After a brief siege, the Sauk and Fox moved on to forage for food, and on the next day they moved on to an even smaller fort at Kellogg’s Grove, hoping to ambush its garrison as it ventured out. Instead, the Indians ran afoul of a large party of militia led by Major John Dement and lost nine warriors killed, including two war chiefs, in the running fight that followed.

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There were now too many regulars and militia in the region, and Black Hawk’s time was running out. Gradually the white juggernaut moved ahead, pushing up the Rock River past Lake Koshkonong. 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 substantial 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 Captain Abraham Lincoln, on his way home to infinitely greater things.

If Atkinson was to have the honor 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. Brevet Major General Winfield Scott, a smart, driving regular officer destined for glory in the coming war with 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 stamped 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 tree bark to stay alive, and leaving behind the bodies of old people dead of starvation. The militia was closing faster now as it broke out of the swamps and into open country, near Madison, Wis.

Just when it seemed that the war was over, on July 21, Black Hawk turned on his pursuers at a place called Wisconsin Heights. Vastly outnumbered, he could not close, but volleyed again and again with musket fire, keeping the whites off balance and on the defensive as their casualties mounted, though only one man was killed. At last, as night began to fall, the Suckers managed to launch a bayonet charge toward the high ground and the ravine from which the Indians’ galling fire had come. Their assault crashed into empty air — Black Hawk was gone.

‘Our men stood firmly’ one militiaman wrote proudly, unaware that’standing firmly’ was precisely what Black Hawk desperately wanted the army to do. While they stood firmly, he had gotten his entire band across the Wisconsin by canoe, losing only five braves. He had commanded about 50 Sauk, who he later described as ‘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 island, 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, carrying 25 regulars and a 6-pounder cannon.

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