USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 47
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Fresh alarms, both real and false, kept coming in to the tenants of Fort Beggs, keeping them in constant agitation and indecision as to what was the best course to pursue, till the news of the Indian creek massacre reached them, when they determined to fly before the impending danger; and on the following Thursday at 7 o'clock in the morning they started for Chicago, the twenty-five men sent from there under Col. Hamilton, acting as their escort. They reached their destination, a distance of forty miles, the same day, which was a forced march for ox teams, which were part of their means of transportation. Again resuming Mr. Beggs narrative, he says:
There was no extra room for us when we arrived in Chicago. Two or three families of our number were put into a room fifteen feet square, with as many more families, and here we stayed crowding and jamming each other for several days. The next morning our first babe was born, and during our stay fifteen tender infants were added to our number. One may imagine the confusion of the scene-children were . crying and women were complaining within doors, while without the tramp of soldiery, the rolling of drums, and the roar of cannon, added to the din,*
Some days ere this the news of Stillman's defeat had reached Chicago, reviving the old war spirit in the breasts of moody veterans whose bad blood was again stirred up from dormant places in their hearts, and their hopes again revived, that the red race could arrest the progress of white settlements in the country. Billy Caldwell and Alexander Robinson saw this in their rue- ful countenances, and proposed to Col. Owen to convene a council for the purpose of forestalling any sympathy
* Early History of the Northwest, by S. R. Beggs, page 103.
547
Fort Payne Built.
for Black Hawk which his fortuitous success might develop among the young Pottawattamie braves. The proposal was accepted, and the council held under the shade of a burr oak on the North Side. Robinson, Cald- well, Col. Owen, Col. Hamilton, and others, made speeches, and a general preference for peace was the result, a feeble minority only dissenting, of whom Big Foot, the famous Winnebago chief, was the leader. He openly defended Black Hawk's cause, and gather- ing to his standard all the inflammable material which loosely lay around the place, he and his disciples van- ished away, ultimately to be buried in the grave of ob- scurity always in store for a lost cause.
The alarms at most of the places from which the settlers had fled, were false. At Indian creek only had any considerable force of Indians made their appear- ance, and even here had the men all remained at home and defended themselves from some covert, their assail- ants would have retreated rather than risk their lives by an attack.
After all the frontier settlers had taken refuge at Ottawa, Danville and Chicago, the able bodied men soon cautiously returned to their homes to look to their safety and to finish planting their corn. With this intent the Naperville settlers returned as soon as they had safely lodged their families in Fort Dearborn, and as a measure of security built a log fort, to which they gave the name of Fort Payne, after one of their settlers.
The news that an Indian war had broken out on the northwestern frontier, rapidly spread throughout every hamlet in the middle and eastern states. A young generation had grown into manhood since the last serious Indian disturbance; but its history, which had been told them by their fathers, was a familiar tale, and a repetition of it was now considered possible. The press of the country teemed with speculations as to what was to be the result of the war, which was regarded as of more importance than the facts would warrant if known. Abundant food for romance was economized out of the situation, and a volume of hasty poetry was published, entitled "Black Hawk and Scenes
548
General Scott Ordered to Chicago.
in the West," which met with a ready sale. Under this pressure, measures were promptly taken by the ad- ministration at Washington to meet the crisis. Nine companies were detailed for this purpose, and placed under the command of Gen. Scott. Among them was a class of cadets (war students), from West Point, who took the occasion to put in practice an art which the peaceful prosperity of those times threatened with dis- use. On the Ist of July they arrived at Detroit. This was the great metropolitan center of the Upper Lake country, beyond which was a limitless wild relieved only by settlements feeble in numbers, and mushroom towns far apart from each other. While Gen. Scott was making a brief rest at this place, two men on board his transports were taken violently sick and died in a few hours, despite the best efforts of his physicians. This was the beginning of the Asiatic cholera on the Upper Lakes. Gen. Scott hastened his departure and proceeded as far as Fort Gratiot, near the outlet of Lake Huron, where he left 280 of his force besides the young cadets, whose warlike zeal was now considerably abated by the presence of an enemy in their midst more formidable than Black Hawk, * While Gen. Scott is taking his course to Chicago on board the steamer "Sheldon Thompson," his physicians are eking out the fearful hours in their vain attempts to purge the cholera from their midst, and the soldiers were drop- ping, one after another of their companies into the sea + let us see what was going on at the place of his des- tination.
