The Battle of Apple River Fort, occurred on the late afternoon of June 24, 1832 at the Apple River Fort, near present-day Elizabeth, Illinois, when Black Hawk and 200 of his "British Band" of Sauk and Meskwaki were surprised by a group of four messengers en route from Galena, Illinois. One of the couriers was wounded in the thigh as the riders quickly made for the protection of the nearby stockade. Courier Fred Dixon lagged behind and provided cover for his comrades. The other couriers rode ahead to warn some 70 settlers of the approaching Sauk and Meskwaki, thus saving their lives. The small company of militia at the fort, about 28-30 men and boys led by Captain Clack Stone, fought off Black Hawk's 150-man war party in an action that lasted about an hour. The withering pace of the gunfire eventually convinced Black Hawk that the fort was too heavily defended to lead a direct attack. He considered burning the fort, then switched to raiding cabins of foodstuffs, clothing and cooking utensils. In the gathering darkness, Black Hawk and his war party retreated.
After the battle, some of the fort defenders won praise for their efforts to repel the Indian attack. Among them were: Elizabeth Winters, Rebecca Hitt, Sarah Vanvoltinburg, and Elizabeth Armstrong. Mrs. Armstrong rallied the 40 or so women and children who had taken shelter inside the fort. The women and children were divided into two groups: one to mold rifle balls and another to roll paper cartridges and fill them with a measure of gunpowder into paper cartridges. Some of the married women reload weapons so that the militia could increase the pace of their fire. Courier George Harkleroad was struck in the neck and mortally wounded: the fort's only fatality. Native casualties remain unknown, although some defenders later reported blood on the ground and inside a nearby building.
For some time afterward, the old fort was used by local squatters. The former battlefield and the fort remains were sold in 1847. The new owner re-purposed many of the timbers from the fort to build a livestock barn. What remained was burned. Today, a replica fort was built near the original site in the late 1990s and still stands in the modern Village of Elizabeth, IL. The site is managed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources as "Apple River Fort State Historic Site."
As a consequence of the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis between William H. Harrison the Governor of Indiana Territory and a group of Sauk and Meskwaki leaders regarding land settlement, the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes vacated their lands in Illinois and moved west of the Mississippi in 1828. However, the Sac's principle warrior Black Hawk and others disputed the treaty, claiming that the full tribal councils had not been consulted, nor did those representing the tribes have authorization to cede lands. Angered by the loss of his birthplace, between 1830–31 Black Hawk led a number of incursions across the Mississippi River, but was persuaded to return west each time without bloodshed. In April 1832, encouraged by promises of alliance with other Great Lakes tribes and supplies from the British in Canada, he again moved his so-called "British Band" of around 500 warriors and a like number of families and non-combatants into Illinois. Finding no allies among the local Ho Chunk, he attempted to return to Iowa, but was temporarily stopped by the presence of several companies of militia. As night fell, the undisciplined Illinois militia fled before Black Hawk's warriors in a skirmish known today as Battle of Stillman's Run. A number of other engagements followed, and the militias of Michigan Territory and Illinois were mobilized to hunt down Black Hawk's Band. The conflict became known as the Black Hawk War.
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.
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