In fact, the Battle of the Pecatonica did nothing to stop the ceaseless strikes of Black Hawk’s war parties, and most of the settlers remained terrified, disorganized and feckless. The besieged fort at Apple River was saved only by the exertions of a tough, tobacco-chewing woman, appropriately named Armstrong. This profane Fury tongue-whipped the terrified refugees inside the fort and bullied the male defenders into action, dragging one man from his hiding place inside a barrel and shoving him to a loophole.

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But now there were too many regulars and militia, and Black Hawk’s time was running out. Gradually the white juggernaut moved ahead, pushing up the Rock River past Lake Koshonong. Black Hawk’s band, with its women and children, fell back. It was not easy for either pursuers or pursued. On went the chase, slogging through a dreadful region called the ‘trembling lands,’ a maze of swamp and bog and hummock, waist-deep in stinking water.

By mid-July, the whites were desperately short of supplies, and the ponderous pursuit halted, still without visible success. A number of militiamen were sent home, doubtless to Atkinson’s relief, and the governor seized the chance to go home with them, loudly assuring everybody that Black Hawk was finished. Among those mustered out was Abraham Lincoln, on his way home to infinitely greater things.

If Atkinson was to have the glory of winning this war, he would have to move fast. President Andrew Jackson, never a patient man, had already tired of the glacial pace of the campaign, and had sent out someone he knew would do something about it. General Winfield Scott, a smart, driving regular officer destined for glory in the coming war against Mexico, was sent west to take command.

Atkinson pulled his diminished force together and slogged on after Black Hawk, who was plainly heading back toward the Mississippi. It was a miserable march, dragging its way through more of the ‘trembling lands,’ plagued by torrents of rain, blown-down tents, and a stampede that left many militiamen on foot. On July 20, the column’s leading elements cut Black Hawk’s trail. The effect on Atkinson’s tired army was electric. Morale rose and the men pushed on hard, living on raw bacon and wet cornmeal, snatching sleep on the ground under the pouring rain.

It was the beginning of the end. Black Hawk’s band was already in dreadful straits, reduced to eating roots and treebark to stay alive, and leaving behind the bodies of old people dead of starvation. The militia was closing faster now as they broke out of the swamps into open country, near Madison, Wis.

Just when it seemed the war was over, Black Hawk turned on his pursuers at a place called Wisconsin Heights. Vastly outnumbered, he would not close, but volleyed again and again with musket fire, keeping the whites off-balance and on the defensive as militia casualties mounted. At last, as night began to fall, the Suckers managed a bayonet charge toward the high ground and the ravine from which the Indians’ galling fire had come. The attack struck empty air–Black Hawk was gone.

The whites, nevertheless, congratulated themselves. ‘Our men stood firmly,’ one wrote proudly, unaware that’standing firmly’ was precisely what Black Hawk wanted the army to do. While they stood firmly, he had gotten his whole band across the Wisconsin by canoe, losing only six braves. He had commanded about 50 Sauk ‘barely able to stand up due to hunger.’

Now it was a race. Some of Black Hawk’s exhausted band kept on down the Wisconsin. Others headed for the confluence of the Bad Axe River and the Mississippi, north of Prairie du Chien. There, the Mississippi broke into shoals and islands, and it might be possible to cross to the west. Black Hawk could not know that a thoughtful regular officer had already anchored in the mouth of the Wisconsin with a flatboat, manned by 25 regulars and a six-pound cannon.

The pursuers pushed ever closer to the Sauk band, slogging through trackless swamp, matted undergrowth and difficult hills. Now, the leading Sucker units knew they were close: the air was filled with circling buzzards and the way was littered with Indian corpses. A few were marked with wounds, but most of them had simply died of exhaustion and starvation.

It was all over now but for the killing. At the Wisconsin’s mouth, one band of Sauk was stopped cold by the flatboat’s murderous short-range grapeshot. The survivors scattered to the river’s banks. They would perish miserably over the next few days, hunted down and killed by bands of Menominee led by Alexander Hamilton’s shabby son.

Across the broad Mississippi waited bands of Sioux, alerted that the hated Sauk would try to cross. And upstream, as Black Hawk’s miserable survivors reached the mouth of the Bad Axe, blasts of canister from the steamboat Warrior slashed through them and drove them back from the shore. The remaining Sauk were hemmed in between the great river and Atkinson’s force, outnumbered 4-to-1.

The whole ugly affair ended on August 2, as Black Hawk knew it must. Atkinson’s men dropped their packs, fixed bayonets, and pushed toward the banks of the Mississippi, regulars in the center, militia on either flank. There were perhaps 1,100 of them, plodding in line, holding muskets and equipment over their heads as they waded through pools of stagnant water. They pushed cautiously into the thick morning mist along the river.

Black Hawk’s warriors got off a single volley, and then the white army closed. They took a mere 27 casualties–only five of these dead–and Black Hawk’s band was simply destroyed. At least 150 bodies were found, including many women and children. Many fell or jumped into the river, and the Mississippi took them forever. Those few who escaped were hunted down by vengeful Sioux and Winnebago, and even some quisling Sauk.

A few fugitives took to the water and the islands in a vain attempt to escape across the river. Fire from the Warrior killed many of these with grapeshot and musketry, and even crushed some of the survivors with her paddle wheel as they tried to hide in shallow water. Fortified by whiskey, some militiamen pushed on to the islands, and more miserable fugitives were killed there.

A few of Black Hawk’s people escaped, against all odds. Many squaws tried to swim, some carrying small children on their backs. A few made it. Most sank under a hail of musketry, or were taken by the river as their strength ebbed. One mother swam the great river holding her tiny baby by clutching the child’s neck in her teeth. She would survive and so would the child, who rose to be a chief, ever after called ‘Scar Neck.’

Perhaps 115 of Black Hawk’s band remained as prisoners, nearly all of them women and children. It was over, and there was much celebration and whiskey drinking and boasting over the pitiful scalps and booty that were all that remained of the British Band.

If the fighting was over, the dying was not. Cholera stalked down the river with the remains of Scott’s force and struck mercilessly at Sucker and regular alike. Fifty-six men were dead within a week, and many others deserted in terror, further spreading the epidemic. Its hideous rictus and vomiting would claim victims for the rest of that year and into the next, spreading all the way down the river to New Orleans, where it would kill 500 a day at its height.

But at least there would be peace, however shameful. A new treaty was dictated by the victors. By its terms, the Sauk would leave the east bank of the Mississippi forever and give up a 50-mile strip on the west bank as well. There would be a trumpery payment to the tribe, which worked out at about $4 per Sauk per year, before, of course, ‘deductions’ for various sums owed merchants and agents.

Black Hawk was not among the prisoners, nor was his body found among the dead. He had left before the battle, old and tired and sick at heart. Whether he had simply given up on the war or was trying to lead part of Atkinson’s troops away from the Indian families is not clear. In any case, his people did not blame him for his absence. He had led them well. The long march was over. Black Hawk had lost.

This article was written by Robert B. Smith and originally published in the February 1998 issue of Military History magazine.

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