The Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk - Black Hawk (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

I ought to kill you for running away a long time ago, after I had adopted you as a son⁠—but Black Hawk can forgive as well as fight. When you return to your chief I want you to tell him all my words. Tell him that Black Hawk’s eyes have looked upon many suns, but they shall not see many more; and that his back is no longer straight, as in his youth, but is beginning to bend with age. The Great Spirit has whispered among the tree tops in the morning and evening and says that Black Hawk’s days are few, and that he is wanted in the spirit land. He is half dead, his arm shakes and is no longer strong, and his feet are slow on the war path. Tell him all this, and tell him, too,’ continued the untutored hero of the forest, with trembling emotion and marked emphasis, ‘that Black Hawk would have been a friend to the whites, but they would not let him, and that the hatchet was dug up by themselves and not by the Indians. Tell your chief that Black Hawk meant no harm to the palefaces when he came across the Mississippi, but came peaceably to raise corn for his starving women and children, and that even then he would have gone back, but when he sent his white flag the braves who carried it were treated like squaws and one of them inhumanly shot. Tell him too,’ he concluded with terrible force, while his eyes fairly flashed fire, ‘that Black Hawk will have revenge, and that he will never stop until the Great Spirit shall say to him, come away.’

“Thus saying he loosened the cord that bound my arms, and after giving me particular directions as to the best course to pursue to my own camp, bade me farewell and struck off into the trackless forest, to commence that final struggle which was decided against the Indians.

“After the war was over, and the renowned Black Hawk had been taken prisoner, he was sent to Washington and the largest cities of the seaboard, that he might be convinced how utterly useless it was for him to contend against fate. It was enough, and the terrible warrior returned to the seclusion of his wilderness home, while the scepter of his chieftainship was given to the celebrated Keokuk.

“On the occasion of the ceremony by which Black Hawk was shorn of his power, and which took place on Rock Island, in the Mississippi, I shook the hand of the great chief, who appeared highly pleased to meet me once more; and upon parting with me he said with mournful dignity, as he cast above him a glance of seeming regret: ‘My children think I am too old to lead them any more!’

“This was the last time I ever saw him; and the next I learned of him was that he had left his old hunting grounds forever, and his spirit had gone to that bar where the balance will be rightly adjusted between the child of the forest and his paleface brethren.”

Although the Winnebagoes and the Pottowattomies had resolved to take no part in the war, a few young men from each of these tribes, being emboldened by Black Hawk’s victory in the engagement with Stillman’s regiment, concluded to join him. As the party moved up the river, war parties were sent out, in one of which the Winnebagoes joined, whilst the Pottowattomies, some twenty-five or thirty, went alone on the war path into a settlement that had been made on Indian creek, not far from its entrance into Fox river, and killed fifteen men, women and children, and took two young ladies prisoners, the Misses Hall, whom two young Sacs, who had just rode up, took upon their horses and carried them to a Winnebago camp, with a request that they be delivered to the whites. They were returned soon after, and to the writer said they had been well treated by the Winnebagoes.

On the 19th of Jane a message came into Galena from Kellogg’s Grove, with a report that a party of Indians had been seen in that neighborhood and that they had stolens some horses. Captain James Stephenson, with twelve picked men from his company, started immediately in pursuit of the Indians. On seeing him approach they took to the brush, when the Captain and his men dismounted. Leaving one to hold the horses, the balance entered the thicket, and two of them were killed at the first fire of the Indians, while three of the enemy were laid prostrate. For the purpose of reloading, Capt. Stephenson ordered a retreat, which was a bad move, as it gave the Indians time to reload and seek trees for safety. Capt. Stephenson1 and party again advanced, both parties firing simultaneously, each losing a man, when an Indian who had been secreted behind a tree rushed forward with his knife, but was suddenly checked by one of the soldiers running his bayonet through him. While in this position he seized the bayonet with both hands and had almost succeeded in pushing it out, when another soldier rushed forward, and with one stroke of his knife almost severed the head from his body. In this engagement Capt. S. lost three of the best men of his company and the Indians five, just one-half of their number.

On the return of Capt. Stephenson and party the news of his loss of three men, who were well known and highly respected, soon spread over town and caused much sorrow among their many friends. After learning the mode of attack, military men generally criticized it severely.

Battle of Pecatonica

On the 14th of June, a mall scouting party of Sacs killed five men at the Spafford farm, and on reception of the news next day, Gen. Atkinson ordered Col. Henry Dodge to take command of Posey’s brigade, then stationed near Fort Hamilton, and while on his way