CHAPTER XV.
Ne-a-pope’s Mission–Keokuk’s Village–Council–Black Hawk Moves Down Iowa River and up the Mississippi to Rock River–Atkinson Moves up to Fort Armstrong.
With these contentious spirits, Black Hawk, restless Black Hawk, employed his genius, sending out runners to all points of the compass, some going as far as the Gulf of Mexico, to rally round him the confederacy which Tecumseh attempted, but who, with his transcendent genius for organization and war, failed, and so did Black Hawk, much more ingloriously, though assured by his runners of an irresistible force to join him the moment he rose to strike the whites. He had in 1831 sent his lieutenant, Ne-a-pope,[[91]] to the British in Canada to solicit aid. That Indian, inauspiciously returning through the village of Wa-bo-ki-e-shiek, the cross-bred Winnebago prophet, who lived at his village on the left bank of Rock River forty miles from its mouth, told the latter vicious meddler of the object of the Canadian trip. The unscrupulous prophet, delighted at the possibility of making trouble for the whites, performed for Ne-a-pope numerous incantations, received a few visions, and made a prophecy that if Black Hawk would take up the hatchet once more against the whites he would be joined by the Great Spirit and a great army of worldlings, and in no time at all he would vanquish the whites and be restored to his ancient village. It is more than probable that this hocuspocus had great influence with Black Hawk, which, added to Ne-a-pope’s falsehoods, determined Black Hawk to open another campaign against the whites without delay. To begin with, his followers had wantonly wasted their provisions, and even before winter had set in he had inaugurated nightly raids upon the storehouses of the whites, stealing the grain and vegetables there stored with a devilish glee. These raids continued with exasperating frequency and regularity all winter and spring. He even brought himself to believe that he could easily create dissension among the followers of Keokuk and overthrow his power entirely.
Emissaries from the camp of Black Hawk had been busy in Keokuk’s village on the Iowa River,[[92]] and, by insidious industry, murmurs began arising upon all sides. Seizing this supreme moment, while Keokuk’s reputation, influence and life, perhaps, were quivering in the balance, Black Hawk threw off the mask and defiantly marched with his entire force to Keokuk’s village to dispute the supremacy of Keokuk, steal away his warriors and wage war upon the whites.
There at the village all was bustle and confusion. The rifle was loaded and the knife and the hatchet strapped about the warriors’ loins. They had importuned Keokuk to lead them to battle, and so subtle had been the work of Black Hawk’s men that those importunities could not be ignored. The torrent of a mighty and heedless anger raged and carried conservatism, treaties, sentiment and every motive before it. Menaced now by Black Hawk, who had so recently solemnly promised to behave himself for all time, every frontier family stood in danger of the tomahawk. Had the united Sacs and Foxes levied war against the whites, the wavering tribes from Illinois north might have joined them and devastated the country and desolated every hearth.
Black Hawk harangued the Indians with all his energy, firing them to a pitch of excitement he had not expected and compelling Keokuk then and there to promise to lead them to war; but in promising he, like Antony, was permitted to make a speech–and like Antony’s it swayed the mob–against Black Hawk.
“Kill your old men and squaws and children,” cried he, “for never will you live to see them more,”[[93]] and haste was urged in doing it. An electric wave from the skies never could have stricken those howling beasts of the moment before as did that condition precedent. “You have been imposed upon by liars,” he shouted, and when he had finished speaking, he stood, a conqueror, in a silence inspired by awe, and Black Hawk and his band moved sullenly down the river to war upon the whites once too often.
It has been said, and no doubt truly, that one Josiah Smart,[[94]] the representative of George Davenport, was present to learn of Black Hawk’s success and was so secreted as to overhear every word of those memorable proceedings, and for their truth he has vouched.
On April 1, 1832, Gen. Henry Atkinson, then in command at Jefferson Barracks, received an order dated March 17th, announcing the determination of the Government to interfere and demand from the Sacs and Foxes at least eight or ten of the principal murderers of the Menominees. In obedience to that order, General Atkinson started on April 8th for the upper Mississippi with six companies of the Sixth Infantry (220 men) and the following officers of the expedition, in the steamboats Enterprise and Chieftain:
Brig.-Gen. Henry Atkinson, Commanding.
Brev. Maj. Bennet Riley, Commanding 6th Regiment.
Capt. Zalmon C. Palmer, 6th Regiment.
Capt. Henry Smith, 6th Regiment.
Capt. Thomas Noel, 6th Regiment.
Capt. Jason Rogers, 6th Regiment.
Capt. George C. Hutter, 6th Regiment.
First Lieut. Asa Richardson, 6th Regiment.
First Lieut. J. Van Swearengen, 6th Regiment.
Second Lieut. Albert Sidney Johnston, 6th Regiment, Asst. to Adjt. Gen.
Second Lieut. Joseph D. Searight, 6th Regiment.
Second Lieut. Nathaniel J. Eaton, 6th Regiment, Acting Commissary of Subsistence.
Brevet Second Lieut. T.L. Alexander, 6th Regiment, Adjutant of Detachment.
Brevet Second Lieut. Thomas J. Royster, 6th Regiment.
J.S. Van Derveer, 6th Regiment.
J.S. Williams, 6th Regiment.
Second Lieut. W. Wheelwright, 1st Artillery, Ordnance Officer.
Will Carr Lane, Surgeon.
Maj. Thomas Wright, Paymaster.
On April 10th the expedition arrived at the rapids of the Des Moines about 2 P.M., where General Atkinson was informed that Black Hawk on the 6th had crossed to the east bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the lower Iowa, with 400 or 500 horsemen, beside others to portage canoes, making a total force able to bear arms of over 500 men, the whole band, men, women and children, amounting, as then estimated, to about 2,000 souls,[[95]] and going, as Black Hawk has told in his book, “to make corn.”