Black Hawk War - June Raids

June Raids

In June 1832, after hearing that Atkinson was forming a new army, Black Hawk began sending out raiding parties. Perhaps hoping to lead the Americans away from his camp at Lake Koshkonong, he targeted areas to the west. The first major attack occurred on June 14 near present-day South Wayne, Wisconsin, when a band of about 30 warriors attacked a group of farmers, killing and scalping four.

Responding to this attack, militia Colonel Henry Dodge gathered a force of twenty-nine mounted volunteers and set out in pursuit of the attackers. On June 16, Dodge and his men cornered about eleven of the raiders at a bend in the Pecatonica River. In a brief battle, the Americans killed and scalped all of the Natives. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend (or Battle of Pecatonica) was the first real American victory in the war, and helped restore public confidence in the volunteer militia force.

On the same day of Dodge's victory, another skirmish took place at Kellogg's Grove in present-day Stephenson County, Illinois. American forces had occupied Kellogg's Grove in an effort to intercept war parties raiding to the west. In the First Battle of Kellogg's Grove, militia commanded by Adam W. Snyder pursued a British Band raiding party of about thirty warriors. Three Illinois militiamen and six Native warriors died in the fighting. Two days later, on June 18, militia under James W. Stephenson encountered what was probably the same war party near Yellow Creek. The Battle of Waddams Grove became a hard fought, hand-to-hand melee. Three militiamen and five or six Indians were killed in the action.

Back on June 6, when a civilian miner was killed by raiders near the village of Blue Mounds in the Michigan Territory, residents began to fear that the Rock River Ho-Chunks were joining the war. On June 20, a Ho-Chunk raiding party estimated by one eyewitness to be as large as 100 warriors attacked the settler fort at Blue Mounds. Two militiamen were killed in the attack, one of whom was badly mutilated.

On June 24, 1832, Black Hawk and about 200 warriors attacked at the hastily constructed Apple River Fort, near present-day Elizabeth, Illinois. Local settlers, warned of Black Hawk's approach, took refuge in the fort, which was defended by about 20 to 35 militiamen. The Battle of Apple River Fort lasted about forty-five minutes. The women and girls inside the fort, under the direction of Elizabeth Armstrong, loaded muskets and molded bullets. After losing several men, Black Hawk broke off the siege, looted the nearby homes, and headed back towards his camp.

The next day, June 25, Black Hawk's party encountered a militia battalion commanded by Major John Dement. In the Second Battle of Kellogg's Grove, Black Hawk's warriors drove the militiamen inside their fort and commenced a two-hour siege. After losing nine warriors and killing five militiamen, Black Hawk broke off the siege and returned to his main camp at Lake Koshkonong. This would prove to be Black Hawk's last military success in the war. With his band running low on food, he decided to take them back across the Mississippi.