Attacks at Fort Blue Mounds - Attacks

Attacks

The first incident near Fort Blue Mounds occurred when William Griffith Aubrey was attacked and killed by Native American warriors on June 6, 1832. According to one witness statement, directly preceding the first attack at Fort Blue Mounds on June 6, there was an argument between William Aubrey's wife and a Ho-Chunk man. During the exchange the Ho-Chunk man threatened to kill her husband. Aubrey was a miner who was working for Brigham about 1½ miles away from Fort Blue Mounds when he was attacked. He and Jefferson Smith were detailed to retrieve water from a spring near the fort when they were ambushed by a small party of warriors. Aubrey was shot twice and stabbed through the neck with a spear. His companion, though shot three times, managed to escape with his life. Smith fled back to the fort, leaving his gun and horse behind. At the fort, the settlers correctly guessed that the attackers were Ho-Chunk and not the warriors of Black Hawk's "British Band," which was 40 miles (64 km) away at Lake Kegonsa.

The second attack occurred on June 20, 1832, two weeks after the first incident. In the attack, a large Sauk war party attacked Blue Mounds and two members of the militia, Emerson Green and George Force, were killed. Eyewitness accounts estimated the size of the group between 50-100 warriors. The night before the second attack of June 20 strange noises were heard in the vicinity of the fort. Force and Green had left the fort, on horseback, to investigate the previous night's disturbances and were several miles east of Fort Blue Mounds when they came across Black Hawk's band, guided to the fort by sympathetic Ho-Chunk. Force was killed immediately but Green broke for the fort and almost made it back to safety when, in view of the fort's occupants, his horse was shot out from underneath him. Green was surrounded by the war party and killed, eyewitness accounts indicate that his body was badly mutilated.