Chapter XIV: War and the Plague

Almost a dozen years had passed since the coming of Captain Bradley's troops to Chicago to plant again the banner of civilization on the spot where savagery had triumphed in 1812, and nearly half as many since the garrison had been withdrawn from Fort Dearborn in 1823, when the humdrum quiet of the little settlement was broken by new rumors of war. Two Indian wars and a visitation of war's twin scourge of humanity, the plague, coming in quick succession, served to relieve the monotony of life at Chicago during the next few years.

The first of the Indian outbreaks, the Winnebago War, occasioned little actual fighting, but it filled the frontier settlements with alarm, caused the movement of several hundred soldiers, many of them for hundreds of miles, and was concluded by a formal treaty between the United States and the disaffected tribes. That it was not attended by more bloodshed was due to the prompt display by the government of an overwhelming military force which awed the red man into submission.

Driven to desperation by the encroachments and aggressions of the whites, and encouraged, possibly, by the removal of the garrisons from Chicago and Prairie du Chien, the Winnebagoes in the summer of 1827 were in a mood for war. The first outbreak occurred on the upper Mississippi toward the end of June. A keelboat, returning from a trip to Fort Snelling with provisions for the garrison at Fort Crawford, was attacked by the Winnebagoes near the mouth of the Bad Axe River. On the same day a murderous assault was made upon the family of a Canadian half-breed named Gagnier, living a short distance from Prairie du Chien.[780] The nature of the immediate provocation for the attack upon the keelboat is a matter of dispute. The assault upon the family of Gagnier, however, was deliberately planned by a band of Winnebagoes, which had suffered great indignities at the hands of the whites.[781] The leaders of the band deliberated over their wrongs and resolved to enforce the native law of retaliation. The choice of the agent to commit the act fell upon Red Bird, a chief who was beloved by the Indians and respected and admired by the whites. Noted for his friendly disposition toward the whites, Red Bird undertook the commission of his band with the intention of pretending to fulfil it and reporting to his tribe that he had been unable to find a victim.

[Footnote 780: On these events see _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, _passim_.]

[Footnote 781: _Ibid._, V, 201 ff.]

This plan, unfortunately, miscarried. Being upbraided for his conduct and taunted as a coward, Red Bird resolved to redeem his reputation and set out for Prairie du Chien, accompanied by WeKau and a third Indian, determined to execute his commission in grim earnest. The chance presence of an old trader at the house of Mr. Lockwood, which the party first visited, caused them to refrain from committing there the intended violence.[782] Crossing the prairie they came to the house of Gagnier, about three miles from the town. Here they found the husband, his wife, a babe of eleven months, and a discharged soldier named Lipcap. The presence of the visitors at first excited no particular comment. They asked for food and Mrs. Gagnier had turned to provide it when the bloody work began. Gagnier was shot by Red Bird and Lipcap by the third Indian, while Mrs. Gagnier engaged in a struggle with WeKau in which she succeeded in wresting from him his gun. He turned and ran and she pursued him, but overcome by excitement or fear, and finding herself powerless to fire the gun, she made her way to the village and gave the alarm. Meanwhile WeKau again entered the cabin and scalped the babe, apparently executing the horrible task with deliberation in order to secure as much hair with the scalp as possible. When a posse arrived from Prairie du Chien the murderers had departed; the babe was still alive and, strangely enough, recovered from its ghastly wounds and grew to womanhood.

[Footnote 782: _Ibid._, II, 161; V, 199.]

In the same month of June, 1827, Governor Cass and Colonel Thomas L. McKenney were sent to negotiate on behalf of the United States a treaty with the Winnebagoes and other tribes of Wisconsin respecting the boundaries which had been provided for in the Treaty of Prairie du Chien of 1825.[783] On reaching Butte des Morts on Fox River, the place designated for the council, the commissioners found but a single band of Winnebagoes represented, and learned at the same time of the hostile disposition of the tribe and of the outrages committed on the Mississippi.

[Footnote 783: Smith, _Life and Times of Lewis Cass_, 185; Young, _Life of General Cass_, 93; Schoolcraft, _Personal Memoirs_, 265-67.]

In this emergency Cass decided on a bold and energetic course. Leaving the camp at Butte des Morts in charge of Colonel McKenney, he himself set out in a large canoe manned by a dozen boatmen for the seat of trouble.[784] The route to Prairie du Chien led through the midst of the disaffected tribe. In his descent of the Wisconsin River Cass came upon the Winnebago encampment. Undaunted by the manifest signs of hostility which were displayed on his approach he landed and harangued the savages and persuaded them to smoke the calumet. As he turned to leave, a young brave sought to assassinate him, but the attempt was frustrated by an older man striking his gun aside.

[Footnote 784: Cass's trip see Schoolcraft, _Personal Memoirs_, 266; Smith, _Cass_, 185-90; Young, _Cass_, 93-96; Hubbard, _Life_, 150-51; _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, II, 166, 330; V, 156-57.]

On reaching Prairie du Chien on the morning of July 4 Cass did what he could to encourage the terrified settlers, who were gathered in the abandoned Fort Crawford in momentary expectation of an attack, and took into the service of the United States the impromptu military company which had been organized.[785] He then passed quickly down to Galena, the center of the lead-mining district. The news from Prairie du Chien of the Indian hostilities had spread terror and dismay among the miners, who with one accord fled in wildest panic to Galena.[786] The roads were lined with men, women, and children in momentary fear of the dread tomahawk or scalping-knife, and the encampment of the fugitives on Apple River on the first night of the alarm was said to have extended four miles and numbered three thousand persons. Such was the state of confusion and panic when Cass arrived at Galena on July 6. Quickly enrolling a company of riflemen, it was dispatched on a keelboat for Prairie du Chien, while Cass's canoemen sped onward in the opposite direction to carry the news to St. Louis and set the regulars under General Atkinson's command at Jefferson Barracks in motion. The destination was reached in record time,[787] and soon Atkinson at the head of seven hundred troops was proceeding up the Mississippi River by steamer to the scene of hostilities.

[Footnote 785: For the occurrences at Prairie du Chien see James H. Lockwood's narrative, _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, II, 157 ff.]

[Footnote 786: _Ibid._, II, 329.]

[Footnote 787: On the rapidity of Cass's descent of the Mississippi see Young, _Cass_, 96; Smith, _Cass_, 189-90: Schoolcraft says (_Personal Memoirs_, 267) that the entire circuit from Butte des Morts to Saint Louis, and back again by way of the Illinois River and Chicago, was made "in an incredible short space of time."]

Instead of returning with the regulars, Cass and his party ascended the Illinois River to Chicago. Fortunately for them heavy rains had raised the Des Plaines to such a height that it was possible to pass up it and across the portage to Chicago without disembarking from the canoe. In the course of this passage nightfall overtook the party in Mud Lake. Fearful of staving a hole in their birch-bark canoe, the boatmen anchored it by thrusting their paddles into the mud on either side. In this dreary spot, tormented by mosquitoes and with the rain descending in torrents to the accompaniment of intense thunder and lightning, the future senator, cabinet officer, and presidential candidate passed the hot July night.

