The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life
danger began loading and firing, passing unscathed through the return
volley. In the general fusillade Beauchamp succeeded in shooting the
Indian at the steering oar, who dropped dead upon the deck and was
carried into Prairie du Chien, but in retaliation the savage in the bow,
with his third fire, shot Beauchamp and he fell upon the deck mortally
wounded. At this critical loss of the commander, some of the crew were
for an immediate surrender, but the suggestion was quickly vetoed by
Beauchamp, who cried: “No, friends, you will not save your lives so.
Fight to the last, for they will show no mercy. If they get the better
of you, for God’s sake throw me overboard. Do not let them get my hair.”
In the meantime Jack Mandeville, a powerful member of the crew, with the
heart of a lion, jumped into the breach, and as Beauchamp was cheering
him with cries of “fight on,” Mandeville shot the Indian through the
head and he, with his gun, fell overboard. Bullets from the shore
continued to pour into the boat, and one party of the crew favored
attempting an escape in the skiff, but Mandeville, who now assumed
command, threatened death to the first man who suggested anything but
fight.
He routed out the timid and skulkers. Darkness was approaching, which
boded evil for the crew. The bullets were falling with painful
precision, and if the boat was allowed to remain aground it was clear
that every man must die by the most refined torture.
With the judgment and determination of a brave man, Mandeville jumped
overboard and began the use of his herculean strength to dislodge the
boat from the bar.
The savages rushed upon him, but with an armored club he beat them back.
Only warily and at intervals could the whites fire in their efforts to
protect Mandeville. Seeing the futility of this style of warfare, four
of the crew resolutely jumped upon the bar to their leader’s assistance,
and in a space too brief for the relation the boat was put afloat and
the crew quickly and safely working her down stream, the gathering gloom
assisting their escape from the bullets which followed.
The battle had raged for three hours with a fierceness which no Indian
but Black Hawk could precipitate, and there he was, directing a cause
which was none of his own, he and his British band, notwithstanding his
pledges and protestations, fighting the Americans with the ferocity of a
wild beast. The casualties were two of the crew killed outright and four
wounded, two mortally and two slightly, while the loss of the Indians
was variously estimated at from seven to twelve killed and many wounded.
The other boat, which had aboard William J. Snelling, son of Colonel
Snelling, followed, but the darkness saved it from any damage, the
volley which was fired passing harmlessly overhead.
It has been said the Indian force numbered thirty-seven, but these
figures appear ridiculous when parties at Prairie du Chien, present when
the boat landed, reported over five hundred bullet holes in the craft,
and Mr. Snelling reported 693, which would allow eighteen bullets to the
Indian and leave no reckoning for the many which missed the boat
entirely. As this conflict occurred on the same day which saw the
Gagnier family murdered by Red Bird and his companions, it is not
conceivable how Red Bird could have been present. In fact, he was not,
as Black Hawk admitted after his acquittal. He was the leader and he
said so.[62]
It should be noted in this place that the miserable rumor mentioned by
Reynolds in his “My Own Times” and by other writers, of the action of
the crew upstream in debauching certain Winnebago squaws, had no
foundation whatever.
Black Hawk was subsequently arrested for this attack, but the lack of
evidence allowed him to escape an indictment. When discharged he made no
secret of his participation in the affair, but prior thereto he was the
most discreet Indian the imagination can portray. The only reference to
the court proceedings made by the newspapers at the time is to be found
in the Miner’s Journal of Galena for Saturday, September 13, 1828, and
is as follows:
“A gentleman who was present at the time of the arraignment and trial
of these Indians at Prairie du Chien has given us the following
particulars:
“A special term of the United States Circuit Court for the county of
Crawford, sitting as a court of oyer and terminer for the trial of
seven Indian prisoners (Winnebagoes), confined at Prairie du Chien,
was held at that village on the 25th ult., by the Hon. James D. Doty,
additional U.S. Judge for Michigan. Wan-i-ga, or ‘the Sun,’ and
Chick-hong-sic, or ‘the Petit Boeuff,’ were tried severally on two
indictments, one for the murder of Registre Gagnier, as accomplices of
Red Bird, deceased. On the second indictment, Chick-hong-sic was tried
for the murder of Solomon Lipcap, and Wan-i-ga was also tried on the
same as his accomplice. On the third indictment, Wan-i-ga was tried
for scalping Louisa Gagnier, with intent to kill. On first indictment,
defendants were found guilty. On second, Chick-hong-sic guilty,
Wan-i-ga acquitted. On third, Wan-i-ga found guilty; the others
acquitted. In the case of the United States vs. Wau-koo-kah and
Mah-na-at-ap-e-kah, for the murder of Methode and family, a _nolle
prosequi_ was entered and the prisoners discharged.
“There being no bills found against Kanon-e-kah, or ‘The youngest of
the Thunders,’ and Kara-zhon-sept-kah, or ‘The Black Hawk,’ imprisoned
for attacking and firing on the keel boat last year, nor against the
son of Red Bird, they were discharged.
