an effort to drive out the whites. In spite of the persuasion of many
of his friends and of the Indian agent in the country, he crossed the
river on April 6, 1832, and with some five hundred braves, his squaws
and children, marched to the Prophet's town, thirty-five miles up the
Rock River.

As soon as they heard of Black Hawk's invasion, the settlers fled in
a panic to the forts in the vicinity, and they rained petitions for
protection on Governor Reynolds. General Atkinson, who commanded a
company at Fort Armstrong, wrote the governor he must have help;
and accordingly on the 16th of April Governor Reynolds sent out
"influential messengers" with a sonorous summons. It was one of
these messengers riding into New Salem who put an end to Lincoln's
canvassing for the legislature, freed him from Offutt's expiring
grocery, and led him to enlist.

[Illustration: ELIJAH ILES, CAPTAIN OF COMPANY IN WHICH LINCOLN SERVED
AS PRIVATE IN BLACK HAWK WAR.

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

After a painting by the late Mrs. Obed Lewis, niece of Major Iles, and
owned by Mr. Obed Lewis, Springfield, Illinois. Elijah Iles was born
in Kentucky, March 28, 1796, and when young went to Missouri. There he
heard marvellous stories about the Sangamon Valley, and he resolved
to go thither. Springfield had just been staked out in the wilderness,
and he reached the place in time to erect the first building--a rude
hut in which he kept a store. This was in 1821. "In the early days in
Illinois," he wrote in 1883, "it was hard to find good material for
law-makers. I was elected a State Senator in 1826, and again for a