With Dodge’s Rangers
WHEN Colonel Dodge had examined the dispatches brought up from General Atkinson at Dixon’s Ferry by the four scouts, he at once sent out fast riders far and wide, throughout the surrounding lead district, summoning his frontier rangers to rendezvous at Hamilton’s Diggings within forty-eight hours.
These men, gathered from the mines and fields, and numbering slightly more than two hundred, were a free-and-easy set of dare-devils, imbued with the spirit of adventure and an intense hatred of the Indian race. While disciplined to the extent of always obeying orders when sent into the teeth of danger, they swung through the country with little regard to the rules of the military manual, and presented a striking contrast to the habits and appearance of the regulars.
“Yes, they look like a rough lot,” observed Dodge, “but they’ll fight like demons, and that’s what counts. You should have seen them at our first rendezvous, early in May. They came in all manner of form. Some with hats and some without; some had shirts on, and some hadn’t; and armed with all sorts of weapons from sticks upward. As to maneuvers and lines of battle, they knew nothing.”
By the evening of the 29th of June, the rendezvous of the Wisconsin rangers was complete. Also, much to Dodge’s satisfaction, Alec Posey, a famous frontier fighter, had come up from Kellogg’s Grove with thirty men; while Captain Jack Stephenson had raced into camp that afternoon with his company of fifty hardy lead-miners, from the renowned Galena Diggings to the southwest. All told, Dodge’s squadron now numbered about three hundred.
On the morning of the thirtieth, the gallant little detachment set off to the northeast. Travel the first day was slow, as they met with two deep streams. Horses had to be swum across and baggage rafted over, all of which took a deal of time and hard labor. It was, therefore, the evening of the second day before the horsemen reached the celebrated Blue Mounds, two heavily wooded peaks of great beauty, which were a landmark for travelers for miles around. Camp was made in an open grove at the foot of these lofty hills.
“We are now only twenty miles from the Four Lakes,” stated Dodge.[B]
[B] Between two of these lakes, Mendota and Monona, is now situated the city of Madison, capital of Wisconsin.
“’Bout four years ago, on a trappin’ trip,” declared Bill Brown, “I camped on high ground betwixt two o’ them lakes. Purtiest bodies o’ water I ever clapped eyes on.”
“They are, indeed, unrivaled for beauty,” nodded the Colonel.