USA > Illinois > Illinois, historical and statistical, comprising the essential facts of its planting and growth as a province, county, territory, and state, Vol. I > Part 34
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That night the Indians placed upon a raft and in canoes a large number of their women, children, and old men, and sent them down the river, believing that the regular troops at . Fort Crawford, which guarded the mouth of the Wis- consin, would permit them to cross the Mississippi at that point. Learning of their approach, Indian agent Street dis- patched Lieut. Ritner with a few regulars to intercept them. Mercilessly were his orders obeyed. A fire from the troops killed fifteen, while thirty-two women and children and four men were made prisoners. About fifty were drowned, and of those who fled into the woods not more than a dozen escaped death through exposure and starvation, or massacre by a band of Menominee allies under Col. Samuel C. Stambaugh and a few white officers. Truly it was a glorious achievement !
On the next morning the victorious army of the Wisconsin Heights discovered that the entire force of the enemy had escaped. The soldiers remained on the field all day, sleeping on their arms during the following night, and on the 23d started for the Blue Mounds to join Gen. Atkinson.
On July 28, a junction of all the troops, regulars and volun- teers, was effected at Helena, a deserted village on the Wiscon- sin River. The logs of the cabins were converted into rafts on which the army crossed the river. As the trail of the savages was followed across steep, wooded hills, marshy ravines, and swollen streams, evidences of the sufferings of the fugitives multiplied. Trees were found stripped of their bark which had been devoured by the famished wretches, together with the meat cut from the carcasses of their dead ponies, while here and there along the march was found the lifeless body of a brave who had literally fallen from starvation.
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ILLINOIS -- HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
But Black Hawk reached the Mississippi in advance of his pursuers, at a point forty miles from the Wisconsin River, at the mouth of an insignificant stream known as the Bad Axe. Very few canoes were obtainable and the work of ferrying the half-starved remnant of his depleted band was a tedious and difficult task. Suddenly, the military transport Warrior ap- peared on the scene, as she was returning from an expedition undertaken to warn the Sioux of the approach of the Sacs. Fifteen regulars and six volunteers were aboard, under Lieuts. Holmes and Kingsbury. Black Hawk displayed a white flag, evidenced his readiness to surrender, and asked that a boat be sent ashore. The officer was fearful of an ambush and replied that the chief must come aboard the steamer. The latter attempted to explain that this was impossible on account of the want of a canoe. At once three deadly volleys of canister were discharged from the steamer, causing no little havoc among the few Indians on the shore. An exchange of firing followed, resulting in the killing of one white man and twenty- three Indians. Having accomplished this gallant feat, the Warrior, which needed fuel, returned to Prairie du Chien. After the departure of the steamer, the work of ferriage was resumed and a few more canoe loads transported across the river. But here Black Hawk, seeing that further resistance was entirely hopeless, during the night, in company with the Prophet and a party of squaws and children, deserted the remainder of the tribe and fled, precipitately, to the east, where some Winnebagos offered to hide him.
On the morning of August 2, the troops under Gen. Henry, forming the left wing of the army, came upon the Indians yet remaining at the mouth of the Bad Axe and began the attack. Atkinson soon arrived with the main army, and for three hours was witnessed a scene of carnage as appalling as it was revolt- ing. No mercy was shown-only the bleaching bones of mas- sacred whites were remembered. Bayonet charges drove the frightened, feeble Indians into the tops of trees and into the river. Sharpshooters picked off, with unerring aim, warriors, women, and children alike. The troops on the Warrior re- turned and nobly sustained their record of the previous day by pouring canister into the mob of fleeing savages. Yet the
377
BATTLE OF THE BAD AXE.
Indian braves, with a heroism worthy of stoic philosophers, perished like warriors with their faces toward the foe. The conflict against odds so overwhelming was virtually one of useless resistance on the one hand and of wanton extermina- tion on the other. Twenty whites were killed and twelve wounded, while of the Indians one hundred and fifty were killed outright, and about the same number drowned. As the "battle" neared its close, the venerable chief of the hostile Sacs, who heard the firing, and whose heart smote him on account of his desertion of his followers, returned. He was in time to witness the completion of the ruin which he was powerless to avert. With a yell, in which he voiced the rage and disappointment which he could not conceal, he once more fled back into the trackless wilderness.
