Wheeling Times And Advertiser

Some member of the Ohio Legislature last winter, charged Gen. Harrison with being a coward, on which another member addressed letters to each of his aides at the battle of the Thames. The following is an extract from the letter of John Chambers who was one of them.

On the subject of General Harrison's personal bravery, is it not very remarkable, if he is a coward, that none of the gallant officers or soldiers who served with him under General Wayne, or those who fought under his command at Tippecanoe, at Fort Meigs, and the Thames, discovered his cowardice? and that the discovery should have remained to be made by some scurvy politician of the present day? for I will venture to predict that no officer or soldier of respectability who served with him, or under his command, can be found to "take the responsibility" of charging him with cowardice. In connexion with this subject, permit me to relate a fact which occurred in my presence, and which is calculated to give some idea of the character of General Harrison's pretensions to firmness and disregard of personal danger. On the day preceding the battle of the Thames, when his army approached the last right hand fork of the river, (called, I think, McGregor's fork.) General Harrison, accompanied by Commodore Perry and his aids-de-camp, rode forward to examine the bridge which crossed the mouth of the stream, and which the enemy had partially destroyed; and while viewing it, several hundred Indians, (under the command of Tecumseh, as we learned afterwards,) who were concealed at some cabins called Chatham, and in the bushes on the opposite side of the stream, commenced a brisk fire upon the little party in the midst of which General Harrison was. At that moment a dismounted company of Col. Johnson's Regiment, commanded by Capt. Benjamin Warfield, who now resides in the neighborhood of Lexington, in this State, came up: the fire of the Indians was so severe as to induce the gallant Perry to expostulate earnestly with General Harrison against the exposure of his person to such a fire, when no good could result from it; but the General coolly replied that he could not set the example of retiring from the fire of the enemy.— The artillery came up in a few minutes, and opened a fire upon the cabins, about which the Indians were concealed; and Capt. Warfield crossing with his company upon the timbers of the bridge to charge them, they ran off. Respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN CHAMBERS.

Moses B. Corwin, Esq. Columbus, Ohio.