Going back but a few days, the place had been the center of an excitement seldom equaled even in the casualties of frontier life. The large number of fugi- tives gathered here all looked to Col. Owen to supply them with such necessities as helpless women and chil- dren must have or perish; and to add to his responsi-
* The fate of these young men sent a wave of grief and sorrow throughout the country. Nearly all of them died of cholera at the fort or perished like beasts of the field alone in some wretched shed or humid forest in their vain attempts to fly before the destroyer, for no one dared to receive them within their doors for fear of this pestilence .-- Brown's History of Illinois.
+ Thirty died on the passage and were thrown into the lake.
549
General Scott at Chicago.
bilities, most of the husbands of these fugitive women were away scouting the country with commendable courage for the protection of their homes. Every avail- able space in the fort was filled, and hastily constructed camps and temporary sleeping booths were constructed outside of it, within the reach of its guns. *
While these fugitives were amusing themselves as best they could to kill the long days of July, the sound of a cannon broke the silence of the morning. All eyes turned toward the lake, and there was an approaching sail. Succeeding puffs of smoke, with a corresponding number of reports after brief intervals of time, threw the town into transports, and almost everybody flew to the beach. The vessel approached the mouth of the river, cast her anchor and lowered her boats. Into these the soldiers leaped, and soon came rowing up the Chicago river, amidst the huzzas of the assembled spectators. This was a small command under Major William Whistler, the son of the same who had built the first Fort Dearborn in 1803-4.+ He came as an advance of Gen. Scott to make preparations for his arrival. Those who were sheltered in the fort were re- quired to leave it, which they did at once, and most of them returned to their homes, the alarm having now partially subsided.
A week after the arrival of Capt. Whistler -- on the 8th of July, at the small hours of the morning (2 o'clock) -the inhabitants of Chicago were awakened by an out- cry in the streets; Gen. Scott's army had arrived and
* A raft of lumber belonging to Noble Bros. (merchants) was used for this purpose.
+ On board the vessel with Major Whistler were his wife, two daugh- ters and a son. This wife has for several years past been known to the people of Chicago as Mrs. Col. Whistler, the oldest living witness of the building of the first Fort Dearborn in 1803-4. She was married to Capt. Whistler at Detroit, in 1802, being then only fourteen years and a few months old, and a few months afterward came with her husband and his father to Chicago to build the fort, as stated in foregoing pages. During the siege of Detroit, in 1812, her husband being an officer under Gen. Hull, she with him was taken prisoner at the surrender. Since her husband's death, her home has been part of the time in Chicago, and part of the time in Newport, Ky., at which latter place she died, February 12, 1878, at the age of ninety-two years. Gwinthlean, after- ward the wife and now the widow of Robert A. Kinzie, was one of her daughters on board the vessel, as above described, and to her is the writer indebted for the above item.
550
The Cholera.
were in the fort, and his soldiers dying with cholera. This king of terrors had made whole congregations turn pale with fear in the east, and the settlers of Chicago were not proof against its alarms. When the broad light of morning came, says an eye witness, hardly a resident was to be seen, for nearly all had fled. Among the dwellers at the forks of the river who remained were Indian Robinson, John Miller and Benjamin Hall. Dr. DeCamp, the army physician, promptly called on these remaining ones and allayed their fears, counseling them not to leave, assuring them that the disease would be confined to the garrison. The fleers soon returned and but one of them was attacked, but to the devoted garrison there was no escape from the appalling situa- tion. To leave the fort was to expose themselves to the censure of whomsoever they might meet, even if it were possible to do such a thing in defiance of the sen- tinel; while to remain inside and witness the carnival of death which was going on there required more com. posure than could be expected of the average soldier.
