Henry Atkinson

Henry Atkinson was already en route to Rock Island on a mission to prevent the Sauk and Fox from warring with the Menominee and Sioux. After arriving on April 12, Atkinson met with “friendly” Sauk and Fox chiefs whose refusal to help convinced him that…

…and Galena, Illinois, respectively, General Atkinson and Col. Henry Dodge continued to send out troops in search of Black Hawk. Neither Atkinson nor Black Hawk attempted to negotiate peace. Throughout this period, loosely supervised armed groups, Indian and white, tangled with each other across northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Some…

…the Black Hawk War was Atkinson, whose subordinates in the field and superiors in Washington believed that he had badly mishandled the conflict—first by allowing it to turn bloody and then by failing to crush it immediately once it did. Following the war, the official report to Congress papered over…