Counterpoint: Tecumseh Vs. William Henry Harrison

Counterpoint is a saga of the conflict of cultures between White settlers and Indian inhabitants of the Old Northwest as personified in the rivalry between Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison. Alternating from one to the other, it traces the early training and education of each, Tecumseh's disappointing romances, including his deep friendship with the White Rebekah Galloway, and Harrison's early disappointments in love until his enduring romance with Anna Symmes.

It goes on to relate their rise to positions of leadership among their respective people Tecumseh, as the great war chief, with his brother, The Prophet, who became the spiritual leader; Harrison, as Governor of the Indiana Territory for twelve years and then as commander in chief of the Northwestern Army during the War of 1812.

They first met in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, when Anthony Wayne's Legion defeated a combination of Indians under Blue Jacket. Later came the confrontations at Vincennes; Harrison's move against Prophet's Town and the Battle of Tippescanow while Tecumseh was away; their encounter at Fort Meigs in northwestern Ohio, and at last the showdown at the Battle of the Thames in Canada.

Many people consider William Henry Harrison the ablest of all the territorial governors. Many consider Tecumseh the greatest Indian of them all. On the one side there was daring and bold enterprise and struggle to reach out to a bright, promising future. On the other there was daring and bold enterprise and struggle to hold to a present against the despairing prospect of no future at all.