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      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

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      single character following the carat is superscripted
      (example: Isaac^1).

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THE LIFE OF ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS

By His Son

HAZARD STEVENS

With Maps and Illustrations

In Two Volumes

VOL. I







[Illustration]

Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1900

Copyright, 1900, by Hazard Stevens
All Rights Reserved





CONTENTS


                              CHAPTER XXVI

                          THE CHEHALIS COUNCIL

  Graphic account by Judge James G. Swan--Indians assemble on
     lower Chehalis River--The camp and scenes--Method of
     proceeding--Indians object to leaving their wonted
     resorts--Tleyuk, young Chehalis chief, proves recusant and
     insolent--Governor Stevens rebukes him--Tears up his
     commission before his face--Dismisses the council--His
     forbearance, and desire to assist the Indians--Treaty made
     with Quenaiults and Quillehutes next fall as result of this
     council                                                           1


                             CHAPTER XXVII

             PERSONAL AND POLITICAL.--SAN JUAN CONTROVERSY

  Death of George Watson Stevens--Governor Stevens keeps Indians
     in order--Visits Vancouver--Confers with Superintendent
     Palmer, of Oregon--Firm stand against British claim to San
     Juan Archipelago--Purchases Taylor donation claim--Democratic
     convention to nominate delegate in Congress--Governor Stevens
     a candidate--Effect of speech before convention: "If he gets
     into Congress, we can never get him out"--J. Patton Anderson
     nominated                                                        10

                             CHAPTER XXVIII

                     INDIANS OF THE UPPER COLUMBIA

  Manly Indians--Ten Great Tribes--Nez Perces--Missionary
     Spalding--His work--Abandons mission--Escorted in safety by
     Nez Perces--Intractable Cuyuses--Religious rivalry--Dr.
     Whitman--Yakimas, Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, Flatheads, Pend
     Oreilles, Koutenays--Upper country free from settlers--Indian
     jealousy--Conspiracy to destroy whites discovered by Major
     Alvord--Warnings disregarded--Governor Stevens thrown in
     gap--Prepares for council--Walla Walla valley chosen by
     Kam-i-ah-kan--Journey to Dalles--Incidents--Unfavorable
     outlook--Escort secured--Trip to Walla Walla--"Call yourself
     a great chief and steal wood?"--Council ground--Scenes--General
     Palmer arrives--Programme for treaty--Officers--Lieutenant
     Gracie, Mr. Lawrence Kip, and escort arrive--Governor Stevens
     urges General Wool to establish post there                       16

                              CHAPTER XXIX

                        THE WALLA WALLA COUNCIL

  Nez Perces arrive--Savage parade--Head chief Hal-hal-tlos-sot or
     Lawyer, an Indian Solon--Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas
     arrive--Pu-pu-mox-mox--Feasting the chiefs--Fathers Chirouse
     and Pandosy arrive--Kam-i-ah-kan--Four hundred mounted braves
     ride around Nez Perce camp--Young Chief--Spokane
     Garry--Palouses fail to attend--Timothy preaches in Nez Perce
     camp--Yakimas arrive--Commissioners visit Lawyer--Spotted
     Eagle discloses Cuyuse plots--Council opened--Treaties
     explained--Five thousand Indians present--Horse and foot
     races--Young Chief asks holiday--Pu-pu-mox-mox's bitter
     speech--Lawyer discloses conspiracy of Cuyuses to massacre
     whites--Moves his lodge into camp to put it under protection
     of Nez Perces--Governor Stevens prepares for trouble--Determines
     to continue council--Invites Indians to speak their minds--Lawyer
     favorable--Kam-i-ah-kan scornful--Pathetic speech of
     Eagle-from-the-Light--Steachus wants reservation in his own
     country--General Stevens's tent flooded--Lawyer accepts
     treaty--Young Chief and others refuse--Governor Stevens's pointed
     words--Separate reservations for Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and
     Umatillas--Sudden arrival of Looking Glass--His indignation--
     Orders Nez Perces to their lodges--Night conference with
     Yakimas--Stormy council--Lawyer goes to his lodge--Kam-i-ah-kan,
     Pu-pu-mox-mox sign treaties--Lawyer's advice--Nez Perces
     and Cuyuses counsel by themselves--Lawyer's authority confirmed--
     Last day of treaty--Both tribes sign--Eagle-from-the-Light
     presents his medicine, a grizzly bear's skin, to Governor
     Stevens--Satisfactory ending great relief--Delegations
     to Blackfoot council--Nez Perce scalp-dance--Treachery of other
     tribes--Outbreak--Compelled to live under treaties--Provisions
     of treaties--Benefits of council--Present prosperity             34


                              CHAPTER XXX

                       CROSSING THE BITTER ROOTS

  Party for Blackfoot council--Crossing Snake River--Red Wolf and
     Timothy thrifty chiefs--Traverse fine country--Coeur
     d'Alene Mission--Council with Indians--Wrestling
     match--Crossing the Bitter Root Mountains--Rafting the Bitter
     Root River--Bitter Root or St. Mary's valley--Reception by
     the Flatheads and Pend Oreilles--Victor complains of the
     Blackfeet                                                        66


                              CHAPTER XXXI

                          THE FLATHEAD COUNCIL

  Chiefs unwilling to unite on one reservation--Alexander dreads
     strictness of the white man's rule--Big Canoe--What need of
     treaty between friends?--Let us live together--Protracted
     debates--Indians feast and counsel among themselves--No
     result--Victor leaves the council--Two days'
     intermission--Governor Stevens accepts Victor's proposition
     and concludes treaty--Moses refuses to sign treaty--"The
     Blackfeet will get his hair"                                     81

                             CHAPTER XXXII

              MARCH TO FORT BENTON.--MARSHALING THE TRIBES

  Nez Perces and Flatheads to hunt south of Missouri pending
     council--Prairie Plateau on summit of Rocky Mountains--Elk
     for supper--Lewis and Clark's Pass--Management of
     train--Traverse the plains--Abundant game--Bewildering
     buffalo trails--Reach Fort Benton--Governor Stevens meets
     Commissioner Cumming on Milk River--Boats belated--Provisions
     exhausted--Leathery jerked meat--Pemmican two years
     old--Hunting buffalo on Judith--Bighorn at Citadel
     Rock--Metsic, the hunter--Two thousand western Indians
     fraternizing with Blackfeet--Stolen horses--Doty recovers
     them--Cumming claims sole authority--Forced to subside into
     proper place--He stigmatizes Blackfeet and country--Disagrees
     on all points--Governor Stevens's views--A million and a half
     buffalo find sustenance on these plains                          92

                             CHAPTER XXXIII

                         THE BLACKFOOT COUNCIL

  Twelve thousand Indians kept in hand for months--Nez Perces and
     Snakes move to Yellowstone for food--Adams and Tappan seek
     Crows--Delay of boats imperils council--Indians
     summoned--Council changed to mouth of Judith
     River--Remarkable express service--Three thousand five
     hundred Indians assemble--Best feeling--Treaty
     concluded--Peace established--Terms well kept by
     Blackfeet--Scenes at council ground--Grand chorus of one
     hundred Germans--Homeric feasts--Disgruntled commissioner       107

                             CHAPTER XXXIV

         CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN MIDWINTER.--SURPRISE OF THE
                     COEUR D'ALENES AND SPOKANES

  The start homeward--The haggard expressman brings news of Indian
     outbreak--How Pearson ran the gauntlet of hostile
     Indians--Governor Stevens disregards warning
     dispatches--Resolves to force his way back by the direct
     route--Sends to Fort Benton for arms and ammunition--Hastens
     ahead of train to Bitter Root valley--Confers with Flatheads
     and Nez Perces--Alarming reports--Procures fresh animals--Nez
     Perce chiefs join the party--Taking the unexpected
     route--Crossing the snowy Bitter Roots--Ten dead horses--The
     surprise of the Coeur d'Alenes--"Peace or war?"--Craig and
     the Nez Perces take direct route home--Surprise of the
     Coeur d'Alenes--Rescue of blockaded miners--Indians called
     to council--The Stevens Guards and Spokane Invincibles
     organized                                                       120

                              CHAPTER XXXV

                    STORMY COUNCIL WITH THE SPOKANES

  Disaffected Indians--Kam-i-ah-kan's emissaries and
     falsehoods--Governor Stevens's firm front preserves
     friendship--Looking Glass's treachery discovered and
     frustrated--Dubious speeches--Indians' friendship
     gained--Light marching order--Four days' march in driving
     storm to the Nez Perce country                                  133


                             CHAPTER XXXVI

                        THE FAITHFUL NEZ PERCES

  Two thousand assemble in council--Offer two hundred and fifty
     warriors to force way through hostiles--Battle of Oregon
     volunteers--The way cleared--The Nez Perce guard of
     honor--March to Walla Walla--Capture of Ume-how-lish--Reception
     by the volunteers--Governor Stevens's speech--Winter
     campaign--Letter to General Wool--His inaction and mistaken
     views--In camp, 27° below zero--The Nez Perces dismissed--
     Governor Stevens pushes on to the Dalles in advance of
     train--Crossing the gorged Deschutes--By trail down the
     Columbia to Vancouver--The sail at night in the storm--Arrival
     at Olympia after nine months' absence--Mrs. Stevens and
     children visit Whitby Island--In danger from northern Indians   143


                             CHAPTER XXXVII

                          PROSTRATION.--RESCUE

  Country utterly prostrated--Settlers take refuge in
     towns--Abandon farms--General Wool disbands volunteers, takes
     the defensive, and maligns the people--Review of war--
     Kam-i-ah-kan, leading spirit--Treacherous chiefs, fresh from
     signing treaties, incite war--Miners massacred--Agent
     Bolon murdered--Major Haller's repulse--Settlers driven from
     Walla Walla--Massacre on White River--Volunteers raised--
     Lieutenant Slaughter killed--Impenetrable forests and
     swamps--Cascades afford hidden resorts--Fruitless march of
     Major Rains to Yakima--Governor Stevens addresses
     legislature--His measures of relief--Calls out volunteers--
     Visits lower Sound--Enlists Indian auxiliaries--Settlers
     return to farms--Build blockhouses--Organization of
     volunteers                                                      156


                            CHAPTER XXXVIII

                      WAGING THE WAR ON THE SOUND

  Volunteers form Northern, Central, and Southern battalions--Plan
     of campaign--Cooperation sought with regulars--Memoir of
     information sent General Wool and Colonel Wright--Campaign
     east of Cascades suggested--Wool's flying visit to
     Sound--Demands virtual disbanding of volunteers--Governor
     Stevens's caustic letter of refusal--Pat-ka-nim fights
     hostiles--Naval forces--Battle of Connell's prairie--Scouring
     the forests and swamps amid rains and storms--Red
     allies--Massacre at Cascades--Two companies of rangers called
     out to reassure settlers--Unremitting warfare--Hostiles
     surrender or flee across Cascades--Posts and blockhouses
     turned over to regulars--Volunteers on Sound disbanded          171

                             CHAPTER XXXIX

                      THE WAR IN THE UPPER COUNTRY

  Fruitless movements of Oregon volunteers--Colonel Wright
     marches to Yakima valley in May--Parleys instead of
     fighting--Governor Stevens proposes joint movement across
     Cascades--Colonel Casey declines--Colonel Shaw crosses
     Nahchess Pass--Marches to Walla Walla--Governor Stevens
     journeys to Dalles--Dispatches Goff's and Williams's
     companies to Walla Walla--Seeks coöperation with Colonel
     Wright--Warns him against amnesty to Sound murderers--Three
     columns reach Walla Walla the same day--Shaw defeats hostiles
     in Grande Ronde--His victory restrains disaffected Nez
     Perces--Governor Stevens invites Colonel Wright to attend
     peace council in Walla Walla--That officer fooled by the
     Yakimas--His abortive campaign--Ow-hi's diplomacy               194

                               CHAPTER XL

                      THE FRUITLESS PEACE COUNCIL

  Governor Stevens, assured of support by Colonel Wright,
     revokes call for additional volunteers--Council with
     Klikitats--Refuses to receive Indian murderers on
     reservation--Pushes forward to Walla Walla--Indians take
     pack-train--Steptoe arrives with four companies--Indians
     assemble--Manifest hostility--Steptoe moves off--Volunteers
     start for Dalles--Steptoe refuses guard--Governor Stevens
     recalls volunteers--Hostile and threatening Indians--Steptoe
     refusing support, Governor Stevens moves to his camp--
     Disaffected chiefs demand that treaties be abrogated,
     whites leave the country--Governor Stevens demands
     submission--Terminates council--Starts for Dalles--Attacked
     on march--The fight--Moves back to Steptoe's camp--Indians
     attack it--Repulsed--Blockhouse built--One company
     left--Both commands march to Dalles--Steptoe's change of
     views--Demand on Colonel Wright to deliver up Sound
     murderers, who gives order--Cleverly evaded--Colonel Wright
     marches to Walla Walla--Counsels with hostile chiefs--Yields
     to their demands--Whites ordered out of the country--Shameful
     betrayal of duty--Governor Stevens's indignant letters to the
     War and Indian departments--Pernicious influence of
     missionaries and Hudson Bay Company--Governor Stevens's views
     finally adopted--Steptoe's defeat--Wright defeats
     hostiles--Summary executions--Fate of Ow-hi and Qualchen        206

                              CHAPTER XLI

                       DISBANDING THE VOLUNTEERS

  Entire force disbanded--Their character, discipline--Public
     property sold--So many captured animals that more were sold
     than purchased--Transportation cost nothing--Anecdote of
     Captain Henness--Thirty-five forts built by volunteers,
     twenty-three by settlers, seven by regulars--Colonel Casey
     refuses demand for surrender of murderers--Governor Stevens
     insists--Sharply rebukes Colonel Casey's slurs--Leschi
     surrendered for trial--Is finally hanged--Qui-e-muth killed     232

                              CHAPTER XLII

                  MARTIAL LAW.--DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME

  Hudson Bay Company's ex-employees remain in Indian
     country--Suspected of aiding enemy--Governor Stevens orders
     them to the towns--Five return to farms, at instigation of
     trouble-makers--Arrested and thrown in jail Judge Lander
     issues writ of habeas corpus--Martial law proclaimed in
     Pierce County--Colonel Shaw arrests judge and clerk, who are
     taken to Olympia and released--Lawyers pass condemnatory
     resolutions--Judge Lander holds court in Olympia--Issues
     writs--Martial law in Thurston County--Judge Lander
     arrested--Held prisoner at Camp Montgomery until end of
     war--Martial law abrogated--Governor Stevens fined fifty
     dollars--His action in proclaiming martial law disapproved by
     the President--Dishonorable discharge used to maintain
     discipline--Company A refuse to take field--Pass contumacious
     resolutions--Are dishonorably discharged--Control of
     disaffected Indians--Agents in constant danger--Summary
     dealing with whiskey-sellers--Agents men of high
     qualities--Statement of temporary reserves--Indians and
     agents--Northern Indians depredate on Sound--Captain
     Gansevoort severely punishes them at Port Gamble, and sends
     them north--Colonel Ebey falls victim to their revenge          242


                             CHAPTER XLIII

               LEGISLATIVE CENSURE.--POPULAR VINDICATION

  Governor Stevens's habits of labor--Adopts costume of the
     country--Builds home--Housewarming--Fourth message to
     legislature--Renders account of Indian war--Resolutions
     censuring Governor Stevens, for dismissing Company A and
     proclaiming martial law, pooled and passed--Indignation
     of the people--Governor Stevens nominated for Congress--
     Canvasses the Territory--Elected by two thirds vote--
     Resigns as governor--Death of James Doty--Turns over
     governorship to Governor McMullan; Indian affairs, to
     Superintendent Nesmith--Return journey East--Incidents          260

                              CHAPTER XLIV

                  IN CONGRESS.--VINDICATING HIS COURSE

  Passing Superintendent Nesmith's accounts--Obtaining funds for
     Indian service--President recommends confirmation of the
     treaties--Welcomed back by old friends--General Lane a tower
     of strength--Demands that military deliver Yakima murderers
     to punishment--They abandon their protégés--Takes house and
     moves family to Washington--Mr. James G. Swan,
     secretary--Circular letter to emigrants--Appeals to Indian
     Department to establish farms promised Blackfeet--Has
     Lieutenant John Mullan placed in charge of building
     wagon-road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla--Exposes
     memoir of Captain Cram--Convinces Senate Indian committee
     that treaties ought to be confirmed--Advocates Northwestern
     boundary commission--Speeches on Indian war--Pacific
     Railroad--Defends Nesmith--Matters engaging
     attention--Resists exactions of Hudson Bay Company in memoir
     to Secretary of State--Steptoe's defeat--Colonel Wright
     punishes Indians--General Harney placed in command of
     Washington and Oregon departments--He revokes Wool's order
     excluding settlers from upper country--Address on
     Northwest--Walter W. Johnson, private secretary--Treaties all
     confirmed March 8, 1859--Dictates his final report on
     Northern route before breakfast                                 271

                              CHAPTER XLV

                            SAVING SAN JUAN

  Returns to Puget Sound--Guest of General Harney--Close relations
     with--Renominated for Congress--The canvass--Elected--Death
     of Mr. Mason--San Juan dispute waxes warm over a pig--General
     Harney advised by Governor Stevens--Sends Captain Pickett to
     occupy the island--British fleet blockade--Reinforcements
     sent to Pickett--British powerless on land--Thousands of
     American miners in Victoria and on Fraser River--Governor
     Gholson guided by Governor Stevens--Offers support of militia
     to General Harney, who places ammunition at his
     disposal--General Scott pacifies British lion--Governor
     Stevens's influence in saving the archipelago                   288

