Following the long list of the “Lead Mines” murders, the reader is brought to the murder of two men at Sinsinawa Mound, the home of George W. Jones. On June 29th three men were at work in a cornfield at Sinsinawa Mound, about ten miles from Galena, when they were attacked by a small party of Indians and two of them killed. Captain Stephenson, who had just arrived at Galena, immediately summoned thirty men of his command and started in pursuit of the Indians. Arrived at the scene, he found the bodies of James Boxley and John Thompson, mutilated as usual, and, after burial, the detachment attempted to run down the Indians. They were pursued as far as the Mississippi, which they had evidently crossed in leaving the country. As the trail could not be further followed. Captain Stephenson returned to Galena, only to be summoned to the final struggle in the pursuit from Rock River to the Mississippi.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Organization of Forces at Fort Wilbourn and Disposition of Same–Murder of Phillips–March to Dixon’s Ferry.
Returning to the movements of the troops along the Illinois River, we find in the Missouri Republican that Colonel Davenport and two companies of United States Infantry arrived in St. Louis on June 11th, in the steamer Otto from the Cantonment of Leavenworth, and that they immediately took the boats Caroline and Winnebago for Fort Deposit, or Fort Wilbourn, as it subsequently was called.
On June 5th, by Order 27, Atkinson thanked the men under Colonel Fry for their services and exhorted them to re-enlist in the new campaign, which they did, almost to a man.
On the 8th Atkinson fell down the river to the foot of the rapids, fifteen miles below Ottawa, and on the 9th mustered out the company of Captain Wilbourn of Morgan, which took the steamer Caroline to Beardstown, and thence the men either re-enlisted or marched home. From the same point Quartermaster March was ordered to St. Louis to forward to Fort Wilbourn, as early as possible, the pack horses he had been directed to purchase, also fifteen to twenty two-horse wagons, and be in readiness to move to Dixon’s Ferry with them on the 17th.
Back again at Ottawa on the 10th, by Order 31, Atkinson directed Capt. Cyrus Mathews’ company to remain and guard supplies at Fort Wilbourn. On the 12th Capt. Morgan L. Payne, then stationed at AuxPlaines, was ordered to remove with his command to the DuPage settlement on DuPage River, remain near Captain Naper and range his company from DuPage to Hickory Creek settlements, after which, on the same day, Atkinson again moved down the Illinois River to Fort Deposit, or, as we have seen, Fort Wilbourn.
This name Deposit was given by Maj. Reddick Horn, who established it, to the point at the foot of the Illinois rapids, where the supplies were deposited when brought from St. Louis by Colonel March, Q.M., and is described in the press and documents of that day as being on the left bank of the Illinois River, one and a half miles below the mouth of the Little Vermilion River–about 300 miles from St. Louis and the head of steamboat navigation. Fort Johnston,[[174]] named from Albert Sidney Johnston, opposite the mouth of Fox River, and Atkinson’s headquarters for some time, was about twenty miles up from Wilbourn and was placed at a distance of ninety miles from Chicago, while Wilbourn was said to be fifty miles from Dixon and Dixon 100 miles from the Four Lakes country and the neighborhood of the camp of the Sacs, which, in turn, was about sixty miles from Fort Winnebago and Chicago.
With Atkinson came his staff, Lieut. A.S. Johnston and Lieut. M.L. Clark, Aids; Lieut. Robert Anderson, Assistant Inspector-General; Lieut. G.W. Wheelwright, Ordnance Officer; Lieut. R. Holmes, Commissary of Subsistence, and Dr. Baylor, Surgeon, and Gen. Hugh Brady and his aid, Lieut. Electus Backus, who had left at Dixon’s Ferry the two companies of infantry brought from Fort Winnebago. As this point was as accessible to Dixon’s Ferry, the objective point of the army, as Ottawa, it was decided to remain there and notify the militia to come on from Hennepin and Beardstown, which they did.