consin River, and at Wisconsin Heights, near the
present town of Prairie du Sac, it inflicted a severe defeat upon
the Indians. Again Black Hawk desired to make peace, but again he was
frustrated, this time by the lack of an interpreter. The redskins'
flight was continued in the direction of the Mississippi, which they
reached in midsummer. They were prevented from crossing by lack of
canoes, and finally the half-starved band found itself caught between
the fire of a force of regulars on the land side and a government supply
steamer, the Warrior, on the water side, and between these two the
Indian band was practically annihilated.

Thus ended the war--a contest originating in no general uprising
or far-reaching plan, such as marked the rebellions instigated by
Pontiac and Tecumseh, but which none the less taxed the strength of
the border populations and opened a new chapter in the history of the
remoter northwestern territories. Black Hawk himself took refuge with
the Winnebagoes in the Dells of the Wisconsin, only to be treacherously
delivered over to General Street at Prairie du Chien. Under the terms of
a treaty of peace signed at Fort Armstrong (Rock Island) in September,
the fallen leader and some of his accomplices were held as hostages,
and during the ensuing winter they were kept at Jefferson Barracks (St.
Louis) under the surveillance of Jefferson Davis. In the spring of
1833 they were taken to Washington, where they had an interview with
President Jackson. "We did not expect to conquer the whites," Black Hawk
told the President; "they had too many houses, too many men. I took up
the hatchet, for my part, to revenge injuries which my people could no
longer endure. Had I borne them longer without striking, my people would
have said, 'Black Hawk is a woman--he is too old to be a chief he is no
Sauk.'" After a brief imprisonment at Fortress Monroe, where Jefferson
Davis was himself confined at the close of the Civil War, the captives
were set free, and were taken to Philadelphia, New York, up the Hudson,
and finally back to the Rock River country.

For some years Black Hawk lived quietly on a small reservation near Des
Moines. In 1837 the peace-loving Keokuk took him with a party of Sauk
and Fox chiefs again to Washington, and on this trip he made a visit to
Boston. The officials of the city received the august warrior and his
companions in Faneuil Hall, and the Governor of the commonwealth paid
them similar hon