War of 1812
This portrait of Harrison originally showed him in civilian clothes as the congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory in 1800, but the uniform was added after he became famous in the War of 1812.The outbreak of war with the British in 1812 led to continued conflict with Indians in the Northwest. Harrison briefly served as a major general in the Kentucky militia until the government commissioned him on September 17 to command the Army of the Northwest. He received federal military pay for his service, and he also collected a territorial governor's salary from September until December 28, when he formally resigned as governor and continued his military service.
The Americans suffered a defeat in the Siege of Detroit. General James Winchester offered Harrison the rank of brigadier general, but Harrison also wanted sole command of the army. President James Madison removed Winchester from command in September, and Harrison became commander of the fresh recruits. The British and their Indian allies greatly outnumbered Harrison's troops, so Harrison constructed a defensive position during the winter along the Maumee River in northwest Ohio. He named it Fort Meigs in honor of Ohio governor Return J. Meigs Jr.. He received reinforcements in 1813, then took the offensive and led the army north to battle. He won victories in the Indiana Territory and in Ohio and recaptured Detroit, before invading Upper Canada (Ontario). His army defeated the British on October 5, 1813 at the Battle of the Thames, in which Tecumseh was killed. This pivotal battle is considered to be one of the great American victories in the war, second only to the Battle of New Orleans.
In 1814, Secretary of War John Armstrong divided the command of the army, assigning Harrison to a "backwater" post and giving control of the front to one of Harrison's subordinates. Armstrong and Harrison had disagreed over the lack of coordination and effectiveness in the invasion of Canada, and Harrison resigned from the army in May. After the war ended, Congress investigated Harrison's resignation and determined that Armstrong had mistreated him during his military campaign and that his resignation was justified. Congress awarded Harrison a gold medal for his services during the War of 1812.
Harrison and Michigan Territory's Governor Lewis Cass were responsible for negotiating the peace treaty with the Indians. President Madison appointed Harrison in June 1815 to help in negotiating a second treaty with the Indians that became known as the Treaty of Springwells, in which the tribes ceded a large tract of land in the west, providing additional land for American purchase and settlement.
Postwar life
Ohio politician
John Gibson replaced Harrison as Indiana territorial governor in 1812, and Harrison resigned from the army in 1814 and returned to his family in North Bend. He cultivated his land and enlarged the log cabin farmhouse, but he soon returned to public life. He was elected in 1816 to complete John McLean's term in the House of Representatives, where he represented Ohio's 1st congressional district from October 8, 1816 to March 3, 1819. He declined to serve as Secretary of War under President Monroe in 1817. He was elected to the Ohio State Senate in 1819 and served until 1821, having lost the election for Ohio governor in 1820. He ran for a seat in the House but in 1822 lost by 500 votes to James W. Gazlay. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1824, where he served until May 20, 1828. Fellow westerners in Congress called him a "Buckeye", a term of affection related to the native Ohio buckeye tree. He was an Ohio presidential elector in 1820 for James Monroe and for Henry Clay in 1824.
Harrison was appointed in 1828 as minister plenipotentiary to Gran Colombia, so he resigned from Congress and served in his new post until March 8, 1829. He arrived in Bogotá on December 22, 1828 and found the condition of Colombia saddening. He reported to the Secretary of State that the country was on the edge of anarchy, including his opinion that Simón Bolívar was about to become a military dictator. He wrote a rebuke to Bolívar, stating that "the strongest of all governments is that which is most free" and calling on Bolívar to encourage the development of democracy. In response, Bolívar wrote that the United States "seem destined by Providence to plague America with torments in the name of freedom", a sentiment that achieved fame in Latin America. Andrew Jackson took office in March 1829, and he recalled Harrison in order to make his own appointment to the position.
Private citizen
Harrison returned to the United States from Colombia and settled on his farm in North Bend, Ohio, living in relative retirement after nearly four decades of government service. He had accumulated no substantial wealth during his lifetime, and he subsisted on his savings, a small pension, and the income produced by his farm. He cultivated corn and established a distillery to produce whiskey, but he became disturbed by the effects of alcohol on its consumers and closed the distillery. In an address to the Hamilton County Agricultural Board in 1831, he said that he had sinned in making whiskey and hoped that others would learn from his mistake and stop the production of liquors.
