Lieutenant Force - Fort Blue Mounds

[Larry Koschkee]

  Is the grave site of Lieutenant Force, who was killed in the vicinity of Fort Blue Mounds by Indians, identified and preserved?

Source: Wisconsin: its Geography and Topography, 1846, Increase A. Lapham, Publisher - I. A .Hopkins, Milwaukee

  "Lieutenant Force, who was killed by an Indian hid in the tall grass, in a small ravine, near the place where the grave is now seen.  This Indian was afterwards killed, near the Four lakes, in a skirmish with General Dodge's volunteers, and a gold watch belonging to Lieutenant Force was taken from the pouch of the Indian, and restored to his family."

  What were the circumstances surrounding his death?
Was he part of a detail to procure water or firewood, on reconnaissance, escort or part of reinforcement?

LWK

[Robert Braun]

The murder of Lieutenant George Force is an interesting story. Here's what I know....

The tale began on June 6, with the murder of William Aubrey. Accounts strongly hint that he was killed from ambush by local Winnebago, probably as a revenge for past insult. His companion, Jefferson Smith, raced back to Mound Fort to report the ambush.

Men of Captain Sherman's company immediately prepared to depart. One, newly appointed U. S. Indian Agent Edward Bouchard  mounted a horse and called to Lieutenant George Force to accompany him. Beouchard recalled: “I had, on that occasion, asked Lieutenant Force to go with me, to get Captain Aubrey’s body, but he refused to go on, and I told him if he got killed, and was only six feet off, I would not go for his body.”Aubrey's remains were recovered and buried on a high point on the prairie... just where is not known today.

Just a few weeks later, on June 20, Lieutenant Force and Private Emerson Green of Sherman's company were shot dead from ambush. Mauauding Sauk were blamed as the assailants, however, the more likey killers were local Winnebago. The reason for their venturing outside the fort is not clear today. It may have been a scouting party (although the practice seems to have been to take more men along for such a mission.) It may have been as simple as the reason that Aubrey and Short were outside the fort-- to draw water.

Bouchard recalled: “I went and got Green’s remains, and brought them to the fort, they [presumably men of Sherman’s Company] asked me if I would hold spite against a dead man? I replied that I would do what I said, whether a man was dead or alive; and Lieutenant Force’s body laid where it fell for four days.”

Apparently, Dodge and a party of mounted volunteers arrived by the fourth day, and retrieved and buried Force's remains. This may have been the grave seen by
Charles Whittlesey some months later. In his Recollections of a Tour Through Wisconsin in 1832 (Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 79-80) he wrote:

"On the second day we passed the foot of the Blue Mound. It is a high hill of regular ascent, overlooking the country, and serves as a beacon to the traveller thirty miles distant. At night we slept in a Block-House in the mining district. Within sight of the station, a newly made grave lay at the road-side in the midst of a solitary prairie. The person over whom it was raised had ventured too far from the house, and approached a thicket of bushes. Suddenly a band of concealed Indians sprang upon him, with the fatal whoop on their tongues; his scalp, heart, and most of his flesh, were soon stripped from the body, and a savage dance performed about the remains.

This grave may well be the one indicated in your post. To my knowledge, the grave is neither identified or preserved today.

[Larry Koschkee]

Bob,

   Thanks for the additional information about Lieutenant Force.  I had made a note of this account some years ago and just now had resurrected it from my files.

Larry