ted a breast-work, on
the two wheels of a wagon, and resolved upon moving it up to the edge of
the sink, to fire from behind, down into the sink and preserve us from
theirs. We got the moving battery finished about sunset, and moved it up
with a sufficient number of men behind it, whilst all other posts round
were sufficiently guarded, in case they should be put to the route.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF SINK HOLE.]

"We had not moved to within less than ten steps of the sink, before they
commenced a fire, which we returned at every opportunity. Night came on
and we were obliged to leave the ground, and decline the expectation of
taking them out without risking man for man, which we thought not a
good exchange on our side. During the time of the battle another
party of Indians commenced a brisk fire on the fort. Captain Craig was
killed in the commencement of the battle, Lieut. Edward Spears at the
moving of the breast work to the sink. The morning of the 25th we
returned to the ground and found five Indians killed and the sign of a
great many wounded, that had been taken off in the night. The aggregate
number of killed on our part is one captain, one third lieutenant, and
five privates; three wounded, one missing, one citizen killed and two
wounded mortally."

Black Hawk states that but eighteen of his men were in the sink with
him, and that they dug holes in the sides of the bank, with their
knives, to protect them from the fire of the Americans: Some of his
warriors commenced singing their death songs; but he, several times
called out to the enemy, if brave men, to come down and fight them. He
describes the wagon-battery, and its inefficiency in dislodging them
from their depressed but safe situation. His retreat to the sink-hole
under the circumstances, was a sound military movement. Lieutenant
Drakeford having withdrawn his forces, Black Hawk and his party left
their intrenchment and returned by land, to their village.

The tribes of Indians on the Mississippi, were notified in the early
part of this year, 1815, that peace had been concluded between the
United States and England. Most of those who had been engaged in the
war, ceased hostilities. Black Hawk, however, and his band, and some of
the Pottawatamies, were not inclined to bury the tomahawk. Even as late
as the spring of 1816, they committed depredations. Some palliation for
these outrages may be found in the fact, that the British, on the
north-west front