At daylight the little band started out again on its march and proceeded about three miles and then stopped again to cook breakfast. After the meal had been finished and the men were about a mile further on their journey, they fell in with a band of thirty Sacs under the command of “The Little Bear.” St. Vrain regarded this as peculiarly propitious and at once assured his companions that no trouble need be feared from his friend, who had many times been an inmate of his house and partaken of his hospitality. Though he approached the Indian with outstretched hand, the overture of peace was spurned, and death to everyone sworn. In vain St. Vrain pleaded for his companions and urged his relations as agent and adopted brother. The Indians attempted in the most methodical and cold-blooded manner imaginable to murder every man present.
Seeing the hopelessness of further parley or an attempt to fight such odds, each man dashed for freedom, trusting to the superior speed of the horses to distance the ponies of the Indians, and the motion of the flight to dodge bullets. But first Fowler was shot down, a few yards distant, then St. Vrain, a little further out, and Hale about three quarters of a mile from the scene of the parley.
Exulting in the glory of their deeds of blood, the Indians, after scalping the three, cut off the head and hands and feet of St. Vrain and took out his heart, which was cut up and passed in pieces to the braves to eat,[[145]] that they might take pride in the statement that they had eaten of the heart of one of the bravest of Americans. After these ghoulish acts, the pursuit of the survivors was resumed, and in it Mr. Hawley was killed, though his body was never recovered and nothing ever definitely heard thereafter concerning it. However, as Black Hawk himself was subsequently found in possession of his coat, it can be easily conjectured that Hawley’s horse mired in the mud, and then, while helpless, the rider was shot down, his body spirited away and his clothing used by his murderers.
The three other fugitives directed their course toward Galena, pursuing it successfully for three or four miles, when they met part of the same band of Indians, who gave them another chase of five or six miles, after which the pursued evaded them altogether. The men then crossed Brush Creek, and, sighting another band, immediately back-tracked six or eight miles to Plum River, where they camped in a thicket until night. Traveling all that night and the succeeding night, resting the intervening day, the three survivors reached Galena the morning of the third day.
Aaron Hawley’s horse being the fastest, was the first to get away, and it was always supposed that he was cut off by another party of the same band of Indians and killed, as stated. When last seen by the other three he was making his course toward the Pecatonica.
On the 8th of June the bodies of St. Vrain, Fowler and Hale were recovered[[146]] and buried four miles south of Kellogg’s Grove, “old place.” A bill for the relief of the widow and heirs of St. Vrain was passed by Congress January 6th, 1834. His tragic death was deplored the country over by reason of his unusual acquaintance and his great reputation for good deeds all his life long.
Felix de Hault de Lassus de St. Vrain[[147]] (such was his full name) in personal appearance was tall and slightly built, with black eyes and black curling hair, worn rather long. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, March 23d, 1799. His grandfather, Pierre Charles de Hault de Lassus et de Luziére, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of St. Michael, was born in Bouchain in Hainault (now Department of the North), where his ancestors had lived from time immemorial, holding offices of the highest importance and trust. This grandfather was compelled to leave France during the “Reign of Terror,” for the Spanish possessions on the Mississippi, where the oldest son subsequently became Governor de Lassus of Upper Louisiana. Mr. Felix St. Vrain’s father, Jacques, was an officer in the French navy. After the transfer of Louisiana to the United States members of the family, with the exception of the Governor, were appointed to offices of trust under our Government. St. Vrain married Mademoiselle Marie Pauline Grégoire, daughter of Charles Cyril Grégoire, also of France.
The Indians had always recognized him to be a man of unusual bravery and devotedly attached to their welfare; in fact, he was opposed to the use of the military that spring in sending Black Hawk back to the west side of the Mississippi, and early in April he went to St. Louis to dissuade the authorities from interfering, but the many and constantly increasing depredations of Black Hawk’s band were perverting the well-disposed Indians to similar acts, and it was decreed that the murderers of the Menominees must be taught a substantial lesson in behavior. Accordingly St. Vrain boarded the boat with General Atkinson and returned to Fort Armstrong. Upon this boat he was detected with the soldiers by the Indian spies, who immediately reported the fact to Black Hawk. Without investigating their charge of treason, all of St. Vrain’s life of devotion to the Indians was blotted out. In the manner of all his miserable judgments in the past, Black Hawk now swore revenge on the agent and selected “The Little Bear” as his deputy to execute the decree.
Gen. George W. Jones, brother-in-law of St. Vrain, identified the body and took back to camp with him the dress coat and pouch which he wore on that day. These articles are to this day in the possession of the Grégoire family.