CHAPTER XXVI.
Attack on Apple River Fort.[[173]]
On Sunday morning, the 24th day of June, Colonel Strode sent an express of three men, Frederick Dixon, Edmund Welch and one Kirkpatrick, with dispatches for General Atkinson, then at Dixon’s Ferry. By reason of the drenching rain falling at the time of their departure, the men discharged their muskets upon starting out.
Arrived at Apple River fort, twelve or fourteen miles southeast from Galena, at about noon, the express found there Capt. Clack Stone, the commandant, with only fifteen or twenty of his command with him, the others being absent on detached service. The women of the post were all out along the river, gathering berries, or else just starting for that purpose, clearly indicating that war was furthest from their thoughts. Pausing but a moment to pass the news from Galena and allow Mr. Welch to reload his musket, the express again started forward and had covered about 300 yards to the east, when Mr. Welch, who had gained about fifty yards on his companions, was suddenly fired on by a large party of Indians concealed in the high grass near a point necessary to pass on his journey. Rising instantly, they were on the point of seizing and scalping him, as he fell from his horse, shot through the thigh, when he quickly rose and fired at his assailants, some fifteen steps away. His shot was ineffectual, his horse fled, and he would surely have perished had not his companions rushed to his rescue and saved him. They had no loads to fire, but used their guns in a series of feints as though to shoot. The Indians dodged and cowered until the men were able to gain the fort, and there secure protection for two of the number. Mr. Dixon, in his frantic efforts to secure the safety of the wounded man, paid no attention to his own welfare, and, though he saw Kirkpatrick slip within, did not consider himself until the heavy timbered door slammed in his face, leaving him to face the Indians, who by this time were upon him in overwhelming numbers. Dixon was a redoubtable man and full of the resources needed in a new country, and without an instant’s loss he mounted, wheeled, and made for the timber, whose hidden paths he thoroughly knew. The Indians must have been more intent upon the scalps of the little garrison and plunder of the many substantial homes of the neighborhood than Dixon, for they quickly abandoned him altogether, but he, on reaching the house of Mr. John McDonald, where he expected certain relief and safety, found it filled with Indians and himself surrounded. Abandoning his horse, he fled to the rear, followed the margin of Apple River, under cover of its high bank, and, after traveling all night, reached Galena in the morning, painfully bruised and exhausted, but not so tired as to prevent his wish and determination to return to the rescue of his friends.
The shots by the Indians warned all of approaching danger and gave them time to leave the berries and the river and gain the fort, but no sooner were they all safely “forted” than the Indians, who had been massing from all points of the compass to the number of at least 200, surrounded it and hurled against the fort a terrific fire.
Providentially, a wagonload of meat and lead from Galena had been unloaded that very forenoon, which put the garrison in a tolerable state to sustain a siege.
For two hours a heavy fire was maintained by both sides. Under its first fire, the garrison showed fear of the result against such tremendous odds, but instantly Mrs. Elizabeth Armstrong, in a commanding address, inspired man and woman alike with such resolution that nothing could have driven them from their posts. She divided the women into two squads, one to mold bullets, the other to reload the muskets as they were discharged. Unfortunately, no time had been allowed to bring in a supply of water with which to quench thirst during the weary hours of that engagement. The day was hot. Confinement in close quarters of the fort, amidst the fumes of gunpowder and heat of the firing, brought on a state of suffering bordering upon exhaustion, but the almost fainting women, by their heroic disregard for danger and suffering, and by their words of cheer, propped the failing energies of the fighting men. Every advance by the enemy was met with a galling fire from within and the assailants were repulsed, only to resume the assault more fiercely than before and again retire with heavy loss.
Finding it useless to attempt a capitulation by assault, the Indians retired to the surrounding log houses, where, knocking the chinks from between the logs, they opened a deadly fire, which could not be returned with loss to themselves; but this failed to dislodge the whites, and, enraged at their failure, the Indians sought partial revenge by plundering the houses. They destroyed the furniture and crockery, emptied flour barrels and feather beds, stole the bed clothing and wardrobe and then killed the cattle and hogs, finishing their day of destruction by stealing all the horses in sight.
As night approached, Kirkpatrick, who was but a boy, resolved upon going to Galena to seek the aid which he was fearful his companion would never live to obtain. Remonstrances were of no avail, and he set out on his perilous journey in the blackness of the night. With a courage and skill known only on the frontier, he pushed bravely through, reaching Galena in time to meet Colonel Strode as he was starting out with Dixon and his relief party for the fort.
Strode moved rapidly down and left such reinforcements as were needed, but the Indians troubled Apple River fort no more. The heroic little garrison had driven them away for all time.
This band, under Black Hawk’s leadership, was supposed, with good reason, to be the same that attacked Major Dement at Kellogg’s Grove on the 25th. George W. Herclerode, who exposed his head too much in taking aim, and was shot through the neck and instantly killed, and James Nutting, wounded, were the only casualties to the whites.
Following the long list of the “Lead Mines” murders, the reader is brought to the murder of two men at Sinsinawa Mound, the home of George W. Jones. On June 29th three men were at work in a cornfield at Sinsinawa Mound, about ten miles from Galena, when they were attacked by a small party of Indians and two of them killed. Captain Stephenson, who had just arrived at Galena, immediately summoned thirty men of his command and started in pursuit of the Indians. Arrived at the scene, he found the bodies of James Boxley and John Thompson, mutilated as usual, and, after burial, the detachment attempted to run down the Indians. They were pursued as far as the Mississippi, which they had evidently crossed in leaving the country. As the trail could not be further followed. Captain Stephenson returned to Galena, only to be summoned to the final struggle in the pursuit from Rock River to the Mississippi.