In the spring of 1832, the Sauk war chief Black Hawk led his people back across the Mississippi to their ancestral cornfields, setting in motion the last Indian war east of the Mississippi River. First published in 1903, Frank Everett Stevens's classic account traces the full arc of that conflict: Black Hawk's early years, the disputed treaty that fueled his return, the panic and pursuit that swept through frontier Illinois and Wisconsin, and the tragic ending at the Bad Axe. This edition reproduces the COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED original text exactly as published, paired with a new introduction and reader's notes that place Stevens's work in context—explaining what his era got right, what it got wrong, and how modern historians view the war today. For students of frontier history, Native American history, and the young Lincoln's brief militia service, this is an essential primary window. Part of The Founding Texts Library.