                              CHAPTER XLVI

                       THE STAND AGAINST DISUNION

  Governor Stevens becomes chief exponent and authority on
     Northern route--Letter to Vancouver railroad convention--
     Contending for the Northern route--Governor Stevens lives
     down prejudice--Gains respect--Great influence with
     President and departments--His habits--Rebuke of
     self-seekers--Political issues--Governor Stevens a national
     man--Sustained constitutional rights of South, as matter
     of justice and to defeat disunion--Patriotism of men of
     this view--Attends Charleston and Baltimore Democratic
     conventions--Supports General Lane--Split in party--Governor
     Stevens accepts as chairman of executive committee of
     National Democracy--Writes address in a single night--Labors
     hard--Hopes of success--Abraham Lincoln elected
     President--Act to pay Indian war debt passed--W.W. Miller
     appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington
     Territory--Governor Stevens's achievements in seven
     years--His firm Union sentiments--Denounces
     secession--Strengthens the hands of the President               296

                             CHAPTER XLVII

                    THE OFFER OF SWORD AND SERVICES

  Governor Stevens returns to Washington Territory--Recommends
     supporting the government and arming the militia--Elected
     captain of Puget Sound Rifles of Olympia--Democratic
     convention meets--Governor Stevens withdraws his name as
     candidate for delegate--His speech--Offers services--Hastens
     to Washington--Meets cold reception--Accepts colonelcy of
     79th Highlanders--Governors Andrew and Sprague offer
     regiments                                                       313

                             CHAPTER XLVIII

             THE 79TH HIGHLANDERS.--THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC

  The Highland Guard, a New York city militia battalion, volunteer
     as the 79th Highlanders--Splendid material--Severe losses at
     Bull Run--Promised to be sent home to recruit--Disappointed--
     Colonel Stevens takes command--Breaks unworthy officers--The
     mutiny and its suppression--Colonel Stevens enforces
     discipline--Marches through Washington with band playing
     the dead march--Removes camp guards and appeals to honor of
     the regiment--Crossing the Potomac into Virginia--Colonel
     Stevens's brief speech at midnight--Building Fort Ethan
     Allen--Digging forts and felling forests--Picket alarms--The
     reconnoissance of Lewinsville--General McClellan meets
     returning column; his anxiety to avoid a general engagement--
     Colonel Stevens deprived of his brigade and given three green
     regiments--President Lincoln reminded, directs appointment of
     Colonel Stevens as brigadier-general; says delay is owing to
     General McClellan's advice--Hazard Stevens appointed adjutant
     79th Highlanders--Colonel Stevens appointed brigadier-general--
     Moves forward four miles to Camp of the Big Chestnut--The
     recusant wagon-master--The unexpected rebuke--McClellan's
     passive-defensive--General Stevens ordered to Annapolis--Bids
     farewell to the Highlanders--Whole line cries, "Tak' us wi'
     ye!"--Secures appointment of his son as captain and assistant
     adjutant-general--Condemns McClellan's management--Predicts
     disaster--Reaches Annapolis--Applies for Highlanders--McClellan
     objects, but President Lincoln overrules him and sends them     321

                              CHAPTER XLIX

                       THE PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION

  General Thomas W. Sherman--His army--General Stevens's
     brigade--The embarkation--Fleet assemble off Fortress
     Monroe--Boat's crew of Highlanders--Lively scenes--Sailing
     out to sea--Storm scatters the fleet--Opening sealed
     orders--Sail for Port Royal--The rebel defenses--Commodore
     Dupont's attack--The enemy's flight--Landing of the
     troops--Demoralized by sweet-potato field--General Stevens
     alone urges advance inland--Constructs a mile of defensive
     works--Sickness--Life on Hilton Head                            341

                               CHAPTER L

                 BEAUFORT.--ACTION OF PORT ROYAL FERRY

  General Stevens occupies Beaufort, the Newport of the
     South--Abandoned by white population--Sacked by negroes;
     their ignorance, habits, condition--Faint attack on the
     pickets--General Stevens advances across Port Royal
     Island--Pickets outer side, throwing enemy on the
     defensive--Enemy close the Coosaw River--General Stevens's
     plan to dislodge them authorized--Reinforcement by two
     regiments and gunboats--Flatboats assembled in a hidden
     creek--Troops embark at midnight, cross Coosaw, and effect
     landing--March in echelon toward Port Royal Ferry--The
     action--The enemy's hasty retreat--The Ferry occupied--The
     forts destroyed--Troops bivouac for the night--Cross the
     ferry and march to Beaufort in triumph--Thanked in general
     orders for the victory of Port Royal Ferry                      353

                               CHAPTER LI

             BEAUFORT.--CAMPAIGN PLANNED AGAINST CHARLESTON

  General Stevens restores public library--It is confiscated by
     Treasury agents against his protest--The Gideonites come to
     elevate the freedmen--General Stevens moderates their zeal;
     wins their gratitude--Other visitors--Thorough course of
     drill and discipline--Twenty-five-mile picket
     line--Detachment of 8th Michigan defeat 13th Georgia regiment
     on Wilmington Island--Death of Mr. Caverly--Governor
     Stevens's views on military situation--General Stevens's
     force a menace to Charleston and Savannah Railroad--Six
     miles trestle bridges--General Robert E. Lee's defensive
     measures--General Stevens eager to cross swords with
     Lee--Plans movement to destroy railroad and hurl whole army
     on Charleston--Captain Elliott's scouting trips--General
     Sherman adopts plan--Commodore Dupont to coöperate--General
     Hunter supersedes General Sherman--Fort Pulaski
     taken--General Hunter proclaims negroes forever free, then
     impresses them as soldiers--General Stevens's views on the
     negro soldier--He is confirmed as brigadier-general             367

                              CHAPTER LII

                JAMES ISLAND CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLESTON

  Enemy abandon lower part of Stono River and batteries--General
     Benham plans movement on Charleston by way of James
     Island--General Stevens lands on James Island--Drives back
     enemy in sharp action--Takes three guns--Cautions Benham of
     need of a day's preparation before attacking--Incompetent
     commanders--Wright joins, a week later, with his
     division--Organization of the army--Enemy strengthening works
     across island--Fort Lamar, strong advanced work--General
     Stevens erects counter-battery--Reconnoissances                 387

                              CHAPTER LIII

                         BATTLE OF JAMES ISLAND

  General Benham's precipitate determination to assault Fort
     Lamar--Protests of his generals--He orders General Stevens to
     assault at dawn, Wright and Williams to support--Attacking
     column--Forms at two P.M.--Drives in and follows hard on
     enemy's pickets--Enters field in front of fort at
     daylight--Rushes on the work in column of regiments--The
     fight over the parapet--Deadly fire from enemy's reserves in
     rear of the work--Troops withdrawn in good order and
     reformed--General Williams attacks on left--General Wright
     takes position to protect left and rear--General Stevens
     about to assault a second time, when General Benham suddenly
     gives up the fight and orders both columns to retreat--Forces
     and losses--Causes of the repulse--Highlanders' revenge at
     Fort Saunders--Benham deprived of command and sent North        399


                              CHAPTER LIV

                           RETURN TO VIRGINIA

  The Highlanders present General Stevens with a sword--His
     response--Death of Daniel Lyman Arnold--General Stevens's
     letters to his wife--Holds Benham to account--General Wright
     succeeds to command on Benham's arrest--James Island
     evacuated--Troops uselessly harassed--Jean Ribaut's
     fort--Voyage to Virginia--General Stevens's letter to
     President Lincoln recommending such movement--His views of
     military situation--Lands at Newport News--Ninth corps
     formed, General Stevens commanding first division--Meets
     General Cullum                                                  416


                               CHAPTER LV

                            POPE'S CAMPAIGN

  General Stevens moves to Fredericksburg--Division in three
     brigades, and joined by two light batteries--Stevens and
     Reno's division, march up the Rappahannock; join Pope's army
     at Culpeper Court House--General Stevens stops straggling and
     marauding--Battle of Cedar Mountain--Army of Virginia--Pope
     advances to Rapidan--General Stevens holds Raccoon Ford--Lee
     leaves McClellan--Concentrates against Pope, who withdraws
     behind Rappahannock--General Stevens's action at Kelly's
     Ford--Marching up the river to head off Lee--Benjamin
     silences enemy's gun with a single shot--Reinforcements
     arrive from Army of the Potomac--Jackson marches around right
     flank and falls on rear--Positions and movements, August 26,
     27, 28--Description of Bull Run battlefield--Jackson
     withdraws from Manassas and takes position there--Movements
     of Pope's forces--Fiasco of McDowell and Sigel--Jackson
     attacks--Stubborn fight of General Gibbon near
     Groveton--Generals King and Ricketts march away from the
     enemy--Pope reiterates order to attack                          425


                              CHAPTER LVI

                     THE SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN

  Jackson resumes his position--Sigel's troops move forward slowly
     and become engaged--Reynolds, on left, advances, but falls
     back--Troops of right wing arrive, scattered to meet Sigel's
     cries for reinforcements--General Stevens advances with
     small force to Groveton--Unexpectedly fired on by enemy's
     skirmishers--Benjamin maintains unequal artillery
     combat--Sigel and Schenck withdraw troops from
     key-point--Jackson forces back Milroy and Schurz--General
     Porter's movement--Inactive all day--Pope hurls disconnected
     brigades on Jackson's corps--Attacks by Grover, Reno, Kearny,
     Stevens, all repulsed--King's division slaughtered--General
     Stevens collects his scattered division--Union attacks
     repulsed the first day--Lee master of the situation--August
     30, second day--Pope sure the enemy had retreated--General
     Stevens expresses contrary view--Captain John More finds
     enemy in force--Pope's fatuous Order of pursuit--Porter
     slowly forms column in centre--Pope's faulty dispositions--
     Whole army bunched in centre--Wings stripped of troops--
     Porter's attack--General Stevens joins in it--The repulse--
     Lee's opportunity--Longstreet's onslaught--The battle on left
     and centre--The right firmly held--General Stevens's
     remark--Pope orders retreat--General Stevens withdraws
     deliberately--Checks pursuit--Capture of Lieutenant
     Heffron--Crosses Bull Run at Lock's Ford--Bivouac for
     night--Battle lost by incompetent commander--Troops fought
     bravely                                                         446


                              CHAPTER LVII

                        THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY

  Retreat to Centreville--Rear-guard--Bivouac on Centreville
     heights--Counting stacks--Two thousand and twelve muskets
     left--Loss nearly one half--General Stevens's last
     letter--Sudden orders--March to intercept Jackson--Battle of
     Chantilly--General Stevens's charge--He falls, bearing the
     colors--The enemy driven from his position--Sudden and
     furious thunderstorm bursts over the field                      477


                             CHAPTER LVIII

                        THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY

  Progress of the fight--General Kearny responds to General
     Stevens's summons with Birney's brigade--His death--Three of
     Reno's regiments engaged--Night ends the contest--Sixteen
     Union regiments against forty-eight Confederate--Respective
     losses and forces--General Stevens averted great disaster       487


                              CHAPTER LIX

                              FINAL SCENE

  General Stevens's body borne from battle to Washington--President
     considering placing him in command at time of his death--
     Burial in Newport, R.I.--City erects monument--Inscription--
     Poem--General Stevens's descendants                             498

     APPENDIX--Census of Indians                            503

     INDEX                                                  507





ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                   PAGE

  Arrival of Nez Perce Cavalcade at the Council                      34

  Feasting the Chiefs                                                36

  Kam-i-ah-kan, Head Chief of the Yakimas                            38

  U-u-san-male-e-can: Spotted Eagle, a chief of the Nez Perces       40

  Walla Walla Council                                                42

  Pu-pu-mox-mox: Yellow Serpent, Head Chief of the Walla Wallas      46

  We-ah-te-na-tee-ma-ny: Young Chief, Head Chief of the Cuyuses      50

  She-ca-yah: Five Crows, a Chief of the Cuyuses                     52

  Appushwa-hite: Looking Glass, War Chief of the Nez Perces          54

  Hal-hal-tlos-sot: The Lawyer, Head Chief of the Nez Perces         58

  The Scalp Dance                                                    60

  Ow-hi, a Chief of the Yakimas                                      64

  The Flathead Council                                               82

  The Blackfoot Council                                             112

  Group of Blackfoot Chiefs--Ha-ca-tu-she-ye-hu, Star Robe,
    Chief of the Gros Ventres; Th-ke-te-pers, The Rider, Great
    War Chief of the Gros Ventres; Sak-uis-tan, Heavy Shield,
    Great Warrior of the Blood Indians; Stam-yekh-sas-ci-cay,
    Lame Bull, Piegan Chief                                         114

  Blackfoot Chiefs--Tat-tu-ye, The Fox, Chief of the Blood
    Indians; Mek-ya-py, Red Dye, Piegan Warrior                     116

  Group: Commissioner Alfred Cumming, Alexander Culbertson,
    William Craig, Delaware Jim, James Bird                         118

  Crossing the Bitter Roots in Midwinter                            126

  Coeur d'Alene Mission                                             128

  Spokane Garry: Head Chief of the Spokanes                         140

  Ume-how-lish, War Chief of the Cuyuses                            148

  Homestead in Olympia                                              260

  Letter offering Sword and Services (facsimile)                    316

  Captain Hazard Stevens at the age of 19, from a photograph        340

  Headquarters at Beaufort                                          372

  General Stevens and Staff: Captain B.F. Porter, Lieutenant
    William T. Lusk, Captain Hazard Stevens, Lieutenant Abraham
    Cottrell, General Stevens, Major George S. Kemble, Lieutenant
    Benjamin R. Lyons                                               386

  Headquarters on James Island                                      398

  Camp of General Stevens's Division at Newport News                422

  Headquarters at Newport News                                      424

  The Monument                                                      502

    The portraits of Indian chiefs were made by Gustavus Sohon, a
    private soldier of the 4th infantry, an intelligent and
    well-educated German, who had great skill in making expressive
    likenesses. He also made the views of the councils and expedition.
    These portraits, with many others taken by the same artist, were
    intended by General Stevens to be used to illustrate a complete
    account of his treaty operations. The views of camps and
    headquarters were sketched by E. Henry, E Company, 79th
    Highlanders.




MAPS AND PLANS


  The Interior from Cascade Mountains to Fort Benton. Made on
     reduced scale from Governor Stevens's map of April 30, 1857,
     sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Routes traversed
     by Governor Stevens taken from maps accompanying his final
     report of the Northern Pacific Railroad route. See Appendix
     for marginal notes                                               16

  Theatre of Indian War of 1855-56 on Puget Sound and West of
     Cascade Mountains. Made on reduced scale from map sent by
     Governor Stevens to the Secretary of War with report of March
     21, 1856                                                        172
  Reconnoissance of Lewinsville, September 11, 1862                  330

  Port Royal and Sea Islands of South Carolina                       352

  Action at Port Royal Ferry, January 1, 1862                        358

  Battle of James Island, June 16, 1862                              402

  Virginia--Potomac to Rapidan River                                 426

  Positions of forces August 26, 1862, 9 P.M.               432

  Positions of forces August 27, 9 P.M.                     433

  Positions of forces August 28, 9 P.M.                     443

  Second Battle of Bull Run, August 29                               446

  Second Battle of Bull Run, August 30                               464

  Jackson's flank march, August 31                                   480

  Battle of Chantilly, September 1                                   482




                                THE LIFE

                                   OF

                         ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS




                              CHAPTER XXVI

                          THE CHEHALIS COUNCIL


While treating with the Sound Indians, the governor sent William H.
Tappan, agent for the southwestern tribes, Henry D. Cock, and Sidney
Ford to summon the Chinooks, Chehalis, and coast Indians to meet in
council on the Chehalis River, just above Gray's Harbor, on February 25,
and on returning to Olympia dispatched Simmons and Shaw on the same
duty. On the 22d he left Olympia on horseback, rode to the Chehalis,
thirty miles, and the following day descended that stream in a canoe to
the treaty ground. Among other settlers who attended the council at the
governor's invitation was James G. Swan, then residing on Shoalwater
Bay, and since noted for his interesting writings on the Pacific
Northwest, and for the valuable collections of Indian implements and
curiosities, and monographs of their languages, customs, and history
that he has made for the Smithsonian Institution. Judge Swan gives the
following graphic and lively account of this council in his "Three
Years' Residence in Washington Territory." He describes how he and Dr.
J.G. Cooper, accompanied by twenty canoe-loads of Indians, paddled up
the Chehalis one cold, damp morning, without waiting for breakfast,
finding it difficult to keep warm:--

  "But the Indians did not seem to mind it at all; for, excited with
  the desire to outvie each other in their attempts to be first to
  camp, they paddled, and screamed, and shouted, and laughed, and cut
  up all kinds of antics, which served to keep them in a glow. As we
  approached the camp we all stopped at a bend in the river, about
  three quarters of a mile distant, when all began to wash their
  faces, comb their hair, and put on their best clothes. The women got
  out their bright shawls and dresses, and painted their faces with
  vermilion, or red ochre and grease, and decked themselves out with
  their beads and trinkets, and in about ten minutes we were a
  gay-looking set; and certainly the appearance of the canoes filled
  with Indians dressed in their brightest colors was very picturesque,
  but I should have enjoyed it better had the weather been a little
  warmer.

