Having narrated to his band the murder of his adopted son, they began to thirst for blood, and agreed to follow Black Hawk wheresoever he might lead. The party consisted of about thirty. They descended the Mississippi in canoes to the place where Fort Madison had stood, but found it abandoned by the American troops and burnt. They continued their course down the river and landed near Cap au Gris, on the 10th of May, where they killed one of the United States Rangers, named Bernard, but were driven off by Lieutenant Massey, with a detachment from Fort Howard. The Indians, however, rallied in the woods, and on the 24th of May, a severe battle and of a character somewhat novel, was fought between the troops at Fort Howard, under Lieutenant Drakeford of the U. S. Rangers, and Black Hawk and his party. The former, in his official report of this engagement, says,
"Yesterday, about twelve o'clock, five of our men went out to some cabins on the bluff, about one quarter of a mile below the fort, to bring a grind-stone. The backwater of the Mississippi, rendered it so they went in a canoe. On their return they were attacked by a party of Indians, supposed to be about fifty in number; they killed and tomahawked three and wounded one mortally. While about this mischief, we gave them as good a fire from a little below the fort, as the breadth of the backwater would permit. Captain Craig and myself with about forty men, waded across the water and pursued them: in going about half a mile, we came on them and commenced a fire which continued about one hour, part of which time at a distance of forty steps, and no part of the time further than a hundred and fifty steps: shortly after the commencement of the battle, we were reinforced by Captain Musick and twenty of his men; the enemy now ran; some made their escape, and others made to a sink-hole that is in the battle ground, and from there they returned a most rapid fire; it being very dangerous, to approach nearer than fifty steps of the sink, we at length erected a breast-work, on the two wheels of a wagon, and resolved upon moving it up to the edge of the sink, to fire from behind, down into the sink and preserve us from theirs. We got the moving battery finished about sunset, and moved it up with a sufficient number of men behind it, whilst all other posts round were sufficiently guarded, in case they should be put to the route.