On his march up the river Black Hawk camped one night near the Dixon cabin, and with Ne-a-pope and the Prophet ate with the family, Mrs. Dixon waiting upon them in a manner so courteous as completely to captivate Black Hawk and command from him thereafter his highest admiration. During this stop the family, after a careful observation, estimated the number of able-bodied warriors with the expedition to be 800, and that number was reported to the troops, which arrived there May 12. Under the order of April 16th from Governor Reynolds, Majors Stillman and Bailey recruited to their battalions the companies already named. Leaving Pekin May 8th,[116] Bailey’s battalion reached Boyd’s Grove the first night out, where Stillman, with his three companies, joined them and all camped for the night. The following day, at Bureau Creek, another detachment under a Captain Bowman, which had been ranging through the country toward Dixon’s Ferry, joined these forces, reporting the theft of many of their horses by the Indians. At Dad Joe’s Grove the combined forces camped the second night, marching the following day (the 10th), across the present county of Lee to Dixon’s Ferry, where Reynolds and the militia joined them on the morning of the 12th. The first act of the Governor was one of circumspection. Selecting from his ablest and most discreet officers Captain John Dement, Colonel James T.B. Stapp, Wyat B. Stapp, Major Joseph M. Chadwick and Benjamin Moore, and Louis Ouilmette, a French trader, thoroughly familiar with those parts and with Indian character, and who, with others, was waiting at Dixon’s Ferry, they were directed to start for Paw Paw Grove,[117] some forty miles to the southeast, in the present confines of Shabbona township, DeKalb County, and there have a “talk” with the Pottowatomies, whose village was at that place, and assure themselves of the positive neutrality of that nation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: CAPT. J.A. BALL.] [Illustration: LIEUT. EDWARD D. BAKER.] [Illustration: OTTAWA AT THE TIME OF THE WAR.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------