Surprise Attack at Tippecanoe: Beginning of the End of Tecumseh's Confederacy William Henry Harrison led soldiers and frontiersmen to destroy the Indian confederacy organized by Shawnee leaders on Tippecanoe River. Here's What You Need to Know: Tecumseh's prestige, as well as all hopes for a grand Indian confederacy, had been shattered at Tippecanoe. For William Henry Harrison, the letter he received on October 12, 1811, constituted not only official orders, but something of a personal vindication as well. As the governor of Indian Territory, Harrison had been warning the War Department for more than five years of the dangerous threat posed by the Shawnee tribal leader Tecumseh and his brother, Tenskwatawa, called the Prophet. Although President James Madison had repeatedly urged Harrison to continue showing forbearance in dealing with the increasing number of border killings, Secretary of War William Eustis, on his own initiative, had issued a new set of instructions that granted the governor wide latitude in dealing with the Prophet and his followers encamped on the Tippecanoe River. “You will approach and order him to disperse,” wrote Eustis. “If he neglects or refuses to disperse he will be attacked and compelled to it by the force under your command.” Harrison had been anxiously preparing for such a move against the Prophet and quickly reported to Eustis that “nothing now remains but to chastise him and he shall certainly get it.”