So, instead of the tactical draw/strategic disaster of OTL, the Prophet wins big. The frontier army is routed, Governor Harrison is killed.
Now what?
This is not an altogether good thing from Tecumseh's POV. Yes, he wanted a war against the whites. But not yet! He very much wanted to bring the powerful Southern tribes in first, and also to get a firm guarantee of support from the British.
Also, *Tippecanoe going to be a big boost to the prestige of his brother, the Prophet... and the Prophet, while a wonderful orator, is a mediocre general and no diplomat at all. In short, this has been a victory in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and under the wrong leader.
It'll help when the first pair of New Madrid earthquakes strike, less than a month after the battle. Tecumseh's prophecies, however vague or specific, have now been justified. Still, he's going to be facing a very challenging strategic situation when he gets back to the Prophet's Town.
In the short run... a red wave of anti-settler violence along much of the frontier. Dozens, maybe hundreds of whites killed in the Illinois and Indiana Territories; thousands more flee for their lives. In the south, the Cherokee move from pro-American to neutral. They're not going to join Tecumseh's pan-tribal confederation, but they won't actively help the whites either. And the Creek Red Stick movement flares a few weeks earlier and stronger than iOTL. So, by January 1812 much of the frontier, from Lake Michigan down to Alabama, is aflame.
I suspect that, after the initial shock has worn off, all this just makes the War Hawks shriek louder than ever. Tecumseh /must/ be in British pay, after all; the mad King in London is buying American scalps, in an attempt to steal back the Northwest. So, increased pressure for war.
Tecumseh... probably goes north to negotiate with the British in December. He points to the victory as an example of what the Indians can do, and begs for money, food, and ammunition. The British are intrigued, but not yet ready to commit on a large scale; London is swinging towards placating the Americans, and the authorities in British Canada are reluctant to start a war on their own. So Tecumseh gets some food, clothes and promises, but no ammunition. He goes away gravely disappointed. (1)
From Tecumseh's POV, the best strategy in early 1812 is to negotiate for peace. After all, his movement has won a great victory, and white settlement has been rolled back over thousands of square miles. Unfortunately, Tecumseh is a coalition leader, and the tribes' blood is up. And his brother, riding high, wants a war of extermination.
So Tecumseh makes the best of a very mixed hand. He recommends an immediate attack on a small American fort. There are a dozen of these scattered along the frontier; refuges and gathering points for the whites, the loss of just one will be a tremendous psychological blow. But, Tecumseh adds, it must be a /small/ fort. Attacking a larger forts would require cannon, which the Indians do not have.
The Prophet agrees. After a long day of deliberation, the Indian leaders decide on their target: Fort Dearborn, at the bottom of Lake Michigan. (2) Take it, and the American frontier will have a sixty-mile-wide hole punched in it. White settlement in northern Indiana will simply disappear; this is a region of isolated homesteads, with no community larger than a village. And the British will see that the Indians are worthy allies, capable of effecting vast changes to the strategic landscape.
Meanwhile, in Kentucky and Ohio and Tennessee and Georgia, the militia are called out. Regular Army units stiffen them. By February 1812, a force of about 1500 men is ready to move against Prophet's Town.
Anyone find this interesting? Continue?
Doug M.
(1) OTL ammunition was the great weakness of the Indians throughout the early colonial period. Again and again, from the French and Indian War onwards, Indian tribes had to call off wars against the Americans because they simply ran out of ammo. Intelligent chiefs -- Pontiac, for instance -- stockpiled as much as possible, but with the exception of the Cherokee, none of the Indians ever developed the capability to make cartridges and shot in quantity.
(2) Fort Dearborn sat near the south end of modern Chicago, a location of fantastic strategic importance. OTL it would be abandoned early in the war of 1812 -- too small and too isolated -- and not rebuilt until 1816.