During the 14th and 15th the camp was inactive and awaiting events. On the 16th dispatches from General Scott, who had been sent to supersede Atkinson,[207] were received, reporting the ravages in his army from Asiastic cholera. The thirty-six wagons of provisions arrived from Blue Mounds in the evening; also the pack horses sent to Fort Winnebago for provisions. On the following morning Alexander arrived with his men, thoroughly fatigued, many of them dismounted through the loss of their horses. On the 19th the regulars and Alexander’s Brigade marched up the Whitewater, with the intention of reaching Black Hawk and ending, by forced marches, the campaign, which General Jackson felt had been already dragged out to twice its needed length. The troops proceeded ten miles, when the most furious storm of that very stormy season compelled them to halt and await its passing. It raged all night long, with increasing fury, and not till morning did it abate. Here the trembling lands were reached, making further progress, as the Indian guides declared, impossible. It was then discovered that the wrong side of the river was being followed to ever reach Black Hawk, therefore it was resolved to retrace their steps, cross the river below Lake Koshkonong and ascend the west bank of Rock River. (Narrative Capt. Henry Smith, 10 Wis., 150, etc.) At this time (20th) an express from Henry and Dodge arrived early, bringing information of the movements of the Indians toward the Mississippi.[208] General Alexander at once dispatched Major McHenry, with his spy battalion, to explore the country between the forks of the Whitewater and Rock River and ascertain if all the Indians had left the country or only Black Hawk’s immediate band. He found the country explored by him to be abandoned by them, and, with the other troops, fell back to Fort Koshkonong, where Capt. Gideon Lowe, with thirty or forty men, had been called from Fort Winnebago to do garrison duty. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXI. FORT WINNEBAGO REACHED–STAMPEDE–HENRY’S TREATMENT OF DISOBEDIENT OFFICERS–BLACK HAWK’S TRAIL TO WESTWARD DISCOVERED–FORCED MARCH–BATTLE OF THE WISCONSIN–AT BLUE MOUNDS. When Henry, Dodge and Alexander left, on the 10th, for Fort Winnebago, their horses were in none too good a condition for such a march, but it was begun early and continued diligently through the wilderness, until the fort was reached, at the end of the second day, a distance of sixty or seventy miles.