Battle of Wisconsin Heights

Fought in 1832, the clash at Wisconsin Heights stood as the second-to-last confrontation of the Black Hawk War, pitting United States state militia and their allies against the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes under Black Hawk's leadership. The site of this engagement lies within what is today Dane County, close to modern Sauk City, Wisconsin.

Though badly outnumbered and suffering severe losses, Black Hawk's warriors succeeded in holding off the combined government troops just long enough for most of the Sauk and Meskwaki civilians traveling with them to cross the Wisconsin River to safety. Yet this escape bought only a brief respite. Once the militia overtook the fleeing group, the pursuit culminated in the Bad Axe massacre where the Bad Axe River meets its mouth.

Background

An 1804 agreement struck between the Governor of Indiana Territory and several Sauk and Meskwaki leaders set the stage for what followed, requiring the two tribes to give up their Illinois homelands and settle west of the Mississippi, which they did by 1828. Black Hawk, along with other Sauk figures, rejected the legitimacy of this arrangement, arguing that the tribal councils as a whole had never given their consent and that those who signed away the territory had no real authority to do so. Bitter over losing the ground where he was born, Black Hawk crossed back over the Mississippi several times between 1830 and 1831, though on each occasion he was talked into withdrawing without any fighting breaking out. Then, in April of 1832, buoyed by assurances of support from other tribes and from the British, he brought roughly 1000 warriors and non-combatants, a group that became known as the "British Band," back into Illinois. When the hoped-for allies failed to materialize, he tried to reverse course toward Iowa, but circumstances outpaced him, culminating in what became known as the Battle of Stillman's Run. Further clashes broke out afterward, prompting Illinois and Michigan Territory to call up their militias to track down Black Hawk's followers.

Following a skirmish at Kellogg's Grove in late June that settled nothing, Black Hawk's band ran from the pursuing militia across Wisconsin. Their route carried them through the areas now known as Beloit and Janesville, after which they tracked the Rock River up toward Horicon Marsh before turning west into the Four Lakes area near what is today Madison. That night, the group made camp close to Pheasant Branch.

Prelude

After the fighting at Pecatonica, a militia force numbering between 600 and 750 men found and followed Black Hawk's trail. Colonel Henry Dodge, together with James D. Henry, pushed the pursuit along the Rock River, trading fire with the band in a handful of small clashes as they went.

On the day the battle unfolded, the militia covered 25 miles, roughly 40 kilometers, moving out from Four Lakes. Along the route they came upon the corpse of a Native American man, and searching through his pouch, they recovered the watch belonging to George Force, a lieutenant slain on June 20 during the assault on Fort Blue Mounds.

Riding well ahead of the militia's main column, a small party of Ho-Chunk warriors allied with the United States had been dispatched to scout the surrounding country, accompanied by Pierre Pauquette, a trader hailing from Portage, Wisconsin. Word kept circulating that Black Hawk and his people were camped near Lake Koshkonong, and Dodge's force tried to cut them off there. By the time the militia reached the lake, though, Black Hawk had already departed, leaving only signs of his recent presence. Picking the trail back up, the militia pressed on toward the Wisconsin River.

Black Hawk's followers, meanwhile, could never stay put long enough to gather supplies, and their health suffered badly for it, with some dying of hunger along the way. In his own recollection of events, Black Hawk claimed that at this stage of the conflict he still meant only to lead his people back across the Mississippi to safety. But when the sizable American force caught up with him at Wisconsin Heights, fighting became unavoidable. His aim, even then, was to buy time for the women, children, and other non-combatants among his people to cross the Wisconsin River and get away.

Battle

The militia finally overtook Black Hawk's people on July 21, 1832, just as they tried to ford the Wisconsin River near what is now Roxbury, in Dane County, close to Sauk City, Wisconsin. Warriors materialized on the hills around the site as the soldiers drew near, an apparent effort to draw their eyes away from the main crossing. Dodge later recounted that before the militia reached the bulk of Black Hawk's people, three American scouts stumbled upon a handful of Sauk or Meskwaki fighters and chased them nearly to their encampment. In that opening skirmish, the scouts also killed two Sauk men, all before the larger clash had even started.

