Colonel Dodge had barely returned to his headquarters when he received word that an attack on Mound Fort was threatened and that reinforcements were promptly needed. Without delay Dodge summoned the companies of Capt. J.R.B. Gratiot and Captain Clark, which had been formed during his absence, and detachments of two other companies, and started for the fort. When within three miles of it an express met him with information of the return at that fort of the Hall girls. Arrived there, he found the report of the contemplated attack had been exaggerated, though some of the Winnebago party were that night suspected and taken into custody. Arrangements were promptly made for the payment of the $2,000 promised by Atkinson, which the Indians agreed to accept in money, ponies and other useful and valuable chattels.
That night[[161]] signs of hostilities were made to Capt. J.R.B. Gratiot, which he quickly communicated to Dodge. Awakening him, the two walked over to the brush, to which the particular Indians had retired, and took White Crow and five others into custody, marched them to a cabin and ordered them to lie down and remain there until morning. Dodge himself laid down beside them, having first placed a strong guard around the cabin and a double guard around the whole encampment. The next day the whole band, despite the complaint that their feet were sore, were taken with the Hall girls to Morrison’s Grove, fifteen miles to the west, where Dodge held a talk with them June 5th. Candidly speaking his fears, he demanded that Whirling Thunder, Spotted Arm and Little Priest be held as hostages until the end of the month, to which the Indians assented, and thus doubtless was prevented the formation of a cabal which might have brought disaster to the whites.
By way of Fort Defiance the girls were, on June 8th, taken to Gratiot’s Grove, where a junction was formed with the command of Capt. J.W. Stephenson, then departing to find the bodies of the St. Vrain party, and there the girls were left with Col. Henry Gratiot. There, too, the murder of Aubrey was reported.
On the 6th of June[[162]] one William Aubrey, first captain[[163]] of Mound Fort, was killed by the Sacs while after water at a spring near the dwelling of Ebenezer Brigham, a mile and a half distant to the north of the fort, to which place the Sacs had been led by Winnebago renegades.
Being then south bound, Dodge sent an express with instructions to Fort Defiance and Mineral Point to proceed with men to the scene and bury the murdered man, which was done.
By noon of the 8th the troops reached Kirker’s farm, where they halted to consider the numerous murders constantly committed in their midst. Here Dodge delivered a short address to the troops, which fired them with an enthusiasm that none but Dodge could inspire. In fact, it may be said for the troops from the mining districts that they fought and dragooned their country night and day, with never a thought of flinching or flagging. In the afternoon the men marched south and found and buried the bodies of St. Vrain, Hale and Fowler, after which Stephenson returned to Galena, while Dodge moved on to Hickory Point to camp for the night. The next morning he marched to Dixon’s Ferry and camped that night with General Brady. There it was learned that Atkinson had gone over to the mouth of Fox River, below which the new levies were massing. With twenty-five men Dodge escorted Brady thence,[[164]] and on the 11th the two had a conference with Atkinson, at which plans for the future campaign were fully mapped out. By midnight Dodge had returned to Dixon’s. His faculty for quick marches has seldom been equaled. In fact, to keep track of him, Colonel Hamilton and Captain Stephenson during their rides over the frontier was impossible to any save members of their commands. Night and day they rode tirelessly. From Ottawa and Fort Wilbourn to the south to Mineral Point and the Four Lakes to the north, they were incessantly moving and charging bands of thieves and murderers, and to their work this pen cannot do justice.
With little or no rest, Dodge started back for the mining country, reaching Gratiot’s Grove June 13th. There, worn and exhausted, he dispersed his command to their respective forts to recuperate the strength of the horses and await further orders.
No sooner had the men reached Fort Defiance at sundown of the 14th, than one David, as an express, arrived with news of the murder that day of Spafford, Searles, Spencer, McIlwaine and an Englishman nicknamed John Bull, at Spafford’s farm on the Pecatonica, six miles southeast of Fort Hamilton. Captain Hoard at once dispatched an express to Dodge at Dodgeville, and ordered Lieut. Charles Bracken with a detachment to Fort Hamilton, which was reached late that night. The following morning, under guidance of Bennett Million, a survivor of the party which had been attacked, Bracken took a detachment over to Spafford’s farm and buried the dead men, who as usual had been shockingly mutilated.
Early in the morning of the 16th Dodge sighted the fort about one mile away, where he met a German named Henry Appel going to his cabin for blankets. In a few minutes shots were heard, and just as Dodge was entering the fort, Appel’s horse, bedabbled with the blood of its owner, came galloping back to the fort.
A detachment of twenty-nine men immediately started in pursuit of the murderers, with another small detail to bury poor Appel, whose mutilated body was expected to be found as a matter of course. High creeks, muddy roads and other difficulties gave the Indians many advantages in their escape[[165]] to the Pecatonica, which they reached and crossed a considerable time before the whites reached it.