Home of the Brave

by Jeffry Hepple

  Yank offered his hand. “I’m John Van Buskirk.”

  “Abraham Lincoln. It’s an honor to meet you, General.”

  Yank looked around. “What happened here, Captain Lincoln?”

  “I probably know less than you do, sir. My company wasn’t involved in the battle. All I know is what the survivors say.”

  “Tell me what you’ve heard about it and any background that might be useful, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind a bit if it gives me an excuse to stand a few yards away from those corpses, sir. Where do you want me to start?”

  “Were you part of the militia that burned Black Hawk’s village on May ninth?”

  “Yes, sir. The battalion marched down from our rendezvous point on the Rock River near Dixon to Prophet’s Village. But Black Hawk wasn’t there.”

  Yank chuckled. “Prophet’s Village?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s what they call it.”

  “‘Sorry. I was laughing at the irony of the village name and how history repeats itself. Please continue.”

  “Well, when we got there, the warriors were all gone and we only found a handful of Sauk and Fox women and children. We herded them on out of the village, smashed up their pots and pans then burned the place. Seemed cruel to me but, what do I know?”

  “From what I’ve learned it would have been effective had things played out a little differently. After hearing about his village being destroyed, Black Hawk was headed back to Iowa Territory and was waiting here for the women and children to catch up when he tangled with Stillman.”

  “That makes sense,” Lincoln agreed. “I’m not sure if Major Stillman intended to fight here, or if he was just followin’ Black Hawk to make sure he left Illinois. But whatever the reason, they got into a Hellish fight more or less by accident.”

  “By accident,” Yank repeated. “That I hadn’t heard.”

  Lincoln looked over the terrain. “The men I talked to said that Black Hawk sent four of his people to talk. They came up from yonder.” He pointed. “But the sentry over there was just a boy and when he saw the Indians comin’ he got scared and shot one. After hearin’ the shot and seein’ the other three Indians runnin’ away, several other men fired and – well – they killed ‘em all. That night, Black Hawk attacked the camp.”

  “How many Indians did Black Hawk have with him?”

  “I heard some tall-tales about thousands,” Lincoln said. “But from the tracks I’d say it was closer to forty mounted warriors.”

  “Forty? Stillman had two hundred and seventy-five men.”

  “You can look for yourself. It hasn’t rained since then.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Captain, but the rumor of over two thousand blood-thirsty Indians is panicking settlers here and in the adjoining territory.”

  “None of the survivors want to admit that they were whipped so badly by a handful of braves, sir. They didn’t intend to spread panic.”

  “Intentional or not, that’s the way wars start, Captain Lincoln.”

  “If you’ll forgive me sir, the rumors are like as not encouraged by the State to boost enlistments.”

  “Such a practice would be foolish,” Yank said, walking back to his horse. “But being foolish is one of the things politicians seem to do so well.” He lifted his left foot to the stirrup with his left hand and then with a grunt, mounted. “If you decide against a military career in favor of one in politics, Captain, please try to remember the stench of the dead every time you make a decision.”

  “I will, sir. Where are you headed?”

  “To follow Black Hawk’s British Band. Good day to you, Captain Lincoln.”

  Lincoln came to attention and saluted.

  May 28, 1832

  Springfield, Illinois

  Governor John Reynolds was sitting behind his desk in the Official Residence on the Illinois State Fairgrounds. Across from him, Brevet Brigadier General Henry Atkinson, Commander of the Illinois Militia was studying the floor as retired Lieutenant General Yank Van Buskirk was speaking.

  “Governor,” Yank said. “I followed Black Hawk from the Rock River and he was never anywhere near those other incidents.”

  Reynolds shrugged.

  “The attack at Buffalo Grove was a band of Kickapoo,” Yank continued. “The Davis massacre was in retaliation for the William Davis Settlement’s damming of Indian Creek over the protests of the Potawatomi village downstream. It was led by a hot-headed, young Potawatomi warrior named Keewasee. The engagement at Kellogg’s Grove was perpetrated by Ho-Chunk warriors. The Ho-Chunk, the Potawatomi and the British have all left Black Hawk to fend for himself. Contrary to the reports issued by your office, none of these attackers were affiliated with Black Hawk’s British Band.”

  “It hardly matters, General,” Reynolds replied. “The thirty-day enlistments all expired yesterday or today.”

  General Atkinson cleared his throat noisily. “General Winfield Scott and a thousand regulars, plus three hundred mounted volunteers are headed toward us from Buffalo. It appears that you and I will not be needed any longer, General Van Buskirk.”

  “That suits me just fine,” Yank agreed, getting to his feet.

  “You seem to be in a hurry to leave us,” Reynolds chuckled.

  “I’ve been fighting Indians all my life, Governor,” Yank replied, “as has every generation of my American family before me. To us, the various tribes and nations have always been a temporary enemy like the British, the French or the Spanish. But my government now seems to view Indians differently and instead of seeking treaties of friendship, the United States is looking for ways to eliminate the entire race. I find it distasteful.”

  Reynolds face turned red. “I don’t set Federal policy, General.”

