On bicentennial, Illinois' first comprehensive book on War of 1812
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A Harrisburg native who's written a new history, "Illinois in the War of 1812," will present a program about the book at the Harrisburg Public Library noon Wednesday during the Brown Bags and Book hour.
Gillum Ferguson's new book comes on the bicentennial of the War of 1812, sometimes referred to as America's Second War of Independence.
Ferguson, a retired federal prosecutor, took interest in the war while writing an article about early Pope County Sheriff Hamlet Ferguson, for whom Hamletsburg is named.
"I saw that he commanded an expedition in the War of 1812 and was surprised to discover that there wasn't a comprehensive book about Illinois in the War of 1812," the modern-era Ferguson said.
In genealogical research he had discovered Hamlet and his brother Thomas, an early founder of Golconda, who turned out not to be his relatives.
"Hamlet particularly was an interesting character," Ferguson noted.
At one point Hamlet led his neighbors in the militia in this expedition in February and March 1813.
"They headed south in pursuit of some Indians, perhaps in connection with the Cache River massacre. They went as far as the Yazoo River in Mississippi," he said.
Creek Indians attacked two families living at what would become Mound City on Feb. 9, 1813, killing five and kidnapping two members of the Squire Clark and Kennedy families. While it fits that the massacre could have been trigger that led to Hamlet Ferguson's expedition, it's not clear. Like many of the accounts of the war in southeastern Illinois Ferguson couldn't find any reports that provided details.
"The only thing that constituted a kind of narrative of that is the pension application by one of Ferguson's captains," he added.
But it was the lack of any overall volume compiling all that there was to know about the war in Illinois that surprised Ferguson. With the bicentennial coming up, Ferguson decided to tackle the project himself.
The war in the west involved skirmishes between pioneers on the Illinois frontier against increasingly hostile Indians egged on by British forces in the Great Lakes region.
The War of 1812 last three years ending with Gen. Andrew Jackson's victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Ferguson starts his narrative with the killing of a settler near Pocahontas on June 2, 1811.
"Elijah Cox: He was overpowered by three members of a small Indian war party. He was killed. His sister was carried off with a party of militia in pursuit," Ferguson said. "After that event, and a killing of a settler near Alton... relations were frayed (and it was clear) there were bad days ahead."
Southern Illinois at the time was split into just three counties with Johnson and Gallatin Counties created in 1812. Gallatin stretched from the mouth of Lusk's Creek up the Ohio and Wabash Rivers to almost Vincennes and west past Marion to the Big Muddy River, including all the territory in modern-day Saline. At the time the saltworks at Equality and the river traffic at Shawneetown were the primary settlements in the region.
In his book Ferguson "underlines the crucial importance of the War of 1812 in the development of Illinois as a state."
The war began three years after Illinois became a territory and ended just three years before statehood.
Ferguson was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College and the University of Illinois College of Law. He worked six years as a state prosecutor and 25 years as an Asst. U.S. Attorney in Chicago.
As a federal prosecutor he worked in both criminal and civil divisions and as Deputy Chief of the General Crimes and Public Corruption Divisions, Senior Litigation Council and District Election Officer. Mostly, he concentrated in the prosecution of complex financial fraud.
He's now retired and lives in Naperville.
James A. DeGroff Jr., president-elect of the Illinois Society of the War of 1812 called Ferguson's book an "indispensable history commemorating our nation's early history," that will "engage scholars as well as lay readers."
University of Illinois Press published the 360-page tome. Ferguson will have copies to sell and sign Wednesday.