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If any proof of hostility had been theretofore wanting, that
demonstration supplied it and determined General Gaines to act heartily
in conjunction with Governor Reynolds, and hastily as well.
Men left their plows, and, with little or no preparation, hastened to
Beardstown, where twice the number of volunteers asked assembled. In
bringing this expedition about, with as little hardship as possible,
Governor Reynolds summoned none south of St. Clair or east of Sangamon
counties.
None brought provisions and many failed to bring firearms, as requested
in the call, but through the unusual resourcefulness of Colonels Enoch
C. March and Samuel C. Christy, who were appointed quartermasters,
supplies were quickly and abundantly provided, and by the good fortune
of finding with Mr. Francis Arenz, a merchant of Beardstown, a
consignment of brass guns, designed for the South American trade, but
not so used, arms for all were provided. Governor Reynolds seemed
determined not to conform to the punctilio of bureau fighting.
To organize the army, Governor Reynolds appointed as his aids James D.
Henry and Milton K. Alexander. The task was difficult, but it was done
satisfactorily. It must be remembered that the men were unaccustomed to
subordination; many aspiring politicians whose appeals could not be
ignored clamored for recognition; many more troops than were needed
appeared, and to turn any number back might have jeopardized the success
of the expedition, yet all conditions were met and harmoniously
adjusted.
Joseph Duncan of the state militia, afterward Governor, was appointed
Brigadier General, to assume immediate command of the brigade,[75] and
William Thomas was appointed Brigade Quartermaster; William G. Brown,
Paymaster General, and A. Atkins, Isom M. Gillham and Enoch B. Wethers,
aids to General Duncan. E.D. Taylor was his Adjutant and J.J. Hardin
Inspector General on his staff.
The brigade was divided into two regiments, a minor odd battalion and a
spy battalion. The First Regiment was composed of seven companies,
commanded by Captains Adam Smith, William F. Elkin, Achilles Morris,
Thomas Carlin,[76] John Lorton, Samuel C. Pierce or Pearce and Samuel
Smith, the staff officers being James D. Henry,[77] Colonel; Jacob Fry,
Lieutenant-Colonel; John T. Stuart, Major; Thomas Collins, Adjutant;
Edward Jones, Quartermaster; Thomas M. Neale, Paymaster.
The Second Regiment was composed of seven companies, commanded by
Captains H. Mathews, John Haines, George Bristow, William Gillham, Hiram
Kincaid, Alexander Wells and William Weatherford; the staff officers, so
far as known, being: Daniel Lieb, Colonel; Nathaniel Butler, Major, and
W. Jordan, Quartermaster.
The odd battalion was composed of three companies, commanded by Captains
William Moore, John Loraine and Solomon Miller, with the staff made up
of Nathaniel Buckmaster, Major; James Semple, Adjutant; David Wright,
Quartermaster; Joseph Gillespie, Paymaster; Charles Higbee, Surgeon, and
John Krupp, Armorer. Richard Roman was Surgeon’s Mate; John H.
Blackwell, Quartermaster Sergeant.
The spy battalion, first mentioned, was composed of four companies,
commanded by Captains Erastus Wheeler, William B. Whiteside, William
Miller and Solomon Preuitt, with the staff officers as follows: Samuel
Whiteside, Major; Samuel F. Kendle, Adjutant; John S. Greathouse,
Quartermaster, and P.H. Winchester, Paymaster;[78] John F. Gillham,
Armorer.[79]
Thus organized, the little army left camp near Rushville for Fort
Armstrong, June 15,[80] 1831, about 1,600 strong, reaching a point on
the Mississippi about eight miles south of Black Hawk’s village, called
Rockport, after a pleasant and prosperous march of four days. E.C.
Berry, Adjutant-General of the State, accompanied the army, which was
met at Rockport by General Gaines, who had brought on a steamboat loaded
with provisions, secured by the General Quartermasters March and
Christy, and here Major John Bliss, First U.S. Infantry, mustered it
into the United States service.
At that point the army encamped for one night, where a plan of operation
was concerted. The following morning the army moved forward with an old
regular soldier for a guide, the steamboat at the same time starting,
with General Gaines, up the river[81] for Vandruff’s Island, where it
was expected the Indians would concentrate, opposite their village, to
pick off the soldiers as they approached. It was planned that the
volunteers should cross the slough to this island, rout the enemy and
ford the main river to the village, where the regular troops were to
meet them from Fort Armstrong. The island was covered with bushes and
vines, so thick as to render them impenetrable to the sight at a
distance of twenty feet. General Gaines ran his steamboat up to the
south point of the island and fired several rounds of grape and canister
into the bushes to test the presence of the enemy. The spy battalion
formed in line of battle and swept the island until it was ascertained
that the ground rose so high and so suddenly that General Gaines’ shot
could have taken no effect one hundred yards from shore. The main body
of volunteers, in three columns, came following, but before they could
reach the northern border of the island the troops became so
indiscriminately mixed, officers and men together, that no man was able
to distinguish his own company or regiment. Gaines had ordered the
artillery of the regulars to be stationed on a high bluff which looked
down on the contemplated battlefield half a mile distant, from which,
had the expected battle ensued, more friends than foes had been killed,
many times over.
