Interrogating the Project of Military History

Accounts of the Battle of Bad Axe, August 2, 1832

Black Hawk, Autobiography. (1833)

Early in the morning a party of whites, being in advance of the army, came upon our people, who were attempting to cross the Mississippi. They tried to give themselves up--the whites paid no attention to their entreaties--but commenced slaughtering them! In a little while the whole army arrived. Our braves, but few in number, finding that the enemy paid no regard to age or sex, and seeing that they were murdering helpless women and little children, determined to fight until they were killed! As many women as could, commenced swimming the Mississippi, with their children on their backs. A number of them were drowned, and some shot, before they could reach the opposite shore.

One of my braves, who gave me this information, piled up some saddles before him, (when the fight commenced), to shield himself from the enemy's fire, and killed three men! But seeing that the whites were coming too close to him, he crawled to the bank of the river, without being perceived, and hid himself under it, until the enemy retired. He then came to me and told me what had been done. After hearing this sorrowful news, I started, with my little party, to the Winnebago village of Prairie La Cross.

Gen. Henry Atkinson to Gen. Alexander Macomb, August 5, 1832

Sir--I have the honor to report to you that I crossed the Wisconsin [River] on the 27th and 28th ult., with a select body of troops . . . and immediately fell upon the trail of the enemy, and pursued it by forced marches . . . till on the morning of the second instant, when we came up with his main body, on the left bank of the Mississippi, nearly opposite the mouth of the Iowa; which we attacked, defeated, and dispersed, with a loss on his part of about one hundred and fifty men killed, and thirty-nine women and children prisoners. The precise number could not be ascertained, as the greater portion was slain after being forced into the river. Our loss in killed and wounded . . . was very small. . . .

Agent Joseph M. Street to William Clark, August 3, 1832.

The Inds. were pushed literally into the Mississippi, the current of which was at one time perceptibly tinged with the blood of the Indians who were shot on its margin & in its stream. . . . It is impossible to say how many Inds. have been killed, as most of them were shot in the water or drowned in attempting to cross the Mississippi.

John Allen Wakefield, History of the War Between the United States and the Sac and Fox. (1834) [Wakefield, a private in the Illinois militia, wrote the only firsthand, full-length account of the Black Hawk War.]

General Atkinson stationed Generals Posey and Alexander, up the river, on the extreme right, in order to prevent the Indians from making their escape in that direction; which appeared to be one of those hard eases, for the men had marched a great way, through swamps, over mountains, and through the worst kind of forests;-- bad suffered much with fatigue--and many other hardships which a person necessarily has to undergo in a campaign and that, too, they had done without a murmur, in order that they might have it in their power to assist in expelling from their country, those wretched children of the forest.

The battle lasted about three hours: when we came open the enemy, they were fixing their bark canoes to cross the river. Some of them had crossed; others had just launched their canoes and some had not got them made; but I suppose all were busy in making the necessary arrangements to cross and get out of our way.

But the Ruler of the Universe, he who takes vengeance on the guilty, did not design those guilty wretches to escape his vengeance for the horrid deeds they had done, which were of the most appalling nature. He here took just retribution for the many innocent lives those cruel savages had taken on our northern frontiers.

It can never be ascertained how many were killed in this battle; but from the best calculation that could be made, I suppose we killed about one hundred and fifty; and I think it altogether probable, that as many more were drowned in attempting to cross the river. The river where they attempted to cross, was full of islands. A number of them succeeded in reaching one of those islands, and had taken shelter behind old logs and willows, where they kept up a constant fire upon us during the engagement. Colonel Taylor ordered an officer and a part of his infantry to cross over to the island and route the enemy from this position; but it being the nature of an Indian to sell his life as dear as possible, they did so here. They killed five of those regulars, before they could drive them from their strong hold that they had got into; and then it had to be done by a charge, which these men were not afraid to do . . . .

There were a number of gentlemen belonging to the militia, who crossed also into this island and assisted in driving the enemy from this hiding place. Mr. William Bradford, Adjutant of Major Ewing's spy battalion, and many other brave and fearless men from the militia, crossed.

The part of the river they had to wade, took a man up to his arm-pits; but even this appeared to be no obstacle in their way. The enemy were there, doing mischief by annoying us, and they had to be routed or killed. The latter was most desirable, and was nearly done, there being but few who made their escape from the place.