Some forty prisoners were taken, nearly all women, and about three hundred, in all, escaped to the west bank of the Mississippi. Most of the latter were non-combatants; all of them were helpless from hunger and exhaustion; and not a few suffering from undressed wounds. They were now, however, where they had been repeatedly ordered to go, and doubtless they fancied themselves secure from further molestation. But with a vindictiveness and cruelty unworthy of civilized warfare, Gen. Atkinson had instructed a band of one hundred Sioux, under Wabasha, to attack them, and nearly one-half of this wretched remnant were ruthlessly slain. Of the remainder many more perished before they reached the homes of Keokuk, and the others of their tribe who had refused to follow Black Hawk.
On August 15, the volunteers were mustered out at Dixon, having been disbanded by Gen. Winfield Scott, who had by that date arrived at Prairie du Chien and assumed command. His tardy appearance on the scene was due to the ravages of cholera among his troops at Detroit, Chicago, and Rock Island. About 250 regulars perished through this scourge, and about an equal number of troops and settlers were killed in skirmishes and Indian massacres. The pecuniary cost of the struggle was. about $2,000,000. And thus ended the Black - Hawk War, which was brought on by the interference of the State authori- ties, with those of the United States, upon the false pretenses
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
and clamorous demands of a few interloping squatters, who were themselves in the wrong. But for this interference, the whole difficulty with the Sac chief might have been settled by the payment of a few thousand dollars, and his peaceable transfer to the west side of the Mississippi River effected.
Black Hawk gave himself up to the Winnebagos, who surren- dered him to Indian-agent Street on August 27. On September 21, the formal treaty of peace was signed. Black Hawk, Nea- pope, and the Prophet, who had certainly forfeited his claim to seership, were detained as hostages, and imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, from April, 1833, until June 4. The distin- guished guests of the Nation were then taken on a tour of inspection through the principal eastern cities. On August I, they were returned to Fort Armstrong, where Black Hawk was formally made the ward of Keokuk. This committal, the aged Sac regarded as the crowning indignity which had been heaped upon his whitened head. For five years his proud spirit chafed, until October 3, 1838, at the age of seventy-one, he bade a final adieu to a world in which he had found only disappointment for his most cherished schemes. A reservation had been set apart for him in Davis County, Iowa, and here he died. It is said that within nine months his skeleton was stolen and sold. After what, in the case of a living man, might be termed various mishaps, it finally adorned the walls of the rooms of the Burlington (Iowa) Historical Society, where in 1855, it was destroyed by fire .*
* The following authorities have been consulted in writing the foregoing chapter: "Life of Black Hawk," by Benj. Drake; "History of the Black-Hawk War," by John A. Wakefield; "Life of Black Hawk," dictated by himself; Reynolds' "My Own Times"; Ford's "History of Illinois"; "The Sauks and the Black-Hawk War;" 'by Perry A. Armstrong; "The Black-Hawk War, " by Reuben G. Thwaites, in Vol. V, "Magazine of Western History."
1
CHAPTER XXVI.
Elections-Eighth General Assembly-Receipts and Ex- penditures-Commercial Progress-Social Changes.
T HE Black-Hawk War made the political fortune of a large number of aspiring statesmen. Although it did not close in time for many of them to participate personally in the election held on the first Monday in August (6), they were represented by their friends, and met with but little difficulty in securing the positions sought.
Charles Slade, Zadoc Casey, and Joseph Duncan, all of them pronounced Jackson men, were elected to congress from the first, second, and third (new) districts respectively.
The eighth general assembly convened Dec. 3, 1832. The senate, numbering twenty-six, was divided about equally be- tween old and new members. Among the former were Wm. B. Archer, Joseph Conway, James Evans, Elijah Iles, Adam W. Snyder, and Conrad Will; among the latter were Wm. H. David- son, Henry I. Mills, James M. Strode, and Archibald Williams. Wm. L. D. Ewing, Thomas Mather, George Forquer, and Thos. Rattan had been transferred from the lower to the upper house The house of representatives was composed almost entirely of new members. Peter Cartwright, Michael Jones, formerly of the senate, Edmund D. Taylor, James A. and John D. Whiteside, were among the old ones; and John Dougherty, Cyrus Edwards, Gurdon S. Hubbard, Benjamin Mills, Wm. A. Minshall, James Semple, John Todd Stuart, and Murray Mc- Connell-all of them wearing laurels won in the late war-were among the new.