The arrival of Cass at Chicago the following morning has been described by Gurdon S. Hubbard, who chanced to be in Chicago at this time, at the home of his friend, John Kinzie.[788] The inmates of the household were at breakfast when the sound of the Canadian boat song was heard, faintly at first, but gradually growing louder. Kinzie recognized the leading voice as that of his nephew, Robert Forsyth, private secretary to Governor Cass, and made his way to the front porch, followed by the rest of the company. Looking up the river they beheld Cass's canoe bearing rapidly down upon them, the boatmen keeping time with their paddles to the music of the song. It was soon at hand and during the brief stay which Cass made the Chicagoans learned for the first time of the outbreak of war and the outrages on the Mississippi. They learned, also, the reason of the unusual conduct of Big Foot's band of Indians at Chicago a few days before.[789] The buildings of the abandoned Fort Dearborn were at this time under the custody of the Indian agent, Doctor Alexander Wolcott. With his family he was living in one of them, while the others were occupied by several French and American families. The annual payment to the Pottawatomies had drawn to Chicago a large number of Indians. Upon receiving their annuity all had departed except a portion of Big Foot's band, who lived at the modern Lake Geneva. In the night following the payment, during a violent storm of wind and rain, the soldiers' barracks were struck by lightning and destroyed, together with the storehouse and a portion of the guardhouse.

[Footnote 788: Hubbard, _Life_, 150-51; _Caldwell and Shabonee_, in "Fergus Historical Series," No. 10, 41-46; _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, VII, 341-43.]

[Footnote 789: _American Historical Collections_, _loc. cit._]

The alarm of fire soon roused the little settlement, and men and women to the number of about forty turned out. The barracks and storehouse were seen to be doomed and so the attention was devoted to saving the remaining structures. Robert Kinzie, wrapped in a wet blanket, mounted to the roof of the guardhouse, which was already on fire, while the others formed a line to the river along which water was passed to him in buckets and other available utensils. Despite his burns and the danger he ran, Kinzie maintained his position until, about dawn, the fire was subdued. During all this time Big Foot's followers idly viewed the struggle, ignoring the appeals made to them for assistance. The next day they started for their homes, but the subject of their strange behavior furnished food for discussion at Chicago, until the information brought by Cass a few days later explained it and their disaffection.

With the departure of Cass the inhabitants of Chicago assembled for consultation.[790] It was determined to send the chiefs, Shabbona and Billy Caldwell, to Big Foot's village to gather information concerning the plans of the Winnebagoes and the intentions of Big Foot's band. The friendly chiefs at once departed upon their mission. On reaching Lake Geneva they separated; Caldwell secreted himself near the town, while Shabbona entered it, and was promptly imprisoned on the charge of being a spy and a friend of the Americans. This he denied, pretending that having heard of the threatened hostilities with the whites he had come to take counsel with Big Foot's followers concerning the course of his own people. By dint of argument and dissimulation he finally obtained permission to return, accompanied by a number of Big Foot's band, to his village. Both Caldwell and Shabbona separately made their way back to Chicago and reported the result of their mission.

[Footnote 790: _Ibid._]

Their report plunged the settlement into a state of panic akin to that which had earlier seized upon the inhabitants of Prairie du Chien and Galena. A consultation was held, in the course of which Hubbard suggested that a messenger be sent to the settlements on the Wabash for assistance. Volunteers for this service were called for, but no one except Hubbard himself appeared desirous of undertaking it; against his going the objection was raised that in his absence no one else could control the voyageurs, most of whom were in his employ. Notwithstanding this, it was finally decided that Hubbard should go. He left Chicago in the afternoon and reached Danville, one hundred and twenty miles away, on the following day, having changed mounts about midnight at his trading house on the Iroquois River. The news of his mission was spread abroad, and a force of fifty men or more was quickly raised to march to the relief of Chicago.[791] Before starting five days' rations were cooked. Many of the volunteers were without horses of their own. Most of these were supplied with mounts by neighbors who were to stay at home, but the number of horses available was insufficient to supply all the men and five set forth on foot. In other respects the company's equipment was even more inadequate. The food supply was insufficient and the arms were most heterogeneous in character. Squirrel rifles, flintlocks, old muskets, "or anything like a gun" that could be found had been seized, and some of the men had no guns at all. The latter, as well as those whose arms were insufficient, were supplied by Hubbard, who also issued flour and salt pork, from his trading house on the Iroquois River.

[Footnote 791: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, narrative of Hezekiah Cunningham, in "Fergus Historical Series," No. 10, 47 ff. Cunningham, who was a member of the Danville company which marched to Chicago, says it numbered fifty men, while Hubbard gives the number as one hundred.]

The march to Chicago was completed, after numerous vicissitudes, near the close of the fourth day. The Vermilion River was up, running bank full and with a strong current. The men and saddles were taken across in a canoe and an effort was made to compel the horses to swim. When the force of the current struck them, however, they would circle about and return to the bank. Provoked at the delay Hubbard mounted "old Charley," a large, steadygoing horse, and plunged in, the other horses being driven in after him. In the swift current "Charley" became unmanageable, when Hubbard dismounted on the upper side, and seizing him by the mane with one hand and swimming with the other guided him toward the opposite shore. During the march rain fell most of the time. The condition of the streams and the intervening country compelled some of the footmen to turn back, and two of the men with horses also abandoned the expedition.

The company reached Chicago in the midst of a tremendous thunder storm. The welcome extended by the settlers, who had been in momentary expectation of an attack, was naturally most hearty. If the narrator's reminiscences may be trusted, a touch of genuine burlesque was now added to the warlike scenes of the last few days. During Hubbard's absence the settlers had organized a military company composed of a few Americans interspersed among a considerable number of Canadian half-breeds. The former, perceiving that the Danville company was a better-looking crowd than their own, proposed to abandon their associates and join it. This feeling stirred up a quarrel, but the officers quelled the disturbance and the discontented men remained with their own command. The Danville company remained at Chicago a number of days, keeping guard day and night, until news arrived from Green Bay that a treaty of peace had been made with the Winnebagoes. In their joy over the good news the citizens brought forth barrels of whisky and other liquors and a general drinking bout ensued.

Thus hilariously ended Chicago's part in the Winnebago War. Its speedy and bloodless conclusion was due primarily to the energetic measures of Governor Cass. From Chicago he had passed up the western shore of Lake Michigan to Green Bay, and entering the Fox River had come again to the place of council at Butte des Morts, after a circuit of eighteen hundred miles. The prompt movement of troops from every direction upon the country of the Winnebagoes quickly convinced them of the hopelessness of resistance. From Jefferson Barracks, Fort Snelling, and Fort Howard, detachments of regulars converged upon the disaffected tribesmen, while a force of volunteers from Galena under General Dodge marched overland toward the Wisconsin Portage. On August 11 Cass concluded with the tribes concerned the treaty of Butte des Morts, which settled, for the time being, the boundary questions which had grown out of the Treaty of Prairie du Chien of 1825.[792] Although the Winnebagoes were parties to the treaty, the liberty was reserved by the United States of punishing the perpetrators of the recent outrages and exacting from them guaranties of good conduct in the future.

