On reaching Plainfield he found that they had gone to Ottawa for safety, where, in fact, they were in safety at that moment. He wished to reach them instead of marching to Chicago, as the garrison at Fort Beggs was preparing to do. He was importuned to go along, but by reason of his abiding faith in the Indians’ appreciation of his works and his trust in the protection of God, he determined to set out for Ottawa. The fact that he had traveled from Ohio to Illinois, thence by way of Hickory Creek to Plainfield without the least interruption from the Indians, was reason enough to convince him that he would not be disturbed if he continued. Accordingly he started the very morning the garrison set out for Chicago under Captain Naper. He was mounted on a fine bay mare, carried a large spyglass in his saddlebags, and with the aid of the two he was confident he could, if threatened, elude any ordinary foe.
About the middle of the afternoon, as he was skirting Holderman’s Grove, unconscious of danger, he was awakened from a reverie by shots fired from a foe concealed in a clump of underbrush. One ball entered his shoulder and another inflicted a wound, which soon proved mortal, in the body of his beautiful mare. Realizing that no time was to be lost in garrulous appeals for sympathy and that the only possible chance for escape lay in the old-fashioned way of flight, he pricked his mare forward and for five miles maintained a safe distance ahead of his three pursuers on ponies. But the effect of the mare’s wound was now apparent. She staggered and fell dead under her rider. The three pursuers quickly came upon him and leveled their guns, while he simply raised his hands to Heaven and appealed for mercy. The appeal was heeded by two of them, but, so we are told by one of the party, who subsequently removed west, the third pulled his trigger and fired and Mr. Payne dropped dead. If two of these fiends had been so humane in lowering their weapons it is remarkable that they should all have joined in severing the head from the body, as they did. A long black beard flowed from the victim’s chin, and by this one of the party seized the head, threw it over his shoulder and together the three returned to camp. At this very moment Mr. Payne’s brother Aaron was in the volunteer ranks, and it may not be amiss to relate an incident which occurred at the battle of the Bad Axe. He, too, was a Dunkard preacher, but, being a sensible man, the murder of his brother called every honest human passion into play, one being the desire to revenge his brother’s death, though this he subsequently denied.
In pursuing the retreating Indians, he, with others, came upon a squaw and a boy crouched behind a tree, but, under the belief that the pair were harmless, no attention was paid to them. As the last of the rangers passed the boy raised his gun and shot Payne from his horse, two balls entering his back near the spine. The enraged rangers wheeled and riddled both squaw and boy with bullets, an act which might be deplored in a discussion of casuistic questions, but not to be considered in a case so infamous as this. These bullets Mr. Payne carried during a very long life.
General Scott, attracted to this simple man as he was lying in the hospital at Prairie du Chien, had this to say of him:
“While inspecting the hospital at Fort Crawford, I was struck with a remarkably fine head of a tall volunteer lying on his side, and seeking relief in a book. To my question, ‘What have you there, my friend?’ the wounded man pointed to the title page of ‘Young’s Night Thoughts.’ I sat down on the edge of the bunk, already interested in the reader, to learn more of his history. The wounded volunteer said his brother, Rev. Adam Payne, fell an early victim to Black Hawk’s band, and he (not in the spirit of revenge, but to protect the frontier settlements) volunteered as a private soldier. While riding into the battlefield of Bad Axe he passed a small Indian boy, whom he might have killed, but thought him a harmless child. ‘After passing, the boy fired, lodging two balls near my spine, when I fell from my horse.’ The noble volunteer, although suffering great pain from his wound, said he preferred his condition to the remorse he should have felt if he had killed the boy, believing him to be harmless.”
Public feeling, by these murders, had been worked to such a pitch that a rumor, no matter how impossible or ridiculous, was sufficient to throw a community into a panic, consequently over in Fulton County occurred the silly “Westerfield scare,” which threw the population of the entire county into the improvised fortifications. At such times one Indian might have captured the county without the slightest resistance.
While Dodge was covering Michigan territory (Wisconsin), independent regiments and companies from the south were organized and sent rapidly forward to protect the country between Plainfield and Chicago and Ottawa and the Mississippi, the most important being the Vermilion County regiment organized by Colonel Moore on the 23d of May, the staff officers of which, as near as can be ascertained from the defective records and correspondence, were: Colonel, Isaac R. Moore; Lieutenant-Colonel, Daniel W. Beckwith. It was composed of the seven companies of Captains John B. Thomas, Alexander Bailey, of which Gurdon S. Hubbard was Second Lieutenant, Eliakem Ashton, James Palmer, I.M. Gillispie, James Gregory and Corbin R. Hutt; also of Morgan L. Payne, subsequently transferred to Buckmaster’s battalion. Of this Vermilion organization Governor Reynolds learned May 28th. The regiment ranged constantly until June 23d, when, finding its territory purged of the enemy and peace thoroughly conserved by Major Buckmaster’s battalion, it was mustered out.
At this period of atrocious murders, the killing of Felix St. Vrain, the Fort Armstrong agent for the Sacs and Foxes, was particularly thrilling as well as pathetic. This man, appointed about a year previous to supersede Agent Forsythe, had always been found the stanch friend of the Indian, and such had been the appreciation of his labors that “The Little Bear” had adopted him as his brother.
Aaron Hawley, John Fowler, Thomas Kenney, William Hale, Aquilla Floyd and Alexander Higginbotham, who had been to Sangamon County to buy cattle, had heard of the Indian troubles, and, abandoning their project, were hurrying home to assist in the protection of their homes. On the 22d of May they left Dixon’s Ferry for Galena and traveled as far as Buffalo Grove, where they found the body of Durley, who, as will be remembered, was the murdered member of the Frederick Stahl party. The party immediately returned to Dixon’s, reported the murder and remained there over night. As General Atkinson, who had just returned there on the 23d, had dispatches for Fort Armstrong, he detailed Felix St. Vrain, the most competent officer for the service, to travel to Galena with the party and from that point carry the dispatches down the Mississippi to the fort.[[144]]
At Buffalo Grove the returning party found and buried the body of Durley about a rod from the spot where he fell. The party then resumed its march, traveling toward Fort Hamilton for a distance of ten miles. Here it halted and camped for the night.