  “But you do send false reports to the Federal Government, Governor. That fuels the public fear and drives Federal policy.”

  “I don’t have to take that shit from you,” Reynolds said angrily.

  “I choose swords,” Yank said with a slow smile.

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “Then I bid you goodbye,” Yank said, and he strode quickly out of the building and started across the compound toward the stables.

  “General Van Buskirk.” A militia corporal raced after Yank waving a message over his head.

  Yank stopped.

  “I was waiting for you to finish your meeting with the governor, but you left so fast that I couldn’t catch you.”

  “Thank you, Corporal.” Yank accepted the message continued to the stables and asked the stable master to have his horse saddled before opening the message.

  “Not bad news I hope.” General Atkinson walked into the barn.

  “Terrible news, Henry,” Yank replied. “I’m to negotiate a treaty with a Sioux chief named Wabasha in the Minnesota Territory.”

  “Why is that so terrible?”

  “I’ve never met Wabasha, I don’t speak a word of Sioux, and I don’t know where I might find an interpreter.”

  “There’s a white woman living with the tribe up there. Her name was Clarissa Evans. I don’t know her tribal name, but she’s fair-haired so you should be able to pick her out.”

  “Good. Thank you, Henry.”

  “Be careful of her.”

  “Careful? In what way?”

  “She was captured by another Sioux band about fifteen years ago just after she married Nathaniel Evans. About five years ago, the army rescued her after a little tussle and they brought her back. Nathaniel had remarried by then and he said some harsh things to her.”

  “Such as she should have died rather than submitting to a dirty Indian?”

  “Like that and worse. So she went back to find her band and ended up with Wabasha instead.”

  “I’ll be gentle.”

  “I should have backed you up in there.” Atkinson nodded toward the Governor’s residence. “I apologize.”

  “Not necessary. You’d have only harmed yourself. Reynolds isn’t the
type that can be reasoned with.”

  “He sees Indians as sub-human.”

  “That may be the real root of the problem. We’re treating them like herd animals that we discovered in our new world instead of like people.”

  “This Black Hawk is a genuine bad one, Yank. He’s signed three or four treaties and moved back west of the Mississippi and then the minute we release the militia, he crosses back into Illinois.”

  “We keep making treaties with these people, Henry, but if we decide we want something that they have, we break the treaty. And then we wonder why they do the same thing.”

  “At some point we have to protect our own.”

  Yank shrugged. “Maybe you’re right, Henry. Or maybe I’ve just spent so much time among the Indians that I can’t tell who ‘my own’ are any more.”

  “I meant Americans.”

  Yank looked at him. “We better stop this discussion before I start saying radical things like: they were Americans before we were.”

  May 28, 1832

  Buffalo, New York

  Major Jack Van Buskirk was standing at the window of his home. As the death cart rumbled closer, the driver’s voice could be heard. “Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.”

  Jack opened the front door, signaled the driver and waited for the cart to stop. “Can you help me, please?” he called, “I have three.”

  The driver set the brake, climbed down and followed Jack into the house. “Jesus wept.”

  “I will carry my wife if you can manage the children.”

  “Yes, sir. They’re but wee little things and no burden.”

  Asiatic cholera had been spreading across Europe throughout 1831, and despite all efforts to keep it out of North America, the first case appeared in Quebec during the spring of 1832. As the disease spread up the St. Lawrence, half of those infected were dead in from four to eight hours of their first symptoms.

  “Thank you,” Jack said, as the driver mounted his cart.

  “May God bless you, sir.”

  Jack turned and started toward the waterfront.

  “Sir,” the driver called. “You left yer front door open.”

  “I know. I’d burn it down if the neighboring houses wouldn’t burn with it. Take anything you want.”

  ~

  General Winfield Scott was pacing the quay. Below him in the inner harbor of Lake Erie, barges packed with soldiers rocked in the waves. Of the force of fifteen hundred that Scott had first assembled for this mission, he now had less than a thousand.

  At last, with enormous relief, he saw Major Jack Van Buskirk walking briskly down the street toward him.

  “I had about given you up for dead, Major”, Scott said angrily.

  Jack stopped and saluted Scott.

  Scott purposely withheld his return salute. “Are you aware that delaying a troop movement is a court martial offense?”

  Jack dropped his hand. “I had pressing business.”

  There was an edge to the young major’s voice that warned Scott to abandon any disciplinary speech. “What’s happened?”

  “My family has been struck down with cholera. I was unable to locate a sexton and had to wait for the death cart.”

  “Your family? All three?” Scott asked, fearful of the answer.

  Jack nodded. “Caroline and little John died during the night. The baby awoke with diarrhea and died before noon.”

  “Oh God. I am so very sorry, Jack.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d excuse you from duty but you’re the only other field grade officer in the corps.”

  “I have nothing here, General. Are we ready to cast off?”

  ~

  During the three days it took to reach Detroit, many of the troops became sick or died, and were left there. General Scott left more sick and dying soldiers at Mackinaw at the north end of Lake Huron, and more at Two Rivers. He arrived at Chicago with two-hundred fifty healthy men after leaving a trail of disease in his wake.

