Letter Of The 27th

Cannon At Campbell's Island, Illinois

"The battle of Campbell's Island", July 19, 1814

Black Hawk's memory is at fault, he does not state exactly what these Indian messengers told him. Colonel McKay, whose army of British and Indians had attacked Prairie du Chien, in a letter to his superior officer, under date of July 27, 1814, says that on the seventeenth of July about three o'clock in the afternoon, after the gun boat "Governor Clark" had been driven from its position by the British cannon and had started down the river, that he immediately sent off a canoe with three men, an Iowan, who had come from Mackinac with him, and two of the six Sauks, who had joined him on the Fox river, that he gave them four kegs of gun powder and ordered them to pass the "Governor Clark" and get as soon as possible to the Rapids at the Rock river, where he believed the gun boat would run aground; that they should collect all the Sauks and annoy the "Governor Clark" and prevent their landing to get fire wood, etc.

Black Hawk collected his warriors and determined to attack the boats which had now started up the river, as Black Hawk says : "I collected my warriors and determined to pursue the boats, I immediately started with my party by land, in pursuit, thinking that some of their boats might get aground, or that the GREAT SPIRIT would put them in our power, if he wished them taken."