  "The camp ground was situated on a bluff bank of the river, on its
  south side, about ten miles from Gray's Harbor, on the claim of Mr.
  James Pilkington. A space of two or three acres had been cleared
  from logs and brushwood, which had been piled up so as to form an
  oblong square. One great tree, which formed the southern side to the
  camp, served also as an immense backlog, against which our great
  camp-fire and sundry smaller ones were kindled, both to cook by and
  to warm us. In the centre of the square, and next the river, was the
  governor's tent; and between it and the south side of the ground
  were the commissary's and other tents, all ranged in proper order.
  Rude tables, laid in open air, and a huge framework of poles, from
  which hung carcasses of beef, mutton, deer, elk, and salmon, with a
  cloud of wild geese, ducks, and smaller game, gave evidence that the
  austerities of Lent were not to form any part of our services.

  "Around the sides of the square were ranged the tents and wigwams of
  the Indians, each tribe having a space allotted to it. The coast
  Indians were placed at the lower part of the camp; first the
  Chinooks, then the Chehalis, Quen-ai-ult, and Quaitso, Satsop, upper
  Chehalis, and Cowlitz. These different tribes had sent
  representatives to the council, and there were present about three
  hundred and fifty of them, and the best feeling prevailed among all.

  "The white persons present consisted of only fourteen, viz.,
  Governor Stevens, George Gibbs (who officiated as secretary to the
  commission), Judge Ford, with his two sons, who were assistant
  interpreters, Lieutenant-Colonel B.F. Shaw, the chief interpreter,
  Colonel Simmons and Mr. Tappan, Indian agents, Dr. Cooper, Mr.
  Pilkington, the owner of the claim, Colonel Cock, myself, and last,
  though by no means the least, Cushman, our commissary, orderly
  sergeant, provost marshal, chief story-teller, factotum, and life of
  the party,--'Long may he wave.' Nor must I omit Green McCafferty,
  the cook, whose name had become famous for his exploits in an
  expedition to Queen Charlotte's Island to rescue some sailors from
  the Indians. He was a good cook and kept us well supplied with hot
  biscuit and roasted potatoes.

  "Our table was spread in the open air, and at breakfast and supper
  was pretty sure to be covered with frost, but the hot dishes soon
  cleared that off, and we found the clear, fresh breeze very
  conducive to a good appetite. After supper we all gathered round the
  fire to smoke our pipes, toast our feet, and tell stories.

  "The next morning the council was commenced. The Indians were all
  drawn up in a large circle in front of the governor's tent, and
  around a table on which were placed the articles of treaty and other
  papers. The governor, General Gibbs, and Colonel Shaw sat at the
  table, and the rest of the whites were honored with camp-stools, to
  sit around as a sort of guard, or as a small cloud of witnesses.

  "Although we had no regimentals on, we were dressed pretty uniform.
  His Excellency the Governor was dressed in a red flannel shirt, dark
  frock coat and pants, and these last tucked in his boots, California
  fashion; a black felt hat, with, I think, a pipe stuck through the
  band; and a paper of fine-cut tobacco in his coat pocket. We also
  were dressed like the governor, not in ball-room or dress-parade
  uniform, but in good, warm, serviceable clothes.

  "After Colonel Mike Simmons, the agent, and, as he has been termed,
  the Daniel Boone of the Territory, had marshaled the savages into
  order, an Indian interpreter was selected from each tribe to
  interpret the jargon of Shaw into such language as their tribes
  could understand. The governor then made a speech, which was
  translated by Colonel Shaw into jargon, and spoken to the Indians,
  in the same manner the good old elders of ancient times were
  accustomed to deacon out the hymns to the congregation. First the
  governor spoke a few words, then the colonel interpreted, then the
  Indians; so that this threefold repetition made it rather a lengthy
  operation. After this speech the Indians were dismissed till the
  following day, when the treaty was to be read. We were then
  requested by the governor to explain to those Indians we were
  acquainted with what he had said, and they seemed very well
  satisfied. The governor had purchased of Mr. Pilkington a large pile
  of potatoes,--about a hundred bushels,--and he told the Indians to
  help themselves. They made the heap grow small in a short time, each
  taking what he required for food; but lest any one should get an
  undue share, Commissary Cushman and Colonel Simmons were detailed to
  stand guard on the potato pile, which they did with the utmost good
  feeling, keeping the savages in a roar of laughter by their humorous
  ways.

  "At night we again gathered around the fire, and the governor
  requested that we should enliven the time by telling anecdotes,
  himself setting the example. Governor Stevens has a rich fund of
  interesting and amusing incidents that he has picked up in his camp
  life, and a very happy way of relating them. We were all called upon
  in turn. There were some tales told of a wild and romantic nature,
  and Judge Ford and Colonel Mike did their part. Old frontiersmen and
  early settlers, they had many a legend to relate of toil, privation,
  fun, and frolic; but the palm was conceded to Cushman, who certainly
  could vie with Baron Munchausen or Sindbad the Sailor in his
  wonderful romances. His imitative powers were great, and he would
  take off some speaker at a political gathering or a camp-meeting in
  so ludicrous a style that even the governor could not preserve his
  gravity, but would be obliged to join the rest in a general laughing
  chorus. Whenever Cushman began one of his harangues, he was sure to
  draw up a crowd of Indians, who seemed to enjoy the fun as much as
  we, although they could not understand a word he said. He usually
  wound up by stirring up the fire; and this, blazing up brightly and
  throwing off a shower of sparks, would light the old forest, making
  the night look blacker in the distance, and showing out in full
  relief the dusky, grinning faces of the Indians, with their blankets
  drawn around them, standing up just outside the circle where we were
  sitting. Cushman was a most capital man for a camp expedition,
  always ready, always prompt and good-natured.

  "The second morning after our arrival the terms of the treaty were
  made known. This was read line by line by General Gibbs, and then
  interpreted by Colonel Shaw to the Indians. The provisions of the
  treaty were these: They were to be placed on a reservation between
  Gray's Harbor and Cape Flattery, and were to be paid forty thousand
  dollars in different installments. Four thousand dollars in addition
  was also to be paid them, to enable them to clear and fence in land
  and cultivate. No spirituous liquors were to be allowed on the
  reservation; and any Indian who should be guilty of drinking liquor
  would have his or her annuity withheld.

  "Schools, carpenters' and blacksmiths' shops were to be furnished by
  the United States; also a sawmill, agricultural implements,
  teachers, and a doctor. All their slaves were to be free, and none
  afterwards to be bought or sold. The Indians, however, were not to
  be restricted to the reservation, but were to be allowed to procure
  their food as they had always done, and were at liberty at any time
  to leave the reservation to trade with or work for the whites.

  "After this had all been interpreted to them, they were dismissed
  till the next day, in order that they might talk the matter over
  together, and have any part explained to them which they did not
  understand. The following morning the treaty was again read to them
  after a speech from the governor, but although they seemed
  satisfied, they did not perfectly comprehend. The difficulty was in
  having so many tribes to talk to at the same time, and being obliged
  to use the jargon, which at best is a poor medium of conveying
  intelligence. The governor requested any one of them that wished, to
  reply to him. Several of the chiefs spoke, some in jargon and some
  in their own tribal language, which would be interpreted into jargon
  by one of their people who was conversant with it; so that, what
  with this diversity of tongues, it was difficult to have the subject
  properly understood. But their speeches finally resulted in one and
  the same thing, which was that they felt proud to have the governor
  talk with them; they liked his proposition to buy their land, but
  they did not want to go to the reservation. The speech of Narkarty,
  one of the Chinook chiefs, will convey the idea they all had. 'When
  you first began to speak,' said he to the governor, 'we did not
  understand you; it was all dark to us as the night; but now our
  hearts are enlightened, and what you say is clear to us as the sun.
  We are proud that our Great Father in Washington thinks of us. We
  are poor, and can see how much better off the white men are than we
  are. We are willing to sell our land, but we do not want to go away
  from our homes. Our fathers and mothers and ancestors are buried
  there, and by them we wish to bury our dead and be buried ourselves.
  We wish, therefore, each to have a place on our own land where we
  can live, and you may have the rest; but we can't go to the north
  among the other tribes. We are not friends, and if we went together
  we should fight, and soon we would all be killed.' This same idea
  was expressed by all, and repeated every day. The Indians from the
  interior did not want to go on a reservation with the coast or canoe
  Indians. The whole together only numbered 843 all told, as may be
  seen by the following census, which was taken on the ground:--

          Lower Chehalis           217
          Upper Chehalis           216
          Quenaiults               158
          Chinooks                 112
          Cowlitz                  140
                                   ---
                                   843

  "But though few in numbers, there were among them men possessed of
  shrewdness, sense, and great influence. They felt that though they
  were few, they were as much entitled to a separate treaty as the
  more powerful tribes in the interior. We all reasoned with them to
  show the kind intentions of the governor, and how much better off
  they would be if they could content themselves to live in one
  community; and our appeals were not altogether in vain. Several of
  the tribes consented, and were ready to sign the treaty, and of
  these the Quenaiults were the most prompt, evidently, however, from
  the fact that the proposed reservation included their land, and they
  would consequently remain at home.

  "I think the governor would have eventually succeeded in inducing
  them all to sign, had it not been for the son of Carcowan, the old
  Chehalis chief. This young savage, whose name is Tleyuk, and who was
  the recognized chief of his tribe, had obtained great influence
  among all the coast Indians. He was very willing at first to sign
  the treaty, provided the governor would select _his_ land for the
  reservation, and make him the grand _Tyee_, or chief, over the whole
  five tribes; but when he found he could not effect his purpose, he
  changed his behavior, and we soon found his bad influence among the
  other Indians, and the meeting broke up that day with marked
  symptoms of dissatisfaction. This ill-feeling was increased by old
  Carcowan, who smuggled some whiskey into the camp, and made his
  appearance before the governor quite intoxicated. He was handed over
  to Provost Marshal Cushman, with orders to keep him quiet till he
  got sober. The governor was very much incensed at this breach of his
  orders, for he had expressly forbidden either whites or Indians
  bringing one drop of liquor into the camp.

  "The following day Tleyuk stated that he had no faith in anything
  the governor said, for he had been told that it was the intention of
  the United States government to put them all on board steamers and
  send them away out of the country, and that the Americans were not
  their friends. He gave the names of several white persons who had
  been industrious in circulating these reports to thwart the governor
  in his plans, and most all of them had been in the employ of the
  Hudson Bay Company. He was assured that there was no truth in the
  report, and pretended to be satisfied, but in reality was doing all
  in his power to break up the meeting. That evening the governor
  called the chiefs into his tent, but to no purpose, for Tleyuk made
  some insolent remarks, and peremptorily refused to sign the treaty,
  and with his people refused to have anything to do with it. That
  night in his camp they behaved in a very disorderly manner, firing
  off guns, shouting, and making a great uproar.

  "The next morning, when the council was called, the governor gave
  Tleyuk a severe reprimand, and, taking from him his paper, which had
  been given to show that the government recognized him as chief, he
  tore it to pieces before the assemblage. Tleyuk felt this disgrace
  very keenly, but said nothing. The paper was to him of great
  importance, for they all look on a printed or written document as
  possessing some wonderful charm. The governor then informed them
  that as all would not sign the treaty it was of no effect, and the
  camp was then broken up.

  "Throughout the whole of the conference Governor Stevens evinced a
  degree of forbearance, and a desire to do everything he could for
  the benefit of the Indians. Nothing was done in a hurry. We remained
  in the camp a week, and ample time was given them each day to
  perfectly understand the views of the governor. The utmost good
  feeling prevailed, and every day they were induced to some games of
  sport to keep them good humored. Some would have races on the river
  in their canoes, others danced, and others gambled; all was friendly
  till the last day, when Tleyuk's bad conduct spoiled the whole."

That was an intrepid and resolute act of Governor Stevens, thus to tear
up the turbulent chief's commission before his face, surrounded by three
hundred and fifty Indians and supported by only fourteen whites; but it
effectually cowed the insolent young savage, and preserved the respect
of the Indians.

The council was by no means abortive, for in consequence of it the
following fall Colonel Simmons obtained the assent and signature of the
chiefs of the Quenaiult and Quillehute coast tribes to the treaty so
carefully explained to them at the Chehalis council, and it was signed
by Governor Stevens at Olympia, January 25, 1856, on his return from the
Blackfoot council, and duly confirmed with the other treaties on March
8, 1859. These Indians were given $25,000 in annuities, and $2500 to
improve the reservation, the selection of which was left to the
President. A reservation of ten thousand acres was set off at the mouth
of the Quenaiult River, including their principal village and salmon
fishery, renowned as yielding the richest and finest salmon on the
coast, a fish of medium size, deep, rich color, and exquisite flavor.
The other provisions were the same as those secured to the Sound
Indians.

Tah-ho-lah and How-yatl, head chiefs of the two tribes, and twenty-nine
other chiefs signed the treaty, and it was witnessed by M.T. Simmons,
general Indian agent; H.A. Goldsborough, surveyor; B.F. Shaw,
interpreter; James Tilton, surveyor-general; F. Kennedy, J.Y. Miller,
and H.D. Cock.

These two tribes numbered four hundred and ninety-three, a number
greatly in excess of the census given in Swan's account. In their
distrust the Indians invariably reported less than their actual numbers,
and nearly every tribe was found to be larger than the first estimate.
The numbers of the Chinook, Chehalis, and Cowlitz Indians were reported
by Governor Stevens in 1857 as one thousand one hundred and fifteen.

Including the Quenaiults and the Cowlitz, and other Indians not on
reservations, they now number some seven hundred, and are in about the
same condition as the Sound Indians.[1]

FOOTNOTES:

  [1] A census of all the tribes in the Territory, returned with
      Governor Stevens's report and map of April 30, 1857, is given
      in the Appendix.




                             CHAPTER XXVII

             PERSONAL AND POLITICAL.--SAN JUAN CONTROVERSY


Just before going to the Chehalis council, Governor Stevens and his
family suffered a sad and severe affliction in the death of his young
kinsman, George Watson Stevens, who was drowned on February 16 at the
debouch of the Skookumchuck Creek into the Chehalis River, as he was
returning from Portland, whither he had gone to cash some government
drafts. He was accompanied on the journey by A.B. Stuart, the mail and
express carrier, who, as they approached the stream, had occasion to
stop at a settler's house, while George Stevens kept on, and, although
cautioned by Stuart, lost his life in the attempt to cross by the usual
ford. The Skookumchuck empties into the Chehalis at right angles, and
although ordinarily a stream of moderate size, becomes, when swollen by
rains, a mighty and furious flood, which, encountering the rapid current
of the Chehalis, forms a dangerous whirlpool in the centre of that
river. Not realizing the danger, and anxious to reach his journey's end
that day, he forced his horse into the raging torrent, and was swept,
man and steed, into the whirlpool below, where, although a fine swimmer
and a strong, vigorous man, he met his death. Stuart reached the ford
soon afterwards, and finding it impassable and his companion nowhere
visible, rightly concluded that he was lost, and hastened to Olympia
with the sad tidings.

Governor Stevens with a party hastened to the scene, and diligently
searched for the missing one. The governor caused a band of horses to
be driven into the stream to test its power, but all were instantly
swept down into the larger river, several of them clear to the
whirlpool, although the water had fallen considerably. The unfortunate
youth's horse swam ashore, and was found with the saddle and saddle-bags
soaked with water, and a few days later his remains were found in the
river a mile below the whirlpool. This sad event cast a deep gloom upon
the family, and indeed all the community, for he was a young man of
great promise, noble traits, and only twenty-two years of age. The
governor said of him:--

  "His whole character was an admirable blending of strength and
  gentleness. He was essentially a man of great resolution, daring,
  enterprise, and purpose, who adhered with great inflexibility to his
  determinations; yet he was so gentle, so kindly, so courteous, and
  so disinterested that his strength did not fully appear in ordinary
  intercourse. To his friends his death is a sad bereavement, which
  time only can obliterate. His memory will be precious, his life an
  example, his bright and pure spirit is now in the heavenly mansion."

  "He was a brother in the house," wrote Mrs. Stevens to her mother;
  "evenings he always spent at home, and took an interest in
  everything about the house, played with the children, seemed to be
  happy just staying in our society. Here is my garden he made, and
  the flowers he set out, and marks of him all about us."

It was a sad time when his remains were brought in, and the little toys
and candy he had thoughtfully purchased for the children were found in
his pockets and saddle-bags. He was buried on the beautiful green Bush
Prairie, amid the scenes of mountain, prairie, and forest he loved so
well. His intimate friends, Mason and Doty, were soon to be laid at rest
by his side.

In a letter to a sister Mrs. Stevens relates another instance of the
governor's firmness and fearlessness in dealing with the Indians:--

  "There are three different tribes of Indians in Olympia now, all
  different,--the Nisquallies, Chissouks, and northern Fort Simpson
  Indians. A curious sight it is to see them. They are all gambling,
  their mats spread on the ground; and you will see groups of fifty
  seated on the ground, and playing all day and night. The town is
  full of them. Mr. Stevens has them right under his thumb. They are
  as afraid as death of him, and do just what he tells them. He told
  the chiefs of the tribes he would not let them disturb the whites.
  That night they kept up an awful howling and singing, making night
  hideous like a pack of wolves. Mr. Stevens got up, took a big club,
  and went right in among them, and talked to them, and told them that
  the first man that opened his lips he would knock down. The chief
  said, 'Close' (All right), and not another sound came from them that
  night. When he came back, he said the biggest lodge was full of men
  sitting in a circle around a big fire, smoking and singing."

