Harrison victorious: : copy of a letter from General Harrison to the Department of War.....Head-quarters, near Moravian Town, on the River Thames, 80 miles from Detroit, 5th October, 1813

The headnote on this broadside is a letter from General William Henry Harrison following the victory at Moravian Town. It describes the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, near present-day Chatham in Ontario, east of Detroit. After the naval successes of Captain Oliver Perry (1785-1819) in September gave control of Lake Erie to the United States, the British General Henry A. Proctor moved eastward from Fort Malden with his troops and his Indian allies under Tecumseh (see The American Patriot’s War Song). General William Henry Harrison, the victor at Tippecanoe (see Bloody Battle), pursued the joint force and they met at Moravian Town on the north bank of the Thames River. A Kentucky mounted regiment under Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson (1780-1850) took the lead in the battle, soundly defeating Proctor’s troops and mortally wounding Tecumseh. The loss of Tecumseh was a great blow to the confederacy that he had forged with his personal leadership. After this battle, the Indians deserted the British cause and the U.S. military frontier in the Northwest was secure.

The text that follows is in the familiar four-line verse with two-line chorus of the Decatur’s Victory group. The chorus is the same throughout. This text repeats the story that scalps were bought from the Indians at Fort Malden, here stating a price at six dollars apiece (verse 12, see The American Patriot’s War Song).

Coverly managed to triple dip on this news. Not only did he release another edition of this song with a large dramatic illustration of the battle in full fury replacing the more tame eagle and military emblem, but he also printed Pat’s Observations on Harrison’s Victory, a cantifable that might have been performed on the stage by a comic actor posing as an Irishman.