Alexander M. Jenkins was elected speaker of the house, and David Prickett reëlected clerk. Jesse B. Thomas, jr., was chosen secretary of the senate, and Wm. Weatherford, sergeant- at-arms.
The governor, in his message to the legislature, after congrat- ulating the people on the satisfactory termination of the late war, made the following recommendations: I. The establishment
379
3So
ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
of a system of common schools; 2. The improvement of the Chicago harbor-"that it be made a good one"; 3. The connec- tion of the waters of the Illinois River with Lake Michigan, either by a railroad or canal, his own preference being in favor of the former. He closed with a strong appeal to support the president in his controversy with South Carolina-in favor of the union of the states "as the pride and support of every American," and denouncing the "dangerous doctrine of nullifi- cation."
The first general acts of incorporation were passed at this session, providing for. the organization of towns, and public libraries. The subject of building railroads, also, for the first time received attention, among the routes proposed being one from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River, instead of the canal; one across the centre of the State through Springfield, and anticipating the Illinois-Central, one from Peru to Cairo. Several charters authorizing the incorporation of railroad com- panies were granted, but no organizations under them were ever perfected. It is a significant fact, however, that the atten- tion of the people of Illinois was thus early directed to the adoption of this improved, but yet tentative, method of trans- portation.
The distinguishing feature of this general assembly, however, was the impeachment of Theophilus W. Smith, one of the justices of the supreme court. Five distinct charges were preferred against him by the house, involving oppressive con- duct, corruption, and other misdemeanors. The senate resolved itself into a high court of impeachment, and the proceedings were characterized "by great decorum and solemnity." The managers, on the part of the house, were Benjamin Mills, John T. Stuart, James Semple, Murray McConnell, and John Dough- erty; the accused was defended by Sidney Breese, Richard M. Young, and Thomas Ford. The trial lasted from January 9 to Feb. 7, 1833. The specifications were: selling a circuit-clerk's office; swearing out vexatious writs, returnable before himself, for the purpose of oppressing innocent men by holding them to bail; imprisoning a Quaker for not taking off his hat in court; and suspending a lawyer from practice because he had advised his client to apply for a change of venue from his circuit.
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IMPEACHMENT OF JUDGE SMITH.
The trial was conducted with marked ability on both sides. The speech of Mr. Mills, especially, which occupied three days in its delivery, was pronounced unsurpassed for its finished and scholarly eloquence-brilliant passages from which-gems of thought-were for a long time after quoted upon the streets of Vandalia .*
The protracted trial resulted in a negative acquittal of the accused-that is, twelve senators concurred in believing him guilty of some of the specifications, ten were in favor of an acquittal, while four were excused from voting, it requiring two- thirds to convict.
The prosecution having failed, the house of representatives adopted a resolution for the removal of the judge by address, but in this also the senate refused to concur. And thus ended the first and last impeachment trial in this State.
The first law providing for a mechanics' lien was passed at this session; also that concerning the "right of way" for "public roads, canals, or other public works."
The general assembly adjourned March 2.
The receipts and expenditures during Gov. Reynold's admin- istration, are shown in the annexed table.+
* Gillespie's Recollections, in "Fergus' Historical Series," No. 13.
Benjamin Mills enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most able lawyers and polished orators in the State at this time. His father was an eminent Presbyterian minister in Massachusetts, from whence the son immigrated to Illinois in 1819, locating first at Greenville, and later at Galena. The celebrated Felix Grundy, who . was pitted against him in a noted murder case, said that it was inhuman to employ a man of such transcendent ability in the prosecution-that it was not giving the accused a fair chance. He was witty and as a conversationalist was the very life and soul of convivial gatherings. As a specimen of his ready humor, it was told of him that having joined a temperance society and being found soon after in a grocery drinking out of a wineglass, instead of a tumbler, a friend said to him "Mills, I thought you had quit drinking?" "So I have," said he, holding up the wineglass, "in a great measure."
He ran for congress, as a whig, against Wm. L. May in 1834, but was unsuccess- ful. He was said to bear a striking resemblance to the great Irish orator Curran. He died in 1835.