[Footnote 792: _Treaties between the United States of America and the Several Indian Tribes, from 1778 to 1837_, 412-15.]

The treaty concluded, Cass returned to Detroit, while the military continued its task of running down the culprits wanted. On September 1 the troops from Fort Howard under command of Major Whistler encamped at the Fox-Wisconsin Portage.[793] The following day three separate messages arrived from the hostile Winnebago encampment announcing that the murderers, WeKau and Red Bird, would be surrendered the day after, and begging the military not to strike. The murders at Prairie du Chien had been committed deliberately in accordance with the Indian law of retaliation. From their standpoint the murderers had perpetrated no crime, but had performed a meritorious and public-spirited act. Yet now that the white man's armies were at hand, they voluntarily surrendered themselves to save their countrymen from further punishment.

[Footnote 793: Thomas L. McKenney's narrative, _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, V, 178 ff.]

About noon of the following day a body of Indians was descried approaching Whistler's camp. As they drew nearer the voice of Red Bird singing his death song could be heard. The military was drawn out in line to receive the delegation and a dramatic ceremony ensued. On the right and slightly advanced was the band of musicians. In front of the center, at a distance of a few paces, stood the murderers. Red Bird and WeKau; on their right and left, forming a semicircular group, were the Winnebagoes, who had accompanied them. All eyes were fixed on the magnificent figure of Red Bird: six feet in height, erect, and perfectly proportioned, his very fingers "models of beauty"; on his face the most noble and winning expression; his every movement imbued with grace and stateliness; his dress of barbaric splendor, consisting of a suit of white deer skin appropriately fringed and decorated, and over the breast and back a fold of scarlet cloth; no wonder he seemed to the spectators, even of the hostile race, "a prince born to command and worthy to be obeyed."

The effect of Red Bird's presence was heightened by the contrast, in all outward respects, presented by the miserable WeKau. "Meagre--cold--dirty in his person and dress--crooked in form--like the starved wolf, gaunt, hungry, and bloodthirsty," his entire appearance accorded with the conception of a fiend who could scalp a babe in the cradle.

Red Bird stood erect without moving a muscle or altering the expression on his face. The music having ceased and all being seated except the speakers, the latter began their address. Its substance was that two of the murderers had voluntarily surrendered themselves in response to the white man's demand; as their friends they had come in with them, and hoped their white brothers would agree to accept the horses they had brought in satisfaction of the offense. They asked kind treatment for their friends, and urged that they should not be put in irons. The spokesman for the whites replied with much advice, which was doubtless excellent from the white man's point of view. They were told that the prisoners should be tried by the same laws as the white man, and the promise was given that for the present they should not be put in irons.

At the conclusion of the harangue Red Bird stood up facing Major Whistler. In physique and bearing the latter--the same magnificent athlete who had bested the champion of the natives in the Fort Dearborn foot race a score of years before--was a worthy representative of his race. After a moment's pause the words, "I am ready," came from the lips of Red Bird. Advancing a step or two he paused, saying, "I do not wish to be put in irons. Let me be free. I have given away my life--it is gone"--stooping and taking some dust between his fingers and thumb, and blowing it away--"like that. I would not take it back. _It is gone._" Throwing his hands behind him to indicate that he was leaving all things behind, he marched briskly up to Major Whistler, breast to breast. A platoon wheeled backward from the center of the line of soldiery. Whistler stepped aside. Red Bird and WeKau marched through the line and were conducted by a file of men to a tent prepared for them in the rear, and the ceremony was concluded.

The fate of Red Bird may quickly be told. Together with seven others of his tribe who had surrendered themselves to the whites he was taken to Prairie du Chien and imprisoned to await trial on the charge of murder.[794] Their imprisonment was regarded by the Indians as a punishment worse than death itself. Red Bird bore his confinement hardly and at length sickened and died. WeKau and another of his associates were finally brought to trial, in September, 1828. They were found guilty and sentenced to be hung on December 26, but before the time set for the execution arrived both were pardoned by President Adams. The other prisoners were discharged for lack of evidence to convict them.

[Footnote 794: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XI, 366-68; VIII, 264-65; Smith, _History of Wisconsin_, 1, 250-51.]

Although the Winnebago War was thus easily ended, it was not without important consequences. The Indians had been cowed, but not conciliated. The original cause for their dissatisfaction had not been removed; the aggressions of the lead miners continued, and the specter of white domination still menaced them as before the uprising. The confinement and death of Red Bird, whom they believed to have been poisoned by the Americans,[795] did not tend to alleviate their dissatisfaction, while the withdrawal of the troops after the brief summer campaign of 1827 emboldened them again. At the close of the year 1827 Joseph Street, the Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, reported to Governor Edwards of Illinois that the Winnebagoes were greatly dissatisfied, and would, in his opinion, resist the execution of Red Bird if they could induce any other tribe to join them.[796] The following spring news was carried to the British post at Drummond's Island, to which place many of the American Indians resorted annually for presents, that several of the northwestern tribes were planning an uprising against the Americans.[797]

[Footnote 795: Speech of Nayocantay at Drummond's Island, June 30, 1828, _Michigan Pioneer Collections_, XXIII, 146.]

[Footnote 796: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XI, 366-68.]

[Footnote 797: _Michigan Pioneer Collections_, XXIII, 144-51.]

To restrain the dissatisfied tribes between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi by the presence of an adequate military force, it was determined permanently to regarrison Fort Crawford and Fort Dearborn, and in addition to establish a new post at the Wisconsin Portage.[798] To the latter was given the name of Fort Winnebago, and its garrison muster-rolls during the next few years contain the names of many men who later won national fame and reputation.[799] Our primary interest, however, is centered in Chicago. On October 3, 1828, after an interval of five years, Fort Dearborn was reoccupied by a regular garrison of about sixty men, comprising companies A and I of the Fifth Infantry, under command of Major John Fowle.[800] The Fifth Regiment had been stationed at Jefferson Barracks prior to the Winnebago outbreak. In connection with the general shifting of troops and the re-establishment of garrisons occasioned by that trouble, to which allusion has already been made, the garrisons at Sault Ste. Marie, Mackinac, and Fort Howard, consisting of detachments of the Second Infantry, were moved down the lakes to Fort Gratiot and Fort Niagara, while the Fifth Regiment relieved the Second in garrisoning the places named and in addition sent two companies to reoccupy Fort Dearborn.[801] The latter probably came up the Illinois River route. The remaining eight companies moved up from St. Louis by way of the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, with the expectation that the march of so large a body of soldiery through the heart of their territory would produce a quieting effect upon the minds of the Winnebago and other tribes.[802]

[Footnote 798: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XIV, 70-71.]

