Battle of Apple River Fort

Late in the afternoon on June 24, 1832, violence broke out at Apple River Fort, situated close to what is now Elizabeth, Illinois. Black Hawk, leading roughly 200 warriors of his "British Band" made up of Sauk and Meskwaki fighters, stumbled upon four messengers making their way from Galena. One rider took a bullet to the thigh as the group raced toward the safety of the stockade nearby. Fred Dixon, one of the couriers, fell behind deliberately to shield his companions from pursuit. Meanwhile, the remaining riders pushed ahead to alert about 70 settlers that Sauk and Meskwaki forces were closing in, sparing those residents from harm.

Inside the fort stood a modest militia force, somewhere between 28 and 30 men and boys under the command of Captain Clack Stone. For roughly an hour, they held their ground against Black Hawk's war party, numbering some 150 fighters. The relentless volume of gunfire coming from the fort eventually persuaded Black Hawk that storming it directly would prove too costly. He briefly weighed burning the structure to the ground before instead turning his attention to plundering nearby cabins for food, clothing, and kitchen supplies. As night fell, he and his warriors withdrew from the area.

In the aftermath, several women inside the fort earned recognition for their contributions to its defense, among them Elizabeth Winters, Rebecca Hitt, Sarah Vanvoltinburg, and Elizabeth Armstrong. It was Armstrong who organized the roughly 40 women and children sheltering within the walls, splitting them into two working groups; one produced rifle balls while the other rolled paper cartridges and packed them with gunpowder. A number of the married women took on the task of reloading firearms, allowing the militia to keep up a faster rate of fire. Tragically, courier George Harkleroad was shot in the neck and later died of his injuries, becoming the only fatality suffered by those defending the fort. The toll on the Native side was never determined with certainty, though some defenders afterward described finding blood both on the ground outside and within a nearby structure.

In the years that followed, squatters occupied the abandoned fort. Eventually, in 1847, the land containing the battlefield and the fort's remnants changed hands through sale. Its new owner dismantled much of the original timber to construct a barn for livestock, and whatever wood remained afterward was destroyed by fire. Near the close of the 1990s, a reconstructed version of the fort was erected close to its original location, and it still stands today within the Village of Elizabeth, Illinois. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources now oversees the property, which operates under the name Apple River Fort State Historic Site.

Prelude

The rout of the militia at Stillman's Run on May 14 left settlers throughout the lead-mining district near Galena badly shaken, and a good many abandoned their homes entirely. Wild rumors made things worse, including one claim that 2,000 "bloodthirsty warriors" were sweeping across northern Illinois "with the bosom of destruction," a phrase that spread fear across the countryside. In response, the people of the Apple River Settlement organized a militia company of 46 men, initially placed under Captain Vance L. Davidson. By the final days of May, Davidson had relocated to the Plum River settlement, now known as Savanna, Illinois, while command of the local militia passed by election to Captain Clack Stone. Construction of the fort's lone blockhouse finished around May 22, with the surrounding stockade following at a later point.

In the nights just before June 18, 1832, raiders made off with horses belonging to the fort under cover of darkness. This theft, along with similar incidents happening around the same period, prompted Illinois militia officer James W. Stephenson to engage a small band of warriors in what became known as "Stephenson's Fight," an encounter later mislabeled as taking place at Waddams Grove, on June 18.

Midday on June 24, 1832, brought a supply wagon into Apple River Fort carrying meat and bars of lead hauled from Galena. At roughly the same hour, Black Hawk had assembled his war party of 200 men at a gap in Terrapin Ridge, likewise moving toward the fort. His warriors managed to approach unseen right up until they finally opened fire. Not long after, around four in the afternoon, four couriers traveling from Galena toward the army's encampment at Dixon's Ferry reached the fort. Those inside were anxious for word from Galena and for any news concerning the fighting with Black Hawk.

When the attack came, the fort held between 28 and 30 armed militiamen, while roughly 40 more people, women, children, and other settlers, were living within the wider Apple River Settlement. Captain Clack Stone, together with his officers, directed the defense. The bulk of those fighting belonged to Stone's militia company, rounded out by a handful of civilians, though several members of the company happened to be away from the stockade and missed the engagement entirely.

