Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI. Mr. Harrison's first appointment—His services under St. Clair and Wilkinson—Wayne's campaign. Mr. Harrison received his first commission as an ensign in the first regiment of United States artillery, then stationed at Fort Washington, and immediately set out to join the army. He arrived at Fort Washington just after the defeat of General St. Glair's army, and witnessed the gathering in at that post of the broken fragments of that gallant band, which had marched out but a few weeks before in the pride of military power, and now returned a mutilated, disorganized, and panic-stricken corps. The whole defence of the frontier now devolved on a few men, while the Indians, flushed with victory, had grown more audacious than ever. The winter was setting in, and such were the hardships to be anticipated by those who were destined to protect the distant outposts of the wilderness, that the stoutest hearts might have failed, and the hardiest veterans have shrunk from the unequal contest. Harrison, young, slender, and apparently frail, was advised by his comrades to decline a service for which his constitution and early habits seemed to have rendered him peculiarly unfit. But his was not a spirit to recoil from danger. The same boldness and energy of character—the same prodigal exposure of his own person to danger and fatigue, which have marked his conduct through life, were displayed at the commencement of his career. The first duty confided him was to command an escort having charge of a train of pack-horses bound for Fort Hamilton. The duty was difficult and perilous, requiring great exposure by night and by day, continual watchfulness, and a greater degree of sagacity than would ordinarily have been expected in a youth of nineteen. But he acquitted himself in a manner...