There at the village all was bustle and confusion. The rifle was loaded and the knife and the hatchet strapped about the warriors’ loins. They had importuned Keokuk to lead them to battle, and so subtle had been the work of Black Hawk’s men that those importunities could not be ignored. The torrent of a mighty and heedless anger raged and carried conservatism, treaties, sentiment and every motive before it. Menaced now by Black Hawk, who had so recently solemnly promised to behave himself for all time, every frontier family stood in danger of the tomahawk. Had the united Sacs and Foxes levied war against the whites, the wavering tribes from Illinois north might have joined them and devastated the country and desolated every hearth. Black Hawk harangued the Indians with all his energy, firing them to a pitch of excitement he had not expected and compelling Keokuk then and there to promise to lead them to war; but in promising he, like Antony, was permitted to make a speech–and like Antony’s it swayed the mob–against Black Hawk. “Kill your old men and squaws and children,” cried he, “for never will you live to see them more,”[93] and haste was urged in doing it. An electric wave from the skies never could have stricken those howling beasts of the moment before as did that condition precedent. “You have been imposed upon by liars,” he shouted, and when he had finished speaking, he stood, a conqueror, in a silence inspired by awe, and Black Hawk and his band moved sullenly down the river to war upon the whites once too often. It has been said, and no doubt truly, that one Josiah Smart,[94] the representative of George Davenport, was present to learn of Black Hawk’s success and was so secreted as to overhear every word of those memorable proceedings, and for their truth he has vouched. On April 1, 1832, Gen. Henry Atkinson, then in command at Jefferson Barracks, received an order dated March 17th, announcing the determination of the Government to interfere and demand from the Sacs and Foxes at least eight or ten of the principal murderers of the Menominees. In obedience to that order, General Atkinson started on April 8th for the upper Mississippi with six companies of the Sixth Infantry (220 men) and the following officers of the expedition, in the steamboats Enterprise and Chieftain: