OUTBREAK OF SACS AND FOXES.—LINCOLN VOLUNTEERS AND IS MADE A
CAPTAIN.—INCIDENTS OF HIS SERVICE AS CAPTAIN.—STILLMAN’S DEFEAT.
One morning in April a messenger from the governor of the State rode
into New Salem, scattering circulars. These circulars contained an
address from Governor Reynolds to the militia of the northwest section
of the State, announcing that the British band of Sacs and other hostile
Indians, headed by Black Hawk, had invaded the Rock River country, to
the great terror of the frontier inhabitants; and calling upon the
citizens who were willing to aid in repelling them, to rendezvous at
Beardstown within a week.
[Illustration:
NANCY GREEN.
Nancy Green was the wife of “Squire” Bowling Green. Her maiden name
was Nancy Potter. She was born in North Carolina in 1797, and
married Bowling Green in 1818. She removed with him to New Salem in
1820, and lived in that vicinity until her death, in 1864. Lincoln
was a constant visitor in Nancy Green’s home.
]
The name of Black Hawk was familiar to the people of Illinois. He was an
old enemy of the settlers, and had been a tried friend of the British.
The land his people had once owned in the northwest of the present State
of Illinois had been sold in 1804 to the government of the United
States, but with the provision that the Indians should hunt and raise
corn there until it was surveyed and sold to settlers. Long before the
land was surveyed, however, squatters had invaded the country, and tried
to force the Indians west of the Mississippi. Particularly envious were
these whites of the lands at the mouth of the Rock River, where the
ancient village and burial place of the Sacs stood, and where they came
each year to raise corn. Black Hawk had resisted their encroachments,
and many violent acts had been committed on both sides.
Finally, however, the squatters, in spite of the fact that the line of
settlement was still fifty miles away, succeeded in evading the real
meaning of the treaty and in securing a survey of the desired land at
the mouth of the river. Black Hawk, exasperated and broken-hearted at
seeing his village violated, persuaded himself that the village had
never been sold—indeed, that land could not be sold.
“My reason teaches me,” he wrote, “that land cannot be sold. The
Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and cultivate, as
far as is necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they
occupy and cultivate it they have the right to the soil, but if they
voluntarily leave it, then any other people have a right to settle
upon it. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried
away.”
[Illustration:
JOHN A. CLARY.
John A. Clary was one of the “Clary’s Grove Boys.” He was the son of
John Clary, the head of the numerous Clary family which settled in
the vicinity of New Salem in 1881. He was born in Tennessee in 1815
and died in 1880. He was an intimate associate of Lincoln during the
latter’s New Salem days.
]
Supported by this theory, conscious that in some way he did not
understand he had been wronged, and urged on by White Cloud, the
prophet, who ruled a Winnebago village on the Rock River, Black Hawk
crossed the Mississippi in 1831, determined to evict the settlers. A
military demonstration drove him back, and he was persuaded to sign a
treaty never to return east of the Mississippi. “I touched the
goose-quill to the treaty and was determined to live in peace,” he wrote
afterward; but hardly had he “touched the goose-quill” before his heart
smote him. Longing for his home, resentment at the whites, obstinacy,
brooding over the bad counsels of White Cloud and his disciple
Neapope—an agitating Indian who had recently been East to visit the
British and their Indian allies, and who assured Black Hawk that the
Winnebagoes, Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawottomies would join him in a
struggle for his land, and that the British would send him “guns,
ammunition, provisions, and clothing early in the spring”—all persuaded
the Hawk that he would be successful if he made an effort to drive out
the whites. In spite of the advice of many of his friends and of the
Indian agent in the country, he crossed the river on April 6, 1832, and
with some five hundred braves, his squaws and children, marched to the
Prophet’s town, thirty-five miles up the Rock River.
As soon as they heard of Black Hawk’s invasion, the settlers of the
northwestern part of the State fled in a panic to the forts; and they
rained petitions for protection on Governor Reynolds. General Atkinson,
who was at Fort Armstrong, wrote to the governor for reënforcements;
and, accordingly, on the 16th of April Governor Reynolds sent out
“influential messengers” with a sonorous summons. It was one of these
messengers riding into New Salem who put an end to Lincoln’s canvassing
for the legislature, freed him from Offutt’s expiring grocery, and led
him to enlist.
There was no time to waste. The volunteers were ordered to be at
Beardstown, nearly forty miles from New Salem, on April 22d. Horses,
rifles, saddles, blankets were to be secured, a company formed. It was
work of which the settlers were not ignorant. Under the laws of the
State every able-bodied male inhabitant between eighteen and forty-five
was obliged to drill twice a year or pay a fine of one dollar. “As a
dollar was hard to raise,” says one of the old settlers, “everybody
drilled.”
LINCOLN A CAPTAIN.
[Illustration:
DUTCH OVEN.
