This officer, a Kentuckian not yet twenty-one years old, who honored the regiment to which he belonged, deliberately disobeyed his commander.

By so doing he sounded a ringing note which was like the call of trumpets amidst the failures, the cloudy uncertainties, the lack of virile leadership, that had strewn the path of the war.

In writing he sent this reply back to General William Henry Harrison: "We have determined to maintain this place, and by Heaven, we will." It was a turning point, in a way, presaging more hopeful events, a warning that youth must be served and that the doddering oldsters were to give place to those who could stand up under the stern and exacting tests of warfare.

Such rash ardor was not according to precedent.
Harrison promptly relieved the impetuous Croghan of his command and sent a colonel to replace him.

But Croghan argued the point so eloquently that the stockade was restored to him next day and he won his chance to do or die.