The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life

by Frank Everett Stevens

“JOHN DIXON.

“The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, next proceeded to consider the bill (H.R. No. 236) for the relief of John Dixon, which had been reported adversely from the Committee on Public Lands. It directs the Secretary of the Interior to issue a bounty land warrant for one hundred and sixty acres to John Dixon, of Dixon’s Ferry, in the State of Illinois, for services rendered in the Black Hawk war.

“Mr. Trumbull: I ask that the bill may be put upon its passage. I will remark that the Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, with whom I had a conversation on the subject, stated that he reported adversely on this bill to grant a land warrant to Mr. Dixon, for the reason that the testimony before the Committee did not seem to be sufficient of his having rendered any service. He was not enlisted in the service, but he performed valuable service in the Black Hawk war–furnished supplies and acted as a guide and interpreter. He is an old man, over eighty years of age, and is now in very reduced circumstances. Some of his friends have made this application to get the old man a land warrant, and comes, I think, within the spirit of the law. The Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Davis), who served in the war, knows him personally, and perhaps he would make a statement to the Senate of his knowledge of the services for which it is proposed to grant a land warrant to this poor old man.’

“Mr. Davis: ‘As stated by the Senator from Illinois, I do know this individual personally and believe him to be a very honest man, and I should have great confidence in his statement. He was one of the first pioneers in the country near what is now the town of Dixon, formerly known as Dixon’s Ferry. He lived there in an isolated position when I first knew him. His house was reached by crossing a wide prairie country inhabited only by Indians. He was of great service in the first settlement of the country. He was of service to the troops when they ascended the Rock River in the Black Hawk campaign. For some time a post was established at or near his house. He was of service at that time in furnishing supplies and giving information in regard to the country, and afterwards in taking care of the sick. In a liberal spirit toward camp followers, we have since that time provided for packmen, for teamsters and for clerks, giving them bounty land warrants equally with the soldiers who were serving in the same campaign. I think the only objection in this case is the want of testimony, but I have such confidence in the individual, together with my recollection of the circumstances, that I would say that he was within the spirit of the law, and I should be glad, because of his many services in the first settlement of that country, to see him thus rewarded.’”

After a few exchanges of explanations, the bill passed the Senate, and the recollections of Senator Jefferson Davis of the days he spent at and about Mr. Dixon’s log cabin saved the day for the bill.

It is not to be considered by any intelligent person that Mr. Davis would state on the floor of the United States Senate those facts, “from my recollection of the circumstances,” if he had not been present in that campaign and witnessed them with the pleasantest of memories. The little old log tavern-store-house of the 1832 campaign came back to him with all its memories and Senator Davis saved the bill, as the record of the proceedings show.

The days when a man of years was young and his associations are never forgotten, and if any association under Heaven will evoke assistance from one to another it is an appeal to those early associations. And so it was with Senator Davis and Mr. Dixon.

Among others of subsequent prominence in the history of the State of Illinois, who formed the acquaintance of Mr. Davis during that campaign, and particularly while Taylor was stationed at Dixon’s Ferry, was Col. John Dement, later a resident of the city of Dixon, where he died. For fifty years Colonel Dement was one of the foremost men of Illinois, and whenever he made a statement it carried conviction. He it was who fought the battle of Kellogg’s Grove in that campaign, one of the fiercest of the many which occurred between Dixon’s Ferry and Galena, retiring only after his clothing had been pierced with bullets and the Indians thoroughly checked from further molestation of the northwestern frontier.

Colonel Dement many times told me of his acquaintance with Lieutenant Davis and how it ripened into a strong friendship as the campaign progressed, and which continued for all time thereafter. He many times in his lifetime spoke of Lieutenant Davis during that campaign, in public; and in the form of historical narrative he reduced the same statements to writing, one of which I have.

At the breaking out of hostilities, Colonel Dement was State Treasurer, which station naturally carried with it considerable prestige in more ways than one, as proved to be the case a little later when he won for his bride the daughter of Gen. Henry Dodge, later Governor of Wisconsin and United States Senator, and, by the by, one of the most famous Indian fighters that ever lived.