Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in town will be fair with a high of fifty-six. Sunrise today is 6:57 AM and sunset is 6:29 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with eighty-nine percent of its visible disk illuminated.
A camera crew in Iceland recorded the volcanic eruption of the Bardabunga Volcano using a small Phantom 2 quadcopter. The first video below shows their work, and the second video explains how much effort it took to get close to the volcano and make a recording:
On this day in 1813, future president William Henry Harrison defeats a combined British and Indian force at the Battle of the Thames:
Shortly after daybreak on October 5, after ordering his troops to abandon their half-cooked breakfast and retreat a further two miles, Procter formed the British regulars in line of battle with a single 6-pounder cannon. He planned to trap Harrison on the banks of the Thames, driving the Americans off the road with cannon fire. However, he had taken no steps towards fortifying the position (e.g. by creating abatis or throwing up earthworks), so the ground presented no obstacle to the American mounted troops, while scattered trees masked the British fire. Tecumseh’s warriors took up positions in a black ash swamp on the British right to flank the Americans. Tecumseh rode along the British line, shaking hands with each officer, before joining his warriors.[12]
General Harrison surveyed the battlefield and ordered James Johnson (brother of Richard Mentor Johnson) to make a frontal attack against the British regulars with his mounted Kentucky riflemen. Despite the Indians’ flanking fire, Johnson broke through, the British cannon having failed to fire. The exhausted, dispirited and half-starved British troops fired one ragged fusillade before giving way. Immediately Procter and about 250 of his men fled from the field. The rest surrendered.
Tecumseh and his followers remained and carried on fighting. Richard Johnson charged into the Indian position at the head of about 20 horsemen to draw attention away from the main American force, but Tecumseh and his warriors answered with a volley of musket fire that stopped the cavalry charge. Fifteen of Johnson’s men were killed or wounded, and Johnson himself was hit five times. Johnson’s main force became bogged down in the swamp mud. Tecumseh is believed to have been killed during this fighting. The main force finally made its way through the swamp, and James Johnson’s troops were freed from their attack on the British. With the American reinforcements converging and news of Tecumseh’s death spreading quickly, Indian resistance soon dissolved.
Colonel Johnson may have been the one who shot Tecumseh, though the evidence is unclear. William Whitley, a Revolutionary War veteran, is also credited with killing Tecumseh. Whitley, of Crab Orchard, Kentucky, volunteered for the raid on Tecumseh’s camp, and was killed during the attack. Before the attack, he had requested that General Harrison have his scalp removed if he died and send it to his wife.
After the battle, American mounted troops moved on and burned Moraviantown (marked today by the Fairfield Museum on Longwoods Road), a settlement of pacifist Christian Munsee of the Moravian Church, who had not participated in the fighting. Because the enlistments of the militia component of Harrison’s army were about to expire, the Americans retired to Detroit.