In these early years, Harrison also earned money from his contributions to James Hall's A Memoir of the Public Services of William Henry Harrison, published in 1836. That year, he made an unsuccessful run for the presidency as a Whig candidate. Between 1836 and 1840, he served as Clerk of Courts for Hamilton County. This was his job when he was elected president in 1840. About this time, he met abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor George DeBaptiste who lived in nearby Madison. The two became friends, and DeBaptiste became his personal servant, staying with him until his death. Harrison campaigned for president a second time in 1840; more than a dozen books had been published on his life by then, and he was hailed by many as a national hero.
1836 presidential campaign
Harrison was the Northern Whig candidate for president in 1836, one of only two times in American history when a major political party intentionally ran more than one presidential candidate (the Democrats ran two candidates in 1860). Vice President Martin Van Buren was the Democratic candidate, and he was popular and deemed likely to win the election against a single Whig candidate. The Whig plan was to elect popular Whigs regionally, deny Van Buren the 148 electoral votes needed for election, and force the House of Representatives to decide the election. They hoped that the Whigs would control the House after the general elections. This strategy would have failed, nonetheless, as the Democrats retained a majority in the House following the election.
Harrison ran in all the non-slave states except Massachusetts, and in the slave states of Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky. Hugh L. White ran in the remaining slave states except for South Carolina. Daniel Webster ran in Massachusetts, and Willie P. Mangum in South Carolina. The plan narrowly failed, as Van Buren won the election with 170 electoral votes. A swing of just over 4,000 votes in Pennsylvania would have given that state's 30 electoral votes to Harrison and the election would have been decided in the House of Representatives.
1840 presidential campaign
Harrison was the Whig candidate and faced incumbent Van Buren in the 1840 election. He was chosen over more controversial members of the party, such as Clay and Webster, and based his campaign on his military record and on the weak U.S. economy caused by the Panic of 1837.
The Whigs nicknamed Van Buren "Van Ruin" in order to blame him for the economic problems. The Democrats, in turn, ridiculed Harrison by calling him "Granny Harrison, the petticoat general" because he resigned from the army before the War of 1812 ended. They would ask voters what Harrison's name would be when spelled backwards: "No Sirrah". They also cast him as a provincial, out-of-touch old man who would rather "sit in his log cabin drinking hard cider" than attend to the administration of the country. This strategy backfired when Harrison and running mate John Tyler adopted the log cabin and hard cider as campaign symbols. Their campaign used the symbols on banners and posters and created bottles of hard cider shaped like log cabins, all to connect the candidates to the "common man".
Harrison came from a wealthy, slaveholding Virginia family, yet his campaign promoted him as a humble frontiersman in the style popularized by Andrew Jackson, while presenting Van Buren as a wealthy elitist. A memorable example was the Gold Spoon Oration that Pennsylvania's Whig representative Charles Ogle delivered in the House, ridiculing Van Buren's elegant White House lifestyle and lavish spending. The Whigs invented a chant in which people would spit tobacco juice as they chanted "wirt-wirt," and this also exhibited the difference between candidates from the time of the election:
Old Tip he wore a homespun coat, he had no ruffled shirt: wirt-wirt,
But Matt he has the golden plate, and he's a little squirt: wirt-wirt!
The Whigs boasted of Harrison's military record and his reputation as the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. The campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too" became one of the most famous in American politics. Harrison won a landslide victory in the Electoral College, 234 electoral votes to Van Buren's 60, although the popular vote was much closer. He received 53 percent of the popular vote to Van Buren's 47 percent, with a margin of less than 150,000 votes.
Presidency (1841)
Shortest presidency
Harrison's wife Anna was too ill to travel when he left Ohio for his inauguration, and she decided not to accompany him to Washington. He asked his late son's widow Jane to accompany him and act as hostess until Anna's proposed arrival in May.
When Harrison came to Washington, he wanted to show that he was still the steadfast hero of Tippecanoe and that he was a better educated and more thoughtful man than the backwoods caricature portrayed in the campaign. He took the oath of office on Thursday, March 4, 1841, a cold and wet day. He braved the cold weather and chose not to wear an overcoat or a hat, rode on horseback to the ceremony rather than in the closed carriage that had been offered him, and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history at 8,445 words. It took him nearly two hours to read, although his friend and fellow Whig Daniel Webster had edited it for length. He became the first head of state to have his photograph taken, then rode through the streets in the inaugural parade and attended three inaugural balls that evening, including one at Carusi's Saloon entitled the "Tippecanoe" ball with 1,000 guests who had paid $10 per person (equal to $297 in 2020).