Returning from the Chehalis council, Governor Stevens remained the next
two months in Olympia, hard at work with his multifarious duties,
reviewing legislative acts, preparing reports of the councils and
treaties, instructing the Indian agents, and attending to the unceasing
cares and questions arising from the Indians, and preparing for the trip
east of the mountains. In April he made the arduous horseback and river
trip to Vancouver, and there met Superintendent Joel Palmer, of Oregon,
by appointment, having previously invited him, in order to arrange with
him in regard to the proposed council with the Indians of the upper
country, some of whom were within General Palmer's superintendency.

This spring began the San Juan Island controversy with Great Britain,
which came near involving the two countries in war, and lasted with
various phases for eighteen years, until it was finally decided in favor
of the United States by Emperor William I., of Germany.

By the treaty of 1846 the main ship-channel which separates the
continent from Vancouver Island was fixed as the boundary from the point
where the 49th parallel intersects the Gulf of Georgia, in order to give
the whole of that island to Great Britain, for the parallel intersects
it. It happens, however, that there are two channels, with a valuable
group of islands between them, answering this description. The Americans
claimed the western-most, the Canal de Haro, which runs next to
Vancouver Island, and is the shorter, broader, and deeper, in every
respect the main ship-channel, while the English insisted that the
eastern channel, Rosario Straits, was the proper boundary. The shrewd
and aggressive officers of the Hudson Bay Company at Victoria, Sir James
Douglass at their head, originated the British claim, which otherwise
had never arisen, so little merit had it, and in order to gain a
foothold on, and claim possession of, these valuable islands, placed a
flock of sheep on San Juan, and stationed there a petty official of the
company. The island was included in Whatcom County by act of the
Washington legislature, the property thereon became subject to taxation,
and the sheriff of the county levied upon and seized a number of the
sheep in default of payment of taxes.

Sir James Douglass thereupon addressed Governor Stevens, complaining of
the seizure, and demanding to know if the sheriff's proceedings were
authorized or sanctioned in any manner by the executive officer of
Washington Territory. The governor promptly replied, May 12, 1855, and
firmly and uncompromisingly asserted the American right, and justified
the sheriff. After reciting the acts of Oregon and Washington assuming
jurisdiction over the islands, he continued:--

  "The sheriff, in proceeding to collect taxes, acts under a law
  directing him to do so. Should he be resisted in such an attempt, it
  would become the duty of the governor to sustain him to the full
  force of the authority vested in him.

  "The ownership remains now as it did at the execution of the treaty
  of June 11, 1846, and can in no wise be affected by the alleged
  'possession of British subjects.'"

The correspondence was communicated to the Secretary of State, who in
reply deprecated any action by the territorial authorities pending a
settlement of the question by the respective governments, and the
dispute remained in abeyance until excited some years afterwards by
another British act of aggression. Had our government firmly asserted
its undoubted right at this time, the matter would have been settled. To
the resolute and patriotic stand of Governor Stevens on this occasion,
and his subsequent course in defense of this American territory, as will
be seen hereafter, were due the ultimate defeat of the persistent and
hard-fought British demands.

At this time the governor purchased of William Taylor for $2000 his
donation claim, a fine tract of half a section, 320 acres, six miles
southwest of Olympia, and in the northwestern corner of Bush Prairie. It
comprised a few acres of prairie, over a hundred acres of heavy meadow,
and the remainder in heavy fir timber. A small house and a field fenced
off the prairie were the only improvements. The governor always took
great interest and pleasure in the soil, in gardening and farming. He
soon put a man on the place, and laid out extensive plans of improving
it.

In April the Democratic convention met in Olympia to nominate a
candidate for delegate in Congress, to succeed Judge Lancaster. The
delegates assembled in a large store building on the southwest corner of
Main and First streets, belonging to George A. Barnes. Governor Stevens
was a candidate for the nomination. He was desirous, after completing
his treaty operations and returning from the Blackfoot council, to
represent the Territory in Congress, and there push forward his plans
for the public service, further railroad surveys, wagon roads, mail
routes, steamer service, Indian treaties and policy, and, above all, the
Northern Pacific Railroad. Many of the first settlers were strong in his
support, recognizing how much such a man in Congress could accomplish
for the Territory. There were two other candidates, Judge Columbia
Lancaster, very anxious to succeed himself, and J. Patton Anderson,
United States marshal, who had traveled all over the Territory in taking
the census the previous year, and, it was said, had diligently improved
his opportunities as census-taker by paying court to all the women,
kissing all the babies, and pledging all the men to support him for
delegate. He was a man of good appearance, cordial, pleasant Southern
manners, and well calculated to make friends. The convention divided
between the three candidates, and balloted an entire day without result.
In the evening the candidates were invited to address the convention.
Colonel Shaw, who was one of the governor's supporters, although not a
member of the convention, says that he advised the governor not to
accept the invitation, lest the friends of the other candidates, hearing
him speak, should become alarmed at his ability and power, and combine
against him. Such advice was the very last that the governor, with his
straightforward and positive character, would relish. He went before the
convention, and in a forcible and patriotic speech, without reference to
himself, set forth the needs of the Territory, and the public measures
required for its advancement, so ably and clearly that his friends were
delighted, and felt sure that he would be chosen on the next ballot. But
it turned out as Shaw feared. Although he gained votes, his opponents
combined on Anderson, and nominated him, some of them exclaiming, "It
won't do to nominate the governor, for if he once gets into Congress, we
can never get him out again."




                             CHAPTER XXVIII

                     INDIANS OF THE UPPER COLUMBIA


The Indians of the upper Columbia, with whom Governor Stevens was next
to treat, presented a far more pressing and difficult problem than the
reduced tribes of the Sound. They numbered fourteen thousand souls,
comprised in ten powerful tribes, viz., Nez Perces, Cuyuses, Umatillas,
Walla Wallas, Yakimas, Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, Flatheads, Pend
Oreilles, and Kootenais.[2] They were a manly, athletic race, still
uncontaminated by the vices and diseases which so often result from
contact with the whites, and far superior in courage and enterprise, as
well as in form and feature, to the canoe Indians of the Sound and
coast. Each tribe possessed its own country, clearly defined by
well-known natural boundaries, within whose limits their wanderings were
restrained, save when they "went to buffalo," or attended some grand
council or horse-race with a neighboring tribe. The chase, the salmon
fishery, the root ground, the numerous bands of horses and cattle,
furnished easy and ample sustenance. It was estimated that the Nez
Perces owned twenty thousand head of these animals, and the Cuyuses,
Umatillas, and Walla Wallas not less than fifteen thousand. The Yakimas
and Spokanes also possessed great numbers.

  [Illustration: THE INTERIOR FROM CASCADE MOUNTAINS TO FORT BENTON]

Of all these tribes, the Nez Perces or Sahaptin were the most
numerous and progressive. They numbered 3300, and occupied the country
along the western base of the Bitter Root Mountains for over two hundred
miles, and a hundred miles in width, including both banks of the Snake
and its tributaries, the Kooskooskia or Clearwater, Salmon, Grande
Ronde, Tucañon, etc. Yearly, in the spring or fall, their war chief
would lead a strong party across the Rocky Mountains to hunt the buffalo
on the plains of the Missouri, and many were the bloody encounters they
had with the dreaded Blackfeet, the Arabs of the plains. They owned
great numbers of horses, and the advent of the horse among them, about
the middle of the eighteenth century, obtained from the Spaniards of New
Mexico or California, of which they preserved the tradition, was the
chief cause of their prosperous condition. From the days of Lewis and
Clark, the first of the white race to meet their astonished gaze, they
were famed as the firm friends of the white man. During all the
fur-hunting and trading epoch the "mountain men," as the trappers and
voyageurs delighted to call themselves, were welcome in the lodges of
the Nez Perces. Together they wintered in safety on the banks of the
Kooskooskia, and together they hunted the buffalo on the plains of the
Missouri, and made common cause against the Blackfeet. Among the most
noted of the numerous encounters in which they were allied against their
common foe was the stubborn fight of Pierre's Hole in 1832, so
graphically described by Washington Irving in his "Bonneville
Adventures." It was in this fight that Lawyer, then a promising young
brave, and afterwards for many years the powerful head chief of the
Sahaptin, received a severe wound in the hip, which never entirely
healed, and doubtless hastened his death.

In 1836 Rev. H.H. Spalding with his wife was sent out by the
Presbyterians, and settled as a missionary on the Lapwai, a branch on
the southern side of the Kooskooskia, twelve miles above its confluence
with the Snake. Here he was preceded by William Craig, a Virginian, one
of the best type of mountain men, who had married a Nez Perce maiden and
made his home among her people. Aided by Craig's knowledge of the Nez
Perce tongue and character, and of the Indians themselves, Mr. Spalding
taught the whole tribe a simple Christian faith, made a dictionary of
their language, and translated and had printed in the native tongue a
hymn-book, catechism, and New Testament, taught a number of the young
men to read and write their own language, built a saw and grist mill,
and labored to induce them, not without success, to till the soil. Yet,
after all this achievement, he was in the end led to abandon his
mission. In an unhappy hour he opened a store and went to trading with
the Indians. In their experience a trader was the personification of
greed and falsehood. To them the union of the trader, all selfishness
and fraud, and the preacher of morality and truth was monstrous, nay,
impossible. Mr. Spalding, too, was hard and exacting in his dealings,
and offended in that way. With all his zeal and energy, he evidently
lacked knowledge of Indian nature, perhaps of human nature. What wonder
that some of the Nez Perces, seeing that the trading-post was a fact,
concluded that his preaching was a fraud, and warned him out of their
country! The massacre of the devoted missionary, Dr. Marcus Whitman, and
his family, by the Cuyuses, in 1847, had just occurred, and Mr.
Spalding, fearing a like fate if he remained after the warning,
abandoned the mission where he had done so much. The majority of the Nez
Perces, however, desired him to remain; and when he decided upon going,
they formed a strong party of warriors, and escorted him with his
family and effects unharmed through the hostile Indians to the frontier
settlement. They magnanimously refused the large reward offered them,
saying, "We will not sell Mr. Spalding; he left our country of his own
free will, and we escorted him as his friends." In the war which ensued
they remained the firm friends of the whites, and the officers of the
Oregon volunteers engaged in it presented them with a fine, large
American flag, in which they took great pride. It was their boast that
"We are the friends of the white man. The white man is our brother. His
blood has never stained our hands." Craig remained among them in perfect
safety, and was treated with undiminished kindness. Although abandoned
by Mr. Spalding, they by no means discarded the good he had taught them.
They maintained, unaided, their simple religious worship, and held
services regularly every Sabbath, with preaching, singing of hymns, and
reading of the Bible, all in their own language, with the books
translated and printed for them by the devoted missionary. They prided
themselves upon their superior intelligence, upon having young men who
could read and write, and upon their ancient and fast friendship with
the whites. This friendship indeed was not merely a matter of sentiment.
They were shrewd enough to turn it to good account. Large emigrations
crossed the plains to Oregon during the period from 1843 to 1855; and
the Nez Perces used to go down to the emigrant road on the Grande Ronde
or Umatilla, with bands of fat, sleek, handsome ponies, and exchange
them with the emigrants for their worn-out horses, oxen, and sometimes a
cow, clothing, groceries, ammunition, etc. The Pikes, as the Missourians
who comprised the majority of the emigrants were called, "allowed that
the Nez Perces could beat a Yankee on a trade." By these means they were
beginning to obtain cattle as well as horses, were learning to wear
blankets and shirts instead of skins, and individuals were even
beginning to set out fruit trees, and plant corn and potatoes, and in a
word the Nez Perces were making rapid strides toward civilization. There
is no more interesting and instructive example of the amelioration of a
savage tribe by the introduction of domestic animals, and its steady
growth from abject barbarism, than that afforded by the Nez Perces. But
little more than a century ago they were a tribe of naked savages,
engaged in a perpetual struggle against starvation. Their country
afforded but little game, and they subsisted almost exclusively on
salmon, berries, and roots. The introduction of the horse enabled them
to make long journeys to the buffalo plains east of the Rocky Mountains,
where they could lay in great abundance of meat and furs; furnished them
with a valuable animal for trading with other less favored tribes; soon
raised them to comparative affluence, and developed in their hunting and
trading expeditions a manly, enterprising, shrewd, and intelligent
character. They had improved and profited still more from their
intercourse with the whites, until there seemed every prospect that,
with the introduction of cattle, they might lay aside their nomadic
habits, and become a pastoral and then an agricultural people.

The Cuyuses were the most disaffected and intractable of all the tribes.
But little is known of their early history. They are said to have come
from the east many years ago. No tribe could resist their prowess, and
when they settled on the Umatilla and Walla Walla rivers, having driven
out the original inhabitants, none dared molest them; since which, wars
and pestilence had reduced their numbers to but five hundred, and
continual intermarriages with the neighboring tribes had caused their
own language to fall into disuse. But they still maintained their
separate independence, and were as haughty and arrogant as ever. The
Jesuits established a mission on the Umatilla and made some progress in
their conversion, and then Dr. Whitman came among them, establishing his
mission in the Walla Walla valley, and for several years possessed their
confidence and accomplished much good. The rivalry between Jesuit and
Protestant missionary was carried to a high pitch. Pictorial cards were
issued by each party, representing its opponents descending into the
fiery depths of the infernal regions, where Satan and his imps, with
red-hot pitchforks, were impatiently waiting to receive their prey,
while the converts to the true faith were ascending to heaven up a broad
flight of stairs with winged angels on either side. This hostile and
bigoted attitude of the missionaries towards each other must have
weakened the respect and confidence of the Indians, and contributed not
a little to the troubles that followed.

Dr. Whitman was accustomed to attend the Indians when sick, and these
labors, undertaken in the purest benevolence, were ultimately the cause
of his death; for, the measles having broken out among them, and great
numbers, especially of the children, dying, their suspicions were
directed towards this devoted and able missionary.

In the war which ensued the Cuyuses suffered severely, were deprived of
great numbers of horses, compelled to relinquish their white captives,
and to surrender to well-deserved death some of the most active in the
massacre. Their head chief was known as the Young Chief, and next in
rank and influence was the Five Crows.

The Walla Wallas and Umatillas numbered upwards of one thousand, and
inhabited the banks of the rivers which bear their names, and those of
the Columbia. Their head chief was Pu-pu-mox-mox or the Yellow Serpent,
a man of great intelligence and force of character, but well stricken in
years.

The Yakimas, including outlying bands,[3] were over 3900 strong, and
occupied the large region between the Columbia and the Cascades, with
their principal abodes in the Yakima valley. One band, the Palouses,
lived on the Palouse River, on the north side of the Snake and east of
the Columbia, next the Nez Perce country. Large bands of the Yakimas had
crossed the Cascades and were pressing on the feebler races on the west,
by whom they were appropriately termed "Klik-i-tats" or robbers. The
Jesuits had a mission on the Ah-ti-nam Creek, on the Yakima, but do not
seem to have acquired much influence over them.

The Spokanes numbered 2200, including the Colvilles, 500, and
Okinakanes, 600, and held the country north of Snake River to Pend
Oreille Lake and the 49th parallel, and extending west from the Nez
Perce country, and that occupied by the Coeur d'Alenes at the base of
the Bitter Root Mountains, to the Columbia River. A Presbyterian mission
was also established among them under Rev. E. Walker and G.C. Eells, and
abandoned about the same time as that of Mr. Spalding.

Immediately east of the Spokanes, under the western slope of the Bitter
Roots, lived the Coeur d'Alenes, a tribe of about five hundred. There
was a Catholic mission among them presided over by Father Ravalli, and
they had been converted to the ancient faith, and their material
condition greatly improved by the good fathers.

The Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, and Koutenays lived in the mountain
valleys between the main range of the Rockies and the Bitter Roots, upon
the tributaries of Clark's Fork chiefly, and depended largely upon the
buffalo for their subsistence. They, too, like the Nez Perces, were
distinguished as the constant friends of the whites, and were exposed
to the unceasing forays of the Blackfeet. They numbered 2250. They
termed themselves the Salish, and the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes were
of the same stock.

There were also some small independent bands along the Columbia, who
subsisted chiefly on salmon. Five sixths of the Indians lived within the
Washington superintendency,--all, indeed, except the Cuyuses, Umatillas,
Walla Wallas, and a small number of the Nez Perces, who dwelt or roamed
in both territories, and the small bands about the Dalles and on the
Columbia, Des Chutes, and John Day's rivers, who lived wholly in Oregon.

