One frosty morning in 1782 two horses trotted down a country road near Richmond, Virginia. The small brown mare carried the most famous cavalry officer of the Revolution—Colonel "Light Horse" Harry Lee. The big cavalry horse carried the proudest boy in Virginia — eight-year-old Billy Harrison.

Suddenly, in a field near by, a hunter fired at a rabbit. At the sound of gunfire the big war horse reared, startled, and galloped across the field, straight toward a wall, as if he were leading a charge. Billy Harrison was a good rider and he wasn't exactly scared, but he wished Traveler weren't going quite so fast. He got ready for a jump—he clamped his knees tight to Traveler's sides, leaned forward and gave the horse his head. Then they were at the wall. . . sailing up . . . up — and over!

That was Billy Harrison's first taste of real cavalry riding. But he had always wanted to be a cavalryman, and Colonel Lee had always been his greatest hero. At home, on Berkeley plantation, Billy had acted out all of Lee's raids. His "troop" there had been his sister Sally, the Negro servants' children and Smoky, the black spaniel. Those games had been fun — but nothing to compare with a charge on Lee's own horse! Billy felt almost glad he had left Berkeley.

In the last few years the Revolution had come close to the great plantation on the James River. Its shipyard, where boats had once been built to carry Harrison tobacco to England, lay idle. Billy's older brothers were away fighting. Mr. Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was with the government in Richmond. And the traitor Benedict Arnold, with a force of English redcoats, had marched on Berkeley and forced the Harrisons to flee. Those had been exciting days.

Billy grew up with the story of the five Benjamins—Harrison men who had served Virginia in each generation since Jamestown was founded. He was proud of those ancestors, and meant to make them proud of him. He thought he could serve best as a physician, but after an apprenticeship he turned to the Army. Billy Harrison became one of the heroes of the frontier. Throughout the Northwest Territory he was famous as "Tippencanoe," who defeated the Indians and made peace with them. And to the young United States he was famous as William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana Territory and at last the ninth President.

Howard Peckham, who tells this story of the young Tippecanoe, is Director of the Indiana Historical Bureau and has made a special study of Harrison's career. Familiar with many little-known facts about Harrison's early life, he has pictured an authentic background, and introduced another most interesting boy character to the Childhood of Famous Americans series.

From the dust jacket