Editing Richard Mentor Johnson (section)

===War of 1812===
{{see also|Kentucky in the War of 1812}}

====Initial service====
Within a week of the declaration of war, Johnson urged the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] to recommend the raising of troops in the western states, lest disaster befall settlers on the frontier.<ref>Petriello, p. 32</ref> After the adjournment, Johnson returned to Kentucky to recruit volunteers. So many men responded that he chose only those with horses, and raised a body of mounted rifles.<ref>Langworthy, pp. 13–14</ref> The War of 1812 was extraordinarily popular in Kentucky; Kentuckians depended on sea trade through the port of [[New Orleans]] and feared that the British would stir up another Indian war.<ref>Carr, pp. 299–300</ref>{{efn|Carr also sees, as background motives, the British hostility to slavery, and a consequent wish to disentangle Britain from the United States.}} The land war fought in the Northern United States pitted American troops against British forces and their Indian allies.<ref>Jones, p. 28.</ref> Johnson recruited 300 men, divided into three [[company (military unit)|companies]], who elected him [[Major (rank)|major]]. They merged with another [[battalion]], forming a [[regiment]] of 500 men, with Johnson as [[colonel]], with the merged volunteer forces becoming a [[brigade]] commanded by General [[Edward W. Tupper]] of Ohio.<ref>Petriello, p. 32.</ref> The Kentucky militia was under the command of General [[William Henry Harrison]], the [[Governor of Indiana|Governor of the Indiana Territory]].<ref>Meyer, p. 90.</ref>

Johnson's force was originally intended to join General [[William Hull]] at Detroit, but Hull [[Siege of Detroit|surrendered Detroit]] on August 16 and his army was captured. Harrison by then was in command of the entire Northwest frontier and ordered Johnson to relieve [[Forts of Fort Wayne, Indiana|Fort Wayne]] in the northeast of the Territory, which was already being attacked by the Indians. On September 18, 1812, Johnson's men reached Fort Wayne in time to save it, and turned back an Indian ambush. They returned to Kentucky and disbanded, going out of their way to burn [[Potawatomi]] villages along the [[Elkhart River]] en route.<ref>Meyer, p. 92; Pratt, p. 89</ref>

Johnson returned to his seat in Congress in the late fall of 1812. Based on his experience, he proposed a plan to defeat the mobile, [[guerrilla warfare]] of the Indians. American troops moved slowly, dependent on a supply line. Indians would evade battle and raid supplies until the American forces withdrew or were overrun. Mounted riflemen could move quickly, carry their own supplies, and live off the woods. If they attacked Indian villages in winter, the Indians would be compelled to stand and fight for the supplies they used to wage war and could be decisively defeated. Johnson submitted this plan to President [[James Madison]] and [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]] [[John Armstrong, Jr.|John Armstrong]], who approved it in principle. They referred the plan to Harrison, who found winter operations impracticable. Johnson was permitted to try the tactics in the summer of 1813; later, the US conducted Indian wars in winter with his strategy.<ref>Pratt, pp. 90–91; cf. Langworthy, p. 15, Emmons, p. 22.</ref>

Johnson left Washington, D.C., just before Congress adjourned. He raised one thousand men, nominally part of the Kentucky militia under [[Governor of Kentucky|Governor]] [[Isaac Shelby]], but largely operating independently. He disciplined his men, required that every man have arms in prime condition and ready to hand, and hired [[gunsmith]]s, [[blacksmith]]s, and [[Physician|doctors]] at his own expense. He devised a new tactical system: when any group of men encountered the enemy, they were to dismount, take cover, and hold the enemy in place. All groups not in contact were to ride to the sound of firing, and dismount, surrounding the enemy when they got there. Between May and September, Johnson raided throughout the Northwest, burning the war supply centers of Indian villages, surrounding their fighting units and scattering them, killing some  warriors each time.<ref>Pratt, pp. 92–94</ref>

====Battle of the Thames====
In September, [[Oliver Hazard Perry]] destroyed most of the British fleet at the [[Battle of Lake Erie]], taking control of the lake. This made the British army, then at [[Fort Malden]] (now [[Amherstburg, Ontario]]) vulnerable to having its supply lines cut. The British, under General [[Henry Procter (British Army officer)|Henry Procter]], withdrew to the northeast, pursued by Harrison, who had advanced through [[Michigan]] while Johnson kept the Indians engaged. The Indian chief [[Tecumseh]] and his allies covered the British retreat, but were countered by Johnson, who had been called back from a raid on [[Kaskaskia]] that had taken the post where the British had distributed arms and money to the Indians. Johnson's cavalry defeated Tecumseh's main force on September 29, took British supply trains on October 3, and was one of the factors inducing Procter to stand and fight at the [[Battle of the Thames]] on October 5, as Tecumseh had been demanding he do. One of Johnson's slaves, Daniel Chinn, accompanied Johnson to the battle.<ref>Snyder, ''Great Crossings'', p. 7. Julia Chinn, an enslaved black woman, sought more liberty for herself and children was different from Daniel, her brother.</ref>

[[File:Death of Tecumseh- Battle of the Thames Oct. 18- 1813 - lith. & pub. by N. Currier. LCCN91794824.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|[[Nathaniel Currier]]'s lithograph ({{circa}} 1846) is one of many images that portrayed Johnson as Tecumseh's killer.]]
At the battle itself, Johnson's forces were the first to attack. One battalion of five hundred men, under Johnson's elder brother, James Johnson, engaged the British force of eight hundred [[British Army#Structure|regulars]]; simultaneously, Richard Johnson, with the other, now somewhat smaller battalion, attacked the fifteen hundred Indians led by Tecumseh. There was too much tree cover for the British volleys to be effective against James Johnson; three-quarters of the regulars were killed or captured.

