“After crossing the Pecatonica, in the open ground, I dismounted my command, linked my horses, left four men in charge of them, and sent four men in different directions to watch the movements of the Indians if they should attempt to swim the Pecatonica; the men were placed on high points that would give a view of the enemy should they attempt to retreat. I formed my men on foot at open order and at trailed arms, and we proceeded through the swamps to some timber and undergrowth, where I expected to find the enemy. When I found their trail, I knew they were close at hand. They had got close to the edge of a lake, where the bank was about six feet high, which was a complete breastwork for them. They commenced the fire, when three of my men fell, two dangerously wounded, one severely, but not dangerously. I instantly ordered a charge on them made by eighteen men, which was promptly obeyed. The Indians being under the bank, our guns were brought within ten or fifteen feet of them before we could fire on them. Their party consisted of thirteen men. Eleven were killed on the spot, and the remaining two were killed in crossing the lake, so that they were left without one to carry the news to their friends.”[[166]]
As a matter of fact, there were seventeen in the party of Indians; eleven were found dead, two were killed in crossing the river or swampy widening of it and were scalped by the Winnebagoes, Colonel Hamilton, when he came up, found the body of another, and late the succeeding winter a French trapper found three more in the swamp close by, beneath brushwood, under which they had crawled when wounded.[[167]]
Thus with the loss of the three whites in the first fire, but eighteen whites remained to charge the seventeen Indians behind formidable breastworks.
Dodge marched to that battlefield to settle many a bloody murder or leave his own bones to bleach upon the banks of the Pecatonica. That battle meant death to the Indians or death to the family of every man in the mining regions, and in this connection it may be well to recall the words of Mrs. Dodge when urged to retire to Galena for safety: “My husband and sons are between me and the Indians. I am safe so long as they live.” Those heroic words must have echoed in the husband’s heart while grappling those brawny murderers, and hand to hand, body to body, and inch by inch, in the death struggle, with gun, bayonet and knife, over the breastworks, into the enemy’s intrenchment, into the jaws of death, the little band charged and fought until every last Indian was dead and the many murders were avenged.
BATTLE OF HORSE SHOE BEND. JUNE 16, 1832
COL. WILLIAM S. HAMILTON.