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When the army finally reached the main body of the stream it was found
bold and deep, fordable at no place nearer than half a mile and with no
means of transportation convenient to carry the troops across. There,
within sight of the enemy’s village, they were compelled to waste much
time in idleness until scows could be brought to ferry them over.
After unusual effort the volunteers reached the village, only to find it
abandoned, the Indians having quietly withdrawn to the west side of the
Mississippi that morning. A most abortive and humiliating campaign!
Whilst in camp down the river the previous evening a canoe filled with
friendly Indians, bearing a white flag, called upon General Gaines to
inform him of their neutrality, and ascertain a place of safety to which
they might remove from the dangers of the anticipated battle of the
morrow. Had Gaines desired to pursue a tactful course and punish the
Indians, he might have learned definitely the position of the enemy and
planned a successful campaign, but he gruffly told them to be gone, and
that night they returned to the village, where preparations were
immediately made to abandon it, as they did the following morning.
Governor Ford, who was a private of Whiteside’s battalion in this
expedition, has been especially severe with Gaines in his narration of
the lack of preparation and the frightful confusion which ensued,
together with the peril in which the troops found themselves by Gaines’
disposition of the cannon on the heights above. It always is easy to
plan an enterprise after it has been concluded and all its details
fathomed by experience; much easier than before, with its uncertainties
and possible failure. The Indians left; no blood was shed; no accidents
happened to man or beast, and so long as the wish became a fact, though
somewhat ingloriously done, there should be no cause for such
acrimonious comments as Ford saw fit to record.
The enemy having escaped, the volunteers were determined to leave behind
them a record of their displeasure. The rain descended in torrents, and
though shelter might have been found for many in the frail houses, the
Indian village was put to the torch and soon consumed with flames.
The volunteers then marched for Fort Armstrong the following morning and
encamped several days on the left bank of the Mississippi, where the
city of Rock Island now stands. The island, Rock Island, was then a most
romantic bit of nature. To this landscape Governor Ford in his narrative
did ample justice: “It was then in a complete state of nature–a romantic
wilderness. Fort Armstrong was built upon a rocky cliff on the lower
part of an Island near the center of the river. * * The shores on each
side, formed of gentle slopes of prairie, extending back to bluffs of
considerable height, made it one of the most picturesque scenes in the
western country. The river here is a beautiful sheet of clear,
swift-running water, about three-quarters of a mile wide; its banks on
both sides were uninhabited, except by the Indians, from the lower
rapids to the fort, and the voyagers upstream, after several days’
solitary progress through a wilderness country on its borders, came
suddenly in sight of the white-washed walls and towers of the fort,
perched upon a rock, surrounded by the grandeur and beauty of nature,
which, at a distance, gave it the appearance of one of those enchanted
castles in an uninhabited desert, so well described in the Arabian
Nights Entertainment.”[82] Reynolds, in his “My Own Times,” page 338,
mentions a supposition that Gaines purposely retained the troops in camp
at Rockport over night to allow the Indians to escape, and that he and
Duncan knew of their flight when the brigade moved upon the village. If
he did, then his arrangement of the contemplated battle was justified.
But whether he knew of the departure or not, his measures for pursuit
were prompt, vigorous and effective, and Black Hawk realized the fact.
When demanded to return for a “peace talk,” some of the Indians appeared
at the fort without Black Hawk. Immediately Gaines sent word down to the
camp, twelve miles below, that unless the remaining warriors came in at
once and sued for peace he would chastise them. Very soon these
recalcitrants, five or six hundred in number, appeared upon the river,
picturesquely dotting it with their canoes for the whole distance.
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On the 30th of June, 1831, in full council, Black Hawk and twenty-seven
chiefs and warriors signed a treaty with Governor Reynolds and General
Gaines, which was faithfully interpreted, word by word, by Antoine
LeClaire, and is as follows:
“ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT AND CAPITULATION made and concluded this
thirtieth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one,
between E.P. Gaines, Major-General of the United States Army, on the
part of the United States; John Reynolds, Governor of Illinois, on the
part of the State of Illinois; and the chiefs and braves of the band
of Sac Indians, usually called the ‘British Band of Rock River,’ with