The whole vast region occupied by these numerous, brave, and manly
Indians was still free from the intrusion of white settlers, save a
handful in the Walla Walla valley and about Colville. But year after
year they saw the long trains of emigrants pass through their country
and settle, like swarming bees, upon the fertile plains of the Wallamet.
They saw the Indians there dispossessed of their hunting grounds, and
rapidly dying off the face of the earth. The tale of every Indian
wronged or aggrieved, or who thought himself wronged or aggrieved, was
borne with startling rapidity to their ears. Thus far their intercourse
with the whites had been of immense benefit to them. The fur traders
supplied them with superior weapons, blankets, and many articles of
comfort, and had greatly improved their condition. Devoted missionaries
had labored among them for years, and with marked success. By trade with
the emigrants they were growing rich in cattle. But the actual
occupation of the soil by the settlers filled them with alarm. Amid all
these benefits, the fear was fast growing into conviction that the fate
of the Chinooks and the Wallamets was the presage of their fate, and
that the whites would sooner or later pour with increasing numbers into
their country, and appropriate it for themselves. The Flatheads, Pend
Oreilles, and Koutenays, remote from the settlements, retained their
ancient friendship for the whites. But among the other tribes the
desperate resolution was extending and deepening itself to rise and wipe
out the dreaded invaders ere it was too late. For several years the bold
and turbulent spirits among them had been enlisting the disaffected
Indians far and wide in a great combination designed to crush the
unsuspecting whites simultaneously at all points by one sudden and
mighty blow. In 1853 the wild rumors of impending outbreaks, the
forerunners of every Indian war, but which have been invariably unheeded
by the over-confident whites, were flying about the land. Yet outwardly
all was serene. The great tribes of the upper country, from whom alone
danger was to be feared, were as yet unmolested by settlers, had reaped
only benefits from the whites, and were as friendly as ever to all
appearance. Both authorities and people were lulled into a sense of
complete security, and disregarded with contempt the warnings of the few
who foresaw the danger. In truth, a similar state of affairs has
preceded nearly all our great Indian wars. They have not been caused by
petty acts of aggression, stinging whole tribes to frenzied revenge.
Indians who undergo such treatment are usually too degraded and helpless
to resist. But powerful tribes, unbroken by too long contact with the
whites, fired and led by their master spirits, have from time to time
risen in arms, and vainly striven to arrest and drive back the white
race ere it overwhelmed them, as it had overwhelmed their kindred. Many
chiefs have shown profound sagacity in foreseeing the danger menacing
their race, and the highest talents and bravery in their bloody
struggles to avert it. The Nez Perces saw the danger, but they alone
realized the hopelessness of averting it by war. The Nez Perces alone
discerned that their only safety was to "follow the white man's road,"
and that his mode of life was better than their own. Under the wise
guidance of Lawyer, they had become imbued with these convictions, by
which their traditional friendship to the whites was strengthened and
confirmed, and the time was fast approaching when their fidelity was to
save many a valuable life, and preserve the settlements from
destruction.

In the spring of 1853 General Benjamin Alvord, then a major and
commanding the military post at the Dalles, heralded among the Indians
the approach of Governor Stevens with the exploring parties, and in
reply was visited by a delegation of chiefs of the Yakimas, Cuyuses, and
Walla Wallas, who said that "they always liked to have gentlemen, Hudson
Bay Company men, or officers of the army, or engineers, pass through
their country, to whom they would extend every token of hospitality.
They did not object to persons merely hunting, or those wearing swords,
but they dreaded the approach of the whites with ploughs, axes, and
shovels in their hands." Major Alvord had largely dealt with and studied
these Indians, and moreover he had confidential sources of information
from the Catholic priests of the Yakima Mission. He became so impressed
with the danger of an outbreak that he reported the facts and rumors to
his superior, General Hitchcock, commanding the Pacific Department, by
whom they were discredited, and Major Alvord was soon afterwards
relieved from the Dalles. Events were soon to prove that the magnitude
and imminence of the danger were even greater than he apprehended. Says
General Alvord:[4]--

  "I informed Governor Stevens of these threatened Indian
  difficulties, and of the gigantic scale of their proposed
  insurrection. What should he do? Was he to remain idle and let the
  storm come? No, he set to work to provide for the inevitable. As the
  whites would come as five or six, or ten thousand would come every
  summer, he did his best to get the Indians to sell their Indian
  titles."

It was on reaching the Dalles on his overland exploration that the
governor first learned of this smouldering fire. Quick to grasp the
situation, to see the breach into which, as Governor and Superintendent
of Indian Affairs, it was his duty to throw himself, he lost no time, by
his earnest and forcible reports, and by his visit in Washington, in
obtaining the necessary authority for treating with these Indians.

Five years had elapsed since Congress, by the Donation Acts, had invited
settlers to take possession of the lands of these brave and numerous
Indians, utterly disregarding their rights, and now, when the volcano
was ready to burst forth, the effort was to be made for the first time
to treat with them, and the herculean task was devolved upon Governor
Stevens of buying their country, allaying their well-founded fears,
adjusting their jealousies and disputes with the whites and with each
other, and inducing them to relinquish their savage and nomadic mode of
life for agriculture and civilization. Many of the best informed
settlers and army officers thought that any attempt to treat with these
Indians for their lands was a useless and dangerous enterprise, and
would surely lead to collision and bloodshed.

During the spring Mr. Doty and agents A.J. Bolen and R.H. Lansdale were
visiting the powerful tribes of the upper country, and preparing them
for treating. The Walla Walla valley was chosen for the council ground
at the instance of Kam-i-ah-kan, the head chief of the Yakimas, who
said, "There is the place where in ancient times we held our councils
with the neighboring tribes, and we will hold it there now." A large
quantity of goods was taken up the Columbia to Walla Walla in
keel-boats. A party of twenty-five men was organized at the Dalles,
outfitted with a complete pack-train, mules, riding animals, and
provisions, and sent to the council ground to make ready for the
reception of the Indians, and afterwards to accompany the governor to
the Blackfoot council. The Walla Walla council, like the Blackfoot, was
conceived and planned exclusively by Governor Stevens. He alone
impressed the necessity of them upon the government, and obtained the
requisite authority. The work of collecting the Indians was done chiefly
by his agents, and it was not until he learned from Doty that the
Indians had agreed to attend, and that the council was assured, that he
invited Superintendent Palmer to take part in it as joint commissioner
with himself for such tribes as lived partly in both Territories. This
fact he caused to be entered on the joint record of the council.

Leaving the gubernatorial office in the hands of Mr. Mason, and the
Indian service, now well organized, in charge of Colonel Simmons and
other agents, Governor Stevens early in May left Olympia on his
treaty-making expedition east of the mountains, calculating to be absent
from five to six months. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Richard
Arnold, en route to San Francisco; Captain A.J. Cain, Indian agent for
the lower Columbia; R.H. Crosby; his son Hazard, whom he decided to take
as far as the Dalles and then send home; and some other gentlemen. The
little cavalcade trotted rapidly across the prairies amidst severe and
drenching showers, and after a brisk ride of thirty miles reached the
hospitable log-house of Judge Ford for supper and shelter.

It rained heavily during the night, and on continuing the journey the
next morning, and fording the Skookumchuck, where poor George Stevens
was so recently lost, and which was then barely passable, a terribly
swift, turbulent, and dangerous-looking torrent, the whole country
seemed to be under water. The prairie upon which the town of Newarkum is
built was flooded, and the horses laboriously waded across the plain in
single file, belly-deep in water. The narrow track through the timber
beyond the prairie was like a canal. Dick Arnold, who led the party, a
tall, erect, athletic, soldierly figure, suddenly sunk down into the
water with a plunge until only his head and his horse's ears were
visible. He had ridden into a deep slough, which here crossed the road,
indistinguishable in the general flood, but his steed swam and struggled
across it and climbed out on the other side, the water dripping from man
and horse, but the rider remaining firm in his seat through it all.
After some delay the rest of the party effected a crossing on foot by a
fallen tree, and drove the horses across by the road, swimming. Without
further mishap, save the toils and discomforts of muddy roads and rains,
they reached Cowlitz Landing that afternoon, descended the Cowlitz in
canoes the next day, and proceeded by steamboat to Vancouver. After a
day's stay here the governor continued his journey up the river by
steamboat to the lower Cascades, where he spent the night, crossed the
Cascades portage on horseback early the next morning, proceeded by
steamboat to the Dalles, and found hospitable quarters with Major
Granville O. Haller at the military post, where were stationed two
companies of the 4th infantry, under Major G.J. Rains. Superintendent
Palmer was found at the Dalles, awaiting the governor's arrival.

The outlook for effecting a treaty was deemed unfavorable by all.
Governor Stevens was warned by Father Ricard, of the Yakima Mission,
that the Indians were plotting to cut off the white chiefs who might
attempt to hold a council.[5] The Snake Indians had attacked and
massacred parties of emigrants recently, and Major Rains was under
orders to send a force on the emigrant road to protect them. General
Palmer and his Indian agents were reluctant to attempt to treat with the
Indians at that time. The governor relates in his diary how he induced
Major Rains to send from his small force a detachment of forty soldiers,
under Lieutenant Archibald Gracie, to the council as a guard. Mr.
Lawrence Kip, afterwards a colonel of the United States army,
accompanied Mr. Gracie on the trip, and published an interesting account
of the council:--

  "After supper, went with Major Haller to see Major Rains. It was
  about midnight, but the major got up, and we talked for two hours on
  Indian matters. I dwelt particularly on the necessity of a small
  force on the treaty ground to maintain order. He saw the necessity,
  but had no suitable force at his disposal, etc. The bearing of the
  proposed council on the Snakes was then alluded to by me, and I
  remarked that the services of a small force in checking insolence
  would be as good as two hundred men subsequently. We deemed it
  necessary to maintain our dignity and that of our government at the
  council, and we would seize any person, whether white man or Indian,
  who behaved in an improper manner. There were unquestionably a great
  many malcontents in each tribe. A few determined spirits, if not
  controlled, might embolden all not well disposed, and defeat the
  negotiations. Should this spirit be shown, they must be seized; the
  well affected would then govern in the deliberations, and I
  anticipated little or no difficulty in negotiating. I then alluded
  to my determination to call out the militia of the Territory should
  I find, on reaching the council ground, that any plan of hostilities
  was being matured, or should a feeling of hostility be manifested,
  in case a small force was not sent from the garrison.

  "So doubtful did General Palmer consider the whole matter of the
  council, that it was only the circumstance of a military force being
  dispatched which determined him to send to the treaty ground
  presents to the Indians. He stated to me that he had concluded to
  send up no goods; but, the escort having been ordered, he would send
  up his goods. At this time the Oregon officers expected little from
  the council, and evidently believed that the whole thing was
  premature and ill-advised."

Stopping at the Dalles only long enough to obtain this detachment and
outfit his own small party with riding animals, seven pack-mules, two
packers, and a cook, the governor again took the saddle, and traveling
rapidly overland two hundred miles to the Walla Walla valley in four
days, camping the first night on the Des Chutes River, the second on
John Day's River, the third on the Umatilla, reached the council ground
on May 21 towards evening, the party thoroughly drenched by the soaking
rain in which they had traveled all day.

An amusing incident occurred at the camp on John Day's River, which the
governor was fond of relating as a good joke on himself. There was no
wood to be found in that vicinity, except some drift sticks, which were
claimed by an old Indian who had pitched his lodge on the river's bank.
After many fruitless attempts to purchase some of his wood, the men took
advantage of the temporary absence of the old fellow to purloin a small
quantity of it. This was nearly all consumed, and a hot and savory
supper was smoking before our travelers, when the old Indian returned
and discovered his loss. Dismounting from his pony, he approached the
governor, and, in a tone of indignation and scorn, exclaimed, "Do you
call yourself a great chief and steal wood?" A liberal present mollified
him considerably, and after partaking of the supper, he departed in
great good humor.

The council ground was situated on the right bank of Mill Creek, a
tributary of the Walla Walla River, and about six miles above the site
of the unfortunate Whitman Mission, in the midst of a wide and fertile
valley, bounded in the distance on either hand by high, bare, rolling
hills, and extending, fan-shaped, far eastward to the Blue Mountains,
whose lofty and wooded heights bounded and overlooked the plain. The
valley was almost a perfect level, covered with the greatest profusion
of waving bunch grass and flowers, amidst which grazed numerous bands of
beautiful, sleek mustangs, and herds of long-horned Spanish cattle
belonging to the Indians, and was intersected every half mile by a
clear, rapid, sparkling stream, whose course could be easily traced in
the distance by its fringe of willows and tall cottonwoods. Now every
foot of this rich valley is under cultivation, a dozen gristmills run
their wheels by these streams, and the very treaty ground is the centre
of the thriving town of Walla Walla, with a population of six thousand
souls.

Under the energetic hands of Doty and C.P. Higgins, the packmaster,--a
position corresponding to the chief mate on shipboard, or the orderly
sergeant of a company of troops,--the camp was found pitched, and
everything in readiness for the council. A wall tent, with a large arbor
of poles and boughs in front, stood on level, open ground a short
distance from the creek, and facing the Blue Mountains, all ready for
the governor. This was also to serve as the council chamber, and ample
clear space was left for the Indians to assemble and seat themselves on
the ground in front of the arbor. A little farther in front, and nearer
the creek, were ranged the tents of the rest of the party, a stout
log-house to safely hold the supplies and Indian goods, and a large
arbor to serve as a banqueting-hall for distinguished chiefs, so that,
as in civilized lands, gastronomy might aid diplomacy. A large herd of
beef cattle and a pile of potatoes, purchased of Messrs. Lloyd Brooke,
Bumford & Noble, traders and stock-raisers, who were occupying the site
of the Whitman Mission, and ample stores of sugar, coffee, bacon, and
flour furnished the materials for the feasts.

General Palmer arrived the same day with R.R. Thompson and R.B.
Metcalfe, Indian agents for Oregon tribes, who had visited the Cuyuses
and Umatillas and small bands living wholly in Oregon, and summoned them
to attend the council. Fatigued and uncomfortable as they must have been
after the day's journey and drenching, the commissioners had a long
conference in the evening, listened to Doty's report of his visits to
the tribes and the talk and dispositions of the chiefs, and discussed
the location of reservations and other points. The following programme
was agreed upon:--

1. Governor Stevens to preside at the council.

2. Each superintendent to be sole commissioner for the Indians within
his jurisdiction.

3. Both to act jointly for tribes common to both Territories, each to
appoint an agent and commissary for them, and goods and provisions to be
distributed to them in proportion to the number under the respective
jurisdictions.

4. To keep separate records, to be carefully compared and certified
jointly as far as related to tribes common to both Territories.

5. To keep a public table for the chiefs.

The following officers were appointed for the joint treaties, in each
case the first named for Washington, the second for Oregon: Governor
Isaac I. Stevens and Superintendent Joel Palmer, commissioners; James
Doty and William C. McKay, secretaries; R.H. Crosby and N. Olney,
commissaries; R. H. Lansdale and R.R. Thompson, agents; William Craig,
N. Raymond, Matthew Danpher, and John Flette, interpreters.

The governor also appointed as interpreters A.D. Pambrun, John Whitford,
James Coxie, and Patrick McKensie.

Lieutenant Gracie, with his little detachment, arrived on the 23d. A
tent, furnished by the governor, was pitched for the officer and his
guest, Mr. Kip, while the soldiers built huts of boughs, and spread over
them canvas pack-covers. The two gentlemen dined with the governor under
the arbor near his tent, "off a table constructed from split pine logs,
smoothed off, but not very smooth," says Mr. Kip.

The scanty treating party of whites were now all assembled, and awaited
the arrival of the Indians with interest, not unmixed with apprehension;
for it seemed a bold and perilous step to meet so many brave and warlike
Indians, many of whom were known to be disaffected and ready to provoke
an outbreak, in the heart of the Indian country, two hundred miles from
the nearest settlement or military post, with such a mere handful. They
numbered barely a hundred men,--the governor's party of thirty-five,
twelve with General Palmer, the military guard of forty-seven, two
Catholic missionaries, and a few settlers.

The second day after reaching the valley Governor Stevens, learning that
General Wool had just arrived at Vancouver, wrote him a letter urging
the importance of occupying the Walla Walla valley with a strong
military force, preferably of cavalry, pointing out the central location
of the point, and its strategic advantages for protecting the emigrant
road, the trails to the Missouri on the east, the Puget Sound on the
west, and for controlling the disaffected Indians, particularly the
Cuyuses and Snakes. This, like other sound and indeed necessary measures
recommended by the governor, was ignored by the self-sufficient Wool and
his officers, until they were obliged to adopt them from necessity.

FOOTNOTES:

  [2] Numbers and names of all these tribes as given in tabular
      statement or census, in Governor Stevens's map and report of April
      30, 1857, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, now on file in
      Indian Bureau. See Appendix.

  [3] Pisquouse or Wenatchee, 600; Yakimas, 700; Ps-hawn-appan, 500;
      Columbia River bands, 1000; Palouses, 600; Klikitats, 500.

  [4] Letter to author; Report of J. Ross Browne, H. Doc., p. 38, 1st
      session, 35th Congress; Swan's Three Years, Washington Territory,
      pp. 324-425; Speech of Governor Stevens, 1st session, 35th
      Congress, Congressional Globe, vol. 37, pp. 490-494.

  [5] Speech of Governor Stevens, 1st session, 35th Congress,
      Congressional Globe, vol. 37, p. 490.




                              CHAPTER XXIX

                        THE WALLA WALLA COUNCIL


The Nez Perces, the first to arrive, came the next day, May 24, 2500
strong. Hearing of their approach, the commissioners drew up their
little party on a knoll commanding a fine view of the unbroken level of
the valley. The standard of the Nez Perces, the large American flag
given them by the officers engaged in the Cuyuse war, was sent forward
and planted on the knoll. Soon their cavalcade came in sight, a thousand
warriors mounted on fine horses and riding at a gallop, two abreast,
naked to the breech-clout, their faces covered with white, red, and
yellow paint in fanciful designs, and decked with plumes and feathers
and trinkets fluttering in the sunshine. The ponies were even more
gaudily arrayed, many of them selected for their singular color and
markings, and many painted in vivid colors contrasting with their
natural skins,--crimson slashed in broad stripes across white, yellow or
white against black or bay; and with their free and wild action, the
thin buffalo line tied around the lower jaw,--the only bridle, almost
invisible,--the naked riders, seated as though grown to their backs,
presented the very picture of the fabled centaurs. Halting and forming a
long line across the prairie, they again advanced at a gallop still
nearer, then halted, while the head chief, Lawyer, and two other chiefs
rode slowly forward to the knoll, dismounted and shook hands with the
commissioners, and then took post in rear of them. The other chiefs,
twenty-five in number, then rode forward, and went through the same
ceremony. Then came charging on at full gallop in single file the
cavalcade of braves, breaking successively from one flank of the line,
firing their guns, brandishing their shields, beating their drums, and
yelling their war-whoops, and dashed in a wide circle around the little
party on the knoll, now charging up as though to overwhelm it, now
wheeling back, redoubling their wild action and fierce yells in frenzied
excitement. At length they also dismounted, and took their stations in
rear of the chiefs. Then a number of young braves, forming a ring, while
others beat their drums, entertained the commissioners with their
dances, after which the Indians remounted and filed off to the place
designated for their camp. This was on a small stream, flowing parallel
to Mill Creek, on the same side with and over half a mile from the
council camp. The chiefs accompanied the governor to his tent and arbor,
smoked the pipe of peace, and had an informal talk.