Battle

Four express riders out of Galena, George Harkleroad, Fred Dixon, Edmund Welch, and J. Kirkpatrick, carried military dispatches on the road toward Dixon under standing orders. Along the way they paused at the fort long enough to eat a hasty meal before pressing onward. Roughly 600 yards (550 m) past the fort, Black Hawk's advance guard of some thirty warriors struck the party. Welch, the only rider carrying a loaded weapon, took a bullet in the hip and tumbled from his saddle. His companions, though their own guns held no charges, leveled them at the attackers anyway and positioned themselves between the wounded man and the warriors. Together they pulled Welch back and began retreating toward the fort. Fred Dixon held the rear, screening the others as they made their dash for safety. Kirkpatrick, Harkleroad, and Welch reached the fort, but Dixon's flight carried him instead toward the Apple River, and from there to John McDonald's farm, which he found already swarming with Native Americans. Forced to leave his horse behind, he crossed the river on foot and eventually reached the Galena road, where he brought word that the fort was under siege.

Inside the walls, settlers crowded together while the men and boys manned the firing ports. What followed was an intense clash pitting the defenders against roughly 150 warriors of Black Hawk's British Band. For close to an hour gunfire poured from both directions without letup. Early on, many of the women had clustered near the cabins, frightened and uncertain, until several of the married women, Elizabeth Armstrong among them, organized the rest into a working support system. Under her direction, unmarried women and children, some as young as eight, were set to cutting powder cartridges and casting rifle balls, while the married women kept the guns loaded so the men could sustain a steady rate of fire.

Faced with such stubborn resistance, Black Hawk concluded that the fort was too well held to take easily. He thought about setting it ablaze but held back, worried the smoke would summon militia from elsewhere. As his fighters eased off their assault on the fort itself, they turned instead to plundering the nearby cabins, hauling away meat, flour, clothing, and cookware, though they did little senseless destruction beyond that. The livestock came next: horses were driven off, while pigs and cattle were killed on the spot for their best cuts. As dusk settled in, Black Hawk pulled his warriors back without fanfare, retreating through the gap at Terrapin Ridge and onto the Galena road.

Given how fierce the fighting had been, casualties were surprisingly light. Harkleroad, the courier, was struck in the neck early in the engagement and did not survive; accounts say he was shot while looking out over the stockade's pickets. Aside from Welch's wound, the only other injury among the defenders was Josiah Nutting, grazed on the side of the head, a wound that was not serious. How many the Sauk lost in the fight remains unrecorded.

Aftermath

Through the darkness those inside Apple River Fort kept watch, bracing for Black Hawk's return, yet morning broke with nothing further happening. The following day, June 25, help reached the settlers when two mounted ranger companies rode in from Galena. Black Hawk's warriors, meanwhile, clashed that same day with Major John Dement's three companies of Spy Battalion troops in what became known as the Second Battle of Kellogg's Grove. George Harkleroad, the sole man killed defending Apple River Fort, was laid to rest close by, though his burial site has since vanished without any marker remaining.

Many hailed Elizabeth Armstrong as a heroine for what she did amid the fighting, showing precisely the bravery under gunfire that militia forces had so conspicuously lacked earlier in the conflict. Thanks partly to her efforts, the small band defending the fort managed to convince Black Hawk that the outpost held far greater strength than he had assumed.

Confusion over her identity persisted among early chroniclers; a Wisconsin Historical Society compilation from 1900 wrongly named her "Mrs. Graham." A traveling Methodist preacher, years after the encounter, learned of the fort's defense through a settler called "Mr. Jewel," who had come to Jo Daviess County following the war's end. According to Jewel's account, Armstrong spent the entire fight "cursing & swearing like a pirate," her fury so intense that Black Hawk's own men claimed to have heard it. The minister judged this behavior "profane" and considered it damaging to her reputation.

Around 1847 the fort itself was torn down, its wood repurposed for building a barn. In present times, the Apple River Fort Historic Foundation has rebuilt the structure along with its three original buildings. Recognition of the site's importance comes through two separate listings on the National Register of Historic Places, covering both its military history and archaeological value.

Ownership passed to the state of Illinois on January 1, 2001, when officials assumed control of the rebuilt fort together with its visitor center. Since then, Illinois has run the property as the Apple River Fort State Historic Site, with the acquisition partly financed by a state grant of $160,000.