This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Minor errors or inconsistencies in punctuation and formatting have been silently corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any other textual issues encountered during its preparation. Footnotes have been resequenced to be unique, and were moved to the end of the chapter or section. Any references to those notes in the text have been amended as well. [Illustration: Yours faithfully Frank E. Stevens] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE BLACK HAWK WAR INCLUDING A REVIEW OF BLACK HAWK’S LIFE _Illustrated with upward of three hundred rare and interesting portraits and views_ BY FRANK E. STEVENS FRANK E. STEVENS 1205 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BLDG. CHICAGO . . ILLINOIS 1903 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1903, by FRANK E. STEVENS in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DEAR MOTHER– This book represents long years of patient toil from which a corresponding return is not expected; it has been a labor of love. To whom, then, should it be dedicated but yourself, who spent so many toilsome years to rear its author, who may never repay a fraction of the debt he owes you. F.E.S. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: Line of March] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION In the autumn of 1871, I began the collection of materials for the book which is just completed; at a time when many original sources existed from which to draw. Since that time, no opportunity wherein I might see and talk with persons who were in the Black Hawk campaigns has been lost, and from those interviews I have been able to gather information, old letters, commissions, muster rolls and papers obtainable by no possible system of correspondence.