962

DISTORT OF BLACK HAWK WAR.

1832.

establish himself upon his ancient hunting grounds, and in the principal village of his nation. He ordered the white settlers away, threw down their fences, unroofed their houses, cut up their grain, drove off and killed their cattle, and threatened the people with death if they remained. The settlers made their complaints to Governor Reynolds. These acts of the Indians were considered by the governor to be an invasion of the State. He immediately addressed letters to General Gaines, of the United States army, and to General Clark, the superintendent of Indian affairs, calling upon them to use the influence of the government to procure the peaceful removal of the Indians, if possible; at all events to defend and protect the American citizens who had purchased those lands from the United States, and were now about to be ejected by the Indians. General Gaines repaired to Rock Island, with a few companies of regular soldiers, and soon ascertained that the Indians were bent upon war. He immediately called upon Governor Reynolds for seven hundred mounted volunteers. The governor obeyed the requisition. A call was made upon some of the northern and central counties, in obedience to which fifteen hundred volunteers rushed to his standard, at Beardstown, and about the 10th of June were organized, and ready to be marched to the seat of war.

"The army proceeded in four days to the Mississippi, at a place now called Rockport, about eight miles below the mouth of Rock river, where it met General Gaine3 in a steamboat, with a supply of provisions. Here it encamped for one night and here the two generals concerted a plan of operations. General Gaines had been in the vicinity of the Indian town for about a month, during which time it might be supposed that he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with the localities and topography of the country. The next morning the volunteers marched forward, with an old regular soldier for a guide. The steamboat with General Gaines ascended the river. A battle was expected to be fought that day on Vand-ruff's Island, opposite the Indian town. The plan was for the volunteers to cross the sldugh on to this island, give battle to the enemy if found there, and then to ford the main river into the town, where they were to be met by the regular force coming down from the fort. General Gaines had ordered the artillery of the regular army to be stationed on a high bluff which looked down upon the contemplated battle-field a half mile distant, from whence, in case of battle with the Indians in the tangled thickets of the island, their shot were likely to kill more of their friends than their enemies.   It would have been impossible for the artillerists to dis-