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The Blackhawk War BY HENRY LITTLE, 1875
A GRAND COUNTERMARCH.
When those war-worn veterans evacuated their encampment on the St. Jo. and started homewards, that movement could not be called a defeat, because there had been no battle; they did not leave their army stores and their dead and wounded in the hands of the enemy, because they had none to leave nor was there any enemy to possess them; that was not a disorderly rout, because there was no pursuing conqueror, but it was the grand countermarch of the grand army of the lower peninsula of the territory of Michigan. Those old war-worn veterans of so many bloodless fields were pursuing their joyous and peaceful way homewards until they arrived at Christiania creek, two miles east of Young's prairie. There, darkness having overtaken them, they bivouaced for the night. After the usual preparations the men laid down upon the soft, inviting bosom of mother earth, to dream of battles fought and victories won. Night had spread its dark mantle around them; all nature was hushed into silence, not a sound was to be heard but the slow, measured tread, tread of the watchful sentinel as he paced his weary rounds. The men were complacently reposing upon their laurels. Some of them might have been dreaming of dear mother, or grandmother, in far-off distant lands, others of wives and little ones, and of the endearing associations of sweet home; and others of the dear, lovely girls "they had left behind them. "
Michigan
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