cape by descending that
river, but judicious measures being taken by Captain Loomis and Lieut.
Street, Indian agent, thirty-two women and children and four men have
been captured, and some fifteen men killed by the detachment under
Lieut. Ritner.

The day after the battle on this river, I fell down with the regular
troops to this place by water, and the mounted men will join us to-day.
It is now my purpose to direct Keokuk, to demand a surrender of the
remaining principal men of the hostile party, which, from the large
number of women and children we hold prisoners, I have every reason to
believe will be complied with. Should it not, they should be pursued and
subdued, a step Maj. Gen. Scott will take upon his arrival.

I cannot speak too highly of the brave conduct of the regular and
volunteer forces engaged in the last battle and the fatiguing march
that preceded it, as soon as the reports of officers of the brigades and
corps are handed in, they shall be submitted with further remarks.

5 killed, 2 wounded, 6th inft.
2 do. 5th inft.
1 captain, 5 privates Dodge's Bat. mounted.
1 Lieut. 6 privates Henry's
1 private wounded, Alexander's
1 private, Posey's.

I have the honor to be with great respect,
Yr. obt. servant, H. ATKINSON,
Brevet Brig. Gen. U.S.A.

Maj. Gen. Macomb, Com. in Chief, Washington.

The destruction of life in the battle of the Bad-axe, was not confined
to the Indian warriors. Little discrimination seems to have been made
between the slaughter of those in arms and the rest of the tribe. After
they had sought refuge in the waters of the Mississippi, and the women,
with their children on their backs, were buffeting the waves, in an
attempt to swim to the opposite shore, numbers of them were shot by our
troops. Many painful pictures might be recorded of the adventures and
horrors of that day. One or two cases may be cited. A Sac woman, named
Na-ni-sa, the sister of a warrior of some note among the Indians, found
herself in the hottest of the fight. She succeeded at length in reaching
the river, and keeping her infant child, close in its blanket, by force
of her teeth, plunged into the water, seized hold upon the tail of a
horse, whose rider was swimming him to the opposite shore, and was
carried safely across the Mississippi. When our troops charged upon the
Indians, in their defiles near the river, men, women and children were
so huddled t