[Footnote 799: Among others may be mentioned Jefferson Davis, David E. Twiggs, William J. Worth, E. V. Summer, and E. Kirby Smith. See on this the "History of Fort Winnebago" in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XIV, 75 ff.]

[Footnote 800: _Drennan Papers_, Fort Dearborn post returns, October, 1828.]

[Footnote 801: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XIV, 70; Wentworth, Early Chicago, 27.]

[Footnote 802: On the movement of the troops see _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XIV, 70; Wentworth, _Early Chicago_, 27; statement of General Hunter in Hurlbut, _Chicago Antiquities_, 490.]

For two and one-half years companies A and I of the Fifth Infantry continued to garrison Fort Dearborn. Major Fowle remained in command until December, 1830, when he was granted six months' leave of absence and Lieutenant Hunter succeeded to the command. He later became prominent in his profession and during the Civil War rose to the rank of major-general. At this time he was a West Point graduate of eight years' standing, who since his arrival at Fort Dearborn in the autumn of 1829 had wooed and married Maria Indiana, the daughter of John Kinzie. Captain Martin Scott, another member of the little group of officers in this period, was noted for his eccentricities.[803] He was famous for his skill as a marksman and passionately fond of hunting. Probably because of this trait, he maintained a numerous array of dogs. Both Scott and Hunter had been stationed at Fort Snelling, where each acquired a reputation for firmness, not to say obstinacy, in adhering to views which had once been formed. Upon one occasion they determined to find out by actual experiment which could abstain the longer from eating. At the end of two days Scott surrendered unconditionally; it was the general opinion of the garrison that Hunter would have perished rather than yield.

[Footnote 803: For an intimate characterization of Captain Scott see Van Cleve, _Three Score Years and Ten_, chap. iii.]

Notwithstanding the scare which had caused the regarrisoning of Fort Dearborn, the months passed into years without any occasion for the actual services of the soldiers arising. In the spring of 1831 the fort was again abandoned, the garrison being ordered to Green Bay.[804] Less than a year later, however, Major Whistler, who had seen the first Fort Dearborn built in 1803, was ordered from Fort Niagara to Chicago with two companies of the Second Infantry.[805] He arrived on June 17, 1832, and for the third time since its rebuilding, less than a score of years before, Fort Dearborn housed a garrison. The order for its reoccupation was issued in February, but before Whistler's force arrived the Black Hawk War had begun and Chicago and Fort Dearborn were crowded with panic-stricken settlers. The disaffected Sac leader. Black Hawk, on April 6, at the head of five hundred warriors and their squaws and children, had crossed the Mississippi River and begun the invasion of the state of Illinois. Therewith began for Illinois her last Indian war, and for Chicago and Fort Dearborn a period of excitement and activity on a greater scale than the place had ever known.

[Footnote 804: Wentworth, _Early Chicago_, 30. An account of the breaking-up of the garrison is given by Mrs. Kinzie in _Wau Bun_, chaps, xxiii and xxiv.]

[Footnote 805: Wentworth, _Early Chicago_, 30.]

The Black Hawk War constitutes one of the saddest chapters in all the long story of the spoliation of the red race at the hands of the white. Notable for the number of men of national prominence in American history who participated in it, it is no less notable for the blundering and unworthy course pursued by the whites, first in bringing it on and second in waging it to a conclusion. The names of two Presidents of the United States, Abraham Lincoln and Zachary Taylor; of the only President of the Southern Confederacy, Jefferson Davis; of a presidential candidate, and for a full generation the most notable soldier in America, Winfield Scott; of senators and governors and generals in profusion--A. C. Dodge, Henry Dodge, John Reynolds, George W. Jones, Sidney Breese, Henry Atkinson, Albert Sydney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, David E, Twiggs, S. P. Heintzelman, John A. McClernand, E. D. Baker, William S. Harney, and Robert Anderson, among others--furnish ample evidence that no other Indian war in American history was participated in by so many notable men.[806]

[Footnote 806: This list of participants is drawn from the Drennan Papers, Fort Dearborn post returns, and Stevens, _Black Hawk War_, _passim_.]

The history of the war may be found in many places, and the design of the present narrative is limited to a recital of it from the point of view of its bearing upon Chicago and the results for Chicago's development which proceeded from it.[807] Black Hawk had planned his return to Illinois under the belief that the Winnebagoes, Pottawatomies, and other tribes and even the British would ally with him against the Americans.[808] Before the actual crossing he was partly disabused of this idea, but only in part. His immediate purpose was to raise a crop of corn on Rock River, with the Winnebagoes of that locality, and prepare for active warfare in the fall. This design was frustrated by the action of the whites. Governor Reynolds promptly called out the Illinois militia, and early in May four regiments, numbering sixteen hundred men, accompanied by Governor Reynolds himself, were at Fort Armstrong, ready to co-operate with the small force of regulars under Atkinson in the pursuit and overthrow of Black Hawk's band.[809]

[Footnote 807: Many contemporary' narratives are printed in the volumes of the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_; for the most part they should be used with discrimination. For a sane and useful brief account of the war see Thwaites, "Story of the Black Hawk War." in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 217-65. Stevens, _Black Hawk War_, is a detailed and valuable narrative. In using it due allowance must be made for the author's too evident anti-Indian bias.]

[Footnote 808: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 227, 231.]

[Footnote 809: _Ibid._, XII, 232-34.]

Meanwhile Black Hawk had learned in a council with the Pottawatomies that while Big Foot and some others were hot for war, the bands of Shabbona and Wabansia were determined to remain at peace with the whites. The news of Black Hawk's incursion spread rapidly among the scattered settlements, carrying in its train confusion and panic. Many of the settlers abandoned their homes and fled for protection to the larger settlements; some left the country never to return; others gathered for mutual protection within rude stockade forts, which were hastily improvised. On May 14 an advance division of the pursuing army under Major Stillman encountered Black Hawk and a small number of his warriors, and in the engagement that ensued the whites sustained a disgraceful defeat.[810] The raw Illinois militiamen, filled with zeal for the killing of Indians, rushed headlong into the contest, regardless of the efforts of their officers to restrain them. Although they outnumbered the Indians in the proportion of eight or ten to one,[811] their flight, upon receiving the first fire of the latter, was no less precipitate. For all but a handful, who fell fighting bravely to cover the retreat, the flight continued to Dixon's Ferry, twenty-five miles away, and many did not pause even here, but pressed madly on to their homes.

[Footnote 810: On the battle of Stillman's Run see _ibid._, XII, 236-30; Stevens, _op. cit._, chap, xix.]

[Footnote 811: Stillman's force numbered three hundred and forty-one men; Black Hawk stated that he had forty followers, and Reynolds credited him with not to exceed fifty or sixty (_Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 235, 237).]

