lack Hawk raised the
white flag, and sought to surrender himself and his whole band, to the
whites. Again his flag was looked upon as a decoy, and in fifteen
minutes, a round of canister shot, from the boat, was fired, with deadly
fatality into the midst of his men, women and children. The following
morning, the main army, under General Atkinson, reached the scene of
action. His force must have been six or eight times greater than that of
the Indians, and by a judicious movement, the latter was promptly
surrounded on three sides by the pursuing army, while on the other, the
steam boat Warrior, the waters of the Mississippi, and a band of
hostile Sioux on its west bank, precluded all chance of escape in that
quarter. A demand upon the Indians, at this time, to surrender,
unconditionally, would undoubtedly have been most cheerfully acceded to.
But it appears not to have been made. It is probable that General
Atkinson whose character for humanity, has always stood high, could not
restrain the impetuosity of his troops long enough to propose a
capitulation. They had been deeply excited by the murders perpetrated by
the Black Hawk band--had been harassed by a long and fatiguing
march--and perhaps felt, that the results of the campaign, thus far, had
been rather inglorious to their arms. These causes may have conspired to
precipitate them into a battle, which had been better spared than
fought, inasmuch as it resulted, necessarily, in the death of a great
many miserable women and children, who were already on the brink of the
grave, from hunger and exhaustion.

A brief recapitulation of a few of the events of this disastrous
campaign, has thus been made, for the purpose of showing, that however
hostile Black Hawk and his band may have been, originally, towards the
whites, he did not make the first attack upon them; and that the war
might in all probability have been prevented, or arrested in any stage
of its progress, by the exercise of that forbearance, good faith and
sound policy, which should ever be cherished by the United States.

The official report of General Atkinson to General Macomb, after the
battle of the Bad-axe has been quoted in full. On the 25th of November
1832, the Secretary at War, Mr. Cass, in his annual report to the
President, says, in speaking of this campaign,

"General Atkinson, with the regular troops and militia under his
command, pursued the Indians through a country very difficult to b