The Indians were a harder fight; they were out of the main field of battle, skirmishing on the edge of an adjacent swamp. Richard Johnson ordered a suicide squad of twenty men to charge with him and draw the Indians' fire, with the rest to attack as the Indians reloaded. But he was unable to push his troops through the enemy position due to the swampy ground. Johnson had to order his men to dismount and hold until Shelby's infantry came up. By then, under the pressure of Johnson's attack, the Native American force broke and fled into the swamp, during which time Tecumseh was slain.<ref>Pratt, pp. 94–96</ref><ref>Snyder, ''Great Crossings'', pp. 44–47.</ref>

The question of who shot and killed Tecumseh was highly controversial in Johnson's lifetime, as he was most often named as the shooter. Johnson himself did not publicly say that he had killed Tecumseh, stating that he had killed "a tall, good-looking Indian", but initial published accounts named him, and it was not until 1816 that another claimant, a man named David King, appeared.<ref>Sugden, pp. 136–142.</ref> John Sugden, in his book on the Battle of the Thames, found that Johnson's "claim is surely the stronger".<ref>Sugden, pp. 140–152.</ref> Jones suggested that the issue did not truly catch the public's attention until Johnson became a potential candidate for national office in the 1830s, and was promoted through such means as a campaign biography, stage play and song. In any event, he found, "Colonel Johnson truly was a war hero at the Battle of the Thames. By&nbsp;... leading the suicide mission on horseback, more lives were saved than lost. Johnson was lucky to have been only wounded, since fifteen men died instantly during the charge."<ref>Jones, pp. 45–47.</ref>

There are reports from Indians that support Johnson's account, but most were made decades after the battle, by which time the question of whether Johnson shot Tecumseh had become politically charged.<ref>Sugden, pp. 152–167.</ref> Tecumseh was said to have been shot from a firearm pointed at a downward angle, as if from a horse, with a ball and three buckshot, which Johnson's pistol was said to be loaded with. Evidence that it was so loaded is lacking, and the angle of the wound did not exclude the possibility that he had been stooping when shot. Some accounts have muskets loaded with cartridges containing a ball and three buckshot being commonly carried by American soldiers, and whether the Americans identified the proper body as Tecumseh (whose death was attested to by British officers who had been at the battle) is another source of contention.<ref>Sugden, pp. 140–142, 169–170, 174.</ref>

On April 4, 1818, an act of Congress requested that the President of the United States present to Johnson a sword in honor of his "daring and distinguished valor" at the Battle of the Thames.<ref>''Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1789–1903''.  Francis B. Heitman. Vol. 1, p. 576.</ref> The sword was presented to Johnson by President [[James Monroe]] in April 1820.<ref name = "p67" /> Johnson was one of only 14 military officers to be presented a sword by an act of Congress prior to the American Civil War.<ref>Heitman. p. 46.</ref>

====Return to Washington====
With the American success at the Battle of the Thames, the war in the northwest was effectively over. Although there was no organized resistance to his presence in Canada, Harrison withdrew to Detroit because of supply problems.<ref name=uva /> Johnson remained, wounded, at Detroit as his men began their return to Kentucky. Once he had recovered enough to bear the journey, he was conveyed home in a bed in a carriage, arriving there in early November 1813.<ref>Meyer, p. 136</ref> It took him five months to recover, though he was still left with a damaged left arm and hand, and was later described as walking with a limp. He returned to Congress in February 1814, but due to his wounds was unable to participate in debates until the following session of Congress.<ref>Jones, pp. 48–49.</ref> He received a hero's welcome, still suffering from war wounds that would plague him for the rest of his life.<ref name = "senate">{{cite web|title=Richard Mentor Johnson, 9th Vice President (1837–1841)|url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Richard_M_Johnson.htm|publisher=[[United States Senate]] Historical Office|access-date=June 7, 2018}}</ref>

In August 1814, British forces attacked Washington, D.C., and burned the [[White House]] and Capitol, and when Congress reconvened on September 19, with Johnson present, it was in temporary quarters.<ref>Meyer, pp. 140–141; Jones, p. 50.</ref> On September 22, Johnson moved for the appointment of a committee to look into why the British had been allowed to burn the city, and he was appointed as chairman. Johnson's committee compiled a voluminous report, but it was objected to by Representative [[Daniel Webster]], who felt the report, including much correspondence, needed to be printed so that all congressmen could study it. This postponed any debate to 1815, by which time the [[Treaty of Ghent]] had been ratified, and the United States was again at peace. With Congress having little interest in debating the matter, it was dropped.<ref>Jones, pp. 51–59.</ref> Had the war continued, Johnson was ready to return to Kentucky to raise another military unit.<ref>Langworthy, p. 31</ref>