Once mounted warriors from the camp turned the tables and rode after them, the scouts fell back. Dodge then had his troops dismount and pushed his men forward onto higher ground. Black Hawk's warriors advanced toward this position, and once they had closed to within thirty yards, gunfire erupted from the militia and its allies. Black Hawk urged his men to hold firm and never surrender the ground to their enemy. That determination proved crucial, for it bought time for most of the Sauk and Meskwaki gathered that day at Wisconsin Heights, allowing the warriors to hold off the militia long enough for the civilians to flee across the river on rafts.

The opening exchange of shots killed one warrior outright and left one or two others wounded. As Black Hawk's men pulled back, they kept firing, retreating directly into the path of the oncoming militia. It was Dodge and a Major Ewing who reached the field first, seizing high ground that would later be remembered as Militia Ridge. By the time General Henry arrived with three regiments of mounted Illinois Militia, the militia already held firm footing. Henry arranged his troops into a right angle formation and traded fire with Black Hawk's warriors for roughly half an hour. The engagement ended when Dodge led a bayonet charge that scattered the remaining fighters, some of whom were killed as militia gave chase. Rather than press on after Black Hawk that night, the troops held back; as Dodge put it, he and General Henry agreed to put off any further attack until morning.

According to Dodge, around forty Sauk lay dead, perhaps more, and he noted that Ho-Chunk scouts together with militia men gathered at least that many scalps once the fighting ended. Overnight, allied Ho-Chunk warriors took eleven additional scalps from Sauk who had fallen to the militia, and during the battle itself Dodge observed wounded Sauk being carried away from the field. On the militia's side, Dodge's command lost one man and suffered eight wounded, one of whom had actually been hurt earlier, during the march toward Wisconsin Heights before the fighting began.

Aftermath

Rather than press their advantage immediately, the militia opted to hold off and resume the chase at daybreak. What greeted them instead was an empty camp, their quarry having vanished overnight. Just before sunrise, Neapope, a Sauk chieftain traveling with Black Hawk, had climbed the knoll where the band sheltered and tried to signal peaceful intentions to the officers below, explaining that his people simply wished to cease hostilities and cross back over the Mississippi. He shouted his message in Ho-Chunk, his voice described as loud and shrill, under the mistaken belief that Pauquette and his Ho-Chunk scouts remained among the militia ranks. Unfortunately for Neapope, those allies had already left camp, leaving the American soldiers unable to grasp a word of his appeal.

Thomas Jefferson Short became the lone militia fatality of the engagement, and he was interred somewhere within the battlefield itself. For Black Hawk's people the encounter proved catastrophic, though a significant portion of the band managed to slip away across the Wisconsin River. Estimates of the dead among the Sauk and Meskwaki ran as high as seventy, a toll that included both combat losses and those who drowned attempting escape. Despite this devastation, at least one account still ranks the fight, alongside Stillman's Run, among Black Hawk's greatest victories.

After regrouping at Blue Mounds Fort, the militia rediscovered Black Hawk's trail on July 28 close to Spring Green, Wisconsin. This pursuit of the so-called British Band would ultimately culminate in the war's decisive confrontation at Bad Axe, where soldiers, their native allies, and a U.S. gunboat would kill hundreds of men, women, and children at the river's mouth.

Today the ground where this battle unfolded lies preserved in northwestern Dane County, roughly two miles southeast of modern Sauk City along State Highway 78. The Department of Natural Resources holds the property and keeps it accessible to visitors. Remarkably, it stands as the only unaltered battle site from the American Indian Wars surviving anywhere in the Midwest. Official recognition came on January 31, 2002, when the Wisconsin Heights Battlefield earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

Confirmation of the battlefield's exact placement comes from survey records, specifically the Township notes kept by U.S. Deputy Surveyor John H. Mullet. He charted the range line dividing Roxbury, in Section 19 of T9N, R7E, from Mazomanie, in Section 24 of T9N, R6E, on October 23, 1832, a mere three months removed from the fighting. This documentation offers sworn, contemporaneous evidence pinpointing where the battle actually took place.