The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life
and we proceeded through the swamps to some timber and undergrowth,
where I expected to find the enemy. When I found their trail, I knew
they were close at hand. They had got close to the edge of a lake,
where the bank was about six feet high, which was a complete
breastwork for them. They commenced the fire, when three of my men
fell, two dangerously wounded, one severely, but not dangerously. I
instantly ordered a charge on them made by eighteen men, which was
promptly obeyed. The Indians being under the bank, our guns were
brought within ten or fifteen feet of them before we could fire on
them. Their party consisted of thirteen men. Eleven were killed on the
spot, and the remaining two were killed in crossing the lake, so that
they were left without one to carry the news to their friends.”[166]
As a matter of fact, there were seventeen in the party of Indians;
eleven were found dead, two were killed in crossing the river or swampy
widening of it and were scalped by the Winnebagoes, Colonel Hamilton,
when he came up, found the body of another, and late the succeeding
winter a French trapper found three more in the swamp close by, beneath
brushwood, under which they had crawled when wounded.[167]
Thus with the loss of the three whites in the first fire, but eighteen
whites remained to charge the seventeen Indians behind formidable
breastworks.
Dodge marched to that battlefield to settle many a bloody murder or
leave his own bones to bleach upon the banks of the Pecatonica. That
battle meant death to the Indians or death to the family of every man in
the mining regions, and in this connection it may be well to recall the
words of Mrs. Dodge when urged to retire to Galena for safety: “My
husband and sons are between me and the Indians. I am safe so long as
they live.” Those heroic words must have echoed in the husband’s heart
while grappling those brawny murderers, and hand to hand, body to body,
and inch by inch, in the death struggle, with gun, bayonet and knife,
over the breastworks, into the enemy’s intrenchment, into the jaws of
death, the little band charged and fought until every last Indian was
dead and the many murders were avenged.
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The names of Dodge’s men, so far as can be learned, were Lieut. Charles
Bracken, Lieut. Bequette, Lieut. D.M. Parkinson,[168] Peter Parkinson,
Jr., – – Porter, R.H. Kirkpatrick, Dr. Allen Hill, Thomas Jenkins, W.W.
Woodbridge, John Messersmith, Jr., Asa Duncan, Benjamin Lawhead, Samuel
Patrick, William Carnes, John Hood, Levin Leech, Alexander Higginbotham,
who was of the St. Vrain party, Samuel Black, Dominick McGraw, Samuel
Bunts, Van Waggoner, Wells, Morris, Rankin, Thomas H. Price, H.S.
Townsend, – – Devies, M.G. Fitch and J.H. Gentry, but the horse of the
last-named became mired and his gun became useless, both of which
accidents prevented his participation in the fight. Samuel Black was
almost instantly killed and Samuel Wells and F.M. Morris, wounded, were
left at Fort Hamilton, where both died soon after. Thomas Jenkins was
wounded, but not severely, and Levin Leech, while wresting a spear from
a brave, got his hand badly lacerated. The troops at once dispersed for
their respective forts to prepare for further developments. On the 18th
a fifth company was organized with D.M. Parkinson captain.
On the 20th Lieut. George Force and Emerson Green were murdered and
mutilated near the fort at Blue Mounds; one of the bodies, that of
Force, was recovered by the daring of Edward D. Bouchard, and on the
24th Dodge, with a detachment of men from the companies of Captains D.M.
Parkinson and J.H. Gentry, recovered and buried the body of Green. Here
Dodge, piloted by Bouchard, pursued the trail of the Indians as far as
the headwaters of Sugar River, and finding that they had scattered there
for various points, he returned to Mound Fort.
Horsestealing became a recognized feature of Black Hawk’s campaign very
soon after Stillman’s defeat, which he pushed with unusual vigor. He
would snatch a band of horses, and if the luckless owner attempted a
pursuit for their recovery he was invariably ambushed. On the night of
June 8th[169] the Indians stole fourteen horses just outside the
stockade of Apple River fort (now Elizabeth, Illinois), and on the
afternoon and night of the 17th ten more were stolen.[170] The number
was so large and the loss so great that unusual measures were adopted to
attempt their recovery. As nothing but a military escort was considered
equal to the search, Capt. J.W. Stephenson, with twelve of his men from
Galena and nine from the Apple River fort, started on the trail early on
the morning of the 18th, and overtook the thieves about twelve miles
east of Kellogg’s Grove, on Yellow River, southeast of Waddam’s Grove,
in Stephenson County. A hot pursuit followed for several miles. The
Indians, seven in number, finally reaching a dense thicket, plunged into
it for protection. The thicket, a short distance northeast of Waddam’s
Grove, was so dense that it was impossible to discover their location
from the open country surrounding it, and thus secreted the Indians
remained, awaiting the attack of the whites. Stephenson was impatient to
dislodge them by assault. Dismounting his men, he at first attempted to
sweep the thicket and draw the enemy’s fire, but the wily Indians
refused to shoot or otherwise indicate their position. Discarding
strategy as an evidence of cowardice, Captain Stephenson detailed a
guard for the horses, and with his remaining men made an impetuous
charge upon the hidden reds, drawing their fire and returning it, but
with the loss of one to the whites as they were retiring to the prairie
to reload. Rather than accept the loss and carefully continue the
assault by safer and surer methods, Captain Stephenson twice more
charged the fatal thicket, losing one man with each effort, while the
Indians lost but one man, who was stabbed in the neck by Thomas Sublet.
