable one. Harrison paid for what he bought, and always prided himself on never having broken his word to an Indian. As a general, Harrison comes across as courageous but cautious, and Cleaves does a good job of describing the now almost unimaginable difficulties of terrain, weather, communications, and supply that bogged down Harrison's counter-offensive in northwestern Ohio during the last months of 1812. Harrison is universally admitted to have been loved and trusted by the soldiers who served under him, and his genuine concern for their welfare led him to devote a much higher proportion of his time to keeping them fed than to leading them onto glory, causing delays that subjected the General to much criticism in the overheated and scurrilous partisan politics of the time. Harrison, however, forever proved his courage in the hour of danger at Tippecanoe, when his camp was overrun just before dawn by attacking Indians, and the General moved calmly throughout the entire battlefield, rallying a still half-sleeping army and doing all that was needed to turn a potential massacre into a battle that was drawn at worst. The men who served under him in the Tippecanoe fight never forgot his heroism that day. Other reviews correctly note that Cleaves does not delve very deeply into Harrison's inner life, and the book is marked, for better or worse, by a refreshing absence of the speculative psycho-babble that disfigures so many modern biographies. Cleaves adopts the more old-fashioned, but perhaps more honest, course of letting the man be known by his deeds. Of the writing, let it only be said that Cleaves was no Macaulay: sentence fragments and run-on sentences abound. Nevertheless, he has an exciting story to tell about a crucial but forgotten era and the patient reader will learn even more about the times in which Harrison lived than about the General himself.

Too much info? For those that want a favorable review of Harrison's exploits as a military commander in the War of 1812 and Indiana Territory governship, this text is for you. For a more summary review, and a concentration on the presidency, look elsewhere. Cleaves falls short in providing real personal insight, and in defining political impact of the Jacksonian continuance of the Harrison era. Not an easy read, and not as thought-provoking as one would hope.