Battle of Kellogg's Grove

Two separate clashes near Kellogg's Grove in what is now Stephenson County, Illinois, together make up what is called the Battle of Kellogg's Grove, small engagements that unfolded during the Black Hawk War. The earlier of the two, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Burr Oak Grove, took place on June 16, 1832, when Illinois militia troops clashed with a Native American band numbering at least 80. Three militiamen serving under Adam W. Snyder lost their lives in that fight.

Nine days after this first encounter, a second and larger confrontation broke out. This time a sizable force of Sauk and Meskwaki warriors led by Black Hawk struck at the detachment commanded by Major John Dement, leaving five more militia men dead.

This later engagement holds a place in history partly because of its connection to Abraham Lincoln's brief stint in the Illinois militia. Lincoln belonged to a relief company dispatched to the grove on June 26, and while there he took part in burying those who had fallen. Years afterward he offered his own account of what happened, a recollection later preserved in writings by Carl Sandburg and others. Which side actually prevailed remains disputed among various sources, with the outcome described by some as a rout for one side and by others as a rout for the opposite side. Notably, this clash marked the final battle fought on Illinois soil during the course of the Black Hawk War.

Background

The roots of this conflict trace back to 1804, when the Governor of Indiana Territory signed a treaty with several Sauk and Meskwaki leaders concerning the settlement of tribal lands. Under its terms, both tribes gave up their holdings in Illinois and relocated across the Mississippi by 1828. Black Hawk, a Sauk leader, along with others, rejected the legitimacy of this agreement, arguing that the tribal councils as a whole had never given their consent and that those who signed lacked any real authority to give away the land. Still bitter over losing the place of his birth, Black Hawk began crossing back over the Mississippi starting in 1830, staging several incursions into the region. Each time, he was talked into withdrawing westward again without any fighting breaking out. By April 1832, buoyed by assurances of support from other tribes and from the British, he once more brought his so called British Band, numbering close to a thousand warriors and non-combatants, into Illinois territory. When the promised allies failed to appear, he sought to turn back toward Iowa, but circumstances spiraled beyond his control, culminating in what became known as the Battle of Stillman's Run. This clash triggered a string of further confrontations and massacres, prompting Michigan Territory and Illinois to call up their militias in pursuit of Black Hawk's followers.

Prelude

Before the fighting that would become known as the second engagement at Kellogg's Grove, trouble flared along Bureau Creek, the stretch of land lying between the Rock and Illinois Rivers, where a raid struck the area. Major John Dement's battalion received orders to head there, both to shield the settlers and to determine whether Native Americans were operating nearby, and the unit was directed to check in with Colonel Zachary Taylor at Dixon's Ferry. Dement arrived at Dixon's Ferry on June 22 and delivered his findings to Taylor, who instructed him to push across the Rock River and hold ground somewhere between Dixon's Ferry and Galena. Taylor further directed that Dement establish his base of operations at Kellogg's Grove. Commanding 140 green troops, Dement marched toward the grove to relieve a band of volunteers under a Major Riley, who had deserted the fort on June 23. According to the men who had been posted there, this earlier group had clashed with Native Americans two or three separate times, losing every one of those encounters before abandoning the post. Dement's force crossed the Rock River on June 24, arrived at the modest fort at Kellogg's Grove, and made camp there overnight.

That same day, June 24, the day before the second clash at Kellogg's Grove unfolded, Black Hawk had turned his band toward Apple River Fort, launching an assault there. Through much of that day, the Sauk kept the small stockade under siege during what became known as the Battle of Apple River Fort. Meanwhile, other warriors had been sent out separately to hunt for food, horses, and other supplies that the band desperately required. It was on the following day that this same group would arrive at Kellogg's Grove and take up arms against Dement's militia.

Battles

On June 16, 1832, fighting broke out at what became known as the first Battle of Kellogg's Grove, sometimes called the Battle of Burr Oak Grove. Soldiers under Captain Adam Wilson Snyder clashed with a portion of roughly 80 Kickapoo fighters, leaving three militiamen and six Kickapoo dead.

The trouble began the previous evening, June 15, when Snyder and his company, camped at Kellogg's Grove, spotted Native Americans nearby and lost a horse to theft overnight. At daybreak on the 16th, the militia tracked the raiders in a southwesterly direction, eventually encountering and killing four of them. During the fighting that followed, Private William B. Mecomson suffered a mortal wound. His comrades placed him on a litter to carry him toward the Kellogg cabin, but Mecomson himself asked that they pause for rest. While some men left to fetch water and others stayed behind with the wounded soldier, a substantial force of Native Americans descended upon the group. A brief but violent clash claimed two more militia lives before the attackers withdrew. The soldiers then made their way back to the cabin and laid their dead to rest the following day.

