John Reynolds

…Fox and some Sauk), and John Reynolds, the new governor of Illinois, felt confident of federal support for his request that the Sauk and Fox be forced to comply with those old treaties.

Reynolds, who saw the return of Black Hawk’s band in the spring of 1831 as an invasion, called out a mounted militia of 700 men. Gen. Edward Gaines, commander of the Western Division of the U.S. Army, met in Saukenuk with the Sauk and Fox…

…swept the West in 1831, Reynolds’s continuing animosity ensured that any new dispute would end in bloodshed. In July 1831 he wrote, “If I am again compelled to call on the Militia of this State, I will place in the field such a force as will exterminate all Indians, who…

…inadequate to pursue Black Hawk, Reynolds issued a call for 1,200 militia and, on April 17, wrote to Secretary of War Lewis Cass reporting that the state was “in imminent danger.” Additional federal troops were sent to northwestern Illinois. Eventually nearly one-third of the U.S. Army was committed to the…

John Reynolds of Illinois called out the militia, and the U.S. government also dispatched troops to confront the band.