In 1832, when Chief Black Hawk led Sac and Fox warriors to recover their traditional grounds, Illinois militia companies rendezvoused in rain and knee-deep mud three miles east of Rushville. Lincoln captained a company that one observer called “the hardest set of men [I] ever saw.” On April 30, the army moved out but made only seven miles in the mud before stopping for the night four miles north of Rushville. His company was discharged five weeks later without fighting, but he reenlisted as a private. One of the best-known stories from his Black Hawk Indian War service grew from a dispute with a company from St. Clair County over a desirable campsite east of Rushville. A wrestling match was proposed to settle it, with Dow Thompson representing the St. Clair men and Lincoln representing his own company. The match was best two-out-of-three. In the first bout, using Thompson’s favorite “side hold,” Thompson threw Lincoln after a severe struggle. In the second, using Lincoln’s favorite “Indian hug,” Lincoln could not throw Thompson and lost again. Although his soldiers protested that it was a tie, Lincoln replied, “Why, gentlemen, that man could throw a grizzly bear.” The frontier militia spirit is depicted in a 1940 calendar art rendering, Lincoln, the Soldier, by artist Fletcher Ransom. Black Hawk later traveled by boat from Buffalo to Detroit in July 1833 in an adjoining berth to William A. Scripps, who recorded the chief’s complaints about the heat and considered him a “respectable old gentlemen” after his release from federal prison. William was traveling from London to America to visit his brothers, the Rev. John Scripps and George H. Scripps, who became prominent Rushville citizens and early supporters of Lincoln and the Republican party. The Scripps family later started a newspaper chain, and Rushville’s Edward W. Scripps began the United Press Association.