The inaugural address was a detailed statement of the Whig agenda, essentially a repudiation of Jackson's and Van Buren's policies. Harrison promised to re-establish the Bank of the United States and extend its capacity for credit by issuing paper currency in Henry Clay's American system. He intended to defer to the judgment of Congress on legislative matters, with sparing use of his veto power, and to reverse Jackson's spoils system of executive patronage. He promised to use patronage to create a qualified staff, not to enhance his own standing in government.
Clay was a leader of the Whigs and a powerful legislator, as well as a frustrated presidential candidate in his own right, and he expected to have substantial influence in the Harrison administration. He ignored his own platform plank of overturning the "spoils" system and attempted to influence Harrison's actions before and during his brief presidency, especially in putting forth his own preferences for Cabinet offices and other presidential appointments. Harrison rebuffed his aggression: "Mr. Clay, you forget that I am the President." The dispute intensified when Harrison named Daniel Webster as Secretary of State, who was Clay's arch-rival for control of the Whig Party. Harrison also appeared to give Webster's supporters some highly coveted patronage positions. His sole concession to Clay was to name his protégé John J. Crittenden to the post of Attorney General. Despite this, the dispute continued until the president's death.
Clay was not the only one who hoped to benefit from Harrison's election. Hordes of office applicants came to the White House, which (at the time) was open to all who wanted a meeting with the president. Most of Harrison's business during his month-long presidency involved extensive social obligations and receiving visitors at the White House. They awaited him at all hours and filled the Executive Mansion. Harrison wrote in a letter dated March 10, "I am so much harassed by the multitude that calls upon me that I can give no proper attention to any business of my own." Nevertheless, he sent a number of nominations for office to the Senate for confirmation during. The new 27th Congress had convened an extraordinary session for the purpose of confirming his cabinet and other important nominees, since a number of them arrived after Congress' March 15 adjournment; however, Tyler was later forced to renominate many of Harrison's selections.
Harrison took his pledge seriously to reform executive appointments, visiting each of the six executive departments to observe its operations and issuing through Webster an order to all departments that electioneering by employees would be considered grounds for dismissal. He resisted pressure from other Whigs over partisan patronage. A group arrived in his office on March 16 to demand the removal of all Democrats from any appointed office, and Harrison proclaimed, "So help me God, I will resign my office before I can be guilty of such an iniquity!" His own cabinet attempted to countermand his appointment of John Chambers as Governor of Iowa in favor of Webster's friend James Wilson. Webster attempted to press this decision at a March 25 cabinet meeting, and Harrison asked him to read aloud a handwritten note which said simply "William Henry Harrison, President of the United States". He then announced: "William Henry Harrison, President of the United States, tells you, gentlemen, that, by God, John Chambers shall be governor of Iowa!"
Harrison's only official act of consequence was to call Congress into a special session. He and Clay had disagreed over the necessity of such a session, and Harrison's cabinet proved evenly divided so the president vetoed the idea. Clay pressed him on the special session on March 13, but Harrison rebuffed him and told him not to visit the White House again, but to address him only in writing. A few days later, however, Treasury Secretary Thomas Ewing reported to Harrison that federal funds were in such trouble that the government could not continue to operate until Congress' regularly scheduled session in December; Harrison thus relented, and proclaimed the special session on March 17 in the interests of "the condition of the revenue and finance of the country". The session would have begun on May 31 as scheduled if Harrison had lived.
Administration and cabinet
The Harrison Cabinet
On March 26, 1841, Harrison became ill with cold-like symptoms. His symptoms grew progressively worse over the next two days, at which time a team of doctors was called in to treat him. The prevailing misconception at the time was that his illness had been caused by the bad weather at his inauguration three weeks earlier. The doctors diagnosed him with right lower lobe pneumonia, then placed heated suction cups on his bare torso and administered a series of bloodlettings to draw out the disease. Those procedures failed to bring about improvement, so the doctors treated him with ipecac, castor oil, calomel, and finally with a boiled mixture of crude petroleum and Virginia snakeroot. All this only weakened Harrison further.
Initially, no official announcement was made concerning Harrison's illness, which fueled public speculation and concern the longer he remained out of public view. By the end of the month, large crowds were gathering outside the White House, holding vigil while awaiting any news about the president's condition. Harrison died on April 4, 1841, nine days after becoming ill and exactly one month after taking the oath of office; he was the first president to die in office. Jane McHugh and Philip A. Mackowiak did an analysis in Clinical Infectious Diseases (2014), examining Dr. Miller's notes and records of the White House water supply being downstream of public sewage, and they concluded that he likely died of septic shock due to "enteric fever" (typhoid or paratyphoid fever). His last words were to his attending doctor, though assumed to be directed at Vice President John Tyler:
Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.
