dians from this place towards Fort Winnebago. They were overtaken on
the 21st of July, about sun down, on the banks of the Wisconsin. An
attack was immediately made, and about forty of the Indians are supposed
to have been killed. General Dodge lost one man and had eight wounded.
The exact loss of the Indians in this engagement cannot be ascertained.
One account places the number at sixteen.[10] Black Hawk says he had but
fifty warriors with him in the engagement, the rest being engaged in
assisting the women and children in crossing the Wisconsin to an
island, to protect them from the fury of the whites: That he was
compelled to fall back into a deep ravine where he continued to maintain
his ground until dark, and until his people had had time to reach the
island, and that he lost but six of his men. This is undoubtedly a
mistake, owing in all probability to the interpreter in taking down his
statement; for some of his men, subsequently, placed the number at
sixty. The condition of the Indians at this time was most deplorable.
Before breaking up their encampment, upon the Four Lakes, they were
almost destitute of provisions. In pursuing their trail from this point
to the Wisconsin, many were found literally starved to death. They were
compelled to live upon roots, the bark of trees and horse flesh. A party
of Black Hawk's band, including many women and children, now attempted
to descend the Wisconsin upon rafts and in canoes, that they might
escape, by recrossing the Mississippi. They were attacked however, in
their descent, by troops stationed on the bank of the river, and some
were killed, others drowned, a few taken prisoners, and the remainder,
escaping to the woods, perished from hunger. Black Hawk, and such of his
party as had not the means of descending the Wisconsin, having abandoned
all idea of any farther resistance, and unwilling to trust themselves to
a capitulation, now determined to strike across the country, and reach
the Mississippi, some distance above the mouth of the former stream, and
thus effect their escape. They struck it at a point opposite the Ioway,
and about forty miles above the Wisconsin, losing on their route,
many of their people from starvation. So soon as they reached the
Mississippi, a part of the women and children, in such canoes as they
could procure, undertook to descend it, to Prairie des Chiens, but many
of them were drowned before they reached that place, and those who did
arrive