In comparison with the panic which ensued upon the news of Stillman's overthrow, the earlier panic of the settlers, from which they had already recovered in a measure, seemed trivial.[812] The terror excited by the exaggerated stories of the militia spread consternation, not only throughout the frontier immediately affected, but eastward into Indiana and southern Michigan.[813] Rumor multiplied many fold the number of Black Hawk's followers. From Dixon's Ferry, on the day after the defeat of Stillman, Governor Reynolds "by the light of a solitary candle" penned a call for two thousand more volunteers.[814] Shabbona and his friends, at the risk of their own lives, set forth to warn the settlers of their danger.[815] Most of them fled to cover. At Chicago, where the citizens had organized a militia company early in May, the whole surrounding population gathered within Fort Dearborn, with two hundred armed men on guard. Yet in the terror of the first panic an appeal was dispatched to the acting governor of Michigan for assistance.[816]

[Footnote 812: _Ibid._, XII, 238-40; Beggs, _Early History of the West and Northwest_, 97 ff.]

[Footnote 813: For a semi-humorous account of the panic in southwestern Michigan see Henry Little, "A History of the Black Hawk War in 1832," in _Michigan Pioneer Collections_, V, 152 ff. On the scare in Indiana see, _e.g._, [Banta] _History of Johnson County, Indiana_, 126 ff.]

[Footnote 814: Stevens, _op. cit._, 139.]

[Footnote 815: _Ibid._, 148; _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 39; Matson. Memories of Shaubena, 114 ff.]

[Footnote 816: The muster-roll of the Chicago company is printed in Wentworth, _Early Chicago_, 64-65. For the appeal to the acting governor of Michigan for assistance see letter of Thomas Owen, Indian agent at Chicago, May 21, 1832, printed in the _New York Mercury_, June 6, 1832.]

Of the scenes of wild confusion and fear which attended the flight of the settlers to Chicago and other points, and the hardships endured at Chicago, a graphic description has been left by one of the participants. Rev. Stephen R. Beggs.[817] He had recently settled at Plainfield, Illinois, when "the inhabitants came flying from Fox River, through great fear of their much dreaded enemy. They came with their cattle and horses, some bareheaded and others barefooted, crying, 'The Indians! The Indians!'" Those of the adjoining settlements who were able fled with all speed for Danville, only a few of the men remaining behind to look after their property as best they might. Some friendly Indians shortly came to allay their fears, but believing them to be hostile, without allowing them an opportunity to explain, the settlers mounted horses and fled after those who had gone before. The Indians pursued, seeking vainly to correct the mistake, but this served only to increase the terror of the whites.

[Footnote 817: Beggs, _op. cit._, 97 ff.]

The residents of Plainfield at first determined to defend themselves. The house of Beggs was turned into a fort, the outbuildings being torn down to furnish logs for the construction of a breastwork. Here one hundred and twenty-five people, old and young, assembled. Ammunition was scarce, however, and they had but four guns among them. As the next best means of defense a supply of axes, hoes, forks, and clubs was requisitioned. A few days later the Chicago militia to the number of twenty-five, hearing of their plight, came, accompanied by an equal number of friendly Indians, to the rescue. The next day militia and Indians in separate companies set forth to reconnoiter along the Fox. At nightfall one of the whites and a few of the Indians returned, bringing "fearful stories" of having been captured by the Indians, and the warning that Fort Beggs would be attacked that night or the next at the latest.

This information precipitated a fresh panic. "The stoutest hearts failed them, and strong men turned pale, while women and children wept and fainted, till it hardly seemed possible to restore them to life, and almost cruel for them to return from their quiet unconsciousness to a sense of their danger." Immediate flight, either to Ottawa or Chicago, was debated, but after discussion was dismissed as impracticable, and the resolution was reached to remain in the fort and sell their lives as dearly as possible. Two days passed with occasional alarms, when every man was ordered to his post to prepare to meet an attack. Instead of the enemy, however, the Chicago militia appeared. The joy of the inmates of Fort Beggs was tempered by the news they brought of the terrible Indian Creek massacre a dozen miles north of Ottawa.[818] The Chicagoans advised the immediate abandonment of Fort Beggs and retirement either to Ottawa or Chicago. The latter destination was decided upon, and the ensuing night was spent in busy preparation for the march. Early the next morning the company set out, escorted by the Chicago militia, and by sunset had completed the forty-mile journey to Chicago and safety.

[Footnote 818: This occurred on Tuesday, May 20, 1832. Beggs states (_op. cit._, 101) that the Chicagoans brought the news of it to Plainfield on Wednesday evening. For an account of the massacre and the narrative of the captivity of the Hall girls, the only prisoners taken, see Stevens, _op. cit._, 146 ff.]

Although Chicago afforded the fugitives a safe refuge, there was for them no cessation of hardship. The place was crowded to overflowing. Beggs and his wife were compelled to take up their abode in a room fifteen feet square, already occupied by several other families. The plight of the inmates under such conditions may easily be imagined. One afternoon in the midst of a violent thunderstorm a stroke of lightning broke open the end of their room and passed down the wall to the room beneath, leaving a charred seam within a few inches of a keg of gunpowder. The next morning Mrs. Beggs gave birth to a child. If the chronicler's statistics are accurate, fifteen infants were born during their stay at the fort.

Whatever apprehensions of danger the refugees at Chicago were still under must have been materially relieved by the arrival on June 12 of a force of Michigan militia under General J. R. Williams. Assembled at Detroit and other points in the latter part of May, they had finally pushed forward, after numerous vicissitudes arising from incompetent leadership, to Chicago, where they assumed for a short time the responsibility of the defense of Fort Dearborn.[819] This service was terminated by the arrival successively, on June 17, of the two companies of regulars under Major Whistler from Fort Niagara, and five days later of a regiment of three hundred mounted militia from embark on board the "Napoleon" for transportation across the lake to St. Joseph, whence they were to be marched to Niles and mustered out of the service. Many of the settlers who had taken refuge at Fort Dearborn shortly began to depart, some of them under armed escort, for their homes.[820] Meanwhile from the seat of government at Washington the military had been set in motion for the scene of war, and Chicago became the appointed rendezvous for a larger body of soldiery than had ever yet been gathered here. From Fortress Monroe. Fort McHenry, Fort Columbus, Fort Niagara, Fort Gratiot, Fort Brady, and other places infantry and artillery to the number of one thousand men were started for Chicago, and General Winfield Scott was ordered from the seaboard to take charge of the operations against Black Hawk.[821] Three weeks after the arrival of Major Whistler's detachment General Scott arrived. With him, too, came a peril before which the menace of the hostile Indians paled into insignificance. Instead of peace and tranquillity, the settlers were plunged anew into panic by the appearance in their midst of the dreaded Asiatic cholera.

[Footnote 819: On the movements of the Michigan militia see Stevens, _op. cit._, chap, xxxvii.]

[Footnote 820: Beggs, _op. cit._, 104.]

[Footnote 821: _Drennan Papers_, copies of orders to the various detachments, and post returns of the troops sent to Chicago; _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 241.]

