One morning in April a messenger from the governor of the State rode
into New Salem scattering a circular. It was 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 on the citizens who
were willing to aid in repelling them, to rendezvous at Beardstown
within a week.
[Illustration: MONUMENT AT KELLOGG'S GROVE.
On June 24, 1832, Black Hawk attacked Apple River Fort, fourteen miles
east of Galena, Illinois, but was unable to drive out the inmates. The
next day he attacked a spy battalion of one hundred and fifty men
at Kellogg's Grove, sixteen miles further east. A detachment of
volunteers relieved the battalion, and drove off the savages, about
fifteen of whom were killed. The whites lost five men, who were buried
at various points in the grove. During the summer of 1886 the remains
of these men were collected and, with those of five or six other
victims of the war, were placed together under the monument here
represented.--See "The Black Hawk War," by Reuben G. Thwaites, Vol.
XII. in Wisconsin Historical Collections. This account of the Black
Hawk War is the most trustworthy, complete, and interesting which has
been made.]
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.
[Illustration: JOHN REYNOLDS, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS 1831-1834.
After a steel engraving in the Governor's office, Springfield,
Illinois. John Reynolds, Governor of Illinois from 1831 to 1834, was
born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, February 26, 1788. He was
of Irish parentage. When he was six months old his parents moved to
Tennessee. In 1800 they removed to Illinois. When twenty years old,
John Reynolds went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to college, where he spent
two years. He was admitted to the bar at Kaskaskia in 1812. In the war
of 1812 he rendered distinguished service, earning the title of "the
Old Ranger." He began the practice of law in the spring of 1814. In
1818 he was made an associate justice of the Supreme Court; in 1826 he
was elected a member of the legislature; and in 1830, after a stirring
campaign, he was chosen Governor of Illinois. The most important event
of his administration was the Black Hawk War. He was prompt in calling
out the militia to subdue the Black Hawk, and went upon the field
in person. In November, 1834, just before the close of his term as
Governor, he resigned to become a member of Congress. In 1837, aided
by others, he built the first railroad in the State--a short line of
six miles from his coal mine in the Mississippi bluff to the bank of
the river opposite St. Louis. It was operated by horse power. He again
became a member of the legislature in 1846 and 1852, during the latter
term being Speaker of the House. In 1860, in his seventy-third year,
he was an anti-Douglas delegate to the Charleston convention,
and received the most distinguished attentions from the Southern
delegates. After the October elections, when it became apparent that
Lincoln would be elected, he issued an address advising the support
of Douglas. His sympathies were with the South, though in 1832 he
strongly supported President Jackson in the suppression of the South
Carolina nullifiers. He died in Belleville in May, 1865. Governor
Reynolds was a quaint and forceful character. He was a man of much
learning; but in conversation (and he talked much) he rarely rose
above the odd Western vernacular, of which he was so complete a
master. He was the author of two books--one an autobiography, and the
other "The Pioneer History of Illinois."]
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."
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 persuasion 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 fled in
a panic to the forts in the vicinity, and they rained petitions for
protection on Governor Reynolds. General Atkinson, who commanded a
company at Fort Armstrong, wrote the governor he must have help;
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.
[Illustration: ELIJAH ILES, CAPTAIN OF COMPANY IN WHICH LINCOLN SERVED
AS PRIVATE IN BLACK HAWK WAR.
From a photograph made for this Magazine.
After a painting by the late Mrs. Obed Lewis, niece of Major Iles, and
owned by Mr. Obed Lewis, Springfield, Illinois. Elijah Iles was born
in Kentucky, March 28, 1796, and when young went to Missouri. There he
heard marvellous stories about the Sangamon Valley, and he resolved
to go thither. Springfield had just been staked out in the wilderness,
and he reached the place in time to erect the first building--a rude
hut in which he kept a store. This was in 1821. "In the early days in
Illinois," he wrote in 1883, "it was hard to find good material for
law-makers. I was elected a State Senator in 1826, and again for a
second term. The Senate then comprised thirteen members, and the House
twenty-five." In 1827 he was elected major in the command of Colonel
T. McNeal, intending to fight the Winnebagoes, but no fighting
occurred. In the Black Hawk War of 1832, after his term as a private
in Captain Dawson's company had expired, he was elected captain of a
new company of independent rangers. In this company Lincoln reenlisted
as a private. Major Iles lived at Springfield all his life. He died
September 4, 1883.]
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."