From a photograph made for this work. Owned by Mrs. Ott of Petersburg,
Illinois. “A kind of flat-bottomed pot, ... which stood upon three
legs of three inches long, and had an iron lid. Into this bread or
meats were put, and baked by placing it on the hearth with a
quantity of coals under it and upon the lid, which was made with a
rim to keep the coals upon it, and a loop handle to lift it by. It
also had a bail like a pot, by which it could be hung over the
fire.”—_Recollections of Life in Ohio_, by WILLIAM COOPER HOWELLS.
]
Preparations were quickly made, and by April 22d the men were at
Beardstown. The day before, at Richland, Sangamon County, Lincoln had
been elected to the captaincy of the company from Sangamon to which he
belonged.
His friend Greene gave another reason than ambition to explain his
desire for the captaincy. One of the “odd jobs” which Lincoln had taken
since coming into Illinois was working in a saw-mill for a man named
Kirkpatrick. In hiring Lincoln, Kirkpatrick had promised to buy him a
cant-hook with which to move heavy logs. Lincoln had proposed, if
Kirkpatrick would give him the two dollars which the cant-hook would
cost, to move the logs with a common hand-spike. This the proprietor had
agreed to, but when payday came he refused to keep his word. When the
Sangamon company of volunteers was formed, Kirkpatrick aspired to the
captaincy, and Lincoln, knowing it, said to Greene: “Bill, I believe I
can now make Kirkpatrick pay that two dollars he owes me on the
cant-hook. I’ll run against him for captain;” and he became a candidate.
The vote was taken in a field, by directing the men at the command
“march” to assemble around the one they wanted for captain. When the
order was given, three-fourths of the men gathered around Lincoln.[14]
In Lincoln’s curious third-person autobiography he says he was elected,
“to his own surprise;” and adds, “He says he has not since had any
success in life which gave him so much satisfaction.”
Footnote 14:
This story of Kirkpatrick’s unfair treatment of Lincoln we owe to the
courtesy of Colonel Clark E. Carr of Galesburg, Illinois, to whom it
was told several times by Greene himself.
The company was a motley crowd of men. Each had secured for his outfit
what he could get, and no two were equipped alike. Buckskin breeches
prevailed, and there was a sprinkling of coonskin caps. Each man had a
blanket of the coarsest texture. Flint-lock rifles were the usual arms,
though here and there a man had a Cramer. Over the shoulder of each was
slung a powder-horn. The men had, as a rule, as little regard for
discipline as for appearances, and when the new captain gave an order
were as likely to jeer at it as to obey it. To drive the Indians out was
their mission, and any orders which did not bear directly on that point
were little respected. Lincoln himself was not familiar with military
tactics, and made many blunders, of which he used to tell afterwards
with relish. One of his early experiences in handling his company is
particularly amusing. He was marching with a front of over twenty men
across a field, when he desired to pass through a gateway into the next
inclosure.
“I could not for the life of me,” said he, “remember the proper word of
command for getting my company _endwise_, so that it could get through
the gate; so, as we came near the gate, I shouted, ‘This company is
dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side
of the gate!’”
Nor was it only his ignorance of the manual which caused him trouble. He
was so unfamiliar with camp discipline that he once had his sword taken
from him for shooting within limits. Another disgrace he suffered was on
account of his disorderly company. The men, unknown to him, stole a
quantity of liquor one night, and the next morning were too drunk to
fall in when the order was given to march. For their lawlessness Lincoln
wore a wooden sword two days.
[Illustration:
VIEW OF THE SANGAMON RIVER NEAR NEW SALEM.
The town lay along the ridge marked by the star.
]
But none of these small difficulties injured his standing with the
company. Lincoln was tactful, and he joined his men in sports as well as
duties. They soon grew so proud of his quick wit and great strength that
they obeyed him because they admired him. No amount of military tactics
could have secured from the volunteers the cheerful following he won by
his personal qualities.
[Illustration:
SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT’S STORE.
From a photograph taken for this work. The building in which Lincoln
clerked for Denton Offutt was standing as late as 1836, and
presumably stood until it rotted down. A slight depression in the
earth, evidently once a cellar, is all that remains of Offutt’s
store. Out of this hole in the ground have grown three trees, a
locust, an elm, and a sycamore, seeming to spring from the same
roots, and curiously twined together. High up on the sycamore some
genius has chiselled the face of Lincoln.
]
[Illustration:
JOHN POTTER, NEIGHBOR OF LINCOLN’S AT NEW SALEM.
From a recent photograph. John Potter, born November 10, 1808, was a
few months older than Lincoln. He is now living at Petersburg,
Illinois. He settled in the country one and one-half miles from New
Salem in 1820. Mr. Potter remembers Lincoln’s first appearance in
New Salem, in July, 1831. He corroborates the stories told of his
store, of his popularity in the community, and of the general
impression that he was an unusually promising young man.
]
The men soon learned, too, that he meant what he said, and would permit
no dishonorable actions. A helpless Indian took refuge in the camp one
day; and the men, who were inspired by what Governor Reynolds calls
_Indian ill-will_—that wanton mixture of selfishness, unreason, and
cruelty which seems to seize a frontiersman as soon as he scents a red
man—were determined to kill the refugee. He had a safe conduct from
General Cass; but the men, having come out to kill Indians and not
having succeeded, threatened to take revenge on the helpless savage.