  [Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEZ PERCES]

Hal-hal-tlos-sot or the Lawyer, the head chief of the Nez Perces, was an
Indian Solon in his efforts to improve the condition of his people.
Without any advantages of birth or wealth, he made himself the first in
his tribe, while yet in middle life, by his unrivaled wisdom and force
of character. His first acts were directed against gambling, which was
indulged in to great excess, and against polygamy. Finding, however,
that his influence as head chief was insufficient to carry out his plans
for the improvement of his people, he reorganized the government of the
tribe, appointed an additional number of chiefs from the young men, and,
having thus increased and strengthened his influence, was enabled to
accomplish his reforms. He early perceived that the growing power of the
whites, which threatened to swallow up all before it, could not be
resisted by force, and in consequence all his efforts were directed to
inducing the Indians to adopt the customs and civilization of the
whites, and to preserving the unbroken friendship between the two races.
From the effects of the wound received at the battle of Pierre's Hole he
was still suffering, and his right arm had been twice broken in a fight
with a grizzly bear. Wise, enlightened, and magnanimous, the head chief,
yet one of the poorest of his tribe, he stood head and shoulders above
the other chiefs, whether in intellect, nobility of soul, or influence.

Provisions were issued to the Nez Perces, and some petty tribes which
had come in, at the rate of one and a half pounds of beef, two pounds of
potatoes, and one half a pound of corn to each person.

The Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas next arrived, and went into
camp without any parade or salutations on a stream on the other side of
Mill Creek, and over a mile distant from the camp of the whites, from
which the intervening fringes of trees completely hid them. The head
chief of the Walla Wallas and Umatillas was Pu-pu-mox-mox or the Yellow
Serpent, who held despotic sway over his own people, and great influence
with neighboring tribes. He owned thousands of horses and cattle, and
had amassed a large sum in specie, from trade with settlers and
emigrants. Some years before one of his sons, a youth of promise, was
murdered by a miner in California, and although he had always been on
friendly terms with the whites, not even allowing his people to take
part in the Cuyuse war, it was believed that the outrage rankled in his
heart. He was well advanced in years, and somewhat childish and
capricious in small things, but his form was as erect, his mind as firm,
and his authority as unimpaired as ever.

  [Illustration: FEASTING THE CHIEFS]

The day after their arrival many of the Nez Perce chiefs came to see the
commissioners, and after much friendly conversation were invited to
dine. Governor Stevens and General Palmer presided at opposite ends
of the long table, at which were seated some thirty chiefs, and, having
heard of the enormous appetites of the Indians, piled the tin plates, as
they were presented, to the brim. Again and again were the plates passed
up for a fresh supply; the chiefs feasted and gorged like famished
wolves; and the arms of the hosts became so wearied from carving and
dispensing the food that they were glad to resign the posts of honor to
a couple of stalwart packers. The table for the chiefs was kept up
during the council, and every day was well attended, but it was not
again graced by the presence of the commissioners.

During the morning an express was received from the Yellow Serpent. He
sent word that the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Yakimas would accept no
provisions from the commissioners, but would bring their own, and
proposed that the Young Chief, Lawyer, Kam-i-ah-kan, and himself, the
head chiefs of the Cuyuses, Nez Perces, Yakimas, and Walla Wallas
respectively, should do all the talking for the Indians at the council.
The messenger would accept no tobacco for the chief, a very unfriendly
sign, and muttered as he rode off, loud enough to be overheard by the
interpreter, "You will find out by and by why we won't take provisions."

Every effort was made by the other Indians to induce the Nez Perces to
refuse provisions, but without avail. The latter took great pride in
their unwavering friendship to the whites, and were fond of contrasting
their course with that of the Cuyuses. Considerable jealousy sprung up
between them in consequence.

Two of the priests, Fathers Chirouse, of the Walla Walla, and Pandosy,
of the Yakima Mission, arrived for the purpose of attending the council.
They reported that these Indians were generally well disposed towards
the whites, with the exception of Kam-i-ah-kan. The latter said,
referring to the proposed council: "If the governor speaks hard, I will
speak hard, too." Other Indians had said, "Kam-i-ah-kan will come with
his young men with powder and ball." They were opposed to selling their
lands; and when Secretary Doty visited and invited them to attend the
council, Kam-i-ah-kan refused the presents offered him, saying that he
"had never accepted anything from the whites, not even to the value of a
grain of wheat, without paying for it, and that he did not wish to
purchase the presents." He was a man of fine presence and bearing, over
six feet in height, well built and athletic. Governor Stevens said of
him: "He is a peculiar man, reminding me of the panther and the grizzly
bear. His countenance has an extraordinary play, one moment in frowns,
the next in smiles, flashing with light and black as Erebus the same
instant. His pantomime is great, and his gesticulation much and
characteristic. He talks mostly in his face, and with his hands and
arms."

Reports were flying about that these tribes had combined to resist a
treaty, and fears were expressed that an attempt to open the council
would be the signal for an outbreak.

The following day a body of four hundred mounted Indians, supposed to be
Cuyuses and Walla Wallas, were observed approaching, armed and in full
gala dress, and uttering their war-whoops like so many demons, and,
after riding three times around the Nez Perce camp, they departed. Soon
after the Young Chief, accompanied by his principal chiefs, rode into
camp, and, being invited to dismount, did so with evident reluctance,
and shook hands in a very cold manner. They refused to smoke, and
remained but a short time. "The haughty carriage of these chiefs,"
remarks Governor Stevens in his journal, "and their manly character
have, for the first time in my Indian experience, realized the
descriptions of the writers of fiction."

  [Illustration: KAM-I-AH-KAN
                 _Head Chief of the Yakimas_]

Garry, the head chief of the Spokanes, came, not to take part in the
council, but as a spectator. When a boy he had been sent to the Red
River settlements in Manitoba by Sir George Simpson, then governor of
the Hudson Bay Company, where he acquired a common-school, English
education. It being impracticable to assemble so distant and widely
scattered a tribe as the Spokanes in time for this council, Governor
Stevens designed making a separate treaty with them later in the season
on his return from the Missouri.

Father Menetrey, from the Catholic mission among the Pend Oreilles, also
arrived to attend the council,--a cultivated man, who spoke English
fluently.

A messenger sent to invite the Palouses returned accompanied by only one
of the chiefs, who reported that his people were indifferent to the
matter, and would not come. A number of scattered and insignificant
bands, who lived at different points on the Columbia, also arrived.

The following is from Governor Stevens's journal:--

  May 27, Sunday. There was service in the Nez Perce camp and in the
  Nez Perce language, Timothy being the preacher. The commissioners
  attended. The sermon was on the Ten Commandments. Timothy has a
  natural and graceful delivery, and his words were repeated by a
  prompter. The Nez Perces have evidently profited much from the labor
  of Mr. Spalding, who was with them ten years, and their whole
  deportment throughout the service was devout.

The next day agent Bolon, with an interpreter, was sent to meet the
Yakimas, who were thought to be near at hand. He soon returned, having
met Kam-i-ah-kan and also the Yellow Serpent. The latter said to Mr.
Bolon that he was very sorry to hear that the chiefs and others in the
commissioners' camp had said that he was unfriendly to the whites,--that
his heart was with the Cuyuses, whose hearts were bad. He had always
been friendly to the whites, and was so now, and he would go to-day to
see the commissioners, and ask why such things had been said of him.
Accordingly, soon after Bolon's return, Pu-pu-mox-mox, Kam-i-ah-kan,
Ow-hi, and Skloom, the two latter being chiefs of the Yakimas,
accompanied by a number of their braves, rode into camp. Dismounting,
they shook hands in the most friendly manner, and seating themselves
under the arbor indulged in a smoke, using their own tobacco
exclusively, although other was offered them.

Governor Stevens addressed them, saying that he had important business
to lay before them, and proposed to open the council the next day at
noon. The Yellow Serpent replied that he wanted more than one
interpreter at the council, that they might know they translated truly.
Being assured on this point, and invited to designate an interpreter in
whom he had confidence, he said, in a scornful manner, "I do not wish my
boys running around the camp of the whites like these young men,"
alluding to some young Nez Perces present and feeling quite at home. He
added that he had only ridden over to-day to see the commissioners, and
soon withdrew with his party.

In the morning the commissioners and Secretary Doty visited the Lawyer
at his lodge, as, his wound having broken out afresh, he was unable to
walk without great pain and difficulty. He exhibited and explained a map
of his country, which he had drawn at Governor Stevens's request. During
the conference several chiefs came in, and suddenly one of them,
U-u-san-male-e-can or Spotted Eagle, said:--

  [Illustration: SPOTTED EAGLE
                 _A Chief of the Nez Perces_]

  "The Cuyuses want us to go to their camp and hold a council with
  them and Pu-pu-mox-mox. What are their hearts to us? Did we propose
  to hold a council with them, or ask them for advice? Our hearts are
  Nez Perce hearts, and we know them. We came here to hold a great
  council with the great chiefs of the Americans, and we know the
  straightforward path to pursue, and are alone responsible for our
  actions. Three Cuyuses came last night and spoke to me and two other
  chiefs, urging us to come to a council at the Cuyuse camp to meet
  Pu-pu-mox-mox and Kam-i-ah-kan. We did not wish to go. They
  insisted. Then I said to them, 'You had best say no more. My mind is
  made up. Why do you come here and ask three chiefs to come to a
  council, while to the head chief and the rest you say nothing? Have
  we not told your messenger yesterday that our hearts are not Cuyuse
  hearts? Go home! Our chiefs will not go. We have our own people to
  take care of; they give us trouble enough, and we will not have the
  Cuyuse troubles on our hands.'"

The Lawyer then opened a book containing in their own language the
advice left them by their former head chief, Ellis, and read as
follows:--

  "Whenever the great chief of the Americans shall come into your
  country to give you laws, accept them. A Walla Walla heart is a
  Walla Walla, a Cuyuse heart is a Cuyuse, so is a Yakima heart a
  Yakima, but a Nez Perce heart is a Nez Perce heart. While the Nez
  Perces are going straight, why should they turn aside to follow
  others? Ellis's advice is to accept the white law. I have read it to
  you to show my heart."

The speech of U-u-san-male-e-can afforded new evidence that the Cuyuses
were plotting underhand, although but little could be learned as to the
nature of their designs.

At two P.M., on May 29, 1855, the council was formally opened by
Governor Stevens. Under the roomy arbor in front of the tent were seated
the commissioners, secretaries who kept the records, interpreters, and
Indian agents, while the Indians were seated on the ground in front in
semicircular rows forty deep, one behind another. Timothy, the chief and
preacher, concerning whom Governor Stevens said, "He and others are very
devout, and seem to form a theocracy in the tribe, and, like the old New
England fathers, to require every one to worship God in some visible
way,"--this Timothy, assisted by several of the young men, who were very
tolerable penmen, kept the records of the council for the Nez Perces.
They were accommodated with a table under the arbor, where everything
could be seen and heard. Some two thousand Indians were present, fully
half of whom were Nez Perces. The pipe having been smoked with due
solemnity, two interpreters were appointed and sworn for each tribe,
some preliminary remarks were made, and the council was adjourned until
ten o'clock the next morning. Before adjourning Governor Stevens renewed
the offer of provisions to the recusant Indians, proposing that each
tribe should take two oxen to its own camp and slaughter for themselves.

  Young Chief: "We have plenty of cattle. They are close to our camp.
  We have already killed three, and have plenty of provisions."

  General Palmer to the interpreter: "Say to the Yakimas, 'You have
  come a long way. You may not have provisions. If you want any, we
  have them, and you are welcome.'"

  Young Chief: "Kam-i-ah-kan is supplied at our camp."

The Yellow Serpent and Kam-i-ah-kan dined with the commissioners, and
remained in their tent for a long time, smoking in a friendly manner,
but the Young Chief declined the invitation to dine.

  [Illustration: WALLA WALLA COUNCIL]

The two following days Governor Stevens explained the proposed treaties
at length, item by item. There were to be two reservations,--one in the
Nez Perce country of three million acres, on the north side of Snake
River, embracing both the Kooskooskia and Salmon rivers, including a
large extent of good arable land, with fine fisheries, root grounds,
timber and mill-sites, and was for the accommodation of the Cuyuses,
Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and Spokanes, as well as the Nez Perces. The
other embraced a large and fertile tract on the upper waters of the
Yakima, and was for the Yakimas, Klikitats, Palouses, and kindred bands.
The reservations were to belong to the Indians, and no white man should
come upon them without their consent. An agent, with school-teachers,
mechanics, and farmers, would take charge of each reservation, and
instruct them in agriculture, trades, etc.; grist and saw mills were to
be built; the head chiefs were to receive an annuity of five hundred
dollars each, in order that they might devote their whole time to their
people; and annuities in clothing, tools, and useful articles were to be
given for twenty years, after which they were to be self-supporting. At
first the reservations were to be used in common, but provision was made
for the survey and subdivision of the land, and its allotment to the
Indians in severalty as soon as they should be prepared to receive and
utilize it. As it was evidently impracticable to make so radical a
change in their habits suddenly, the Indians were to have the privilege
of hunting, root-gathering, and pasturing stock on vacant land until
appropriated by settlers, and the right of fishing. The advantages of
the reservations were dwelt upon. They embraced some of the best land in
the country, and were large enough to afford each family a farm to
itself, besides grazing for all their stock; they contained good
fisheries, abundance of roots and berries, and considerable game. They
were near enough to the great roads for trade with the emigrants, yet
far enough from them to be undisturbed by travelers. By having so many
tribes on the same reservation, the agent could better look after them,
and could accomplish more with the means at his disposal. The staple
argument held out was the superior advantages of civilization, and the
absolute necessity of their adopting the habits and mode of life of the
white man in order to escape extinction. Governor Stevens also exhorted
them to treat, for the sake of the example upon their inveterate
enemies, the Blackfeet, that thereby they would prove themselves firm
friends of the whites, and that he would then take delegations from each
tribe with his party and proceed to the Blackfoot country, and make a
lasting treaty of peace, so that they could ever after hunt the buffalo
in safety, and trade horses with the Indians east of the Rocky
Mountains. The Indians listened gravely and in silence, as these matters
were slowly unfolded to them, sentence by sentence through the
interpreters, for five or six hours each day, and upon the adjournment
of the council, quietly dispersed to their lodges. The third day the
Young Chief for the first time dined at Governor Stevens's table with
the other head chiefs, and General Palmer and the gentlemen of the
party; and in the evening he sent word that his young men were tired of
such close confinement as they had undergone at the council, and desired
to have a feast and holiday to-morrow, and he requested that no council
be held until the day after (Saturday). The commissioners cheerfully
acceded to his request, well pleased at these signs of mollifying the
opposition of the haughty savage.

There were now assembled on the ground between five and six thousand
Indians. Says Colonel Kip: "About five thousand Indians, including
squaws and children. Their encampment and lodges are scattered over the
valley for more than a mile, presenting a wild and fantastic
appearance."

Every afternoon, after the council adjourned for the day, horse-races
and foot-races were held at the Nez Perce camp, attended by the sporting
bloods of the other tribes, and witnessed by many of the whites. The
usual course was a long one,--some two miles out and back, making four
miles. Oftentimes thirty horses would start together in a grand
sweepstakes; the riders and betters would throw into one common pile the
articles put up as stakes,--blankets, leggings, horse equipments, and
whatever was bet, and the winner would take the whole pile. The
foot-races were equally long, and the runners would be escorted in their
course by a crowd of mounted Indians, galloping behind and beside them
so closely that the exhausted ones could hardly stop without being run
down. The riders and runners were invariably stripped to the
breech-cloth, and presented many fine, manly forms, perfect Apollos in
bronze.

Everything was very quiet about the council ground the day begged for a
holiday by the Young Chief, the Indians remaining at their own camps.
But the next day, Saturday, June 2, they reassembled as usual; and after
several hours had been spent in further explaining the provisions of the
treaties, Governor Stevens called them to speak freely, saying, "We want
you to open your hearts to us," etc.

Hitherto the Indians had listened in grave silence, but now the
opponents of the treaties took the lead in the discussion. The Yellow
Serpent, in a speech marked by strength and sarcasm, uttered the
prevailing reluctance to part with their lands, and their dread and
distrust of the whites:--

  "We have listened to all you have to say, and we desire you to
  listen when any Indian speaks. It appears that Craig knows the heart
  of his people; that the whole has been prearranged in the hearts of
  the Indians; that he wants an answer immediately, without giving
  them time to think; that the Indians have had nothing to say, so
  that it would appear that we have no chief. I know the value of your
  speech from having experienced the same in California, having seen
  treaties there. We have not seen in a true light the object of your
  speeches, as if there was a post set between us, as if my heart wept
  for what you have said. Look at yourselves: your flesh is white;
  mine is different, mine looks poor; our languages are different. If
  you would speak straight, then I would think that you spoke well.