Both sides had exhausted their loads in the charge and the fight became
general and at close range; so close, indeed, that one could scarcely
distinguish friend from foe, and rather than continue against odds
entirely conjectural, the whites withdrew again to the prairie to
consult–a precaution they should have exercised in the first instance.
Captain Stephenson himself was wounded so seriously that he was no
longer able to continue in command. Of the whites, Stephen P. Howard,
Charles Eames[171] and Michael Lovell had been killed, while the Indians
had lost but the one man, and he had not been killed by the guns.
Further assaults were considered useless, and, if continued, would have
been wilful; therefore, leaving the dead where they fell, the men
returned to Galena for assistance to return and bury the three dead
soldiers and the Indian, reaching that point on the 19th.
The charges were brave and dashing, and naturally evoked the cheers of
those at Galena, but, as with too many of the same character, they were
not only ineffectual, but resulted in the loss of valuable lives.
Governor Ford, in his history of Illinois, has justly said, “It equaled
anything in modern warfare in daring and desperate courage.”
On the 20th Colonel Strode, with the companies of Capt. James Craig and
Captain Stephenson, marched to the scene and buried the dead.[172]
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Footnote 159:
Correspondence Capt. Snyder, Mo. Republican of June 26, 1832.
Correspondence Judge Joseph Gillespie in Brink’s Hist. Madison County.
Reynold’s “My Own Times,” p. 377, etc.
Ford’s Illinois, 124.
Footnote 160:
Captain Adam Wilson Snyder was born in Connellsville, Fayette Co.,
Pa., Oct. 6, 1799. Came to Cahokia, Ill., on foot, June, 1817. Elected
Dist. Attorney by the Illinois Legislature January, 1823. Elected
State Senator, 1830 and in 1832. Elected to Congress 1836. Elected
State Senator and Presidential Elector 1840. Nominated for Governor by
Democratic convention, Dec. 11, 1841. Died in Belleville of
consumption May 14, 1842, before election. He would have been elected.
Gov. Ford, the candidate selected in his place, was elected.
Footnote 161:
Life of Henry Dodge, by William Salter, p. 31.
Footnote 162:
Smith’s Hist. Wis., Vol. 1, page 272.
Footnote 163:
Bouchard’s Narrative, Vol. 2. Wis. Hist. Collections.
Footnote 164:
Fort Johnston, opposite Ottawa.
Footnote 165:
Dodge said thirty minutes.
Footnote 166:
Dodge’s Report.
Footnote 167:
Bouchard’s Narrative.
Footnote 168:
Later captain.
Footnote 169:
Hist. Jo Daviess Co., 288, and the Galenian.
Footnote 170:
Charles Eames and Stephen P. Howard, who declined to “fort up,” were
plowing on Apple River. Indians appeared, and they escaped over the
river bank, but the horses were boldly taken. The loss, among others,
was reported to the fort.
Footnote 171:
The prints of the day have the name George Eames, but correspondence
with Hiram B. Hunt and N.B. Craig, relatives, indicates that Charles
is correct.
Footnote 172:
Galenian.
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CHAPTER XXVI.
ATTACK ON APPLE RIVER FORT.[173]
On Sunday morning, the 24th day of June, Colonel Strode sent an express
of three men, Frederick Dixon, Edmund Welch and one Kirkpatrick, with
dispatches for General Atkinson, then at Dixon’s Ferry. By reason of the
drenching rain falling at the time of their departure, the men
discharged their muskets upon starting out.
Arrived at Apple River fort, twelve or fourteen miles southeast from
Galena, at about noon, the express found there Capt. Clack Stone, the
commandant, with only fifteen or twenty of his command with him, the
others being absent on detached service. The women of the post were all
out along the river, gathering berries, or else just starting for that
purpose, clearly indicating that war was furthest from their thoughts.
Pausing but a moment to pass the news from Galena and allow Mr. Welch to
reload his musket, the express again started forward and had covered
about 300 yards to the east, when Mr. Welch, who had gained about fifty
yards on his companions, was suddenly fired on by a large party of
Indians concealed in the high grass near a point necessary to pass on
his journey. Rising instantly, they were on the point of seizing and
scalping him, as he fell from his horse, shot through the thigh, when he
quickly rose and fired at his assailants, some fifteen steps away. His
shot was ineffectual, his horse fled, and he would surely have perished
had not his companions rushed to his rescue and saved him. They had no
loads to fire, but used their guns in a series of feints as though to
shoot. The Indians dodged and cowered until the men were able to gain
the fort, and there secure protection for two of the number. Mr. Dixon,
in his frantic efforts to secure the safety of the wounded man, paid no
attention to his own welfare, and, though he saw Kirkpatrick slip
within, did not consider himself until the heavy timbered door slammed
in his face, leaving him to face the Indians, who by this time were upon
him in overwhelming numbers. Dixon was a redoubtable man and full of the
resources needed in a new country, and without an instant’s loss he
mounted, wheeled, and made for the timber, whose hidden paths he
thoroughly knew. The Indians must have been more intent upon the scalps