In two hours Black-hawk lost two hundred people, men and women both; the white army lost twenty-seven in killed and wounded.
This finished Black-hawk. He got away, but spies were on his trail, and in a few weeks two Winnebago traitors captured him when he gave himself up at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
He expected to die. He had turned his medicine-bag over to the Winnebago chief at the village of La Crosse, Wisconsin—and he never got it back.
He made a speech to the Indian agent, General Joseph Street, at Prairie du Chien. He said:
You have taken me prisoner with all my warriors. I am much grieved, for I expected to hold out much longer and give you more trouble before I surrendered. I tried hard to bring you into ambush, but your last general understands Indian fighting.
I fought hard, but your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like bees in the air, and whizzed by our ears like wind through the trees in winter. My warriors fell around me; I saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire.
That was the last sun that shone on Black-hawk. His heart is dead. He is now a prisoner to the white men; they will do with him as they wish. But he can stand torture and is not afraid of death. He is no coward. Black-hawk is an Indian.
He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his people, against the white men, who have come year after year to cheat him and take away his lands.
You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians and drive them from their homes.
An Indian who is as bad as the white men could not live in our nation; he would be put to death and be eaten up by the wolves. The white men are poor teachers; they shake us by the hand, to make us drunk, and fool us. We told them to let us alone, but they followed us.