“Counsel for the prosecution, John Scott, Esq., of Ste. Genevieve,
Mo.; for the defense, assigned by the Court, Charles S. Hempstead,
Esq., of St. Louis.
“Wan-i-ga and Chick-hong-sic were sentenced to be executed on the 26th
of December.”
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CHAPTER XII.
THE MILITARY TRACT–PERILS OF FRONTIER LIFE–GATHERING SETTLEMENTS
ABOUT BLACK HAWK’S VILLAGE–FRICTION–ATTEMPTED
COMPROMISE–CORRESPONDENCE–GAINES AT FORT ARMSTRONG.
It may be possible that this fresh outbreak was superinduced by the
gradual appearance of the hated American further and further northward
toward Black Hawk’s village, but, if true, the act was indefensible as
it was meddlesome. He deliberately assisted in precipitating the trouble
between Red Bird (who was a remarkably decent Indian) and the Americans,
without the slightest provocation.
By acts of Congress[63] bounty land warrants were voted to the soldiers
of the war of “’twelve,” and for their especial benefit the so-called
“Military Tract” was erected in the State of Illinois, comprising the
territory between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, 169 miles north
to a line drawn from the great bend of the river above Peru to the
Mississippi, containing 5,360,000 acres.[64] Into this, two classes of
settlers poured–as Catlin aptly put it, “the overwhelming torrent of
emigration to the ‘Far West.’”
From the conclusion of the first peace with Great Britain, the native
white population increased at a ratio astonishing to the observer and
writer of those days, particularly James Hall, and with the advent of
the “twenties” the overflow was moving into this “Military Tract.” One
class comprised the soldier, who was the beneficiary, with his family,
while the other was composed of families from Kentucky and Tennessee,
the purchasers of those warrants, which had been gradually working
northward from the beginning of the century, and which up to this time
largely predominated in the population of Illinois. In both of these
classes were the Indian fighters; men whose homes had been desolated or
whose fathers and mothers had been murdered by blood-thirsty savages;
men whose bodies carried lead placed there by Indian muskets, and who,
from sad experience, were not likely to receive with composure the raids
of bandit Sacs. These men were tired of tilling the soil with rifles
lashed to the plowbeam and of being constantly called away from the
field to awful scenes of carnage, where perhaps neighbor or wife or
child had just been burned at the stake. Gen. A.C. Dodge, who was a
pioneer by birth, a man whose honesty of purpose and soundness of
judgment on Indian questions have never yet been questioned, forcibly
illustrated those conditions in a speech at the semi-centennial of
Burlington, Iowa: “In the settlement of Kentucky five of my father’s
uncles fell under the Indian hatchet. Among the incidents of his very
earliest recollection was to have seen the dead and bleeding body of one
of those uncles borne in the arms of another on horseback to the
stockade fort in which they lived. My own brother, Henry LaFayette
Dodge, * * * was captured and burned to death at the stake.”
James Hall, the friend and defender of the Indian, has pictured the
vicissitudes of the pioneers who blazed the way for later generations to
follow. Among other things, we find, on page 152, Vol. 2, “Sketches of
the West,” the following:
“They left behind them all the comforts of life. They brought but
little furniture, but few farming implements, and no store of
provisions. Until their lands were cleared and brought into culture,
and their domestic animals became productive, they depended for
subsistence chiefly upon the game of the forest. They ate their fresh
meat without salt, without vegetables, and in many instances without
bread; and they slept in cabins hastily erected, of green logs, and in
which they were exposed to much of the inclemency of the weather. To
their other sufferings that of sickness was often added; and they
found themselves assailed, in situations where medical assistance
could not be procured, by diseases of sudden development and fatal
character.
“While thus overburthened by toil and assailed by disaster, the
settler found employment for all the energy of his character and all
the inventive powers of his mind. The savage was watching, with
malignant vigilance, to grasp every opportunity to harass the intruder
into the hunting grounds of his fathers. Sometimes he contented
himself with seizing the horses or driving away the cattle of the
emigrant, depriving the wretched family of the means of support, and
reserving the consummation of his vengeance to a future occasion;
sometimes, with a subtle refinement of cruelty, the Indian warrior
crept into a settlement by stealth, and created universal dismay by
stealing away a child, or robbing a family of the wife and mother;
sometimes a father was the victim, and the widow and orphans were
thrown upon the protection of the friends who, on such occasions, were
never deaf to the claims of the unfortunate, while as often the
yelling band surrounded the peaceful cabin at the midnight hour,
applied the firebrand to the slight fabric, and murdered the whole of
its defenseless inmates.”
Exhausted by such scenes, these men had come to Illinois with their
children, whose tender memories had gathered material never to be
effaced, to enjoy peaceful pursuits and erect homes for their families.
When, therefore, Black Hawk sought to renew such tactics, he trod the
mine which exploded and tore his power to shreds. The final conflict was
inevitable, and though during the first portion of the campaign, for
want of discipline, those spirited, independent and unrestrained young
fellows brought no great honor to their arms, when the iron hand of Gen.