  "Should I speak to you of things that happened long ago, as you have
  done? The whites made me do what they pleased. They told me to do
  this, and I did it. They used to make our women to smoke. I supposed
  then they did what was right. When they told me to dance with all
  these nations that are here, then I danced. From that time, all the
  Indians became proud and called themselves chiefs.

  "Now, how are we here as at a post? From what you have said, I think
  that you intend to win our country, or how is it to be? In one day
  the Americans become as numerous as the grass. This I learned in
  California. I know it is not right; you have spoken in a roundabout
  way. Speak straight. I have ears to hear you, and here is my heart.
  Suppose you show me goods, shall I run up and take them? That is the
  way with all us Indians as you know us. Goods and the earth are not
  equal. Goods are for using on the earth. I do not know where they
  have given lands for goods.

  "We require time to think quietly, slowly. You have spoken in a
  manner partly tending to evil. Speak plain to us. I am a poor
  Indian. Show me charity. If there was a chief among the Nez Perces
  or Cuyuses, if they saw evil done they would put a stop to it, and
  all would be quiet. Such chiefs I hope Governor Stevens and General
  Palmer have. I should feel very much ashamed if the Americans did
  anything wrong. I had but a little to say, that is all. I do not
  wish a reply to-day. Think over what I have said."

After a stinging rebuke administered by Camospelo, a Cuyuse chief, to
some of his young men who had behaved in a surly manner, talking and
walking about during the proceedings, the council was adjourned until
Monday.

  [Illustration: PU-PU-MOX-MOX: YELLOW SERPENT
                 _Head Chief of the Walla Wallas_]

This speech of the Yellow Serpent is marked in every sentence by his
bitter distrust of the whites. He intimates, almost asserts, that the
commissioners are trying to deceive and overreach the Indians, and with
biting irony declares that he would feel very much ashamed if the
Americans did anything wrong.

Late that evening the Lawyer came unattended to see Governor Stevens. He
disclosed a conspiracy on the part of the Cuyuses to suddenly rise upon
and massacre all the whites on the council ground,--that this measure,
deliberated in nightly conferences for some time, had at length been
determined upon in full council of the tribe the day before, which the
Young Chief had requested for a holiday; they were now only awaiting the
assent of the Yakimas and Walla Wallas to strike the blow; and that
these latter had actually joined, or were on the point of joining, the
Cuyuses in a war of extermination against the whites, for which the
massacre of the governor and his party was to be the signal. They had
conducted these plottings with the greatest secrecy, not trusting the
Nez Perces; and the Lawyer, suspecting that all was not right, had
discovered the plot by means of a spy with the greatest difficulty, and
only just in time to avert the catastrophe.

The Lawyer concluded by saying: "I will come with my family and pitch my
lodge in the midst of your camp, that those Cuyuses may see that you and
your party are under the protection of the head chief of the Nez
Perces." He did so immediately, although it was now after midnight, and,
without awakening the suspicions of any one, he caused it to be reported
among the other Indians that the commissioners were under the protection
of the Nez Perces.

Governor Stevens on his part imparted his knowledge of the conspiracy to
Secretary Doty and Packmaster Higgins, and to them alone, for he feared
that, should the party generally learn of it, a stampede would ensue.
Having through these efficient officers quietly caused the men to put
their arms in readiness, and posting night guards, he determined to
continue the council as usual, hoping that the Cuyuses, foiled in their
design, would finally conclude to treat.

On Monday the governor opened the council by inviting the Indians to
speak their minds freely, and, no one responding, finally called on the
Lawyer. He expressed himself in terms favorable to the treaty, and was
followed by several of his chiefs in a similar strain. Kam-i-ah-kan, on
the other hand, avowed his distrust of the whites, and alluded in a
contemptuous manner to the speeches of the Lawyer and the others:--

  "I have something different to say from what the others have said.
  They are young men who have spoken as they have spoken. I have been
  afraid of the white man. His doings are different from ours. Perhaps
  you have spoken straight that your children will do what is right.
  Let them do as they have promised."

The Yellow Serpent said with bitter irony, "I do not wish to speak. I
leave it to the old men."

Steachus, the only chief of the Cuyuses reported to be well disposed,
commended the speech of the Lawyer, and exhorted all present to speak
their minds freely.

But the most impressive speech by far was that of
Tip-pee-il-lan-oh-cow-pook, the Eagle-from-the-Light, a pathetic and
touching speech:--

  "You are now come to join together the white man and the red man.
  And why should I hide anything? I am going now to tell you a tale. I
  like the President's talk. I am glad of it when I hear it here, and
  for that reason I am going to tell you a tale.

  "The time the whites first passed through this country, although
  the people of this country were blind, it was their heart to be
  friendly to them. Although they did not know what the white people
  said to them, they answered Yes, as if they were blind. They
  traveled about with the white people as if they had been lost.

  "I have been talked to by the French [Hudson Bay Company men] and by
  the Americans, and one says to me go this way, and the other says go
  another way, and that is the reason I am lost between them.

  "A long time ago they hung my brother for no offense, and this I say
  to my brother here, that he may think of it. Afterwards came
  Spalding and Whitman. They advised us well, and taught us
  well,--very well. It was from the same source,--the light [the
  east]. They had pity on us, and we were pitied, and Spalding sent my
  father to the east,--the States,--and he went. His body has never
  returned. He was sent to learn good counsel, and friendship and many
  things. This is another thing to think of. At the time, in this
  place here, when there was blood spilled on the ground, we were
  friends to the whites and they to us. At that time they found it out
  that we were friends to them. My chief, my own chief, said, 'I will
  try to settle all the bad matters with the whites,' and he started
  to look for counsel to straighten up matters, and there his body
  lies beyond here. He has never returned.

  "At the time the Indians held a grand council at Fort Laramie, I was
  with the Flatheads, and I heard there would be a grand council this
  side next year. We were asked to go and find counsel, friendship,
  and good advice. Many of my people started, and died in the
  country,--died hunting what was right. There were a good many
  started; on Green River the smallpox killed all but one. They were
  going to find good counsel in the east, and here am I looking still
  for counsel, and to be taught what is best to be done.

  "And now look at my people's bodies scattered everywhere, hunting
  for knowledge,--hunting for some one to teach them to go straight.
  And now I show it to you, and I want you to think of it. I am of a
  poor people. A preacher came to us, Mr. Spalding. He talked to us to
  learn, and from that he turned to be a trader, as though there were
  two in one, one a preacher and the other a trader. He made a farm
  and raised grain and bought our stock, as though there were two in
  one, one a preacher, the other a trader. And now one from the east
  has spoken, and I have heard it, and I do not wish another preacher
  to come, and be both trader and preacher in one. A piece of ground
  for a preacher big enough for his own use is all that is necessary
  for him.

  "Look at that; it is the tale I had to tell you, and now I am going
  to hunt friendship and good advice. We will come straight
  here,--slowly perhaps, but we will come straight."

The next two days Governor Stevens continued, explaining the treaties
still further. A large map was brought forth, and the boundaries of the
reservations accurately marked out and shown. The Indians took great
interest in this map, asking many questions about the mountains and
streams they saw represented upon it, and in some instances adding
streams which were not laid down.

Superintendent Palmer spoke for some time, going over the same ground as
Governor Stevens. After he had concluded, Steachus, the friendly Cuyuse,
arose and said:--

  "My friends, I wish to show you my heart. If your mother were in
  this country, gave you birth and suckled you, and, while you were
  suckling, some person came and took away your mother and left you
  alone and sold your mother, how would you feel then? This is our
  mother,--this country,--as if we drew our living from her. My
  friends, all of this you have taken. Had I two rivers, I would leave
  the one, and be content to live on the other. I name the place for
  myself, the Grande Ronde, the Touchet towards the mountains, and the
  Tucañon."

Thus even Steachus, the most friendly of the Cuyuses, was the first to
express his dissatisfaction with a treaty which left him none of his own
country, and to request a reservation within its borders. The Indians
were slow to speak; they required time to make up their minds, and the
council was therefore adjourned.

  [Illustration: WE-AH-TE-NA-TEE-MA-NY: YOUNG CHIEF
                 _Head Chief of the Cuyuses_]

About midnight the governor and his little son were awakened by Lawyer,
who shook the tent and said, in a low, soft voice, without a trace of
hurry or excitement, "Water come now." On springing out of bed, they
splashed knee-deep in water flooding the tent, and were forced to make a
hasty flight to higher ground. The creek had risen suddenly without
warning, probably from a waterspout or heavy rains in the mountains. The
following day it subsided again as rapidly as it rose.

When the council met the next day, Lawyer spoke first, and expressed the
assent of himself and his people to the treaty. A great part of his
speech was addressed to the Indians. He traced the increase of the
whites from the discovery of the New World by Columbus; alluded in a
touching manner to the way in which the Indians had passed and were
passing away; and urged his auditors, as their only refuge, to place
themselves under the protection of the Great Father in Washington.

When Lawyer concluded, the Young Chief, the haughty Cuyuse, was the
first to break the silence:--

  "He would not sell his country. He heard what the earth said. The
  earth said, 'God has placed me here to take care of the Indian, to
  produce roots for him, and grass for his horses and cattle.' The
  water spoke the same way. God has forbidden the Indian to sell his
  country except for a fair price, and he did not understand the
  treaty."

Five Crows, the Yellow Serpent, Ow-hi, and several other chiefs followed
in similar strain. The Yellow Serpent proposed that another council
should be held at some future time. He insisted that the whites should
not be allowed to come into his country to settle. He complained that
the Indians were treated like children, were not consulted in drawing up
the terms of the treaties, etc.

Kam-i-ah-kan refused to speak, although several times urged to do so.
His invariable reply was, "I have nothing to say."

The commissioners replied, explaining those parts of the treaties which
the Indians did not understand, and answering their objections. The
discussion on the part of the Indians was captious, stormy, and
unsatisfactory. Governor Stevens in pointed words, well calculated to
touch their pride, urged the recusant and evasive chiefs to speak
plainly:--

  "My brother and myself have talked straight. Have all of you talked
  straight? Lawyer has, and his people here, and their business will
  be done to-morrow.

  "The Young Chief says he is blind, and does not understand. What is
  it that he wants? Steachus says that his heart is in one of three
  places, the Grande Ronde, the Touchet, and the Tucañon. Where is the
  heart of Young Chief?

  "Pu-pu-mox-mox (the Yellow Serpent) cannot be wafted off like a
  feather. Does he prefer the Yakima reservation to that of the Nez
  Perces? We have asked him before. We ask him now. Where is his
  heart?

  "And Kam-i-ah-kan, the great chief of the Yakimas, he has not spoken
  at all. His people have had no voice here to-day. He is not ashamed
  to speak. He is not afraid to speak. Then speak out!

  "But Ow-hi is afraid lest God be angry at his selling his land.
  Ow-hi, my brother, I do not think that God will be angry if you do
  your best for yourself and your children. Ask yourself this question
  to-night: 'Will not God be angry with me if I neglect this
  opportunity to do them good?' Ow-hi says his people are not here.
  Why did he promise to come here, then, to hear our talk? I do not
  want to be ashamed of Ow-hi. We expect him to speak straight out. We
  expect to hear from Kam-i-ah-kan, from Skloom."

  [Illustration: SHE-CA-YAH: FIVE CROWS
                 _Cuyuse Chief_]

At length Five Crows proposed an adjournment. "Listen to me, you chiefs.
We have been as one people with the Nez Perces hitherto. This day we are
divided. We, the Cuyuses, the Walla Wallas, and Kam-i-ah-kan's people
and others will think over the matter to-night, and give you an answer
to-morrow."

The feature of the treaties which met with the greatest opposition was
the provision that the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas should
relinquish the whole of their own lands, and remove to a reservation in
the Nez Perce country. The commissioners therefore decided to establish
a separate reservation for these three tribes on the headwaters of the
Umatilla, at the base of the Blue Mountains. Conferences were had with
the recusant chiefs separately, the proposition of a reservation in
their own country was broached, and the whole ground of the treaties
again gone over and fully discussed. Steachus expressed himself as
highly pleased with the new arrangement, and, although the others gave
less encouragement, the commissioners were hopeful that a successful
result would soon be reached.

The change of reservations was brought forward in council the next day.
The annuities of five hundred dollars for ten years to each of the head
chiefs were extended to twenty years. The Yellow Serpent was given the
privilege of establishing a trading-post for trade with the settlers and
emigrants, and an annuity of one hundred dollars a year for twenty years
was given his son. Young Chief and Yellow Serpent were the principal
speakers, and in lengthy and rambling speeches gave their assent to the
treaties. The latter, on declaring his acceptance, exclaimed, "Now you
may send me provisions!" Kam-i-ah-kan was sullen, and refused his
assent.

Some commotion was now observed among the Indians, and suddenly a small
party of warriors were seen approaching, painted and armed, singing a
war-song, and flourishing on the top of a pole a freshly taken scalp. It
proved to be a party of Nez Perces, headed by Looking Glass, the war
chief, just from the Blackfoot country, where they had been for three
years hunting the buffalo. Looking Glass was old, irascible, and
treacherous, yet second only to Lawyer in influence. While hunting the
buffalo he had several fights with the Blackfeet. At one time seventy of
his horses were stolen by them; but the vigorous old chief hotly pursued
the depredators, killed two, put the rest to flight, and recovered his
horses. He had reached the Bitter Root valley on his return home, when
he heard that the Nez Perces were at a great council, and concluding a
treaty without his presence. Leaving his party to follow more slowly, he
pushed on with a few chosen braves, crossed the Bitter Root Mountains,
where for some distance the snow was shoulder-deep on their horses, and,
having ridden three hundred miles in seven days at the age of seventy,
reached the council ground while Governor Stevens was urging
Kam-i-ah-kan to give his assent to the treaty, for the governor, hearing
the arrival of Looking Glass announced, seized the occasion to call upon
the Yakima chief to sign the treaty in the name of Looking Glass, there
being great friendship between these two. Scarcely had he concluded when
Looking Glass, surrounded by his knot of warriors with the scalps
tossing above them, rode up, excited and agitated, received his friends
coldly, and finally broke forth into a most angry philippic against his
tribe and the treaty:--

  "My people, what have you done? While I was gone, you have sold my
  country. I have come home, and there is not left me a place on which
  to pitch my lodge. Go home to your lodges. I will talk to you."

  [Illustration: LOOKING GLASS
                 _War Chief of the Nez Perces_]

The council was immediately adjourned. Governor Stevens consulted
Lawyer, who was of opinion that Looking Glass would calm down in a day
or two and accept the treaty. He said, however, that the latter's
return would make it impossible to reduce the Nez Perce reservation,
which, originally intended for the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas,
in addition to the Nez Perces, was larger than they alone required, and
it was determined to make it a general reservation for other tribes, not
exceeding in numbers those for whom it was at first designed.

In the evening Governor Stevens assembled the Yakima chiefs in his tent,
and discussed the treaties with them until one o'clock in the morning.
Kam-i-ah-kan was not present, but Skloom acted as the principal
spokesman. The governor remarks in his journal, "Skloom was desirous
that his land should first be surveyed."

The council of the following day, however, soon made it evident that
Looking Glass had not yet calmed down. He declared himself the head
chief of the tribes present; that the boys had spoken yesterday, but
that he would speak to-day. He made many inquiries, raised many
objections, and finally marked another line for the reservation,
including nearly the whole of the Nez Perce territory. The Cuyuses
seized the occasion to retract their assent to their treaty, and the
Young Chief strenuously supported Looking Glass in his objections, and
omitted no opportunity to assert his supremacy as head chief of the Nez
Perces. At length Lawyer abruptly left the council in the midst of one
of Looking Glass's philippics, and retired to his lodge. Governor
Stevens refused to submit to the demands of the angry and grasping old
chief, and adjourned the council until the following Monday.

After the adjournment the Yellow Serpent and Kam-i-ah-kan, who had at
length yielded to the advice of the other chiefs, with all the chiefs
and prominent men of the two tribes, came forward and signed their
respective treaties. The former had remarked in the morning that his
word was pledged, and that he should sign the treaty no matter what
Looking Glass and the Nez Perces did. It was thought that his example
had great weight with Kam-i-ah-kan.

Late in the evening Governor Stevens had an interview with Lawyer, who
said:--

  "Governor Stevens, you are my chief. You come from the President. He
  has spoken kind words to us, a poor people. We have listened to
  them, and have agreed to a treaty. We are bound by the agreement.
  When Looking Glass asked you, 'How long will the agent live with
  us?' you might have replied by asking the question, 'How long have
  you been head chief of the Nez Perces?' When he said, 'I, the head
  chief, have just got back; I will talk; the boys talked yesterday,'
  you might have replied, 'The Lawyer, and not you, is the head chief.
  The whole Nez Perce tribe have said in council Lawyer was the head
  chief. Your faith is pledged. You have agreed to the treaty. I call
  upon you to sign it.' Had this course been taken, the treaty would
  have been signed."

  "In reply," says the governor, "I told the Lawyer that we considered
  all the talk of Looking Glass as the outpourings of an angry and
  excited old man, whose heart would become all right if left to
  himself for a time; that the Lawyer had left the council whilst in
  session, and without speaking. It was his business to have
  interfered in this way, had it been necessary. We considered the
  Lawyer's leaving as saying, 'Nothing more can be done to-day; it
  must be finished to-morrow.' Your authority will be sustained, and
  your people will be called upon to keep their word. You will be
  sustained. The Looking Glass will not be allowed to speak as head
  chief. You, and you alone, will be recognized. Should Looking Glass
  persist, the appeal will be made to your people. They must sign the
  treaty agreed to by them through you as head chief, or the council
  will be broken up and you will return home, your faith broken, your
  hopes of the future gone."

