The Black Hawk War was a classic failure to communicate. it lasted 15 weeks as the Illinois Militia and the US Army chased an "invading army" of Sauk and Fox Indians out of the state, killing most of them in the process.

The military felt they were protecting the frontier from thousands of savages bent on pillage, rapine, and murder. Black Hawk, leader of the "army," believed quite the contrary. His band of 300 to 500 warriors and 500 to 700 women and children were moving back to their ancestral home, Saukenuk, on the Rock River to harvest their crops. The Winnebago Prophet and his disciple Neapope had assured Black Hawk of the wisdom and success of the move.

The conflicting notions of what the war was all about dated back to a treaty of 1804. The US government believed the Sauk and Fox had ceded their lands in Illinois in exchange for a $1000 annuity. The Sauk and Fox believed the treaty, signed by chiefs not authorized to cede tribal land, pledged tribal allegiance to the US government and secured continued rights to occupy the land.

The confusion of the 1804 treaty was compounded by further treaties and tribal relationships with the government during the next 26 years. Add race prejudice; a federal policy of removing Indians from US territory; a governor, John Reynolds, eager to call out the Illinois Militia; a Militia eager to kill Indians; and a dissident tribal leader convinced he was legally right, and the results seem inevitable. The frontiersman's contempt for the Indian and widespread rumors of sexual crimes allegedly plotted by both sides added to the determination of all involved.

On May 14, 1832, Illinois Militia Major Isaiah Stillman's men greeted Black Hawk's white-flag-bearing emissaries with gunfire. The militiamen chased the Indians back to their camp, then fled in all directions when the Indians returned fire. "Stillman's Run" sealed the fate of the Sauk and Fox. Rumors spread that Stillman's entire batallion had been slaughtered, and the inept Militia and cholera-ridden US Army charged to the rescue. The exhausted and starving Indians were pursued, massacred, and driven from Illinois forever.

Many of the soldiers went on to future fame. Among those serving were Captain Abraham Lincoln; future President Zachary Taylor; Jefferson Davis; Major General Winfield Scott; future Confederate heroes Albert Sidney Johnston and David Twiggs; future Illinois governors Ford, Duncan, and Carlin; future Wisconsin governor Dodge; and future Secretary of the Interior Orville H. Browning. It was not their finest hour.