Black Hawk was now stealthily traversing the coun- try, his war parties threatening portions of the frontier. But Gen. Scott was in no condition to take the offens- ive, for it was all the well ones could do to take care of the sick and bury the dead. Ere the contagion had spent its force ninety of his men had fallen victims and been buried without the usual military honors of a sol- dier or even the civil usages of a coffin. When the last spark of life was supposed to be gone out the corpse was hastened to the grave which was ever ready to receive him, and two men with spades ready to inter- pose a few feet of earth between the decaying mass of contagion and the living world above ground .* On one of these occasions a premature subject was brought enveloped in his burial blanket; but just before he was lowered the unconscious soldier called for water. He was returned to the hospital, and in a few days recov- ered his usual health.+
* The burying ground was at the foot of Madison street, on the lake shore. About 1840, and later, the erosion of the lake washed away portions of it, exposing to view the bones of the victims to the cholera. ¡ Brown's History of Illinois, page 375.
55I
Whiteside's Dilemma.
Not even the terrors of Black Hawk's war parties would have driven the surrounding settlers to Chicago while the cholera was there, and had this pestilence come eighteen days sooner, when the massacre of Indian creek occurred, the unhappy settlers of Naper- ville and Fox river would probably have made a des- perate determination to defend their homes against the Indians rather than encounter the dangers of the new and subtle enemy of mankind, that had even threatened annihilation to the soldiers who had come to defend them.
Leaving Gen. Scott in his fatal duress at Fort Dear- born, let us turn to the Indian war parties, who were now skimming over the prairies in voiceless silence, ready to make sudden dashes upon places supposed to be defenseless, Black Hawk himself all the while at the head of his army, small in numbers, deficient in supplies and inadequate to meet his adversaries in the open field with the faintest hope of success. But how- ever apparent these conditions were to him, his ability to impress them upon the uncontrollable spirits of his followers was wanting. Baulked in his attempt to ally the Winnebago and Pottawattamie nations to his stan- dard, he found himself the leader of a horde of san- guinary hot-spurs, full of courage and destitute of discretion. It was composed of the worst elements of his own tribe and a lawless renegade escapement from the tribes whose support in an evil hour he had counted on, by virtue of the treacherous advice of Neopope Wabokieshiek and the prophet.
Most of the fugitives from the disgraceful field of Stillman's Run reached Gen. Whiteside's headquarters in a few hours, with their zeal for Indian fighting spent in a 30-mile race over the prairies, by which the horses that carried them were not less exhausted than the courage of their riders.
Gen. Whiteside was now in an awkward position. His whole army had been without rations for two days, and confined to a diet of parched corn. In this emer- gency, Mr. Dixon, with patriotic generosity, offered his stock of cattle for their subsistence till stores could be
552
Black Hawk Retreats.
brought. The cattle were butchered and the hungry volunteers ate the meat without bread or potatoes, although it was lean and tough. * The next day after the skirmish Gen. Whiteside led his entire force to its scene. It was a solitude. ,There were the tent marks of Black Hawk's army and the lifeless bodies of eleven slain volunteers divested of their scalps, which were doubtless dangling from the belts of as many Sac war- riors. Black Hawk had gone north, it was supposed, to the region of the Four Lake country, in Wisconsin. + Gen. Whiteside's army now amounted to 2,400 men, and had he followed Black Hawk promptly the war might have been ended in two or three weeks; for the Indians, encumbered as they were with their squaws and children, must have been easily overtaken, and could neither have defended themselves against such odds or escaped by flight. But the volunteers were by this time surfeited with camp life, especially with Indian fighting; the time for which they had enlisted had nearly expired, and they presented but a sorry dependence on which to rely for conquering a foe, though small, jaded to desperation. Under these surroundings, Gen. White- side was obliged to yield the honors of a victory at hand to the capricious discontent of the volunteers, and they were marched back to Ottawa, where they were dis- charged by Gov. Reynolds on the 27th and 28th of May. ¿
After the volunteers left Dixon, Gen. Atkinson en- trenched his camp and remained there with the rein- forcements he had brought from Fort Armstrong. The necessity of immediately raising new recruits to push the war was pressing, for without them the Winne- bagoes, and even the Pottawattamies might have looked upon Black Hawk as the winner, and joined his stan-
* Ford.
+ The Four Lake country was composed of the two beautiful lakes that now almost environ the picturesque city of Madison, and two others below it, all joined by the waters of Catfish creek, having its outlet in Rock river a few miles below Kosh-ko-nong lake. So little was then known of this delightful region that even its locality was not under- stood by any of the volunteers, and Winnebago pilots were employed to direct the course of the army when it took up its march for the place.
į Ford's History of Illinois, page 124.
