Twilight of Empire — Allan W. Eckert

One of the premier chroniclers of our nation's turbulent frontier history, Allan W. Ecker now presents another spellbinding chapter in the conquest of the American wilderness.  Here is the powerful, compellingly human story of the white man's struggle to claim the rich land of the Northern Mississippi--ancestral home of the Fox and Sac tribes--from the legendary war chief Black Hawk.  Having killed his first enemy at sixteen.  This proud, brooding warrior extends a hand in friendship to the Spanish and the British, but harbors a lifelong hatred for the Americans, who once burned his home village.  Now charged by the president himself, the ambitious governor of Illinois Territory leads a brave and illustrious group of settlers and soldiers to wrest the beautiful land from a nation of destiny and a noble chieftain fated to be betrayed by his own kind.