Full Text of History of Vermillion County Illinois -- Chapter VIII

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CHAPTER VIII. 

EARLY MILITARY INVASION OF VERMILION COUNTY.

INVASION BY SPANISH TROOPS-OBJECT OF THIS MARCH ACROSS THE STATE OF" 
ILLINOIS-EVIDENCE OF THIS COMPANY OF SOLDIERS CROSSING VERMILION COUNTY-
ILLINOIS RANGERS-THE COMMAND UNDER GEN. SAMUEL HOPKINS-- GEN. HOPKINS' 
ARMY A BAND OF UNDISCIPLINED MEN-REGIMENT, A MOB ON RETREAT--CANNON BALL 
FOUND IN BLUFF OF MIDDLE FORK RIVER-WHAT DOES IT PROVE?

	After the close of the Revolutionary war, there was an invasion of 
the Northwest Territory made by Spanish troops who crossed the state and 
came into what is now Vermilion County. The point toward which these 
troops were marching was the British fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph 
river near the south end of Lake Michigan. Whether any more important 
results were contemplated than a temporary possession of this fort, has 
never been known. The land west of the Mississippi river, since known as 
the Louisiana Purchase, at that time belonged to Spain. St. Louis was 
its capital. It was from this point that the invasion was made.

	On January 2, 1781, a small army of perhaps one hundred and fifty 
men under a Spanish officer crossed the Mississippi river on their way 
to march across the state of Illinois. This army was about equally 
divided between white men and Indians, while the white men were about 
half Frenchmen and half Spanish soldiers. Their objective point was the 
nearest fort which yet floated the flag of Great Britain. This was old 
Fort St. Joseph, located in southern Michigan. The only possible motive 
for this expedition was the hatred of the Spanish for Great Britain, and 
this was an echo of the trouble in the old country between these two, at 
that time, important European powers which were at war with each other. 
The march was started in mid-winter. Since the waterways were frozen, 
the march must be made by land, and since they did not dare venture on 
the prairies because of the extreme cold winds and the danger of losing 
their way, their line of travel was along the banks of the streams. It 
is not exactly known what trail they took, but it is agreed by all 
writers that they left the state at about where Danville now is, going 
thence in a northerly direction, to South Bend, Indiana. This distance 
of four hundred miles in the dead of winter must have occasioned much 
suffering. Although this coming of a foreign people had no effect upon 
affairs of this section, a natural interest in them makes a record of 
their after course admissible here.

	This impoverished Spanish army was under command of Don Eugenie 
Pourre. They surprised Fort St. Joseph, and captured it without trouble. 
Hauling down the flag of Great Britain and hoisting that of Spain, they 
took up their triumphal march back to St. Louis, whence they sent word 
of the captured territory to Spain. It took a year to get the report to 
Spain, and no important results were ever recorded of this expedition. 
It might be that this was one link in a chain which Spain was forging to 
gain possession of more land in America; it may be that Vermilion County 
at that time really stood in danger of becoming a part of Spain in the 
new world, and had it not been for the clear vision and firm stand taken 
by Jay, Franklin and Adams this heroic march across this section would 
have proven a decisive act to that end.

	As a proof that this particular section lay in the way of this 
march, the finding of two cannon balls in a valley a few miles west of 
Danville, has been cited. These cannon balls found some years ago about 
where the old Kickapoo village once stood, were in the range of any 
small piece of artillery planted on the nearby hills, and they are 
considered by some writers to be a relic of this expedition, but it 
seems with little reason, a more reasonable accounting for their 
presence is the fact of a later invasion of the section by Gen. Hopkins' 
army.

	It must be remembered that, at the close of the war of the 
Revolution, and until after the war of 1812, the northern and western 
frontiers suffered a great deal at the hands of the Indians who were 
instigated to utmost cruelty by the remnants of the representatives of 
Great Britain. Although defeated at the first war Great Britain was not 
convinced that America was a lost province, until after the second war. 
The Indians in the Wabash valley were particularly hostile. Western 
Indiana and eastern Illinois comprised a section where life was always 
in danger. The massacre at Fort Dearborn occurred less than two months 
after war had been declared with Great Britain in 1812, and aroused the 
people of the Illinois Territory. Governor Edwards gathered and 
organized a force of Illinois Rangers at Camp Russell, near Edwardsville 
into two regiments, placing these troops under the command of Col. 
Russell of the regular army.