Nine days later, on June 25, 1832, a second engagement unfolded at the same location. Major John Dement's men had been camped there since Sunday the 24th when word reached them of a large Native American presence close by. This clash brought Dement's militia spy company face to face with warriors under Black Hawk, supported by his subordinate leaders Neapope and Weesheet. Dement's men had spent time scouring the region for war parties dispatched by Black Hawk, and their search had ultimately brought them to Kellogg's Grove.

Overnight, three horses belonging to the militia broke loose, prompting three soldiers to head out the next morning in search of them while their companions remained at the camp. Those left behind soon spotted seven Native American warriors in the distance. Rather than alerting Dement to what they had seen, the men gave chase as the warriors retreated toward the trees. This was, in fact, a trap, a tactic the Native forces had employed before during the conflict. Once the pursuing militia entered the woods, gunfire erupted from the concealed warriors, killing two soldiers outright and wounding a third. The survivors pulled back and tried to hold a defensive line, but the assault continued unabated. Though the remainder of Dement's company rushed to aid their comrades, they could not overcome the attacking warriors, and Black Hawk's fighters pushed the militia into a retreat toward the cabin and barn.

Tragedy compounded during this withdrawal when the three men who had gone searching for the missing horses returned only to be cut down by the Native Americans. The siege of the barn and cabin persisted relentlessly, and by its end approximately 25 horses lay dead. Eventually the warriors broke off their attack and departed, leaving nine of their own fallen on the field. This engagement marked the final battle of the Black Hawk War fought on Illinois territory. Dement's losses totaled five killed and three wounded, alongside the destruction of numerous horses.

Reinforcements arrived that same night under General Alexander Posey, who declined to chase after the retreating warriors and instead sent word of events to Colonel Zachary Taylor. Black Hawk later remarked that had Posey pursued and engaged his warriors, the resulting defeat might have crushed his forces entirely and ended the war. Dement himself believed that the number of Native Americans present at Kellogg's Grove exceeded that of any other battle fought during the conflict. The following day brought additional support when Captain Jacob Early's detachment arrived at the grove.

Lincoln's role

Historians have long puzzled over exactly what part Abraham Lincoln played during the Black Hawk War, since his name has been tied to two different battlefields after the fighting ended. Several accounts hold that on the morning of June 26, 1832, following the second engagement, men from Captain Jacob M. Early's company rode into Kellogg's Grove to bury the fallen. Lincoln numbered among these soldiers. He took part in the burial detail, and a recollection he later gave of the scene has been linked to both the clash at Kellogg's Grove and the earlier rout at Stillman's Run.

In his own words, he recalled the sight of the dead as his group approached on horseback, the morning sun casting its red glow over bodies lying with their heads turned toward the riders. Each man bore a circular red mark atop his skull, roughly the size of a dollar, where his scalp had been taken. Lincoln described the scene as both horrifying and oddly grotesque, with the crimson light seeming to color everything around them. He also noted that one of the dead wore buckskin breeches.

This account surfaces in two separate works: William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik's biography of Lincoln, and Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln The Prairie Years. Whether Lincoln actually stood at Stillman's Run remained an open question as late as 2003, though multiple sources support his having been at Kellogg's Grove.

Years afterward, in 1848, Lincoln brought up his Black Hawk War service again, this time with a touch of humor, during remarks delivered before the United States Congress, and he specifically brought up Stillman's Run.

He asked the Speaker, half joking, whether he realized he was addressing a military hero, claiming that he had fought, bled, and returned from the Black Hawk War. He admitted he had not been present for Stillman's defeat, but likened his proximity to the event to how Cass related to Hull's surrender, adding that, like Cass, he had reached the site not long after it happened.

At Stillman Valley, Illinois, a monument raised in 1901 bears a marble inscription referencing this history, declaring that the presence of "soldier, statesman, martyr, Abraham Lincoln" in helping bury the honored dead had rendered the location all the more sacred.

Aftermath

Historians and chroniclers still disagree on who actually came out on top that day. As was typical of the Black Hawk War's chaotic engagements, this clash unfolded with little discipline or planning on either side. Older accounts tend to frame the fight as a clean triumph for the militia, describing a rout in which the Sauk suffered 15 dead against only 5 militia losses. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources tells a very different story, however, holding that roughly 50 Sauk fighters managed to scatter a disorganized force of some 300 white soldiers.

Recognition came decades later when the grounds at Kellogg's Grove earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places on June 23, 1978. That designation covers a small public park of about an acre and a half, home to both a stone monument and a burial ground honoring the fallen. Within this cemetery rest the militia members who lost their lives across the two engagements fought there. Their remains had originally been scattered in various burial spots throughout the grove, but local farmers came together during the 1880s to gather the scattered dead from the Black Hawk War and rebury them together beneath a single memorial.