THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

One morning in April a messenger from the governor of the State rode into New Salem scattering a circular.  It was an address from Governor Reynolds to the militia of the northwest section of the State, announcing that the British band of Sacs and other hostile Indians, headed by Black Hawk, had invaded the Rock River country, to the great terror of the frontier inhabitants; and calling on the citizens who were willing to aid in repelling them, to rendezvous at Beardstown within a week.

[Illustration:  Monument at Kellogg’s grove.

On June 24, 1832, Black Hawk attacked Apple River Fort, fourteen miles east of Galena, Illinois, but was unable to drive out the inmates.  The next day he attacked a spy battalion of one hundred and fifty men at Kellogg’s Grove, sixteen miles further east.  A detachment of volunteers relieved the battalion, and drove off the savages, about fifteen of whom were killed.  The whites lost five men, who were buried at various points in the grove.  During the summer of 1886 the remains of these men were collected and, with those of five or six other victims of the war, were placed together under the monument here represented.—­See “The Black Hawk War,” by Reuben G. Thwaites, Vol.  XII. in Wisconsin Historical Collections.  This account of the Black Hawk War is the most trustworthy, complete, and interesting which has been made.]

The name of Black Hawk was familiar to the people of Illinois.  He was an old enemy of the settlers, and had been a tried friend of the British.  The land his people had once owned in the northwest of the present State of Illinois had been sold in 1804 to the government of the United States, but with the provision that the Indians should hunt and raise corn there until it was surveyed and sold to settlers.

[Illustration:  John Reynolds, governor of Illinois 1831-1834.

After a steel engraving in the Governor’s office, Springfield, Illinois.  John Reynolds, Governor of Illinois from 1831 to 1834, was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, February 26, 1788.  He was of Irish parentage.  When he was six months old his parents moved to Tennessee.  In 1800 they removed to Illinois.  When twenty years old, John Reynolds went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to college, where he spent two years.  He was admitted to the bar at Kaskaskia in 1812.  In the war of 1812 he rendered distinguished service, earning the title of “the Old Ranger.”  He began the practice of law in the spring of 1814.  In 1818 he was made an associate justice of the Supreme Court; in 1826 he was elected a member of the legislature; and in 1830, after a stirring campaign, he was chosen Governor of Illinois.  The most important event of his administration was the Black Hawk War.  He was prompt in calling out the militia to subdue the Black Hawk, and went upon the field in person.