Attacks at Fort Blue Mounds - Aftermath

Aftermath

Following the murder of Aubrey, people in the area quickly suspected that the Ho-Chunk were involved which exacerbated the fear that more from the Ho-Chunk Nation were set to join Chief Black Hawk's band against the white settlers in Michigan Territory and Illinois. With the loyalty of the Ho-Chunk in question the possibility of a two-front war emerged. After the deaths of Green and Force, U.S. interrogators questioned two Ho-Chunk warriors they had captured. The braves, members of the Prophet's Band, took credit for the killings, even boasting of them.

The location of Aubrey's death was in Michigan Territory near present-day Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. Following his death, mounted troops and riders from the fort traced the band responsible for the attack to a recently abandoned camp, and then to the Wisconsin River, where the search ended. Aubrey was buried on a high piece of land overlooking the fort from the northeast.

Green's body was buried at the fort but Force's remains laid on the prairie for four days before they were retrieved; the fort's residents were too frightened to venture far from the building. On June 24 General Henry Dodge and Captain James H. Gentry arrived at Fort Blue Mounds with part of Gentry's company. Their purpose was to conduct reconnaissance operations but they ended up finding the body of Lieutenant Force beneath a tree about two miles (3 km) east of the fort. Early histories indicate Force's body was badly mutilated and missing a "part." Force was buried near the fort, along the main trail about two miles (3 km) east of the fort.

Though Brigham fully expected an all-out attack on Fort Blue Mounds following the incidents, it never came. The only violence that befell the occupants of the fort was that perpetrated on those who left its confines on June 6 and June 20. Dodge left a detachment at the fort for a time but after the June 20 attack the fort was never again a target during the Black Hawk War. Until the end of the war, Fort Blue Mounds served primarily as a supply center for the militia as they continued their pursuit of Black Hawk across Wisconsin.