Yes, they fought well. Their close volley had killed many Americans. The horse leader, who was Colonel Johnson, had been wounded; the horse soldiers were fighting on foot, because the swamp had entangled the horses' legs. The American infantry barely stood fast, under the first shock.
Tecumseh's voice had been heard constantly, shouting for victory--as before him old Annawan the Wampanoag and Cornstalk the other Shawnee had shouted. Suddenly the voice had ceased.
A cry arose instead: "Tecumseh is dead! Tecumseh is dead!" And at that, as a Potawatomi afterward explained, "We all ran."
Some people said that Tecumseh had charged with the tomahawk upon the wounded Colonel Johnson, and that Colonel Johnson had shot him with a pistol, just in time. Some people denied this. Colonel Johnson himself said that he did not know--he did not pause to ask the Indian's name, and did not stay to examine him! There was quite an argument over the honor--but Tecumseh did not care. He was lying dead, in his simple buckskin, and for a time was not even recognized.
A gaudily dressed chief was mistaken for him, until friendly Indians with General Harrison stated that the great Tecumseh had a ridge on his thigh, from a broken bone.
By this he was found, after nightfall. He was brought to the camp-fires, where a circle of the Kentuckians gathered about him, to admire his fine figure and handsome face. He had been a worthy foeman.
So Tecumseh quit, at last. He never could have lived to see the white men pushed across the Ohio, and all the red men occupying the West as one nation. That was not written of his star, or any other star.
But he left a good reputation. He had been of high mind and clean heart, and he had fought in the open. The British adjutant-general at Montreal issued public orders lamenting his death and praising his bravery. The British throne sent his young son, Puck-e-sha-shin-wa, a sword, and settled a pension upon the family, in memory of the father.
The Prophet received a pension, too. He stayed in Canada until 1826, when he moved down among the Shawnees of Ohio again. He long out-lived his greater brother, and died in the Shawnee village in present Kansas, in 1837. He posed as a prophet to the very last.