In this conflict in May of 1832, Illinois militia fell upon Black Hawk's camp, where Sycamore Creek flowed into the Rock River. Caught unprepared as they feasted with their families, the Sac and Fox fighters responded to the invaders' threat with great ferocity, and chased the surprised Americans some eight miles across the prairie to their camp. There the undisciplined soldiers' flight alarmed their comrades to such a degree that the men remaining in camp also fled toward Dixon's Ferry. American officials claimed that Indian warriors killed eleven soldiers in this fiasco. More importantly, events at Sycamore Creek, which also became known as the Battle of Stillman's Run, set the State of Illinois and the federal government to the recruitment of men in earnest and the prosecution of a war without mercy.