Responding to this attack, militia Colonel Henry Dodge gathered a force of twenty-nine mounted volunteers and set out in pursuit of the attackers. On June 16, Dodge and his men cornered about eleven of the raiders at a bend in the Pecatonica River. In a brief battle, the Americans killed and scalped all of the Natives. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend (or Battle of Pecatonica) was the first real American victory in the war, and helped restore public confidence in the volunteer militia force.