553
An Indian Ambush.
dard. Accordingly Gov. Reynolds gave orders for raising 2,000 men to take the place of the discharged soldiers. A few of the latter, however, with commend- able patriotism re-enlisted for a few days in order to defend the frontier till the new recruits could be brought into service. Col. Jacob Fry commanded them. James D. Henry was his lieutenant, and John Thomas, major. Gen. Whiteside, with a zeal both laudable and modest, enlisted in the private ranks. The chaff of the late volunteer army returned to their homes, and the true soldierly material just organized out of it promptly dis- tributed themselves in small parties to the most exposed frontiers.
To fight Indians in regular pitched battles is not at- tended with much danger to the white combatants; but to meet them noiselessly, crawling on the ground like serpents to attack some unsuspecting settlement, puts to test the mettle of a soldier. An attack of this kind was planned against the new settlements east of Galena, to guard against which Capt. Adam W. Snyder had been detached with a small company. While thus engaged on the 17th of June, as the tedious hours of night were wearing away, some hostile shots were fired into their camp from an invisible foe. The next morn- ing they followed the intruders to a sink hole hard by, into which treacherous covert the Indians had taken refuge. A charge was made upon them, as if a small army lay concealed there, which resulted in the killing of the whole, only four in number. One of Snyder's men was mortally wounded. Resting under a supposi- tion that they had killed all the Indians in the vicinity, they took up their wounded man and started for their camp, soon heedlessly scattering in different directions in quest of water, when they were suddenly attacked by about seventy Indians who had watched their mo- tions from the first. The men thought only to save themselves by flight, but fortunately Gen. Whiteside was among them, and upon him the captain called for assistance to rally the men. This veteran declaring he would shoot the first man who started to run, resolution took the place of fear, and the men stood their ground.
554
Rev. Adam Payne.
This done, the battle began in earnest, but was soon terminated by a shot from Gen. Whiteside which killed the leader of the Indians, and they all fled without fur- ther resistance, carrying away their dead. Two white men were killed, and one wounded. *
Two days before this affair the new levies had arrived at the mouth of the Vermilion river, from whence they were marched to Fort Wilburn, where they were mus- tered into service and divided into three brigades, com- manded respectively by Gen. Alexander Posey, Gen. Milton K. Alexander and Gen. James D. Henry. Be- sides these, a company of rangers under command of Major Bogart, were to guard the frontier of southern Illinois, while the three divisions were to march in pur- suit of Black Hawk, the architect of all this commotion, which had now drawn over 3, 000 men from the plow to the soldiers' ranks, besides the first volunteers who had just been discharged.
While these formidable preparations had been on foot, the murderous disposition of bad Indians had been ventilated on numerous unhappy victims who by chance had been exposed to their merciless as well as indiscriminate fury.
On a bright morning a little past the middle of May, the people of Chicago were attracted to the fort by the voice of singing. Just outside its walls stood the tall and manly form of Rev. Adam Payne, whose musi- cal and sonorous voice had reached the uttermost limits of the town, and drawn thither an audience. A sermon followed from this eloquent enthusiast, which for fervor and religious effect, might have satisfied the ambition of a Knapp or a Moody. Soldiers, traders, and even the elastic half-breeds, showed signs of contrition which must have been gratifying to the itinerant apostle of the Dunkard faith, as his voice mellowed into pathos under the sympathetic inspiration of the occasion. Mr. Payne was on his way from Ohio to visit his brother, Aaron Payne, who lived in Putnam county, Ill., and imme- diately after his discourse, to which the people of Chi- cago had paid such respectful attention, mounted his
* Boss. History of Ogle county.
