The Battle of Rock Island Rapids, also called the Battle of Campbell Island, was an American defeat during the War of 1812 at the hands of the British allied Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo. In July 1814, a military expedition was mounted to supply the U.S. garrison at Prairie du Chien after calls for help. The U.S. expedition was ambushed on July 19. In the aftermath another expedition was sent to re-capture Prairie after it fell to the British. This expedition was also ambushed in the Battle of Credit Island and forced to retreat southwards.
In June 1814, the U.S. Army at Fort Shelby, Prairie du Chien (present-day Wisconsin), was threatened with British and Indian attack. After calls for more supplies and men reached St. Louis, Governor William Clark of Missouri organized the expedition led by Lieutenant John Campbell.
On July 4, Campbell's expedition left Cape au Gris with three fortified barges, or keel boats, each with a cabin and all having sails. There were 33 regular soldiers and 65 rangers, some of the latter being Frenchmen from Cahokia. The regulars were from the 1st and 7th Infantry regiments together with the Illinois rangers. The expedition also included a settlers establishment, boatmen, and women and children, families of the soldiers. Making the total one hundred and thirty-three persons. Lieutenant (acting Brigade Major) John Campbell of the First Infantry commanded the first boat, occupied by the 1st Infantry, contractors, and women and children. The second boat was commanded by Lieutenant Stephen Rector and the third by Lieutenant Jonathan Riggs. The number of regulars in this expedition has been repeatedly given as forty-two; Major Campbell, however, reported that he had but thirty-three.
On July 13, about eighty miles below the mouth of Rock river, they met a party of Indians from Prairie du Chien with a packet directed to Governor Clark of Missouri. They informed Campbell that the American garrison at Prairie was still holding on.
On the eighteenth of July, about twenty miles below Rock river, the expedition was met by another party of nine Indians in canoes, bearing a white flag. They told Major Campbell that they had heard of the American's approach and had come to welcome them in peace. At the mouth of the Rock River the expedition was met by five other Indians in canoes, who informed to Campbell that the Indians at the village on Rock River, about a mile above its mouth wished to hold a council with him. The keel boats proceeded up the river and landed on the Illinois shore opposite of the lower end of Rock Island.
In a short time, about one hundred and fifty warriors, besides women and children of the Sauk and Fox nation appeared. Chief Black Hawk was at the head of the party. During the meeting, Campbell and Black Hawk discussed opening a war against the Winnebagos only if he had the means to do so. Black Hawk also ensured Campbell that the Mississippi River would remain open to U.S. travel, fear that the British and their allies would bar passage. Keeping in spirit the Indians remained very friendly for the remainder of the night, recognizing many old friends among the Frenchmen from Cahokia.
The early republic period saw the United States move from the weak Articles of Confederation to the federal Constitution ratified in 1788, with the Bill of Rights added in 1791. George Washington served two terms as president (1789–1797), establishing precedents for executive authority, and the federal capital moved permanently to Washington D.C. in 1800. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled the nation's territory for roughly $15 million, opening vast trans-Mississippi lands to American expansion. The War of 1812 against Britain ended inconclusively but produced a surge of American national identity and eliminated most British support for Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi. The Northwest Indian Wars (1785–1795) and the Creek War (1813–1814) broke Indigenous confederacies that had resisted US expansion. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily balanced slave and free states as the nation expanded westward, but embedded the contradiction of slavery in every subsequent territorial debate.
This page covers Battle of the Rock Island Rapids. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.