About the year 1800, the Iowa nation, having accumulated many grievances against the Osages, made common cause with the Sacs for the purpose of waging a war of extermination. Raising a force of about one hundred, which joined the Sac forces, numbering now about five hundred more, the two allies marched upon the unsuspecting Osages, who were unarmed and wholly unprepared for defense. They valiantly defended their homes and families and fought with the desperation known only to those who have waged such defenses against overpowering odds. One by one and dozen by dozen and score by score fell dead before the terrific attacks of the most terrible of Indian fighters, until there was none left to fill the gaps made in their ranks by the tomahawk and spear. Forty lodges were destroyed and every inhabitant save two squaws was put to death. Then, returning home, a great feast was made, at which Black Hawk exploited his personal valor to his friends. In this engagement he killed seven men and two boys with his own hand. During those five years of meditation following his father’s death resentment had but slumbered. They killed his father, ’tis true, but it had been done defending themselves. The Sacs as a nation had no quarrel with the Cherokees. But immediately he returned from his war upon the unsuspecting Osages, Black Hawk collected another party and moved down the river against them. In due season the enemy’s country was reached and invaded, but, roam as they would, no more than five unknown people could be found, four men and one squaw. The men, after a short detention, were released, and the squaw was taken back to Black Hawk’s village on Rock River. The futility of this campaign rankled in Black Hawk’s heart for a time, and to recoup his lost, or at least suspended reputation, he planned, in the year 1803, about the ninth moon, the most extensive campaign of his life against the combined forces of the Chippewas, Osages and Kaskaskias. No just reason existed for this war; none of the tribes of these nations had trespassed on Sac territory or rights, and none had offended in any other particular. Black Hawk was piqued at his last miscarriage and he simply made war against these people for the sake of war, and bloody indeed it proved to be. During its continuance seven pitched battles were fought, together with numerous skirmishes, in all which more than one hundred of the enemy perished. Here again Black Hawk boasts of personally killing with his own hands thirteen of the bravest warriors in the enemy’s ranks. His ferocity in these engagements is the best evidence for the statement that the glory of Black Hawk was placed above every other consideration.