Lincoln showed his growing self-confidence by declaring his candidacy for the state legislature in the Spring of 1832. He was 23 years old. But only a month later he headed northwest to take part in the Black Hawk Indian War. The Sauk and Fox Indians had left a government reservation in eastern Iowa and returned to their ancestral lands in Illinois, provoking hysteria among the white settlers. Governor John Reynolds called out the Illinois militia to crush the Native Americans, and Lincoln signed up. When the men elected their officers, they made Lincoln a captain.

 

The Black Hawk war proved to be a comedy of errors for all concerned, except the Sauk and Fox, who suffered a crushing defeat. Upon learning of the Americans' military response to his incursion, Chief Black Hawk attempted to surrender at what became known as the Battle of Stillman's Run. Coming upon the Native Americans' peace party, a patrol of Illinois militia panicked badly and took to their heels, stampeding their inexperienced and untrained comrades into an inglorious retreat.

 

After this humiliation the Illinois militia joined with federal troops to pursue the Sauk and Fox across northern Illinois and Wisconsin as the Indians vainly sought to recross the Mississippi to Iowa. At Bad Axe, Wisconsin, on the Mississippi's eastern bank, the Americans finally caught the Indians and finished off a band badly depleted by hunger and the vagaries of flight. Chief Black Hawk was taken prisoner and shipped east for examination by curious audiences.

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