From Europe where it had prevailed for many weeks the cholera crossed the ocean, making its first appearance in America at Quebec in the early part of June.[822] From here it quickly passed up the St. Lawrence to Montreal and then southward to Albany. The legislature of New York met in special session, June 21, to devise measures for preventing the spread of the disease, but less than two weeks later it reached New York City, and by July 4 eleven deaths from it had occurred there. The next day was observed as a day of fasting and prayer by many of the churches of the city but the plague rapidly increased in virulence and in the two weeks ending July 28 over fourteen hundred deaths occurred. By the end of August the disease had practically spent its force in New York, but meanwhile the pestilential wave was passing southward and westward over the country. By late autumn it was estimated that one thousand deaths from cholera had occurred at Philadelphia and an equal number at Baltimore, and at New Orleans over a hundred persons a day were dying from cholera and yellow fever combined, a rate which, if continued, would depopulate the city in a year's time.[823]

[Footnote 822: _New York Mercury_, June 20, 1832, November 21, 1832, _et passim_.]

[Footnote 823: _Ibid._, November 21, 1832.]

During the latter part of June the various detachments of regulars from the Atlantic Coast were proceeding toward Chicago.[824] At Buffalo the troops embarked on board the steamers, "Henry Clay," "Superior," "William Penn," and "Sheldon Thompson."[825] While passing up the lakes the cholera made its appearance among the soldiers. More potent than the hostile red man, it disrupted the expedition.[826] Two of the vessels got no farther than Fort Gratiot, where the virulence of the pestilence compelled the soldiers to land.[827] The others continued, after a period of delay, to Chicago, where the troops were compelled to halt until the pestilence had spent its force and the survivors were again fit for the field.

[Footnote 824: _Drennan Papers_, Fort Dearborn post returns. Six companies of artillery from Fortress Monroe left New York June 26, and on June 30 were at Clyde in that state. Company E, Fourth Artillery, started from Fort McHenry, June 18. The route followed by the seaboard companies was by way of New York City to Buffalo and thence by vessel around the lakes.]

[Footnote 825: Letter of Captain A. Walker, October 30, 1860, in _Chicago Weekly Democrat_, March 23, 1861.]

[Footnote 826: For an account of Scott's expedition and the cholera outbreak see Stevens, _op. cit._, chap, xxxvi; Scott's own narrative is given in his Memoirs, I, chap, xviii; additional material occurs in Wentworth, Early Chicago, passim; Niles' Register, Vols. XLII and XLIII, _passim_; the _New York Mercury_ for 1832, _passim_.]

[Footnote 827: Letter of Captain A. Walker in Chicago Weekly Democrat, March 23, 1861; letter from an officer on the _Henry Clay_, in _New York Mercury_, July 18, 1832.]

The ravages among the men of the detachment of Colonel Twiggs which was landed at Fort Gratiot were so awful as to banish discipline to the winds.[828] Those of the command who were not stricken dispersed in every direction. Many, stricken later, died in the woods or along the roadway, the terrified inhabitants refusing them shelter or assistance. According to a letter from an officer of the Second Infantry, dated July 11, of Twiggs' three hundred and seventy men, twenty or thirty had died and about two hundred had deserted.[829] From another contemporary newspaper report it appears that the detachment consisted of both infantry and artillery, and that the great majority of desertions occurred in the former branch of the service.[830] Of two hundred and eight recruits, thirty had died and one hundred and fifty-five had deserted; while of one hundred and fifty-two artillerymen, twenty-six had died and but twenty had deserted.

[Footnote 828: Letters of John Nowell in Niles' Register, July 28, 1832; of Captain A. Walker in _Chicago Weekly Democrat_, March 23, 1861; letters from Detroit (unsigned) in _New York Mercury_, July 18, 1832.]

[Footnote 829: _New York Mercury_, July 18, 1832.]

[Footnote 830: _Niles' Register_, August 11, 1832.]

No fatalities occurred on the "Sheldon Thompson," the steamer on which General Scott had embarked, until Mackinac had been passed and Lake Michigan entered. Before setting out for the Northwest Scott, anticipating an outbreak of the plague, had taken lessons from Surgeon Mower, stationed in New York, upon its character and treatment.[831] On Scott's particular steamer the disease broke out suddenly and with fatal violence. The only surgeon on board became panic-stricken, drank a bottle of wine, and went to bed sick, and, to quote the commander's grim comment, "ought to have died." In this crisis Scott himself turned doctor, applying as best he could the medicine and treatment suggested by Surgeon Mower. He himself states that his principal success consisted in preventing a general panic. From beginning to end of the cholera visitation he set the example to his subordinates of exhibiting no sign of fear concerning it, visiting and personally attending to the wants of the afflicted. In comparison with this exhibition of fearlessness, the courage required on the field of battle seems trivial.[832] Some time after the Mexican War, Scott told John Wentworth that he had often been in the midst of danger and suffering, but "he had never felt his entire helplessness and need of Divine Providence as he did upon the lakes in the midst of the Asiatic Cholera. Sentinels were of no use in warning of the enemy's approach. He could not storm his works, fortify against him, nor cut his own way out, nor make terms of capitulation. There was no respect for a flag of truce, and his men were falling upon all sides from an enemy in his very midst."[833]

[Footnote 831: Scott, _Memoirs_, I, 218 ff.]

[Footnote 832: The terror of the troops and of the citizens in the vicinity of Detroit has already been noticed. A concrete instance of the dread which the cholera inspired is given by Mrs. Kinzie, who was at Green Bay when the news of the approach of the plague reached that place. She relates (_Wau Bun_, 340) that the news was brought to her by a relative, "an officer who had exhibited the most distinguished courage in the battlefield, and also in some private enterprises demanding unequalled courage and daring." When he had broken the news he "laid his head against the window-sill and wept like a child." This effect was produced, not by the actual presence of the pestilence, but by the news of its ravages at Detroit and the fear of its advent at Green Bay.]

[Footnote 833: Wentworth, _Early Chicago_, 37.]

The "Sheldon Thompson" reached Chicago on the afternoon of July 10.[834] Since there was no harbor, and the bar at the mouth made it impossible for the vessel to enter the river, the troops must be landed in small boats, which was done the next day. The troops under Major Whistler, who had been occupying Fort Dearborn since June 17, were promptly moved out and on July 11 the fort was converted into a general hospital for the use of Scott's men.[835] During the night which elapsed between the arrival at Chicago and the landing of the troops the following morning three more of the company died and their bodies were consigned to the bottom of the lake. Years afterward the captain of the steamer recalled that their forms could plainly be seen through the clear water from the deck, exciting such disagreeable sensations in the minds of the beholders that it was deemed prudent to weigh anchor and shift the vessel a sufficient distance from the spot to shut out the gruesome sight.[836]

[Footnote 834: Scott to Governor Reynolds, July 15, 1832, in _Niles' Register_, August 11, 1832.]

[Footnote 835: _Drennan Papers_, Fort Dearborn post returns, October, 1832.]

[Footnote 836: Letter of Captain A. Walker, in _Chicago Weekly Democrat_, March 23, 1861.]