A 30-day period of mourning commenced following the president's death. The White House hosted various public ceremonies, modeled after European royal funeral practices. An invitation only funeral service was also held on April 7 in the East Room of the White House, after which Harrison's coffin was brought to Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. where it was placed in the Public Vault. Solomon Northup gave an account of the procession in Twelve Years a Slave:
The next day there was a great pageant in Washington. The roar of cannon and the tolling of bells filled the air, while many houses were shrouded with crape, and the streets were black with people. As the day advanced, the procession made its appearance, coming slowly through the Avenue, carriage after carriage, in long succession, while thousands upon thousands followed on foot—all moving to the sound of melancholy music. They were bearing the dead body of Harrison to the grave…. I remember distinctly how the window glass would break and rattle to the ground, after each report of the cannon they were firing in the burial ground.
That June, Harrison's body was transported by train and river barge to North Bend, Ohio, and he was buried on July 7 in a family tomb at the summit of Mt. Nebo overlooking the Ohio River which is now the William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial.
Impact of death
Harrison's death called attention to an ambiguity in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution regarding succession to the presidency. The Constitution clearly provided for the vice president to take over the "powers and duties" of the presidency in the event of a president's removal, death, resignation, or inability, but it was unclear whether the vice president formally became president of the United States, or simply temporarily assumed the powers and duties of that office, in a case of succession.
Harrison's cabinet insisted that Tyler was "Vice President acting as President". Tyler was resolute in his claim to the title of President and in his determination to exercise the full powers of the presidency. The cabinet consulted with Chief Justice Roger Taney and decided that, if Tyler took the presidential oath of office, he would assume the office of president. Tyler obliged and was sworn into office on April 6, 1841. Congress convened in May and, after a short period of debate in both houses, passed a resolution which confirmed Tyler as president for the remainder of Harrison's term. The precedent that he set in 1841 was followed on seven occasions when an incumbent president died, and it was written into the Constitution in 1967 through Section One of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.
More generally, Harrison's death was a disappointment to Whigs, who hoped to pass a revenue tariff and enact measures to support Henry Clay's American system. Tyler abandoned the Whig agenda, effectively cutting himself off from the party. Three people served as president within a single calendar year: Martin Van Buren, Harrison, and Tyler. This has only happened on one other occasion, when Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Chester A. Arthur each served in 1881.
Legacy
Among Harrison's most enduring legacies is the series of treaties that he either negotiated or signed with Indian leaders during his tenure as the Indiana territorial governor. As part of the treaty negotiations, the tribes ceded large tracts of land in the west which provided additional acreage for purchase and settlement.
Harrison's long-term impact on American politics includes his campaigning methods, which laid the foundation for modern presidential campaign tactics. He was also the first president to have his photograph taken while having incumbency. The image was made in Washington, D.C. on his inauguration day in 1841. Photographs exist of John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, but these images were taken long after the men's presidential terms had ended. The original daguerreotype of Harrison on his inauguration day has become lost to history, although at least one early photographic copy exists in the archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Harrison died nearly penniless. Congress voted his wife Anna a presidential widow's pension of $25,000, one year of Harrison's salary (equivalent to about $620,000 in 2019). She also received the right to mail letters free of charge.
Harrison's son John Scott Harrison represented Ohio in the House of Representatives between 1853 and 1857. Harrison's grandson Benjamin Harrison of Indiana served as the 23rd president from 1889 to 1893, making William and Benjamin Harrison the only grandparent-grandchild pair of presidents.
Honors and tributes
On February 19, 2009, the U.S. Mint released the ninth coin in the Presidential $1 Coin Program, bearing Harrison's likeness. A total of 98,420,000 coins were minted.
Several monuments and memorial statues have been erected in tribute to Harrison. There are public statues of him in downtown Indianapolis, Cincinnati's Piatt Park, the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, Harrison County, Indiana, and Owen County, Indiana. Numerous counties and towns also bear his name.
To this day the Village of North Bend, Ohio, still honors Harrison every year with a parade sometime around his February 9 birthday.
The Gen. William Henry Harrison Headquarters in Franklinton (now part of Columbus, Ohio) commemorates Harrison. The house was his military headquarters from 1813 to 1814, and is the only remaining building in Ohio associated with him.
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