of April. In obedience to this command a large
number of citizens assembled and offered their services. They were met
by Gov. Reynolds, and after bring organized into a brigade, he appointed
Brig. Gen. Samuel Whitesides commander. His brigade embraced 1600
horsemen and two hundred footmen--being four regiments and an odd spy
battalion.

First regiment, Col. Dewitt; second, Col. Fry; third, Col. Thomas;
fourth, Col. Thompson; Col. James D. Henry, commanded the spy battalion.

The troops took up their line of march at once, under command of Gen.
Whitesides, accompanied by the Commander-in-Chief, Gov. Reynolds. For
the purpose of laying in provisions for the campaign they went to Yellow
Banks, on the Mississippi river, where Major S. S. Phelps, who had been
appointed quarter master, supplied them. They arrived on the 3d of May,
and left for Rock river on the 7th.

THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

About the first of April Black Hawk's band assembled at Fort Madison for
the purpose of making arrangements to ascend the Mississippi, and soon
after the entire party started. The old men, women and children, with
their provisions and camp equipage, in canoes, and the men all armed,
came on horseback. On the sixth day of April, the braves, on horseback,
made a call at Yellow Banks, one day after the canoes had passed the
same point, and told Josiah Smart, Mr. Phelps' interpreter, where they
were going, and the object of their visit. They said they had observed
a great war chief, with a number of troops going up on a steamboat, and
thought it likely that the mission of this war chief was to prevent them
going up Rock river, but they were bound to go. Messrs. Phelps and Smart
tried to persuade them to recross the river and return to their country,
assuring them that the Government would not permit them to come into
Illinois in violation of the treaty they had made last year, in which
they had agreed to remain on the west side of the river. But they would
not listen to their advice. On the next day they took up the line of
march for Rock river, and on the 10th of April, 1832, Black Hawk, with a
portion of his band of Sacs, reached the mouth of Rock river a few miles
below Rock Island. The old men, women and children with their provisions
and camp equipage, who came up in canoes, arrived on the 9th, and the
men all armed, came up on horseback, reaching the camp on the 10th.
While encamped there they were joined by the Prophet, who had prev