at sixteen.[10] Black Hawk says he had but fifty warriors with him in the engagement, the rest being engaged in assisting the women and children in crossing the Wisconsin to an island, to protect them from the fury of the whites:  That he was compelled to fall back into a deep ravine where he continued to maintain his ground until dark, and until his people had had time to reach the island, and that he lost but six of his men.  This is undoubtedly a mistake, owing in all probability to the interpreter in taking down his statement; for some of his men, subsequently, placed the number at sixty.  The condition of the Indians at this time was most deplorable.  Before breaking up their encampment, upon the Four Lakes, they were almost destitute of provisions.  In pursuing their trail from this point to the Wisconsin, many were found literally starved to death.  They were compelled to live upon roots, the bark of trees and horse flesh.  A party of Black Hawk’s band, including many women and children, now attempted to descend the Wisconsin upon rafts and in canoes, that they might escape, by recrossing the Mississippi.  They were attacked however, in their descent, by troops stationed on the bank of the river, and some were killed, others drowned, a few taken prisoners, and the remainder, escaping to the woods, perished from hunger.  Black Hawk, and such of his party as had not the means of descending the Wisconsin, having abandoned all idea of any farther resistance, and unwilling to trust themselves to a capitulation, now determined to strike across the country, and reach the Mississippi, some distance above the mouth of the former stream, and thus effect their escape.  They struck it at a point opposite the Ioway, and about forty miles above the Wisconsin, losing on their route, many of their people from starvation.  So soon as they reached the Mississippi, a part of the women and children, in such canoes as they could procure, undertook to descend it, to Prairie des Chiens, but many of them were drowned before they reached that place, and those who did arrive at it, were found to be in a starving condition.  On the first of August, while in the act of crossing the Mississippi, an attack was made upon Black Hawk and his party by the steam boat Warrior, with an armed force on board.  The commander of the boat, under date of Prairie des Chiens, 3d August 1832, gives the following account of it.

[Illustration:  BATTLE OF BAD-AXE.]

“I arrived at this place on monday last, (July 30th) and was despatched with the Warrior alone, to Wapeshaws village, one hundred and twenty miles above, to inform them of the approach of the Sacs, and to order down all the friendly Indians to this place.  On our way down we met one of the Sioux band, who informed us that the Indians, our enemies, were on Bad-axe river, to the number of four hundred.  We stopped and cut some wood and prepared for action.  About four o’clock on wednesday afternoon (August