During the engagement we killed some of the squaws through mistake. It was a great misfortune to those miserable squaws and children, that they did not carry into execution [the plan] they had formed on the morning of the battle--that was, to come and meet us, and surrender themselves prisoners of war. It was a horrid sight to witness little children, wounded and suffering the most excruciating pain, although they were of the savage enemy, and the common enemy of the country.

It was enough to make the heart of the most hardened being on earth to ache.

We took about fifty prisoners, principally women and children. They during the engagement, had concealed themselves in the high weeds and grass, and amongst old logs and brush, which lay very thick on the bottom, and some had buried themselves in the mud and sand in the bank of the, river, just leaving enough of their heads out to breathe the breath of life.

Cecil D. Eby, "That Disgraceful Affair": The Black Hawk War (1973).

Quoted primary accounts of the battle. Text is Eby's; I have supplied references where possible (his method of citation was poor).

H.S. Townsend speech, Vernon County Censor, August 10, 1898. [Townsend was a participant in the battle]

One volunteer, who received a bullet through his whiskers and another through his hat, seemed "dazed and wild after that," remembered a companion. Coming upon an Indian woman with a child strapped to her back he lifted his musket, saying "See me kill that damn squaw." His shot broke the child's arm and buried itself in the woman's back. Lieutenant Robert Anderson rescued the infant from further harm, later bringing it to headquarters.

"Three squaws were shot on that race; they were naked. . . . We have been accused of inhumanity to those Indians. It is false as hell, we never did it. With [Colonel] Henry's men we killed in three-fourths of a mile, 82 Indians. We lost three men."

[Addendum, 2005: A descendant of Townsend has posted extensive excerpts from his speech here.]

John House . . . found an infant tied to a piece of cottonwood bark. Its mother had apparently launched it on the river, but the current had pulled it back to the shore. House took deliberate aim and fired. Reproached by men who thought this a bit excessive, House replied, "Kill the nits and you'll have no lice."

Men of Alexander's brigade, which had missed the liveliest action of the massacre, continued to hunt desperately for stray Sauk; some were finally rewarded for their perseverence when, under the riverbank, they found a group of squaws who had burrowed so deeply in the sand that only their noses were exposed. Bayoneting and shooting these women was particularly amusing because of their muffled writhings which resembled miniature earthquakes.

Along the riverbank many women had stripped off their clothes as they prepared to swim the river. One woman named Namesa seized a horse=s tail and was pulled to safely across holding her baby by the teeth, although volunteers sprinkled the water around her with shots. Few of the others were so lucky; the sight of the naked women inflamed these frontiersmen of rigid Methodist and Baptist background with a sexual excitement that took various outlets. Some merely shot their victims, while others dragged their captives into the undergrowth. Arriving on the scene, one young army lieutenant rescued a young girl from what he euphemistically called "very uncomfortable circumstances." For a fleeting moment he, too, felt the stirrings of certain "symptoms of romance," but got hold of himself and sent the girl to the rear.

[Addendum, 2005: This is Cooke's actual account: "In this island I rescued a little red Leila [i.e., Native American woman--the "Leila" reference is a nod to an episode in Byron's Don Juan], whom I found in very uncomfortable circumstances. I felt some rising symptoms of romance; but the fire, mud, and water, or rather I believe her complexion, soon cooled them, and I sent her by a safe hand to the rear."

Benjamin Drake The Great Indian Chief of the West: or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk (1848):

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 women, 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 together, that the slaughter fell alike upon all of them. A young squaw was standing in the grass, a short distance from the American line, holding her child, a little girl of four years old, in her arms. In this position, a ball struck the right arm of the child, just above the elbow, and shattering the bone, passed into the breast of its young mother, and instantly killed her. She fell upon the child and confined it to the ground. When the battle was nearly over, and the Indians had been driven from this point, Lieutenant Anderson of the United States army, hearing the cries of the child, went to the spot, and taking it from under the dead mother, carried it to the place for surgical aid. The arm was amputated, and during the operation, the half starved child did not cry, but sat quietly eating a piece of hard biscuit. It was sent to Prairie des Chiens, and entirely recovered from its wound.

British band: about 150 men, women, children killed (possibly double that number); about 39 prisoners (many wounded).