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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
and Stephenson, Colonel Russell serving as second to the commander-in-chief, other members of his staff being Secretary Nathaniel Pope and Robert K. McLaughlin. On Oct. 18, 1812, Governor Edwards, with his men, set out for Peoria, where it was expected that their force would meet that of General Hopkins, who had been sent from Kentucky with a force of 2,000 men. En route, two Kickapoo villages were burned, and a number of Indians unnecessarily slain by Edwards' party. Hopkins had orders to disperse the Indians on the Illinois and Wabash Rivers, and destroy their villages. He determined, however, on reaching the headwaters of the Vermilion to proceed no farther. Governor Edwards reached the head of Peoria Lake, but, failing to meet Hopkins, returned to Fort Russell. About the same time Capt. Thomas E. Craig led a party, in two boats, up the Illinois River to Peoria. His boats, as he alleged, having been fired upon in the night by Indians, who were harbored and protected by the French citizens of Peoria, he burned the greater part of the village, and capturing the population, carried them down the river, putting them on shore, in the early part of the winter, just below Alton. Other desultory expeditions marked the campaigns of 1813 and 1814. The Indians meanwhile gaining courage, remote settlements were continually harassed by marauding bands. Later in 1814, an expedition, led by Major (afterwards President) Zachary Taylor, ascended the Mississippi as far as Rock Island, where he found a large force of Indians, supported by British regulars with artillery. Finding himself unable to cope with so formidable a foe, Major Taylor retreated down the river. On the site of the present town of "Warsaw he threw up fortifications, which he named Fort Edwards, from which point he was subsequently compelled to retreat. The same year the British, with their Indian allies, descended from Mackinac, captured Prairie du Chien, and burned Forts Madison and Johnston, after which they retired to Cap au Gris. The treaty of Ghent, signed Dec. 24, 1814, closed the war, although no formal treaties were made with the tribes until the year following.
WAR OF THE REBELLION. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the executive chair, in Illinois, 'was occupied by Gov. Richard Yates. Immediately upon the issuance of President Lincoln's first
