Sign-In
Cart
The Pursuit of Black Hawk: Eighty Days That Changed the Heart of America
Paperback
Series: The Pursuit of Black Hawk
Biographies GeneralGeneral Military HistoryRevolutionary Period (1775-1800)
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 28 2026
Pages: 108
Weight: 0.34
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The conflict remembered as the Black Hawk War lasted only eighty days. Its causes reached back decades, and its consequences reshaped the American Midwest.
In April 1832, the aging Sauk war leader Black Hawk led a band of men, women, children, and elders across the Mississippi River into Illinois. They hoped to return to Saukenuk, their ancestral village near the Rock River, and reclaim a homeland taken under the disputed Treaty of 1804.
American officials called the crossing an invasion. Black Hawk understood it as a return.
What followed was less a conventional war than a relentless military pursuit. Promised allies failed to appear. Food disappeared. Attempts at negotiation and surrender were misunderstood or ignored. As militia and regular troops closed in, Black Hawk's people moved through swamps, prairies, wooded ridges, and river crossings, carrying their children and their dwindling hopes with them.
Drawing together the disputed treaty, the destruction of Saukenuk, Stillman's Run, the Battle of Wisconsin Heights, the massacre at Bad Axe, and the long aftermath of Native removal, The Pursuit of Black Hawk tells the story as both history and moral reckoning. It examines not only commanders and battles, but graves, cornfields, frightened settlers, divided tribal nations, failed diplomacy, and the bureaucratic machinery that turned signatures into surveys, surveys into settlements, and settlements into war.
The book also follows the Black Hawk Trail across Illinois and Wisconsin, exploring the historic markers, preservation efforts, and contested memories that still shape how the conflict is understood.
At its center stands a haunting question:
Who goes to war against women, children, and old people?
This is the story of a homeland lost, a people pursued, and a young republic forced to reveal what it was willing to do in the name of expansion.
Also from
Gjestson, David
Also in
General Military History
Viking Warrior Operations Manual: The Life, Equipment, Weapons and Fighting Tactics of the Vikings
Konstam, Angus
Hardcover
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill
Candice Millard
Hardcover
The Last Full Measure: An American Family and How the United States Brought Home the Dead of World War II
Clarke, Kim
Hardcover
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780
Atkinson, Rick
Hardcover
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Hardcover
The Two Swords of Christ: Five Centuries of War Between Islam and the Warrior Monks of Christendom
Ibrahim, Raymond
Hardcover
Band on the Run: Xenophon and the First Great Mercenary Army's Epic Escape from Persia
O'Connell, Robert L.
Hardcover
From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition.....
Maier, Pauline
Paperback
The Old Breed... the Complete Story Revealed: A Father, a Son, and How WWII in the Pacific Shaped Their Lives
Sledge, W. Henry
Hardcover
While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East
Katz, Yaakov
Bohbot, Amir
Hardcover
Two World Wars and Hitler: Who Was Responsible?: Anglo-American Money, Foreign Agents and Geopolitics
MacGregor, Jim
O'Dowd, John
Paperback
American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed Into the Lands and Imaginations of America
Whittock, Martyn
Hardcover
KJV, Pew Bible, Large Print, Hardcover, Burgundy, Red Letter Edition (Large Print Edition)
Thomas Nelson
Hardcover
NKJV, Value Thinline Bible, Large Print, Imitation Leather, Burgundy, Red Letter Edition (Large Print Edition)
Thomas Nelson
Hardcover
Wrecked: The Edmund Fitzgerald and the Sinking of the American Economy
Nelson, Thomas M.
Podair, Jerald
Paperback
Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great
Kousser, Rachel
Paperback
Targeted: Beirut: The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War on Terror
Carr, Jack
Scott, James M.
Paperback
The Shortest History of War: From Hunter-Gatherers to Nuclear Superpowers - A Retelling for Our Times
Dyer, Gwynne
Paperback
The Men Who Lost America: British Command during the Revolutionary War and the Preservation of the Empire
O'Shaughnessy, Andrew J.
Paperback
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
Singh, Simon
Paperback
The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade
Bauer, Susan Wise
Hardcover
Navy SEAL's Guide to Surviving Invasions, Civil War, and World War III
Melton, H. Keith
Emerson, Clint
Paperback
The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence
Duval, Lauren
Hardcover
Targeted: Beirut: The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War on Terror
Carr, Jack
Scott, James M.
Hardcover
A Brief History of China: Dynasty, Revolution and Transformation: From the Middle Kingdom to the People's Republic
Clements, Jonathan
Paperback
The Histories (Royal Collector's Edition) (Annotated) (Case Laminate Hardcover with Jacket)
Herodotus
Hardcover
KJV, Pew Bible, Large Print, Hardcover, Blue, Red Letter Edition (Large Print Edition)
Thomas Nelson
Hardcover
American Biography: A History of the United States as Told Through the Lives of Ninety-Four Americans
Schweikart, Larry
Paperback
Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th-Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization
House, Jonathan M.
Paperback
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers
Witton, Edward
Paperback
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
Platt, Stephen R.
Paperback
The Birth of the Anglo-Saxons: Three Kings and a History of Britain at the Dawn of the Viking Age
Adams, Max
Hardcover
The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery (Updated E
Beyer, Rick
Sayles, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Insignia of the Waffen-SS: Cuff Titles, Collar Tabs, Shoulder Boards & Badges
Michaelis, Rolf
Hardcover
Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah's War Against America
Burton, Fred
Katz, Samuel M.
Paperback
By the Spear: Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire
Worthington, Ian
Paperback
Black Soldiers, White Laws: The Tragedy of the 24th Infantry in 1917 Houston
Haymond, John A.
Hardcover
Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500
Wilson, Peter H.
Paperback
American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed Into the Lands and Imaginations of America
Whittock, Martyn
Paperback
Érase Una Vez Tenochtitlán: Entre Dioses Y Tlatoanis / Once Upon a Time in Tenochtitlán: Among Gods and Tlatoanis
Rosas, Alejandro
Paperback
The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers and the Last Days of Greek Freedom
Romm, James
Paperback
Il Fior di Battaglia by Fiore dei Liberi Facsimile: With translation by Guy Windsor
Windsor, Guy
Hardcover
The Prince (Royal Collector's Edition) (Annotated) (Case Laminate Hardcover with Jacket)
Machiavelli, Niccolò
Hardcover
Map Reading And Land Navigation - FM 3-25.26 US Army Field Manual FM 21-26 (2001 Civilian Reference Edition): Unabridged Manual On Map Use, ... Releas
Us Department of the Army
Paperback
The Other Trench: The WW1 Diary and Photos of a German Officer
Cross, Philipp
Pfeifer, Alexander
Paperback
Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great
Kousser, Rachel
Hardcover
The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost - From Ancient Greece to Iraq
Hanson, Victor Davis
Paperback