Private Benjamin F Palmer, III

Find a Grave Memorial ID# 10924908

Biography:

Illinois Black Hawk War Veteran soldier. Approximately 1800 men served in the 1831 campaign and 9000 in the 1832 campaign. The Illinois State Historical Library possesses in either original or on microfilm the records from with this information was extracted.

The Black Hawk War was a brief conflict between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted soon after Black Hawk and a group of Saulk, Meskawakis and Kickapoos, known as the British Band, crossed the Mississippi River in to the U.S. state of Illinois from Iowa Indian Territory in April 1832. Black Hawk's motives were ambiguous, but he was apparently hoping to avoid bloodshed while resetting on tribal land that had been ceded to the United States in the disputed 1804 Treaty of St. Louis. (Part of the American Indian Wars) Elyse Vahjen.