Samuel Hopkins The Battle of Wild Cat Creek was the result of a November 1812 punitive expedition against Native American villages during the War of 1812.

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.

Hopkins could not get his Kentucky militia to engage, and had been driven back to Vincennes when the Kickapoo started a prairie grass fire.

[citation needed] 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.

[citation needed] A Winnebago village was found nearby, on Wildcat Creek, and Hopkins decided to attack it.

[5] 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.

[citation needed] The next day, 22 November, Colonels Miller and Wilcox accompanied Captain Beckes and sixty Indiana Rangers to recover Dunn's body.

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.

[1] 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.

[11] Purdue University and Indiana State archaeologists and historians suggest that there is little scholarly interest in the site and the event because of its lack of importance.