  June 26, 1832

  Sioux Village of Chief Wabasha, Minnesota Territory

  The sun had not yet risen and Yank was asleep on the ground next to the smoldering embers of last night’s fire.

  “Wake up, Yangee.” The woman kicked him with her moccasin clad foot. She was dressed like a Sioux squaw but her hair was blonde, streaked with white. She kicked him again. “Yangee.”

  “Huh.” He rolled onto his back and squinted up at her then sat up. “What is it, Clarissa?” he complained.

  “There is a dragon in the river.”

  “Feed it some of those damn dogs that kept waking me last night.”

  She probed his bedroll with her foot then when she discovered his leg, kicked him in the thigh. “Chief Wabasha sent me for you.”

  “If you kick me again I’ll send him your scalp,” he snapped.

  “The people are afraid.”

  Grumbling, Yank began to dress. “If the people have convinced you to believe in dragons, you’ve been with them too damn long.”

  “I saw and heard this one with my own eyes. It breathes fire, boils the water and makes terrible noises like nothing I’ve ever heard before.”

  Yank pulled on his boots. “I’ll go slay your dragon if you’ll roll up my blankets and put them in your teepee.”

  “What will people think?”

  “I don’t much care. But if you don’t do it for me someone will steal them and make me buy them back for silver.” He stood up and stamped his feet as the woman knelt and began rolling his blankets. “Where is this dragon exactly?”

  Before she could answer a steam whistle from the river shattered the silence.

  “Never mind, I heard it.” Yank crossed the camp, pushed through the underbrush and trudged down the grade to the bank of the Mississippi where a side-wheeled steamboat with the name Warrior painted on her paddle cover was churning to stay abreast with the current. Yank cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello aboard the Warrior.”

  “Hello, please identify yourself,” a man answered.

  Yank could now see the silhouette of three men on the bow and a forth on the rail manning a small 6-pounder. “John Van Buskirk representing President Andrew Jackson.”

  “General John Van Buskirk?”

  “Retired.”

  “Is that the village of Chief Wabasha, General?”

  “Yes it is.”

  “We have an urgent message for him and were waiting for dawn to try to put ashore.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Lieutenant James W. Kingsbury, United States Army. Lieutenant Reuben Holmes and I are in command of fifteen regular army infantrymen and six militia volunteers.”

  “What’s your message for Chief Wabasha?”

  “We want to warn him that the Sauk and Fox are fleeing from U.S. forces.”

  “I already told him that. He’s prepared to come down to the Bad Axe and support us.”

  There was quite a long silence and then finally a new voice called out. “General, I’m Joseph Throckmorton, captain of this vessel.”

  “Yes, Captain. What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if I could do something for you. Do you perchance need a ride?”

  “A ride to where?”

  “Any point between here and Philadelphia.”

  “That depends upon the price of the passage. I don’t have much money left. The Sioux keep finding ways of taking it from me.”

  “The boat’s chartered by the Army, General. You’re welcome aboard at no cost.”

  “In that case I’d be very pleased to accompany you all the way to Philadelphia.”

  “How long will it take you to get ready?”

  “Fifteen minutes. All I have to do is get my bedroll and sell my horse.”

  “I’ll see if I can find a place to anchor close enough to shore to reach the bank with a gangway.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll swim out.”

  “Are you sure? The current is quite swift.”

/>   “I swam over here from the other side leading a horse so I can surely swim half way without one.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  June 10, 1832

  Anahuac, Coahuila, Mexican Province of Tejas

  “I’m looking for Captain Frank Johnson,” Thomas said. “I’m told he’s in command here.”

  “And who might you be, sir?”

  “Thomas Van Buskirk.”

  “I’m Johnson.” He stood up and offered his hand. “I think you know my parents. Carl and Melinda? They have a farm south of San Felipe.”

  “Oh you bet, I know them,” Thomas said, shaking Johnson’s hand with a grin. “They may have saved our lives when we got to Texas. How are they?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “Weren’t you going to law school?”

  “Yes, sir. I graduated from Harvard last year.”

  Thomas chuckled. “Your father gave me a hard time about wasting my education chasing cows.”

  “I hear similar complaints regularly, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m not sure, Captain. I stopped and talked to Colonel Ugartechea at the Brazos garrison but he didn’t seem to know any more about what was going on here than I do.”

  “Do you know about the arrest of Patrick Jack and William Travis?”

  Thomas shook his head. “I know that Travis is a lawyer but I’ve never met him and I’ve not heard of the other man before now.”

  “Patrick Jack was arrested by Colonel Bradburn for discussing raising a Texas militia in a tavern.”

  “In a tavern?”

  “Yes. Apparently any discussion of militia is against one of Bustamante’s new laws.”

  “The Law of April 6th.”

  Johnson shrugged. “Jack hired William Travis to defend him and right now, as we speak, Bradburn has both men staked to the ground with his cavalry surrounding them, aiming muskets at their heads.”

  “What? Why in the world would they do that?”

  “To keep us from freeing them and all the other prisoners he’s holding illegally.”