ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. (1858-1919). Twenty-Sixth President of the United States. The limited edition of Roosevelts’ The Winning of the West in four volumes, limited to 200 copies and containing a full page of TR’s own hand-written manuscript used for the preparation of this book. The text of the manuscript reads as follows:

“...refused to join the whites; so at Greenville he was put in the guard house. After a few days he grew more cheerful, and said he had changed his mind. Wayne set him at liberty, and he not only served valiantly as a scout throughout the campaign, but acted as Wayne’s interpreter. Early in July he showed his good faith by assisting McLellan in the capture of a Pottawattamie Chief.

On one of Wells scoutings he and his companions came across a family of Indians in a canoe by the river bank. The white wood rangers were as ruthless as their red foes, sparing neither sex nor age; and the scouts were cocking their rifles when Wells recognized the Indians as being the family into which he had been adopted, and by which he had been treated as a son and brother. Springing forward he...”

By the time the final volume of Theodore Roosevelt’s The Winning of the West appeared in 1896 its author was widely recognized as a serious historian and a major national intellectual. For his history of the early frontier, Roosevelt drew upon the frontier thesis proposed by Frederick Jackson Turner at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and retraced the ascendance of the American nation as the nation expanded ever westward. During the course of his research, Roosevelt came to see that stories of Native Americans abducting Anglo-American settlers occupied an important place in America’s early national literature. Roosevelt drew upon such abductions and their aftermath in a number of instances, as in “Mad Anthony Wayne: and the Fight at the Fallen Timbers,” the second chapter of volume 4 of The Winning of the West, where Roosevelt relates the story of the Miller brothers, William and Christopher.

While still young, the two boys were taken captive near their Kentucky home by the Shawnee. Raised as members of their abductors’ tribe, the two brothers parted ways when they reached maturity. At about 24 years of age, William, who had long wished to return to white society, did so; Christopher, who had grown to love his adoptive family, remained behind. The two separated, and William imagined he would never see his brother again.

In June of 1794, William Miller was serving as a scout under the command of General “Mad Anthony” Wayne when he was ordered to capture a Native warrior for interrogation. Accompanied by two other scouts, Miller came upon three Native Americans preparing a mean. The soldiers worked their way towards their prospective captive under the cover of heavy bush, and once within range fired upon two of the Natives. Both were killed. The third ran, leaping down a steep river bank into a muddy river. The scouts continued their pursuit, and the Native American, aware he was outnumbered and cornered, surrendered. Binding the limbs of their uncooperative captive for the return journey to Fort Greenville, the three men were shocked to discover that they had captured none other than William’s brother, Christopher. Brought back to camp as a prisoner, Christopher gave General Wayne the information he desired, and was offered a position as a scout and interpreter by General Wayne. Within days he joined his brother as a member of the scout detachment, where he distinguished himself.

Two months later, General Wayne led 3,000 soldiers against Native American warriors under the command of Blue Jacket, a Shawnee war chief. Blue Jacket’s army, about 1,500 strong, took a defensive stand along the Maumee River. The uprooted trees nearby provided the source of the battle’s historic moniker, The Battle of Fallen Timbers. Early in the battle, the Native army was outflanked by the American cavalry and began a hasty retreat. Falling back to the nearby British Fort Miamis the Native warriors found the gates barred. The commander of the fort, fearing possible reprisals from the pursing American forces, refused to give them shelter. After this victory, Christopher Miller served as the interpreter for the Shawnee during the negotiations which led the Native American tribes involved to accept the Treaty of Greenville. Through this treaty the United States gained control of much of present-day Ohio, paving the way for the creation of the state eight years later, and continuing America’s steady march to the Pacific Ocean.

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