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William Henry Harrison Biography
William Henry Harrison was born in a wealthy Virginia family of planters. He was born in 1773. He went on to study classics and history at the Hampden Sydney College and thereafter he started to study medicine in Richmond in 1791. |
However, the same year that Harrison started studying medicine, he decided to join the First Infantry of the Regular Army which made him move to the Northwest. It was in this region that Harrison spent most of life.
In 1798, Harrison resigned from the army to become the Secretary of the Northwest Territory. He was the first delegate to the Congress from this region. Harrison was instrumental in getting a legislation passed for breaking the Territory into the Northwest and Indiana Territory. In 1801, Harrison became the governor of Indiana Territory, a position that he held for the next 12 years.
As the governor, Harrison's main task was to get the lands of the Indian for more settlers. However, the Indians were not too pleased with this and planned a retaliation. In 1809, the threat became quite serious as Chief Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet formed a confederation to fight the army. Finally, in 1811, Harrison got the permission to fight this confederacy.
While Tecumseh was away looking for allies to help him deter the Indiana Territory army, Harrison took a thousand soldiers to attack the Prophet's village. However, before dawn, Harrison and the soldiers were attacked on Tippecanoe River. Although Harrison was able to repulse the attack, around 190 men died and got wounded. It was this battle that earned Harrison his nickname, Old Tip.
Then in the Battle of Thames on October 5, 1813, Harrison was successful in not only defeated a combined force of the British and the Indians but also in killing Tecumseh. This broke the resistance of the Indians and they were never a serious threat again.
After this Harrison started leading a civilian life, and Whigs nominated him as the presidential candidate in 1840. He won a landslide victory winning 234 electoral votes against the 60 votes that his opponent won.
The Whigs were very happy with this victory as they knew that Harrison was a nationalist but would also work according to the will of the people. However, hardly a month into his term, Harrison caught a bad cold that developed in pneumonia, and he succumbed to it on the thirty-second day in office on April 4, 1841.
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