+ Receipts during 1831-2, ordinary revenue $SS,218
From sales of Vandalia lots 2,316
From sales of saline lands 5,312
From sales by sheriffs
6,783
From sales of seminary lands
-
400
$103,024
Ordinary expenditures
$77,979
382
ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
Before the expiration of Gov. Reynolds' term, he decided to become a candidate for congress. He had already filled the highest offices in both the executive and judicial departments of the State government, and now again became possessed by an ambition to sit in the national councils at Washington. His principal opponent was Col. Adam Wilson Snyder, who was a member of the legislature, an able and popular lawyer, and who had brought home with him from the war the scars of battle. He was a fine speaker, of an ardent temperament, and ambitious. Col. Edward Humphries was also a candidate; but the superior tactics of the governor secured him the victory. He was also elected to fill the unexpired term of Charles Slade, who had recently died of cholera.
At the next general election, the ex-governor being too busily engaged in congress to make a personal canvass, Snyder again became a candidate, and secured the prize.
Reynolds and Snyder both resided in Belleville, both were democrats, and rivals for popular favor. Being generally aspir- ants for the same place, they were very much in each other's way; an antagonism which continued for many years .*
The complete statement for 1833-4 is as follows:
Receipts from ordinary revenue
$76,864
From sales of Vandalia lots, canal, and seminary lands 5,708
From sale of saline lands 14,833
School fund received 32,088
State-bank paper funded
3,790
From James Hall
571
From debts due state bank
6,895
Redemption money
878
$141,627
Cash on hand Nov. 30, 1832
5,447
$147,074
Contra
Paid for ordinary expenses general assembly, legislature,
and executive
$50,748
Special appropriations, including $6161 for the penitentiary
24,914
Miscellaneous
32,728
Funded stock, redeemed
16,362
Interest on $100,000, 2 years
15,090
State-bank paper burned
5898
Sundry items
1037
$146,777
Balance in treasury
$297
* Snyder being applied to to obtain some testimony with a view to its perpetua-
383
JOHN REYNOLDS.
But Col. Snyder was forced in turn to give way to Reynolds, who was elected to the 26th and also the 27th congress.
In 1839, the ex-governor was appointed the financial agent of the State to effect a loan in England under the internal- improvement system.
He closed his congressional career in 1843, and in 1846 was again elected to the legislature, and reëlected in 1852, when he was made speaker of the house.
Perhaps no man better understood the people of Illinois from 1818 to 1848 than did Gov. John Reynolds. He was a close observer of their needs, wishes, and tastes, and was accord- ingly able to adopt a policy which commanded popular support and approval.
To use his own expression, there were but few offices in sight which he did not "go for;" and while not invariably suc- cessful, no public man of his day received a more generous support, or more acceptably served the people in a greater diversity of fields. He was quick to discern on which side of every vital issue stood the common people, to whom he ap- pealed and the champion of whose interests he always assumed to be. In his relations to other public men of his time he seems unconsciously to have adopted and made his own the suggestion offered by William Wirt to Gov. Ninian Edwards- that the triumph of a politician is "to convert his opposers into instruments for his own higher elevation."
As a speaker he was not fluent and made no pretensions to oratory, yet he always managed to interest and influence large audiences, because he had carefully studied their pecularities no less than their wants and sectional predelictions. Although a good Greek, Latin, and French scholar, knowing the con- tempt of the early settlers for "book larnin'," he was careful to avoid anything like a parade of higher education, employing the homely language of the common people in conversation, and affecting an ignorance which was wholly feigned.
tion, on being informed that Gov. Reynolds was the witness required, broke out with an exclamation that he never heard of such nonsense as to go to the expense and trouble of perpetuating his testimony. "Why, confound him, he'll never die," said he, "I have been waiting a quarter of a century for him to kick the bucket, and his hold on life is stronger than it ever was. I will not make a --- fool of myself by seek- ing to perpetuate the testimony of a man who will outlive any record in existence."
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
The governor always favored the extreme measures of his party, including the Mexican War, the acquisition of Texas, the conquest of Cuba, and with regard to the Oregon boundary- line, "54° 40' or fight." While in congress he rendered himself particularly offensive to John Quincy Adams, who, in his diary, stigmatizes him as "course, vulgar, ignorant, and knavish"-a description by which "the old ranger" would hardly have recog- nized himself.
