Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 65, number 4, summer, 1982

              WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
SUMMER, 1982
ture, land, and cash bounty from the federal government. When the campaigning ended, they were not disappointed. The Sauk and Fox, on the other hand, stumbled into the conflict by accident, sustained many casualties, and lost much of their land base. So, although the actual fighting usually consisted of minor skirmishes, locally it was of major importance to whites and Indians alike.
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VENTS leading to the war began on April 5, 1832, when between one and two thousand Sauk and Fox Indians crossed the Mississippi River from Iowa into Illinois. This group, known as the British Band and led by the aging warrior Black Hawk, had been driven west across the Missis¬ sippi less than a year earlier. After a miserable winter in Iowa they longed for their old home¬ land in Illinois. In the mistaken belief that if they returned to Illinois in peace and demon¬ strated their desire to raise crops and to be left alone the whites would not object, the hapless Indians recrossed the Mississippi. Their re¬ turn to Illinois sent a ripple of fear across the frontier and set in motion the forces that would ultimately destroy most of them.
While the Sauk and Fox moved slowly northeastward along the Rock River, the gar¬ rison commander of Fort Armstrong on Rock Island and the Indian agent there sent frantic messages to their superiors and to Governor John Reynolds of Illinois. Just a week later General Henry Atkinson arrived with six com¬ panies of U.S. troops from Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. Atkinson met quickly with the Sauk and Fox chiefs who remained in Iowa, and they assured him that the tribes wanted peace. The general also learned that Black Hawk and his followers expected to resume farming along the Rock River. He informed Governor Reynolds that the Indians said they would attack no one, but that they would de¬ fend themselves if the whites tried to force them west beyond the Mississippi again. Atkinson also requested the governor to call out the state militia. Governor Reynolds re¬ acted by ordering over twelve hundred mounted Illinois militiamen to report for duty against the "invading" Indians.
Less than a month later, in early May, these troops gathered at Dixon, Illinois, while Gen-
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eral Atkinson moved his army regulars slowly up the Rock River to join the militiamen. By this time Black Hawk and his associates had learned that the nearby Potawatomi and Win¬ nebago, whom they expected to welcome and help them, wanted little to do with the Sauk and Fox. Realizing that they had made a mis¬ take, the disappointed "invaders" decided that they had no choice but to return to Iowa. They feared moving back down the Rock River, however, because ofthe militamen they would have to pass.
While the Indians searched frantically for a way out of their dilemma, the Illinois militia took actions which prevented any peaceable solution. On May 12, 1832, Governor Rey¬ nolds ordered a battalion of mounted rangers to search out the main Indian camp. Two days later, the militiamen encountered a small party of Sauk scouts bearing a white flag. The Indians carried Black Hawk's message that the Indians wanted no war, and hoped to return peaceably to Iowa. Unfortunately, none ofthe militiamen understood Sauk. Fearing treach¬ ery, when they sighted other Indians watching from a nearby hillside, the pioneer soldiers opened fire on the emissaries. Of the Indian flag-bearers, only one escaped. Next, the ex¬ cited milidamen dashed after the fleeing In¬ dians, who led them toward the Sauk encamp¬ ment. There the few warriors who were not off hunting ambushed the attacking whites, catching them almost totally by surprise. Then, according to Colonel Zachary Taylor, the militiamen "became panic struck & fled in the most shameful manner that ever troops were known to do. . . ." (The incident, which cost eleven whites and three Indians their lives, was derisively called the Battle of Stillman's Run after a luckless militia captain, Isaiah Stillman.) Prior to this skirmish there had been at least a slight chance that fighting might be avoided. Afterward there was no such possibility.
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VENTS now moved quickly. The Sauk fled north and eastward along the Rock River toward southern Wis¬ consin. Less than two weeks after Stillman's Run, General Atkinson and Governor Rey¬ nolds had disbanded the militia and sent most of the citizen-soldiers home. During the next