A great many Indians enlisted under their red general, Tecumseh. The Potawatomis, Miamis, Ottawas, Winnebagos, Kickapoos, the Sioux of present Minnesota and the Sacs of the Rock River at the Mississippi in Illinois, seized the hatchet and followed him. In the south the Red Sticks war party of the Creeks arose. And on the new frontier of the northwest, from the Ohio to the Mississippi, the American settlers again felt keen alarm.
Tecumseh's star sank, and he with it, at the battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813, when General William Henry Harrison and his three thousand crushed the two thousand British and Indians. The red army was shattered; the chiefs and warriors hastened home as fast as they could, by secret trails; some pretended that they had not dropped their blankets in war, others foraged against the settlements, to get what plunder they might while the whites were fighting.
The Government and the settlers had erected a number of small blockhouses north of the Ohio, through Indiana and Illinois, to keep the Indians off, if possible. One block-house had been located in Bond County, half-way down southwestern Illinois, or about eight miles south of present Greenville.
In the summer of 1814 First Lieutenant Nathaniel Jurney and a dozen United States Rangers were stationed here, upon the broad Illinois prairie dotted with timber and cut by streams. Lieutenant Jurney had been captain in the Illinois Rangers raised for service upon the frontier; but a year ago he had been appointed first lieutenant in the Government Rangers, of the army.
The Indians to be feared hereabouts were roving Sacs, Potawatomis and Winnebagos from the north; yes, and the Prairie Kickapoos from the Wabash River on the east.
However, the block-house was not a very stirring place; and when in the evening of August 30 the Lieutenant Jurney men saw a bunch of Indians reconnoitering at a short distance out, they had high hopes of a little "brush" in the morning.
They rode through the gate before daylight, to surprise the Indian camp; but ere sun-up they had been surprised, themselves, on the edge of some timber. At the first volley the lieutenant had been badly wounded, three of the men had fallen, and far out-numbered the six other men, taking the lieutenant, had raced madly for safety in the fort.
The smoke hung so thickly in the still, damp air that they got away without trouble—all except Ranger Higgins.
He had not gone far. Instead of making to the fort he had sprung from his horse and "treed" (the Kentucky way); and in the smoke cover he had stayed for "one more pull at the redskins." That was rash, but plucky. He had often said that he did not fear "trash" like the "beggarly Kickapoos, Saukees, and such." Kentucky was his home, and he had been reared on stories of the Shawnees, Wyandots and Miamis.
So he waited, behind his tree, until the smoke thinned. Soon he glimpsed several Indians; he took aim, fired, killed one, reloaded, and leaped upon his horse. The Indians had not seen him; he would reach the fort and report that he had accomplished a little, anyway.