“While inspecting the hospital at Fort Crawford, I was struck with a remarkably fine head of a tall volunteer lying on his side, and seeking relief in a book. To my question, ‘What have you there, my friend?’ the wounded man pointed to the title page of ‘Young’s Night Thoughts.’ I sat down on the edge of the bunk, already interested in the reader, to learn more of his history. The wounded volunteer said his brother, Rev. Adam Payne, fell an early victim to Black Hawk’s band, and he (not in the spirit of revenge, but to protect the frontier settlements) volunteered as a private soldier. While riding into the battlefield of Bad Axe he passed a small Indian boy, whom he might have killed, but thought him a harmless child. ‘After passing, the boy fired, lodging two balls near my spine, when I fell from my horse.’ The noble volunteer, although suffering great pain from his wound, said he preferred his condition to the remorse he should have felt if he had killed the boy, believing him to be harmless.” Public feeling, by these murders, had been worked to such a pitch that a rumor, no matter how impossible or ridiculous, was sufficient to throw a community into a panic, consequently over in Fulton County occurred the silly “Westerfield scare,” which threw the population of the entire county into the improvised fortifications. At such times one Indian might have captured the county without the slightest resistance. While Dodge was covering Michigan territory (Wisconsin), independent regiments and companies from the south were organized and sent rapidly forward to protect the country between Plainfield and Chicago and Ottawa and the Mississippi, the most important being the Vermilion County regiment organized by Colonel Moore on the 23d of May, the staff officers of which, as near as can be ascertained from the defective records and correspondence, were: Colonel, Isaac R. Moore; Lieutenant-Colonel, Daniel W. Beckwith. It was composed of the seven companies of Captains John B. Thomas, Alexander Bailey, of which Gurdon S. Hubbard was Second Lieutenant, Eliakem Ashton, James Palmer, I.M. Gillispie, James Gregory and Corbin R. Hutt; also of Morgan L. Payne, subsequently transferred to Buckmaster’s battalion. Of this Vermilion organization Governor Reynolds learned May 28th. The regiment ranged constantly until June 23d, when, finding its territory purged of the enemy and peace thoroughly conserved by Major Buckmaster’s battalion, it was mustered out. At this period of atrocious murders, the killing of Felix St. Vrain, the Fort Armstrong agent for the Sacs and Foxes, was particularly thrilling as well as pathetic. This man, appointed about a year previous to supersede Agent Forsythe, had always been found the stanch friend of the Indian, and such had been the appreciation of his labors that “The Little Bear” had adopted him as his brother.