555
--
Rev. S. R. Beggs Killed.
horse, and starting on his journey, soon vanished out of sight over the prairies. The first night he reached the house of Rev. S. R. Beggs, on the present site of Plain- field. Here he found his brother preacher with his house barricaded like a fort, so great was the fear of hostile Indians, as already stated. But all this did not dishearten the pilgrim preacher. He had often traveled the route before, and having preached to the Indians with good effect, he relied on his early friendships with them for safety. Under this ill-founded sense of security, he started the next morning in a southwest direction across the wilds, toward Ottawa, much against the ad- monitions of his friends, who assured him that the coun- try was full of hostile Indians. He was mounted on a fleet horse, and by means of a spy glass which he car- ried in his pocket, he felt sure he could detect the char- acter of any Indians he might see, at a sufficient distance to keep out of the way, if hostile. This is the last ever seen ot him by his friends while living. Two or three days subsequently, as Col. Moore's regiment were on their way from Joliet to Fort Wilburn, his advance guard, under charge of Col. Hubbard, saw a pair of saddle bags lying on the prairie about three miles from Holderman's grove. A fresh trail in the tall grass lead- ing from the saddle bags, was immediately followed about an eighth of a mile, where the dead body of the preacher was found. The head was not severed from the body, says Mr. Hubbard, but the scalp was taken, including his long beard. In the saddle bags his hymn book was left by the murderous wretches who killed the lamented preacher, for this was the last thing which could be of any service to them.
Around the dead body of the preacher the grass was leveled, giving proof that he defended himself in a fierce encounter with his murderers. Mr. Hubbard caused his remains to be immediately buried, and his party passed on .*
After the volunteers had left Dixon, Gen. Atkinson continued to hold the place, but dared not take the
* This account has been taken from Mr. Hubbard himself. Others who have stated the affair differently, lack authenticity.
556
Death of St. Vrain.
offensive against Black Hawk, especially as he had no means of knowing the amount of his force. Under these circumstances, he wished to send a communication to Galena. The mission was a dangerous one, but St. Vrain, a former Indian agent of the Sacs, had the hardi- hood to undertake it. He started, with a few com- panions, on the 22d of May. Only six days after the volunteers had left, but ere he reached his destination, he met a party of Sacs, led by Little Bear, whom, hav- ing been a former friend, he approached in the attitude of peace. But Little Bear was on the war path, and massacred the whole party (except two who had escaped), with as little hesitation as he would kill an enemy on the battlefield, alleging as a cause that St. Vrain had assisted Gen. Gaines in driving the Sacs across the Mississippi.
Soon afterward, a Mr. Smith was killed near the Blue Mounds, and Mr. Winters, a mail contractor, six miles from Dixon. Another man was killed not far from the spot where the lamented Mr. Payne was shot, and later, on the 14th of June, five men were killed while at work in a corn field on Spafford's creek, a branch of the Pecatonica.
All this time Black Hawk himself had not struck a hostile blow since the battle at Sycamore creek, but by means of his fleet-footed messengers, as well as his Pottawattamie and Winnebago spies, he was well aware of the preparations which were being made to act against him.
The lead interests of Galena had drawn around the place a thriving settlement of Americans to work the mines which had for a century before been worked by the French or Indians, sometimes by the enforced labor of negro slaves.
In 1827, the county of Jo Daviess had been organized, including within its area several of the present adjacent counties, at that time a trackless wild, except for a few miles around the vicinity of Galena. A devious path, almost concealed with prairie grass, led from this place to Vandalia, the state capital, from whence the mail was carried once a fortnight, and another to Dixon.
.
557
Stephenson's Fatal Skirmish.
The remoteness of this settlement from the populous portion of Illinois made it a shining mark for Black Hawk, and here he determined to strike his first blow before the new recruits came into the field. With this intent, he sent a small band of his marauding scouts thither, to make observations and steal horses. On the night of the 18th of June, they succeeded in accom- plishing this design by entering the stables attached to Apple River fort, and taking away the horses without detection. This was a small stockade on the east bank of Apple river, twelve miles from Galena, situated on section 24, in Elizabeth township. The next morning, by chance, Capt. T. W. Stephenson arrived from Galena with a small command of twelve men, and determined to pursue the pilferers. The party was well mounted, and following their track without diffi- culty over the grass-clad plains, overtook them near Waddam's grove, in the present county of Stephenson, named in honor of the leader of this expedition. The Indians took to the grove, and, secreting themselves, waited the approach of their pursuers, like so many tigers crouching for their prey, and Stephenson's men, with more courage than prudence, dismounted, left their horses in charge of ten of their number and fol- lowed them with the intention of driving them out of their covert and recovering the horses. Three of Stephenson's men were killed in the desperate bush fight, and himself and several others wounded, when they retreated, and the victorious Indians bore away their booty unharmed .* The dead were left on the ground, but the next day the party returned and buried them.
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