Colonel William Preston Johnston, The Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston : His Service in the Armies of the United States, the Republic of Texas, and the Confederate States.

President Jackson, in his annual message, approves of the action of the military authorities, thus:

The hostile incursions of the Sac and Fox Indians necessarily led to the interposition of the Government. A portion of the troops under Generals Scott and Atkinson, and of the militia of the State of Illinois, were called into the field. After a harassing warfare, prolonged by the nature of the country and by the difficulty of procuring subsistence, the Indians were entirely defeated, and the disaffected band dispersed or destroyed. The result has been creditable to the troops engaged in the service. Severe as is the lesson to the Indians, it was rendered necessary by their unprovoked aggressions; and it is to be hoped that its impression will be permanent and salutary. This campaign has evinced the efficient organization of the army, and its capacity for prompt and active service. Its several departments have performed their functions with energy and dispatch, and the general movement was satisfactory.

The best proof of the influence of the Black-Hawk campaign is to be found in the quiet acquiescence of the Indian tribes in the measures taken immediately thereafter by the Government for their removal westward, and in the permanent peace established on that frontier.

Black Hawk and his associates were treated with generosity by the Government. They were retained in mild captivity at Jefferson Barracks long enough to break their power and destroy their prestige with their tribe, and to allow their own heated passions to cool under the genial influence of kindly intercourse with their captors. They were then carried through the principal cities of the East, that they might view the numbers, wealth, and resources, of their recent antagonist, and realize the folly of such an unequal struggle; after which they were released and dismissed to their homes. In the tour among the Atlantic cities Black Hawk was treated more like a popular favorite than a merciless foe; and a respect was paid him that was measured rather by the trouble he had given than by the greatness of his talents. The Indians who had followed him in his last campaign represented the Prophet as the mover of the strife and the most cunning in counsel; to Naopope was given the credit of the highest military skill; while the preeminence of Black Hawk was ascribed not so much to sagacity or warlike genius as to the force of his relentless will, the intensity of his passions, and the singleness of his purpose.

Hon. Jefferson Davis informed the writer that Black Hawk told him, while he was in his custody at Jefferson Barracks, that he crossed the Mississippi to join the Prophet; that his engagement was to give up Rock Island village; and that there was no engagement not to join the Prophet. Mr. Davis said Keokuk was a politic man; but that