Battle of Wild Cat Creek

In November 1812, a punitive expedition set out against Native American villages, and the clash that followed became known as the Battle of Wild Cat Creek. Soldiers later gave it the nickname "Spur's Defeat," a label believed to come from the spurs troops dug into their horses in a hurried effort to flee the fighting. Some accounts also describe the campaign as the Second Battle of Tippecanoe.

Second Tippecanoe campaign

The disasters of 1812, including the Fort Dearborn Massacre and the Pigeon Roost Massacre, prompted American commanders to organize a retaliatory expedition into Illinois Territory. Major General Samuel Hopkins and Colonel William Russell shared command of this effort. Russell arrived fresh from the Siege of Fort Harrison, bringing together Illinois militia and Indiana Rangers, and his men managed to burn down a hostile Kickapoo settlement at Peoria Lake. Unable to find Hopkins and his troops afterward, Russell withdrew toward Cahokia. Hopkins, meanwhile, faced a different problem: his Kentucky militiamen refused to fight, and a prairie fire set by the Kickapoo pushed his force back toward Vincennes.

Stung by this humiliating setback, Hopkins dismissed the Kentucky militia entirely and assembled a fresh army. This new force included three Kentucky Infantry regiments, one company from the 7th Infantry commanded by Major Zachary Taylor, a unit of Indiana Rangers, and a company of scouts. On 11 November 1812, Hopkins departed Vincennes and headed north, retracing the path William Henry Harrison had marched in 1811.

Upon reaching the Tippecanoe battlefield, the soldiers discovered that American corpses had been dug up and scalped. After reburying these remains, the army pushed onward and arrived at Prophetstown on 19 November. Though the 1811 battle had destroyed this settlement, it had since been partly restored, and an even larger Kickapoo village had grown up nearby. The inhabitants had cleared out along with their supplies before the soldiers arrived, so the army simply burned both villages to ashes.

Nearby, along Wildcat Creek, stood a Winnebago village, which Hopkins targeted next. Colonel Miller took command of 300 troops and razed the abandoned settlement. On November 21, gunfire erupted against a scouting party exploring the creek area, forcing the whole detachment back to the main army camp. In the chaos, they left behind the corpse of a soldier named Dunn.

The following day, on 22 November, Colonels Miller and Wilcox joined Captain Beckes along with sixty Indiana Rangers on a mission to retrieve Dunn's remains. About six miles along Wildcat Creek, they came upon a grisly sight: a fallen comrade's head mounted on a pole, with a Native warrior standing beside it, mocking the approaching men. Thirteen enraged Rangers broke away to pursue the warrior, who stayed just out of reach and drew them into a narrow canyon. There, warriors from the Kickapoo, Winnebago, and Shawnee nations sprang an ambush. Within two minutes, twelve soldiers along with several horses lay dead or dying. The attack claimed many officers, and the surviving Rangers scattered. One survivor escaped only by driving his horse to greater speed, an act that gave the skirmish its name: "Spur's Defeat".

Among those seized alive in the canyon was Benoit Besayon, a man who had traded with local Indian villages for years. Branded a traitor, he was condemned to burn at the stake. Just as the flames were kindled, a sympathetic friend ended his suffering with a gunshot.

Combined American casualties from the fighting on November 21 and 22 totaled seventeen dead and three wounded.

Word reached the scouts that a substantial force of Native Americans was massing to confront Hopkins, and the army readied itself for imminent combat. Severe cold weather intervened, however, bringing with it the threat of a snowstorm. By the time troops reached the enemy encampment on 24 November, they found it empty. Hopkins ordered a retreat, pausing at Fort Harrison to let his men recover from the harsh conditions before continuing on to Vincennes. Upon arriving at Fort Knox, two hundred soldiers were suffering from illness or frostbite. Weighed down by repeated failures, Hopkins fell into despair and resigned his command. A military Court of Inquiry subsequently examined his conduct during the Illinois Territory campaign and the assault on Prophetstown. The tribunal cleared him of wrongdoing, and he went on to seek a seat in the Senate.