and fired a volley, and charged with the tomahawk and knife,
and away scurried the soldiers like frightened deer.

They fled without stopping forty miles to Dixon's Ferry. They reported
that they had been attacked by fifteen hundred savages. They left all
their camp stuff. Fourteen soldiers had been killed--but no Indians,
except those sent by Black-hawk to treat for peace.

"Stillman's Run," the battle was called.

Black-hawk sat down to smoke a pipe to the Great Spirit, and give
thanks. Two of the flag-of-truce party came in. They had escaped.
The third young man had been shot while in the soldiers' camp.

The Black-hawk band took the blankets and provisions left in the
soldiers' camp, and proceeded to war in earnest. Of what use was a
white flag? They sent away their families. Some Winnebagos, hearing
of the great victory, enlisted.

Now Black-hawk was much feared. General Atkinson fortified his
regulars and militia, at Dixon's Ferry. More volunteers were called
for, by the governor of Illinois. The Secretary of War at Washington
ordered one thousand additional regulars to the scene, and directed
General Winfield Scott himself, the commander of the United States army
in the East, to lead the campaign.

For a little war against a few Indians there were many famous names on
the white man's roll. Among the regulars were General Scott, later the
commander in the war with Mexico; Colonel Zachary Taylor, who had
defended Fort Harrison from Tecumseh--and probably Black-hawk--in the
war of 1812, and who was to be President; Lieutenant Jefferson Davis,
who became president of the Confederate States; Lieutenant Albert
Sydney Johnston, who became a Confederate general; Lieutenant Robert
Anderson, who commanded Fort Sumter in 1861; and among the volunteers
was Captain Abraham Lincoln.

Black-hawk had about five hundred braves, mainly Sacs and Foxes, with a
few Winnebagos and Potawatomis; but when twenty-five hundred soldiers
were chasing him through the settlements, he stood little show.

After several skirmishes, and one or two bad defeats, his people were
eating horse-flesh and bark and roots. To save them, he planned to go
down the Wisconsin River, in southwestern Wisconsin, and cross the
Mississippi.

He put his women and children and the old men on rafts and in canoes.
They started--but soldiers fired into them, from the banks, killed some
and drove the rest into the forest. Many died there, from hun