to join us." He then placed a medal round
my neck, and gave me a paper, (which I lost in the late war,) and a silk
flag, saying, "You are to command all the braves that will leave here
the day after to-morrow, to join our braves near Detroit."

On the following day, arms, clothing, knives and tomahawks, were
distributed to Black Hawk's band, and upon the succeeding morning, they
started, in all near five hundred braves, to join the British army.
This was in August, 1812, shortly after the surrender and massacre of
the American troops at Chicago, which place they passed a few days after
it had been evacuated. Of the movements of Black Hawk during his
connection with the British upon our north west, no satisfactory
information has been obtained. It appears that he was in two
engagements, but seems not to have distinguished himself. The last of
these was the attack, in August 1813, upon Fort Stephenson, then under
the command of Major Croghan. The gallant defence of this post, and the
fatal repulse given to the combined British and Indian forces, seem to
have disheartened Black Hawk; for soon afterwards, tired of successive
defeats, and disappointed in not obtaining the "spoils of victory," he
left the army, with about twenty of his followers, and returned to his
village on Rock river. It is probable that he would have remained
neutral during the remainder of the war, had it not been for one of
those border outrages, which lawless and unprincipled white men but too
often commit upon the Indians, under pretence of self defence or
retaliation, often a mere pretext for wanton bloodshed and murder.
Previous to joining Colonel Dixon, Black Hawk had visited the lodge of
an old friend, whose son he had adopted and taught to hunt. He was
anxious that this youth should go with him and his band and join the
British standard, but the father objected on the ground that he was
dependent upon his son for game; and, moreover, that he did not wish him
to fight against the Americans who had always treated him kindly. He
had agreed to spend the following winter near a white settler, upon Salt
river, one of the tributaries of the Mississippi which enters that
stream below the Des Moyens, and intended to take his son with him. As
Black Hawk was approaching his village on Rock river, after his campaign
on the lakes with Dixon, he observed a smoke rising from a hollow in the
bluff of the stream. He went to see who was there. Upon drawing near to