词条 | Harrison, William Henry |
释义 | Harrison, William Henry president of United States born February 9, 1773, Charles City county, Virginia 【U.S.】 died April 4, 1841, Washington, D.C., U.S. ![]() Born at Berkeley, a Virginia plantation, Harrison was descended from two wealthy and well-connected Virginia families. His father, Benjamin Harrison, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the Continental Congress. A brother, Carter Bassett Harrison, served six years in the House of Representatives. William Henry Harrison attended Hampden-Sydney College in 1787, then studied medicine in Richmond, Virginia, and in Philadelphia with Benjamin Rush (Rush, Benjamin). At age 18 Harrison enlisted as an army officer, serving as an aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne (Wayne, Anthony), who was engaged in a struggle against the Northwest Indian Confederation over the westward encroachment of white settlers. Harrison took part in the campaign that ended in the Battle of Fallen Timbers (Fallen Timbers, Battle of) (August 20, 1794), near present-day Maumee, Ohio. He was named secretary of the Northwest Territory, a vast tract of land encompassing most of the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, in 1798, and he was sent to Congress as a territorial delegate the following year. In May 1800 Harrison was appointed governor of the newly created Indiana Territory, where, succumbing to the demands of land-hungry whites, he negotiated between 1802 and 1809 a number of treaties that stripped the Indians of that region of millions of acres. Resisting this expansionism, the Shawnee intertribal leader Tecumseh organized an Indian uprising. Harrison, leading a force of seasoned regulars and militia, defeated the Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe (Tippecanoe, Battle of) (November 7, 1811), near present-day Lafayette, Indiana, a victory that largely established his military reputation in the public mind. A few months after the War of 1812 (1812, War of) broke out with Great Britain, Harrison was made a brigadier general and placed in command of all federal forces in the Northwest Territory. On October 5, 1813, troops under his command decisively defeated the British and their Indian allies at the Battle of the Thames (Thames, Battle of the), in Ontario, Canada. Tecumseh was killed in the battle, and the British-Indian alliance was permanently destroyed; thus ended resistance in the Northwest. ![]() Harrison was the first president-elect to travel by railroad to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration. Wearing no gloves and no overcoat despite the freezing weather, he rode up Pennsylvania Avenue on a white horse to take the oath of office on March 4, 1841. It was said that he was as pleased with the presidency “as a young woman with a new bonnet.” In the cold drizzle he delivered an inaugural address (see original text (William Henry Harrison: Inaugural Address)) that lasted almost two hours. In it he highlighted a common Whig concern—“executive usurpation”—and reconfirmed his belief in a limited role for the U.S. president. He said he would serve but one term, limit his use of the veto, and leave revenue schemes to Congress. The address was circulated to some parts of the country by railroad; for the first time, people outside Washington could read the president's words the same day they were uttered. ![]() ![]() Additional Reading A collection of Harrison's writings from when he was governor of Indiana Territory can be found in Logan Esarey (ed.), Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, 2 vol. (1922, reprinted 1975). Biographies include Dorothy Burne Goebel, William H. Harrison: A Political Biography (1926); Freeman Cleaves, Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time (1939, reissued 1990); and James A. Green, William Henry Harrison: His Life and Times (1941). Harrison's brief service in office, as well as the administration of his successor, is examined in Norma Lois Peterson, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison & John Tyler (1989), with a useful bibliography.The life and goals of Tecumseh are viewed in a fresh light today, especially in R. David Edmunds, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership (1984). The struggle between Harrison and his Indian foes is handled imaginatively in James A. Huston, Counterpoint: A Novel of Tecumseh vs. William Henry Harrison (1987). |
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