For several days the pestilence raged at Fort Dearborn with violence similar to that previously manifested at Fort Gratiot. The official medical report shows that two hundred cases were admitted to the hospital in the course of six or seven days, fifty-eight of which terminated fatally.[837] The terror which the cholera inspired was due as much, apparently, to the rapid progress of the disease as to the high percentage of mortality which prevailed among its victims. The first soldier who perished on the "Henry Clay" was stricken in the evening of July 5 and died seven hours later.[838] On Scott's vessel, the "Sheldon Thompson," men died in six hours after being in perfect health. Sergeant Heyl "was well at nine o'clock in the morning--he was at the bottom of Lake Michigan at seven o'clock in the afternoon."[839] The author of the statement which has just been quoted gives a graphic description of his own illness, from which at the time of writing he was in process of recovering. He was serving as officer of the day when the "Sheldon Thompson" arrived at Chicago, and superintended the landing of the sick on board the vessel. "I had scarcely got through my task," he wrote two days later, "when I was thrown down on the deck almost as suddenly as if shot. As I was walking on the lower deck I felt my legs growing stiff from my knees downward. I went on the upper deck and walked violently to keep up the circulation of the blood. I felt suddenly a rush of blood from my feet upwards, and as it rose my veins grew cold and my blood curdled.... My legs and hands were cramped with violent pain."[840]

[Footnote 837: Hyde, _Early Medical Chicago_, 18-19. I have not had access to the original report on which this statement is based. Hyde says these two hundred cases occurred among "the Entire force of one thousand." This statement, which does not include Whistler's two companies, is evidently erroneous. The entire force ordered to Chicago numbered only a thousand men, and several hundred of these had already been dissipated through death and desertion, or by delaying at Fort Gratiot and elsewhere. I have not learned the number of men at Fort Dearborn at this time, but evidently it was much less than one thousand; the rate of sickness and mortality was, of course, correspondingly greater.]

[Footnote 838: _New York Mercury_, July 18, 1832.]

[Footnote 839: Letter from an officer of Scott's command, dated Fort Dearborn, July 12, _Niles' Register_, August 11, 1832.]

[Footnote 840: _Ibid._]

Some interest attaches to the methods employed by physicians in treating the disease, especially in view of what transpired at Chicago. In general it may be said that on both sides of the ocean the medical profession was helpless to stay its course. In London over one-half of the twenty-three hundred and eighty-two cases which occurred prior to April 12 terminated fatally.[841] At the same time the deaths in Paris from cholera numbered several hundred daily. It was everywhere noted that persons addicted to intemperance were especially prone to fall before the disease. The first six victims among the soldiers on the "Henry Clay" were all intemperate men.[842] The surgeon who attended Scott's men at Fort Dearborn treated all cases with calomel and blood-letting. This proved so efficacious, according to his report, that he regarded the disease as "robbed of its terrors."[843] In view of the nature of the remedies employed, and the fact that fifty-eight of the two hundred cases admitted to the hospital terminated fatally, in addition to the deaths which occurred on board the steamer, the grounds for his satisfaction are not entirely clear. But few fatalities occurred among the men of Major Whistler's two companies, who had been removed some distance from the fort and were attended by another physician, Doctor Harmon.[844] Strangely enough he attributed his success to the fact that he did not employ calomel in the treatment of the disease. That some of the soldiers who came with Scott to Chicago were subjected to other treatment than the blood-letting and calomel described in the surgeon's report seems evident from the statements of the officer whose sudden seizure on board the "Sheldon Thompson" has been described. The doctor administered eight grains of opium to him and made him rub his legs as fast as he could; he was also made to drink a tumbler and a half of raw brandy. At the time of writing the patient described himself as "out of danger," but whether because of this treatment would be hazardous to affirm.

[Footnote 841: _New York Mercury_, May 23, 1832.]

[Footnote 842: Letter from Fort Gratiot dated July 7, 1832; _ibid._, July 18, 1832.]

[Footnote 843: Hyde, _Early Medical Chicago_, 19.]

[Footnote 844: _Ibid._, 14.]

The spread of the contagion at Chicago was checked before the end of July, and on the twenty-ninth of the month Scott set out, accompanied by a few officers, along the Chicago-Galena trail for the seat of war, leaving orders for Lieutenant-colonel Eustis to follow him with all of the troops who should be able to move by the third of August. Scott reached Prairie du Chien and assumed command of the army on August 7, only to find that the war had been brought to a close. The Illinois militia under Henry and Dodge and the regulars under Atkinson had roused Black Hawk's band from the wilderness fastness to which it had retired in the neighborhood of Lake Koshkonong, and hotly pursued it across southern Wisconsin, through the beautiful Four-Lakes country where the capital of the state has since been located, to the Mississippi River about forty miles above the mouth of the Wisconsin. Here on August 2 in the battle of the Bad Axe, which shortly degenerated into a massacre, Black Hawk's band was practically destroyed, and the war concluded. The red leader himself, seeing the end at hand, had deserted his party the night before the battle, and with a few followers had fled eastward to the Dalles of the Wisconsin.[845] About three hundred of his deserted band succeeded in escaping across the Mississippi, either before or during the affair at the Bad Axe, but half of these were shortly slaughtered by a party of one hundred Sioux, whom General Atkinson had sent after them. Of the band of nearly one thousand persons who had crossed the Mississippi in April not more than one hundred and fifty lived to tell the tragic story of the Black Hawk War, "a tale fraught with dishonor to the American name."[846]

[Footnote 845: Thwaites, "Story of the Black Hawk War," in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 258.]

[Footnote 846: _Ibid._, XII, 261.]

General Scott's first act after assuming command of the army was to order the discharge of the volunteers.[847] On August 10 he started down the Mississippi by steamer to Fort Armstrong, intending there to bring the war to a formal close by the negotiation of a treaty of peace. The troops from Chicago, who were making their way, meanwhile, across Illinois to the seat of war in obedience to Scott's orders, were met at Dixon's Ferry by news of the termination of the war, and orders to change their destination to Fort Armstrong. Here, while awaiting the bringing-in of the prisoners, and examining those brought in to determine their share of responsibility for the war, Scott was once more confronted by the enemy that had wrought such havoc among the troops in the journey around the Lakes and at Chicago. About August 26 the cholera again broke out among his troops with all the virulence of a first attack.[848] Four companies of United States Rangers had been enlisted, one from Illinois, two from Indiana, and one from Missouri.[849] The Illinois company, while proceeding to the seat of war, had been, like Eustis' detachment of regulars from Chicago, directed to make its way to Rock Island. On the way down Rock River from Dixon's Ferry, the soldiers were attacked by cholera; some were left behind, ill, on the march, and others died after reaching camp near Rock Island. Whether or not it was brought by these troops, the disease soon made its appearance in Rock Island, the first death occurring August 27.[850]

[Footnote 847: Stevens, _op. cit._, 247-48.]

[Footnote 848: Scott, _Memoirs_, I, 221; _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, X, 231.]

[Footnote 849: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, X, 231.]

[Footnote 850: Scott's Order No. 16, August S, 1832, printed in Stevens, _op. cit._, 248-40.]

