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Book, page 71 / 313 not expect to conquer the white people. I took up the hatchet to avenge injuries which could no longer be borne. [Footnote: It is a noteworthy coincidence that President Lincoln's proclamation at the opening of the war calls for troops "to redress wrongs already long enough endured."] Had I borne them longer my people would have said: 'Black Hawk is a squaw; he is too old to be a chief; he is no Sac.' This caused me to raise the war-whoop. I say no more of it; all is known to you." He returned to Iowa, and died on the 3d of October, 1838, at his camp on the river Des Moines. He was buried in gala dress, with cocked hat and sword, and the medals presented him by two governments. He was not allowed to rest even in his grave. His bones were exhumed by some greedy wretch and sold from hand to hand till they came at last to the Burlington Museum, where they were destroyed by fire. [Illustration: BLACK HAWK] It was on the 16th of June, a month before the slaughter of the Bad Axe, that the battalion to which Lincoln belonged was at last mustered out, at Whitewater, Wisconsin. His final release from the service was signed by a young lieutenant of artillery, Robert Anderson, who, twenty-nine years later, in one of the most awful crises in our annals, was to sustain to Lincoln relations of prodigious importance, on a scene illuminated by the flash of the opening guns of the civil war. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.] The men started home the next day in high spirits, school-boys for their holidays. Lincoln had need, like Horatio, of his good spirits, for they were his only outfit for the long journey to New Salem, he and his mess-mate Harrison [Footnote: George M. Harrison, who gives an account of his personal experiences in Lamon, p. 116.] having had their horses stolen the day before by some patriot over-anxious to reach home. But, as Harrison says, "I laughed at our fate, and he joked at it, and we all started off merrily. The generous men of our company walked and rode by turns with us, and we fared about equal with the rest. But for this generosity our legs would have had to do the better work; for in that day this dreary route furnished no horses to buy or to steal; and, whether on horse or afoot, we always had company, for many of the horses' backs were too sore for riding." It is not hard to imagine with what quips and quirks of native fancy Lincoln and his friends beguiled the way through forest and prairie.
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