The Battle of Pecatonica was the first of three military engagements fought in present-day Wisconsin during the American-Indian conflict of 1832 known as the Black Hawk War. On June 16, 1832, following attacks on settlers and miners at Fort Blue Mounds and Spafford’s Farm near Wiota, Colonel Henry Dodge led a group of frontier militia across the open prairie in pursuit of a band of Kickapoo followers of Chief Black Hawk. After crossing a deep stream, the Kickapoo took a defensive position along the steep banks of an oxbow lake near a bend in the Pecatonica River. Dodge and twenty-nine mounted militiamen arrived and forded the river to the north. He sent four men to observe movement from high points along the river, while four stayed with the horses. The others moved through swamps to some timber, getting within thirty yards before the Kickapoo reportedly began firing. At Dodge’s command, the militia charged and fought hand-to-hand. After only a few minutes, all seventeen Kickapoo were killed. Three frontiersmen were mortally wounded, and one was slightly injured. Dodge’s decisive victory in this brief skirmish boosted morale among settlers in the Lead Mining Region and U.S. soldiers pursuing Black Hawk’s band of Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo. The war ended forty-seven days later after the Battles of Wisconsin Heights in Dane County and Bad Axe in Vernon County, and the end of the conflict opened southern Wisconsin to increased settlement by farmers and miners.