HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY. 
 
our horses, were nearly worn out with the fa- 
tiguing marches, through the swamps and over 
the mountains, yet all were cheerful, and every 
heart seemed to leap for joy, at the thought of be- 
ing free from the toils and hardships of a soldier, 
to return again to the embraces of a wife and 
children, or a father and mother, brothers and 
sisters, and to mingle once more in the walks 
and society of the fair sex, which appears to 'be 
a sovereign balm to man in all his afflictions. 
On this day, just at night, we met about 300 
Menonionee Indians in company of an Ameri- 
can officer from Green Bay, coming to join in 
pursuit of the Sac and Fox Indians. We hap- 
pened to meet them in a prairie. The officer 
advanced and met us, or we certainly would 
have fired upon them. When we came up to 
them they appeared almost to lament that they 
had not got in before we had the last battle, in 
order that they could have had an opportunity 
of assisting us in the work of death to our com- 
mon enemy. For they are, as I have already 
stated, great enemies to the Menomonee In- 
dians. When they left us they seemed to press 
forward with more vigor, as it was their object 
to pursue the balance of the Sacs and Foxes, 
who had made their escape. 
On the next day we began to reach the set- 
tlements in the miningcountry. This was 
again a solemn scene. The farms had mostly 
been sown in grain of some kind or other. 
Those that were in small grain were full ripe 
for the sickle; but behold! the husbandman was 
not there to enjoy the-benefits of his former 
labor by thru-sting in the scythe and sickle and 
gathering in his grain, whichwas fast going to 
destruction. All appeared to be solitary, and 
truly presented a state of mourning. But as 
we advanced a little further into the more 
thickly settled parts we would occasionally see 
the smoke just beginning to make its appearance 
from the top of the chimneys, as.some of the in- 
habitants thought it would be as well to risk 
dying by the tomahawk and scalping-knife as to 
lose their grain a nd die hy famine, .and others 
 
had received information that we had slain in 
battle their troublesome enemy, who had driven 
them from their homes and slain many of their 
neighbors. Whenever we approached a house 
there is no telling the joy it would give to the 
desolate man who had lately emerged from some 
fort, and had left his wife and children still in 
it while he ventured to his home to save some- 
thing for them to subsist upon. 
I must confess it filled my heart with grati- 
tude and joy to think that I had been instru- 
mental, with many others, in delivering my 
country of those merciless savages, and restor- 
ing those people again to their peaceful homes 
and firesides, there to enjoy in safety the sweets 
of a retired life, for a fort is to a husbandman 
what jail is to the prisoner. The inhabitants of 
this district of country had be shut up in forts 
for the last three months, through fear of be- 
comirg a prey to Indian barbarity. 
Nothing very interesting occurred on our 
march to Dixon's. Lieut, Anderson, of the 
United States army, met us at this point, and 
by the 17th of August mustered us all out of 
the service of the United States. We sheathed 
our swords and buried our tomahawks and each 
man again became his own commander and 
shaped his own course toward his home, to en- 
joy the social society of his relatives and 
friends, in the pursuit of their different avoca- 
tions in life. 
CAPTURE OF BLACKI HIAWK AND THE PROPHET. 
After the battle of Bad Ax, when Black 
Hawk's band was totally defeated, Brevet Brig- 
adier-General H. Atkinson, of theUnited States 
army, and Joseph MI. Street, agent for the Win- 
nebagoes at Prairie du Chien, told the principal 
chiefs of that Nation, that if they would bring 
in the Black Hawk and the Prophet, it would 
be well for them, and that the government of 
the United States would hold them in future as 
friends and treat them kindly, and that they 
would not, by so doing, be considered any longer 
the friends of the hostile Sacs and Foxes. 
 
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