The outbreak of the plague halted, for the time being, the progress of arrangements for the treaty. The Indians who had not yet assembled were directed to remain away until a new summons should be sent them, and those at hand were permitted to disperse. In this connection there occurred a striking exhibition of the red man's devotion to his code of honor. Among the prisoners whose cases were awaiting disposition were three Sacs who were accused of having murdered some Menominees in accordance with the Indian law of retaliation. Scott set them at liberty to seek safety in the prairies from the pestilence, having first exacted a promise that in response to a prearranged signal, to be hung out from, a dead tree on the subsidence of the pest, they would return to stand their trial. The cholera having passed away the signal was displayed, and a day or two later the murderers presented themselves.[851] It is pleasing to be able to add that an appeal which Scott had already dispatched to Washington in their behalf met with a favorable response and that it was not necessary to take the lives of the men who esteemed their honor so highly.

[Footnote 851: Stevens, _loc. cit._, Scott, _Memoirs_, I, 221-23.]

Scott's measures for coping with the cholera at Rock Island were no less energetic and courageous than those he had already taken in dealing with the earlier outbreak of the plague. In a characteristic order to his troops, issued the day after the first death occurred, he recited the facts of the situation and commanded a strict observance of the proper sanitary regulations.[852] He stated that having himself seen much of the disease, he knew the generating cause of it to be intemperance. Every soldier, therefore, who should be found intoxicated after the issuance of this order would be compelled, as soon as his strength should permit, to dig a grave large enough for his own reception, as such grave could not fail soon to be wanted "for the drunken man himself or some drunken companion." This order was given, it was added, as well to serve for the punishment of drunkenness as to spare good and temperate men the labor of digging graves for their worthless companions.

[Footnote 852: Stevens, _op. cit._, 248-49.]

The troops were camped in tents in close order exposed for several days to cold rains.[853] The groans and screams of the afflicted, audible to everyone, added to the horror of the scene. In the face of this situation the hearts of the stoutest quailed. Through it all General Scott ministered personally to the wants of the afflicted, officers and privates alike, freely exposing himself to disease and death in the most terrible form, and by his example exciting confidence and courage in all.[854] The ravages of the cholera were finally checked by removing the troops from their camp on Rock Island to small camps on the bluffs on the Iowa side of the Mississippi.[855]

[Footnote 853: Captain Henry Smith's narrative, in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, X, 165. The author was himself an officer in General Atkinson's brigade during the war.]

[Footnote 854: _Ibid._; Scott, _Memoirs_, I, 230-32.]

[Footnote 855: Flagler, _Rock Island Arsenal_, 22; _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, X, 166.]

On September 15 and 21, 1832, treaties were concluded by General Scott and Governor Reynolds, acting on behalf of the United States, with the Winnebago and the Sac and Fox Indians respectively, which formally terminated the war.[856] The former were compelled to cede their lands in southern Wisconsin to the United States, and accept in their stead a new home west of the Mississippi in the modern state of Iowa; the latter surrendered an important tract of their territory on the western side of the Mississippi, extending northward from the northern boundary of Missouri. Thus was punishment meted out by the victors--to the Sacs and Foxes for their active participation in the war, to the Winnebagoes for the sympathy and covert assistance extended by them to the former. Black Hawk, the leader of the forlorn red hope in this disastrous foray, was taken, after several months' imprisonment, upon a tour of the East, with the design of imbuing him with a conviction of the futility of further resistance to the whites. Upon his return, shorn of all political power, he was permitted to live out the remainder of his life in retirement, the quiet and peace of which contrasted strangely with the tempestuousness of his active career. No better defense of his action in going to war with the whites can be made than he himself offered in the course of a Fourth of July speech shortly before his death: "Rock River was a beautiful country. I loved my towns, my cornfields, and the home of my people. I fought for it."[857]

[Footnote 856: _Treaties ... from 1778 to 1837_, 503 ff.]

[Footnote 857: Stevens, _op. cit._, 271.]

Upon the conclusion of peace the troops which had been gathered at Rock Island were dispersed in various directions. The survivors of the six companies of artillery which had left Fortress Monroe in June for the seat of war returned to that place in November. Their return route from Rock Island was down the Mississippi and up the Ohio and the Kanawha to Charleston and thence across Virginia to the final destination.[858] On September 23 six companies of infantry of the Second and Fifth Regiments under Lieutenant-colonel Cummings left Rock Island for Chicago.[859] Seven days later the detachment was in camp, on the east branch of the "River du Pagan" near Chicago.[860] Evidently the "Du Pagan" was the modern Du Page. The next day Major Whistler's two companies of the Second Infantry, which were included in the detachment, moved into Chicago and once more took up their quarters in Fort Dearborn. Two days later, October 3, Lieutenant-colonel Cummings left Chicago for Fort Niagara with the two companies of the Fifth Infantry which had come from that place four months before to take part in the war. The destination of the remaining companies of the detachment which had marched from Rock Island to Chicago is not in evidence.

[Footnote 858: _Niles' Register_, November 17, 1832.]

[Footnote 859: _Drennan Papers_, Fort Dearborn post returns for 1832.]

[Footnote 860: _Ibid._]

Thus the Black Hawk War passed into history. It remains to speak of the momentous results for Chicago and the country west of Lake Michigan which accrued from it. By the war the beautiful region of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin was first fairly made known to the whites. "The troops acted as explorers of a large tract of which nothing had hitherto been definitely known among white men."[861] It has even been said that portions of the country which the armies traversed had previously been as little known to the Indians themselves "as the interior of Africa was to Stanley when he first groped his way across the Dark Continent." One of the Illinois militiamen wrote of the Four-Lakes country that if these lakes were anywhere else they would be regarded as among the wonders of the world.[862] On the shores of one of them stands today the capital of Wisconsin, and on the very spot over which the troops of Dodge and Henry pressed in hot pursuit of the fleeing red men has grown up one of America's greatest universities. With the close of the war the East was flooded with books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles describing the newly discovered paradise. The result of this thorough advertising was a rush of immigrants to take possession of it. No other point in all the West profited by this as did Chicago. Her position at the foot of Lake Michigan, on the great highway of trade and travel between the lakes and the Mississippi, which it was expected the construction of the canal from the Chicago River to the Illinois, long under agitation, would shortly open up, secured to her commercial advantages which no other point in the Northwest could rival. Chicago became, therefore, the great entrepôt for the onrushing tide of immigrants. In turn the development of her hinterland provided the substantial basis for a trade, growing ever vaster, of which Chicago constituted the natural outlet and center. The fulfilment of the prophecy made by Schoolcraft a dozen years before that Chicago would become the dèpôt for the inland commerce between the northern and southern sections of the Union, and "a great thoroughfare for strangers, merchants, and travellers," was at hand. The lethargy of a century and a half was about to be thrown off, in the birth of a new Chicago whose name was to become the synonym for energy, enthusiasm, and progress.

[Footnote 861: Thwaites, "Story of the Black Hawk War," in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 264.]

[Footnote 862: Wakefield, quoted in _ibid._, XII, 252.]