Virginia Free Press

TESTIMONIALS IN FAVOR OF GENERAL HARRISON.

From the Richmond Enquirer, Jan 9, 1813

"General Harrison, in spite of the difficulties which surround him, seems determined to press on to Detroit. Neither the cold nor the badness of the roads can deter him from his enterprise. If he fails, the world will excuse him on account of the difficulties which compass his path. If he succeeds, those very difficulties will enhance the lustre of his success.

"If he has been reported rightly, HARRISON is a man of no ordinary promise.— War has been his favorite study. At a very early age he was with Wayne in his famous campaign against the Indians.— A gentleman of very high standing, who held an important post under him during the last fall, compares him to Washington. He is as circumspect as he is enterprising—as prudent in collecting the means of an attack as he is vigorous in striking the blow."

From Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 29, 1813

"We have not words to express the joy which we feel for the victory of Harrison: never have we seen the public pulse beat so high." "And well may we rejoice. We rejoice not so much for the splendor of his achievements as for the solid benefits which it will produce. Yet, in point of splendor, we have no reason to believe that when we receive the official accounts we shall sustain any disappointment. The skill with which the plan was combined for over-reaching the flying enemy, the small portion of Harrison's force which were able to come up and cope with him consisting principally of mounted rangers under Johnson and Hall, and the short period in which the victory was achieved, will, we are inclined to suspect, impart to it the character of the most gallant and brilliant achievements. But its solid benefits require no official accounts to emblazon them; almost every eye sees them, and almost every tongue can tell them. It gives security to the frontier. Ohio may sleep in security. The trembling mother that nightly used to clasp her infant to her breast may rock its cradle in peace. The chain which bound the red man to the English white man is broken. There benefit we owe to the unfeigned activity of Perry, who paved the way, and to Harrison, whose skill, prudence, and zeal, have, at length reaped their just reward. And this gallant General has not yet put all his enemies to the sword. After digging with difficulties under which an ordinary man would have sunk after passing through a wilderness of morasses and a road so difficult of access that the wagon horses could not carry provender enough to support them during the journey, he reached the consummation of all his labors in both repairing the vices of Hull wipes of the same which he had cut upon out aoms standa on the ruins of Malden muzgles the Indian war dog and proves to the world that Americans want only an opportunity to display the same gallantry on the shore which they share on the wave.

From the Richmond Fugitive of 1814

On the Thames they were crowned with a brilliant victory because they had a Harrison to lead them. New glory would have encircled them at Montreal if their commanders had conducted them to the walls. Gaise officers but worthy of these men and to troops in the world would be able to vanquish them.

Where are we to meet with such a leader? By what qualifications are we to know him? He must not be merely brave, but bold and enterprising and decisive—always seeking an opportunity to strike at his enemy. He must be as prudent as he is brave—always seeking for information to regulate the blow. He must be abstemious not too much given to the pleasures of the table but his mind always devoted to the exercise of arms. He must have an eagle eye forever on the watch suspecting the condition of his camp, and inducing every responsible officer to attend to the discharge of his duty. Sloth and indolence must flee from his presence. His officers respect and fear him, while his men love and obey him. He is ambitious of fame, but he studies best how to deserve it. He is attached to arms—not so much because it is his business, as his pleasure.

"If any should ask where such a man is to be met with, we answer to the best of our abilities, in the man who has washed away the disasters of Detroit: who had every thing to collect for a new campaign, and got every thing together, who waded through morasses and snows, and sur mounted the most frightful climate in the Union; and the man who was neither to be daunted by disaster nor difficulties under any shape, by the skill of the coward, or the barbarity of a savage foe: the man who won the hearts of the People by his spirit, the respect of his officers by his zeal the love of his army by a participation of their hardships, the man who was finally triumphant over his enemy. Such a man, William Henry HARRISON."