Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/207



were defeated but several soldiers were killed. In August of that year a large force of Indians laid siege to the fort entirely surrounding it. The garrison, under Hamilton, made a brave defense until the provisions were exhausted and they were reduced to the verge of starvation. During the night of September 3d, Hamilton, ordered a trench to be dug from the block house to the river where the boats were lying. There was no prospect of reinforcements being sent to their relief. Starvation, massacre or escape were the alternatives confronting them. They chose to attempt the latter. The night was dark and cloudy with a fierce wind roaring in the forest surrounding the fort. The little garrison, crawling on hands and knees along the bottom of the trench in perfect silence, at midnight entered the boats without alarming the watchful savages. The last man to enter the trench applied the torch to the fort. A moment later the boats pushed out into the rapid current of the Mississippi, and before the Indians were awakened by the roaring flames of the burning buildings, the fugitives were beyond the reach of the rifle shot. They reached St. Louis in safety and the fort was never rebuilt. But the name clung to the spot where the ruins of the fort were long visible and later generations built a city on the historic site, giving it the name of Fort Madison.

In 1815 the Government sent Colonel R. C. Nichols with the Eighth United States Infantry to build a fort on Rock Island. His command, in keel boats, ascended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Des Moines River, where the channel was obstructed by ice and the party was compelled to land and spend the winter in that vicinity. Early in the spring of 1816, General T. A. Smith arrived and took command of the expedition, which reached Rock Island on the 10th of May. The day following his arrival General Smith sent messengers to all of the Indian villages in the vicinity inviting the chiefs to meet him in council, but none of them came. The Indians understood the significance of a fort and garrison and regarded it as