By the time they reached Fort Knox, two hundred men were suffering from sickness or frostbite. Hopkins turned back, stopping at Fort Harrison to recover from the weather before proceeding to Vincennes. When the Indian camp was reached on 24 November, it was deserted. Bitter cold set in, however, and a snowstorm threatened the expedition.
Scouts learned that a large force of Native Americans were gathering to fight Hopkins' army, and they prepared to do battle as soon as possible. The American losses on November 21–22 were seventeen killed and three wounded. As the fire was lit, however, a friend took pity on him and shot him. He was judged to be a traitor, and sentenced to be burned at the stake. One man, Benoit Besayon, had been a long-time trader with the Indian villages in the area, and was captured alive in the canyon. One man who escaped did so by spurring his horse to gallop faster, hence the naming of the battle "Spur's Defeat". Many of the officers were killed, and the Rangers fled. Within two minutes, twelve men and several horses were dead or dying. Here, Kickapoo, Winnebago, and Shawnee warriors ambushed the Rangers. Thirteen Indiana Rangers were outraged by this and chased the rider, but he managed to stay ahead of them, and led them into a narrow canyon. After riding about six miles up Wildcat Creek, they found a dead comrade's head stuck on a pole and a Native standing beside the head taunting them. The next day, 22 November, Colonels Miller and Wilcox accompanied Captain Beckes and sixty Indiana Rangers to recover Dunn's body. On November 21, as a scouting party explored the creek, they were fired upon, and the entire force retreated to rejoin the main army, leaving behind the body of a soldier named Dunn. Colonel Miller led 300 men and destroyed the evacuated village. Ī Winnebago village was found nearby, on Wildcat Creek, and Hopkins decided to attack it. The army burned the villages to the ground. All residents and provisions had been evacuated as the army approached.
Prophetstown had been destroyed in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe, but was now partially rebuilt, with an even larger Kickapoo village nearby. The bodies were reburied before the army proceeded to Prophetstown, which it reached on 19 November. When the army reached the site of the Battle of Tippecanoe, they found that some of the United States' dead had been exhumed and scalped. Hopkins left Vincennes on 11 November 1812 and marched north, following the same route William Henry Harrison had taken in 1811. He then raised a new army, consisting of three regiments of Kentucky Infantry, one company of the 7th Infantry under Major Zachary Taylor, a troop of Indiana Rangers, and a company of scouts.
Hopkins was humiliated by his loss, and discharged the Kentucky militia under his command. Hopkins could not get his Kentucky militia to engage, and had been driven back to Vincennes when the Kickapoo started a prairie grass fire. Russell had to retreat to Cahokia, however, when he could not locate the forces under Hopkins. Russell, coming from the Siege of Fort Harrison, led a force of Illinois militia and Indiana Rangers, and was successful in destroying a hostile Kickapoo village on Peoria Lake. Following several defeats and massacres in 1812, notably the Fort Dearborn Massacre and the Pigeon Roost Massacre, a joint punitive campaign was sent to Illinois Territory under the commands of Major General Samuel Hopkins and Colonel William Russell.
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