	Another available force was the two thousand mounted riflemen of 
Kentucky who were under the command of Gen. Samuel Hopkins, a veteran 
Revolutionary officer. These troops were in camp at Vincennes. To effect 
the best results it was agreed that the forces should act in concert to 
the end of destroying Indian villages in this terrorized section. Gen. 
Hopkins was to move up the Wabash river to Fort Harrison, burning Indian 
towns and driving the refugees before him. Then he was to cross the 
Wabash river into Illinois Territory, march across the Grand Prairie to 
the Illinois river at Peoria Lake, where he would be met by Gen. Russell 
and Gov. Edwards, the united forces to annihilate the Indians along the 
Illinois river. The plan was a good one for the men who were hunting 
what they considered wild animals that were a menace to the life of 
human beings. However, this campaign has gone down in history as a cruel 
attempt to wanton murder of many who were perfectly innocent, and is 
equaled only by records of revolting massacres on the part of the 
wildest savages themselves. The unnecessary cruelties perpetrated at La 
Pe, reflects anything but credit to the Illinois Rangers. La Pe was a 
French and Indian village, upon the site of which the present city of 
Peoria is built. Its people were in no way hostile. Yet the traders, 
voyageurs, Indians and even the agent, who was a loyal and confidential 
officer of the government, were all compelled to watch their village as 
it was burning, and then to march many miles from their homes to be left 
to wander back to their desecrated town, and accept what remained of it 
as best they could. This is but one instance of this onesided warfare. 
General Hopkins was chagrined because of the refusal of his troops to 
proceed after the fourth day's march, yet that disgrace was not more 
lasting than was the other obedience to orders which in themselves were 
a reflection on the manhood of the commanding officers. Had Gen. Hopkins 
and his men gone on and participated in the cowardly conduct of the 
Illinois Rangers, history would have given them an even less glorious 
place.

	This army under command of Gen. Hopkins was composed of an 
aggregation of undisciplined men, enlisted as they believed to defend 
their own borders of Kentucky alone. Discontent arose before they left 
Vincennes at the idea of going into the interior of the territory, and 
it increased as they proceeded until, at Fort Harrison, some of the men 
broke off and returned home. After this, harmony appeared to prevail 
until they reached the Grand Prairie, when the silence necessary to an 
army in an enemy's country was broken, the abundant game tempting the 
men to straggle, and a constant firing ensued in spite of the commands 
of Gen. Hopkins himself. It was the rainy season, there were no 
competent guides to be had, they lost their way, and confusion prevailed 
only short of insubordination. When they encamped for the night of the 
fourth day out in a grove of timber affording water, the Indians in 
front set fire to the prairie grass which compelled the soldiers to fire 
the grass around the camp for protection. This was the last test of the 
endurance of the troops, and the officers determined to disobey the 
orders of Gen. Hopkins, and return to their homes. They agreed to his 
dictated order of return march, he, thinking he could destroy some 
Indian villages on the way, but the men broke through all restraint, the 
regiment became a mob, and each man chose the way he desired. The actual 
line of march taken by these troops is determined only by the direction 
and the distance known to have been traveled. Knowing the direction of 
these troops and the distance traveled, the decision of whence came the 
cannon balls found on the bluffs of the Middle Fork in 1869 is more 
readily made.

	Judge Cunningham, in his history of Champaign County, gives as his 
opinion, and adds reasonable proof, that the grove with water "which 
fixed their camp on October 19th, was the Big Grove on the Salt Fork 
timber, and that the prairie, which then skirted it, was the scene of 
the brave old General's discomfiture. " That being the case, there is 
little doubt that the old Kickapoo village within "one and a half miles" 
of the old salt springs, was devastated by these very troops. While 
cutting down an abrupt bluff of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion river, 
ten miles west of Danville for the passage of the Indiana, Bloomington & 
Western Railway in 1869, the workmen took from the loose shale composing 
the bluff, two cannon balls of iron, each about three inches in 
diameter, which balls were in the possession of the late Hon. H. W. 
Beckwith previous to his death. There was no one able to account for 
their presence in that bluff. The only reasonable assumption appears to 
be that these balls were thrown from light field pieces which Gen. 
Hopkins' army carried with them. The only other armed force which ever 
passed this way was the Spaniards who came in 1781. If this army did 
pass near the Indian village it is hardly possible that it carried guns 
of sufficient caliber to have thrown these balls where they were found. 
Gen. Hopkins made his campaign in the early autumn when transportation 
across the country was comparatively easy, the distance from Fort 
Harrison, his base of supplies, being not more than eighty miles. His 
object was the destruction of Indian villages and the Kickapoo village 
was here where the cannon balls were found. Furthermore, General Hopkins 
had a force of 2,000 well-armed and mounted men while the Spanish force 
did not exceed 150 men and officers combined, who were on a long winter 
march and were provided, we must conclude, with nothing to impede the 
work in hand, which it must be borne in mind was to surprise and capture 
a force much smaller than their own, protected only by a weak stockade.