Lincoln boldly took the man’s part, and, though he risked his life in
doing it, he cowed the company and saved the Indian.
It was on the 27th of April that the force of sixteen hundred men
organized at Beardstown started out. The spring was cold, the roads
heavy, the streams turbulent. The army marched first to Yellow Banks on
the Mississippi; then to Dixon on the Rock River, which they reached on
May 12th. At Dixon they camped, and near here occurred the first
bloodshed of the war.
A body of about three hundred and forty rangers under Major Stillman,
but not of the regular army, asked to go ahead as scouts, to look for a
body of Indians under Black Hawk, rumored to be about twelve miles away.
The permission was given, and on the night of the 14th of May, Stillman
and his men went into camp. Black Hawk heard of their presence. By this
time the poor old chief had discovered that the promises of aid from the
Indian tribes and the British were false, and, dismayed, he had resolved
to recross the Mississippi. When he heard of the whites near, he sent
three braves with a white flag to ask for a parley and permission to
descend the river. Behind them he sent five men to watch proceedings.
Stillman’s rangers were in camp when the bearers of the flag of truce
appeared. The men were many of them half drunk, and when they saw the
Indian truce-bearers, they rushed out in a wild mob, and ran them into
camp. Then catching sight of the five spies, they started after them,
killing two. The three who reached Black Hawk reported that the
truce-bearers had been killed, as well as their two companions. Furious
at this violation of faith, Black Hawk raised a yell, and sallied forth
with forty braves to meet Stillman’s band, who by this time were out in
search of the Indians. Black Hawk, too maddened to think of the
difference of numbers, attacked the whites. To his surprise the enemy
turned, and fled in a wild riot. Nor did they stop at their camp, which
from its position was almost impregnable; they fled in complete panic,
_sauve qui peut_, through their camp, across prairie and rivers and
swamps, to Dixon, twelve miles away. The first arrival reported that two
thousand savages had swept down on Stillman’s camp and slaughtered all
but himself. Before the next night all but eleven of the band had
arrived.
Stillman’s defeat, as this disgraceful affair is called, put all notion
of peace out of Black Hawk’s mind, and he started out in earnest on the
warpath. By the morning of the 15th, Governor Reynolds and his army were
in pursuit of Black Hawk. But it was like pursuing a shadow. The Indians
purposely confused their trail. Sometimes it was a broad path, then it
suddenly radiated to all points. The whites broke their bands, and
pursued the savages here and there, never overtaking them, though now
and then coming suddenly on some terrible evidences of their presence—a
frontier home deserted and burned, slaughtered cattle, scalps suspended
where the army could not fail to see them.
[Illustration:
BOWLING GREEN’S HOUSE.
From a photograph made for this work. Bowling Green’s log cabin, half
a mile north of New Salem, just under the bluff, still stands, but
long since ceased to be a dwelling-house, and is now a tumble-down
old stable. Here Lincoln was a frequent boarder, especially during
the period of his closest application to the study of the law.
Stretched out on the cellar door of this cabin, reading a book, he
met for the first time “Dick” Yates, then a college student at
Jacksonville, and destined to become the great “War Governor” of the
State. Yates had come home with William G. Greene to spend his
vacation, and Greene took him around to Bowling Green’s house to
introduce him to “his friend, Abe Lincoln.” Unhappily there is
nowhere in existence a picture of the original occupant of this
humble cabin. Bowling Green was one of the leading citizens of the
county. He was County Commissioner from 1826 to 1828; he was for
many years a justice of the peace; he was a prominent member of the
Masonic fraternity, and a very active and uncompromising Whig. The
friendship between him and Lincoln, beginning at a very early day,
continued until his death, in 1842.
]
This fruitless warfare exasperated the volunteers; they threatened to
leave, and their officers had great difficulty in making them obey
orders. On reaching a point on the Rock River, beyond which lay the
Indian country, the men under Colonel Zachary Taylor refused to cross,
urging that they had volunteered only to defend the State, and had the
right to refuse to go out of its borders. Taylor heard them to the end,
and then said: “I feel that all gentlemen here are my equals; in
reality, I am persuaded that many of them will, in a few years, be my
superiors, and perhaps, in the capacity of members of Congress, arbiters
of the fortunes and reputation of humble servants of the Republic, like
myself. I expect then to obey them as interpreters of the will of the
people; and the best proof that I will obey them is now to observe the
orders of those whom the people have already put in the place of
authority to which many gentlemen around me justly aspire. In plain
English, gentlemen and fellow-citizens, the word has been passed on to
me from Washington to follow Black Hawk and to take you with me as
soldiers. I mean to do both. There are the flatboats drawn up on the
shore, and here are Uncle Sam’s men drawn up behind you on the prairie.”
The volunteers knew true grit when they met it. They dissolved their
meeting and crossed the river without Uncle Sam’s men being called into
action.