The governor had his own newspaper in Belleville and his own chairman of public meetings, who invariably decided in his favor according to previous training; and no matter how strongly the sense of the meeting was against him, as it some- times proved to be, the proceedings were invariably published as he wanted them to appear. He would have been the admi- ration, as he was the prototype-of the present ward commit- teeman, who so "fixes" the judges of the primaries, who on their part so manipulate "the returns" as that the will of the com- mittee is expressed, rather than that of the voters.
Notwithstanding his emphatic denunciation of the nullifica- tion theories of Calhoun in 1832, in 1858, he had become a pronounced advocate of the doctrine of "state-rights," and in 1860 was chosen a delegate to the Charleston convention as a representative of the anti-Douglas democrats. He never admired Judge Douglas, and would not admit that he was a great man, "except in small things." When the rebellion was imminent, he not only wrote to Gov. Smith of Virginia sus- taining the South, but also to Jefferson Davis, advising a resort to arms for the disruption of the Union .* He lived long enough, however-until May, 1865-to witness the downfall of the confederacy, and the disappointment of his expectation regarding the results of rebellion.
In the later years of his life he devoted himself to the writing of a "Pioneer History of Illinois"-a work of rare merit and interest. Although without order or arrangement, and ram- bling in style, it is replete with quaint observations, and most valuable information relating to the early settlement and history of the State. In his criticisms upon the character and actions of public men, contemporary with himself, with many of whom
* Recollections of Joseph Gillespie, p. 21, "Fergus' Historical Series," No. 13.
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GROWTH OF THE STATE.
he had come in conflict, he evinces an appreciation of the worth of his opponents as keen as his treatment of the weaknesses of his friends is candid. His next literary effort was "John Kelley," and later, he wrote "A Glance at the Crystal Palace in New York," and "My Own Times,"-all exceedingly valuable contributions to the literature of the State.
Gov. Reynolds possessed a fine physique, having been in his youth an accomplished athlete. He had a long face, a high forehead, and large eyes, singularly expressive. He was soci- able, yet temperate, fond of gossip though kindly. If in the attainment of his political ambition he was selfish and grasping, enforcing despotic obedience among his followers, he did not materially depart from the example of other successful politi- cians of his day and age.
Upon the resignation of the governor in November, 1834, on account of his election to congress, Wm. L. D. Ewing, who had been elected president of the senate in place of Lieut .- Gov. Casey, also elected to congress, succeeded to the executive chair-a position he held only fifteen days.
The growth of the State from 1820 to 1835 was unexampled, the population having increased from 55,162 to 269,974. Of this extraordinary accession, 102,283 were added during the first decade and 112,529 during the five years between 1830 and 1835. The nineteen counties of 1820 had been trebled, there being fifty-seven in 1835. During the earlier years of this period-from 1821 to 1823- the influx of settlers was toward the "Sangamo Country," resulting in the organization of the counties of Montgomery, Greene, and Sangamon in 1821, and Morgan in 1823. In the latter year, however, the fame of the district known as the "military tract" became noised abroad, and there was a rush of immigrants in that direction. The lands constituting the section to which this title was applied were given as a bounty to the soldiers of the War of 1812, and extended on the fourth principal meridian from the mouth of the Illinois 160 miles north, the tract comprising the peninsula between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Within its limits, in 1824-5, were created the counties of Adams, Calhoun, Han- cock, Schuyler, Knox, Warren, Peoria, Mercer, Henry, and Putnam; Pike and Fulton counties, lying in the same tract,
25
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
had been already organized, the former in 1821 and the latter in 1823, while McDonough followed in 1826, On the east side of the Illinois River, the incoming tide of population resulted in the organization of Tazewell County in 1827, Macon in 1829, and McLean in 1830. Afterward, as the project of building a canal which should connect the waters of the Illinois and Lake Michigan began to assume tangible shape, settlers ven- tured still farther north, and in 1831 were formed the coun- ties of LaSalle, Rock Island, and Cook. Their growth was not a little stimulated by the favorable reports of the coun- try carried to the south and east by soldiers returning from the Black-Hawk War. The pay of the volunteers in that struggle, amounting to about half a million of dollars, was expended in paying for land already acquired and for entering new claims-one very material benefit, at least, derived from that war.
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