Many of our friends from the fort were there to greet us, and a more happy or thankful party has seldom been assembled.
SURRENDER OF WINNEBAGO PRISONERS
The war was now considered at an end. The news of the battle of the Bad Axe, where the regulars, the militia, and the Steamboat Warrior combined, had made a final end of the remaining handful of Sauks,[[115]] had reached us and restored tranquillity to the hearts and homes of the frontier settlers.
It may seem wonderful that an enemy, so few in number, and so insignificant in resources, could have created such a panic, and required so vast an amount of opposing force to subdue them. The difficulty had been simply in never knowing where to find them, either to attack or guard against them. Probably at the outset every military man thought and felt like the noble old veteran General Brady,[[116]] “Give me two Infantry companies mounted,” said he, “and I will engage to whip the Sauks out of the country in one week!”
True, but to whip the enemy, you must first meet him; and in order to pursue effectually, and catch the Indians, a peculiar training is necessary—a training which, at that day, but few, even of the frontier militia, could boast.
In some portions of this campaign there was another difficulty. The want of concert between the two branches of the service. The regular troops looked with some contempt upon the unprofessional movements of the militia—the militia railed at the dilatory and useless formalities of the regulars. Each avowed the conviction that matters could be much better conducted without the other, and the militia being prompt to act, sometimes took matters into their own hands, and brought on defeat and disgrace, as in the affair of "Stillman’s Run."[[117]]
The feeling of contempt which some of the army officers entertained for the militia, extended itself to their subordinates and dependents. After the visit of the Ranger officers to Fort Winnebago, before the battle of the Wisconsin, the officer of the mess where they had been entertained, called up his servant one day to inquire into the Sutler’s accounts. He was the same little “Yellow David” who had formerly appertained to Captain Harney.