The council being adjourned, the Cuyuses and Nez Perces retired to
their respective camps to hold councils by themselves, which lasted all
night. The position of Looking Glass was determined by the latter to be
second to Lawyer, who was reaffirmed head chief. The council was stormy,
but the chiefs at length all agreed on a paper sent in by Lawyer, and
read in council, which declared the faith of the tribe pledged to
Governor Stevens, and that the treaty must be signed. "Those who would
advise breaking their word were no better than the Cuyuses. Let them
share the lot of the Cuyuses." The morning after this council being
Sunday, Timothy preached a sermon for the times, and held up to the
indignation of the tribe, and the retribution of the Almighty, those who
would coalesce with the Cuyuses, and break the faith of the Nez Perces.

The governor had a conversation with Kam-i-ah-kan, who said:--

  "Looking Glass, if left alone, will sign the treaty. Don't ask me to
  accept presents. I have never taken one from a white man. When the
  payments are made, I will take my share."

Steachus, the friendly Cuyuse chief, expressed his earnest desire that
his tribe should sign the treaty, and both Pu-pu-mox-mox and
Kam-i-ah-kan used their influence to induce them to accept it.

Early Monday morning Governor Stevens saw Lawyer, and said to him: "We
are now ready to go into council. I shall call upon your people to keep
their word, and upon you as head chief to sign first. We want no
speeches. This will be the last day of the council. Call your people
together as soon as possible." The Lawyer replied, "This is the right
course," and immediately summoned his tribe. The closing scene of the
council is best given in Governor Stevens's own words:--

  "The Looking Glass took his seat in council in the very best humor.
  The Cuyuses and Nez Perces were all present. Kam-i-ah-kan sat down
  near the Young Chief. The council was opened by me in a brief
  speech: 'We meet for the last time. Your words are pledged to sign
  the treaty. The tribes have spoken through their head chiefs,
  Joseph, Red Wolf, the Eagle, Ip-se-male-e-con, all declaring Lawyer
  was the head chief. I call upon Lawyer to sign first.' Lawyer then
  signed the treaty. 'I now call upon Joseph and the Looking Glass.'
  Looking Glass signed, then Joseph. Then every chief and man of note,
  both Nez Perces and Cuyuses, signed their respective treaties.

  "After the treaties were signed, I spoke briefly of the Blackfoot
  council, and asked each tribe to send delegations, the Nez Perces a
  hundred chiefs and braves, the whole under the head chief, or some
  chief of acknowledged authority, as Looking Glass. There was much
  talk on the subject on the part of the Indians. Looking Glass said
  he would have a talk with me alone some other time."

The council being completed, presents were made to all the assembled
tribes, who began packing up and moving off. Eagle-from-the-Light, the
Nez Perce chief, who was at first opposed to the treaty and refused to
accept provisions, now presented a magnificent grizzly bear's skin, with
the teeth and claws intact, to Governor Stevens with the following
speech: "This skin is my medicine. It came with me every day to council.
It tells me everything. It says what has been done is right. Had
anything been done wrong, it would have spoken out. I have now no use
for it. I give it to you that you may know my heart is right." Every day
Eagle-from-the-Light had brought this skin to the council, and, placing
it with the teeth and claws turned towards the commissioners, had used
it as a seat, declining the roll of blankets offered him.

  [Illustration: HAL-HAL-TLOS-SOT: THE LAWYER
                 _Head Chief of the Nez Perces_]

  "Thus ended," says the journal, "in the most satisfactory manner,
  this great council, prolonged through so many days,--a council
  which--in the number of Indians assembled and the different tribes,
  old difficulties and troubles between them and the whites, a
  deep-seated dislike to and determination against giving up their
  lands, and the great importance, nay, absolute necessity, of opening
  this land by treaty to occupation by the whites, that bloodshed and
  the enormous expense of Indian wars might be avoided, and in its
  general influence and difficulty--has never been equaled by any
  council held with the Indian tribes of the United States.

  "It was so considered by all present, and a final relief from the
  intense anxiety and vexation of the last month was especially
  grateful to all concerned."

The following day the Nez Perces celebrated the happy conclusion of the
treaty, and the return of Looking Glass and his braves from the buffalo
country, by a scalp-dance. The chiefs and braves, in full war-paint and
adorned with all their savage finery, formed a large circle, standing
several ranks deep. Within this arena a chosen body of warriors
performed the war-dance, while the densely massed ranks of braves
circled around them, keeping time in measured tread, and accompanying it
with their wild and barbaric war-song. The ferocious and often hideous
mien of these stalwart savages, their frenzied attitudes and shrill and
startling yells, formed a subject worthy the pen of Dante and the pencil
of Doré. The missionary still had work to do. Presently an old hag, the
very picture of squalor and woe, burst into the circle, bearing aloft
upon a pole one of the fresh scalps so recently taken by Looking Glass,
and, dancing and jumping about with wild and extravagant action, heaped
upon the poor relic of a fallen foe every mark of indignity and
contempt. Shaking it aloft, she vociferously abused it; she beat it, she
spat upon it, she bestrode the pole and rushed around the ring, trailing
it in the dust, again and again; while the warriors, with grim
satisfaction, kept up their measured tread, chanted their war-songs,
and uttered if possible yet more ear-piercing yells. A softer and more
pleasing scene succeeded. The old hag retired with her bedraggled
trophy, and a long line of Indian maidens stepped within the circle,
and, forming an inner rank, moved slowly round and round, chanting a
mild and plaintive air. A number of the stylish young braves, real
Indian beaux in the height of paint and feathers, next took post within
the circle, near the rank of moving maidens, and each one, as the object
of his adoration passed him, placed a gayly decorated token upon her
shoulder. If she allowed it to remain, his affection was returned and he
was accepted, but if she shook it off, he knew that he was a rejected
suitor. Coquetry evidently is not confined to the civilized fair, for,
without exception, the maidens, as if indignant at such public wooing,
threw off the token with disdain, while every new victim of delusive
hopes was greeted with shouts of laughter from the spectators.

The turning-point in the council was undoubtedly the discovery of the
Cuyuse conspiracy by Lawyer, and his act of moving his lodge into
Governor Stevens's camp, thereby placing the whites under the protection
of the Nez Perces. This was all that prevented the hostile chiefs and
braves from striking the blow. They refrained because they knew that if
Lawyer was killed in an attack on the camp, which was to be expected in
the mêlée, the whole Nez Perce nation would avenge his slaughter in
their blood. The real extent and imminence of the danger was known to
but few, but the fact of the plot was soon generally bruited about.

  [Illustration: THE SCALP DANCE]

  "Their design," says Colonel Kip, "was first to massacre the escort,
  which _could have been easily_ done. Fifty soldiers against three
  thousand Indian warriors, out on the open plains, made rather too
  great odds. We should have had time, like Lieutenant Grattan at
  Fort Laramie last season, to deliver one fire, and then the contest
  would have been over. Their next move was to surprise the post at
  the Dalles, as they could also have easily done, as most of the
  troops were withdrawn, and the Indians in the neighborhood had
  recently united with them. This would have been the beginning of
  their war of extermination against the settlers."

Foiled in their plot, why did they then so quickly agree to the
treaties, which up to that time they had so bitterly spurned? All the
circumstances and evidence go to show that, with the exception of
Steachus, the friendly Cuyuse, they all--Young Chief, Five Crows,
Pu-pu-mox-mox, Kam-i-ah-kan, and their sub-chiefs--all signed the
treaties as a deliberate act of treachery, in order to lull the whites
into fancied security, give time for Governor Stevens to depart to the
distant Blackfoot country, where he would probably be "wiped out" by
those truculent savages, and for the Nez Perces to return home, and also
for completing their preparations for a widespread and simultaneous
onslaught on all the settlements. Scarcely had they reached home from
the council when they resumed such preparations, buying extra stores of
ammunition, and sending emissaries to the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes,
and even to some of the Nez Perces and to other tribes, to incite them
to war, actually held a council of the disaffected at a point in the
Palouse country the following month, and, within three months of
accepting ostensibly the protection of the Great Father, precipitated
the conflict. Agent Bolon and many white miners and settlers in the
upper country were massacred, and settlements as widespread as Puget
Sound and southern Oregon, six hundred miles apart, were attacked on the
same day. In this conspiracy and contest Kam-i-ah-kan was the moving
spirit, the organizer, the instigator, whose crafty wiles never slept,
and whose stubborn resolution no disaster could break. But in the end,
after protracted and stubborn resistance, they were defeated and
compelled to move on their reservations, and live under the very
treaties they so treacherously agreed to, and under which they still
live and have greatly prospered.

Whether or not the Walla Walla council precipitated the outbreak, as has
been claimed, it is certain that it confirmed the Nez Perces in their
friendship, neutralized the Spokanes for two years, kept even some of
the Cuyuses friendly all through the war, namely, Steachus and his band,
extinguished the Indian title, and permanently settled the status of the
Indian and his relation with the white man, without which peace was an
impossibility. The outbreak itself could have been suppressed in a
single season, had Governor Stevens's firm policy and sagacious views
been sustained.

Over sixty thousand square miles were ceded by these treaties. The Nez
Perce reservation contained five thousand square miles, including
mountain and forest as well as good land, and provision was made for
moving other tribes upon it. The payment for the Nez Perce lands
comprised $200,000 in the usual annuities, and $60,000 for improving the
reservation, saw and grist mills, schools, shops, teachers, farmers,
mechanics, etc. Ardent spirits were excluded; the right to hunt, fish,
gather roots and berries, and pasture stock on vacant land was secured,
and provision was made for ultimately allotting the land in severalty.
An annuity of $500 for twenty years was given the head chief, and a
house was to be built for him, and ten acres of land fenced and broken
up the first year. At the special request of the Indians, the claim and
homestead of William Craig was confirmed to him, and was not to be
considered part of the reservation, although within its boundaries.

Besides Lawyer and Looking Glass, fifty-six chiefs signed this treaty,
and among them were Joseph (the father of the chief Joseph, who in 1877
fought the brilliant campaign against Generals Howard, Gibbon, and
Miles, the only conflict that has ever occurred between the Nez Perces
and the whites), James, Red Wolf, Timothy, Spotted Eagle, and
Eagle-from-the-Light.

The Umatilla reservation contained eight hundred square miles. $100,000
to be given for annuities in goods, etc., for twenty years; $50,000 for
improving the reservation; $10,000 for moving the emigrant road, which
passed through it, around its borders; a sawmill, a flour-mill; two
schoolhouses; a blacksmith's shop, a wagon and plough making shop, a
carpenter and joiner shop; tools and equipments; and teachers, farmers,
and mechanics to instruct them for twenty years,--were the very liberal
payments for their lands. Moreover, the head chief of each tribe was to
have his annuity of $500 for twenty years, a house built, and ten acres
fenced and ploughed. Pu-pu-mox-mox, in addition, was to be allowed to
maintain a trading-post at the mouth of the Yakima; his first year's
salary was to be paid him on signing the treaty; he was also to receive
three yoke of oxen, three yokes and four chains, a wagon, two ploughs,
twelve axes, two shovels, twelve hoes, one saddle and bridle, a set of
wagon harness and one of plough harness; and his son was to have an
annuity of $100 for twenty years, and have a house built, and five acres
of land ploughed and fenced.

The wily old chief had certainly gotten all he could.

The other provisions were similar to those of the Nez Perce treaty. It
was signed by the three head chiefs and thirty-two sub-chiefs.

The Yakima treaty contained the same general provisions. A large
reservation on the Simcoe, a southern branch of the Yakima, and a
smaller one on the Wenatchee, including the fishery there, were set
apart for them. The payments include $200,000 in annuities, $60,000 for
improving the reservations, the annuity, house and field for the chief,
etc. In all the treaties provision is made for finally dividing the land
among the Indians in severalty.

Kam-i-ah-kan, Ow-hi, Skloom, and eleven other chiefs signed the treaty.
The first three were able and persistent inciters of, and leaders in,
the Indian war. Ow-hi is mentioned in "The Canoe and Saddle," by
Theodore Winthrop, and met a tragic end, being slain while a prisoner
trying to escape from the troops under Colonel George Wright.

After their exemplary punishment the Yakimas settled down on their
reservation, and for many years were prosperous and contented under the
charge of the faithful agent Wilbur. They number 2556, showing little
diminution; have taken their lands in severalty; most of them wear
civilized dress in whole or part; have 17,000 acres under cultivation;
raise 50,000 bushels of grain, 9600 of vegetables, and 25,000 tons of
hay.

The Spokanes number 3000. While some of the bands are backward, others
have made encouraging progress, "are thrifty and industrious, have
splendid farms, and raise large crops of grain and hay, ... are
self-supporting, and, but for the intemperance of some of them, are
making rapid strides towards civilization." The agent says of one band:
"They accept no issues from the government, and are independent and
self-supporting. They are peaceable in their own social relations, and
courteous to their white brethren. They have made material progress,
having good farms, fine horses, and many of them small herds of cattle."

  [Illustration: OW-HI
               _A Chief of the Yakimas_]

The Coeur d'Alenes, numbering 506, are further advanced in civilization,
and in better condition financially than any other tribe. They are well
supplied with all kinds of farming implements, from a plough to a
threshing-machine, of which latter they now have thirteen in operation,
purchased by themselves with their own money.

The Nez Perces, the most progressive and deserving of all, seem to have
fared the worst. Their reservation was early overrun by thousands of
miners, and they were outrageously swindled by dishonest agents. They
number only 1795, having diminished one half. But they have taken their
lands in severalty; have 10,000 acres under cultivation, 100,000 acres
under fence; raise 55,000 bushels of grain, 15,000 bushels of
vegetables; own 30,000 horses, 15,000 cattle, 3000 swine, and 20,000
fowls. "Very enthusiastic revival meetings were conducted here last
winter by the native elders, which resulted in quite a number of
converts being made."[6]

  [6] Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1899, pp. 147,
      148, 297, 298, 304, 612, 618, 626, 628.




                              CHAPTER XXX

                       CROSSING THE BITTER ROOTS


On the close of the council the Indians homeward-bound filled all the
trails leading out of the valley with their wild and picturesque
cavalcades,--the braves resplendent with scarlet blankets and leggings;
the squaws and pappooses decked with bright calico shirts and kerchiefs.
Lieutenant Gracie marched away to join Major Haller in an expedition
against the predatory Snakes. The secretaries and other treaty officers
toiled early and late making up the records and reports for Washington,
which, with letters and instructions for Olympia, were dispatched on the
14th by W.H. Pearson, the express rider.

It will be noted how carefully and fully the proceedings of all Governor
Stevens's councils were recorded; not merely a statement of what was
done, but a complete verbatim report of the deliberations, the speeches,
every word uttered by both whites and Indians in council, and many of
the talks out of council, was reduced to writing and made part of the
official record,--a record which now affords the most convincing
evidence of the wisdom, foresight, and benevolence of the treaties, as
well as the difficulties and dangers attending them, and presents a most
interesting and historically valuable picture of the characters,
dispositions, and feelings of the Indians.

General Palmer had been appointed one of the commissioners to treat with
the Blackfeet, Governor Stevens and Alfred Cumming, Superintendent of
Indian Affairs for Nebraska, being the others, but he declined the
arduous and dangerous duty, and, with the Oregon Indian officers,
started for home.

A.J. Bolon, the Yakima Indian agent, with a small party, was sent to old
Fort Walla Walla with a quantity of Indian goods intended for the
Spokanes, there to be stored for safe-keeping. He was instructed to
visit and inspect the Yakima reservation, thence proceed to the Dalles
and bring the Nez Perce Indian goods to Walla Walla, deposit them, and,
loading up with the Spokane goods, take them to Antoine Plante's ranch
on the Spokane River, in readiness for the council on the governor's
return from the Blackfoot country. Mr. Henry R. Crosby was dispatched to
Colville to notify the Indians, the Hudson Bay Company officers, and the
missionaries of the proposed council. Agent W.H. Tappan was sent with
Craig to Lapwai to organize a delegation of the Nez Perces to go to the
Blackfoot council, and was to accompany them himself. All the officers
were charged to examine the regions traversed by them, and report on the
topographical and agricultural features, etc. The governor had procured
from New York a supply of barometers and other instruments, and was
determined to continue and complete his railroad explorations, so
summarily arrested by Jefferson Davis, as far as possible on this
expedition, although it was one primarily on the Indian service. In his
final railroad report he gives a daily journal of this trip, and a
graphic description of the country passed over, together with an immense
amount of new information, the fruits of his own indefatigable personal
exertions and those of his subordinates, amplifying and triumphantly
vindicating his first report.

It was a beautiful, sunny June morning, the 16th, when the little train
drew out from the deserted council ground, and took its way in single
file across the level valley prairie, covered with luxuriant bunch
grass and vivid-hued flowers. A large, fine-looking Coeur d'Alene
Indian, named Joseph, led the way as guide; then rode the governor with
his son, Secretary Doty, Agent Lansdale, and Gustave Sohon the artist,
barometer-carrier, and observer; then came Packmaster Higgins, followed
by the train of eleven packers and two cooks, and forty-one sleek,
long-eared pack-mules, each bearing a burden of two hundred pounds, the
men interspersed with the mules to keep them moving on the trail; while
seventeen loose animals, in a disorderly bunch, driven by a couple of
herders, brought up the rear. It was a picked force, both men and
animals, and made up in efficiency for scanty numbers. The artist,
Gustave Sohon, a soldier of the 4th infantry, detailed for the trip, was
an intelligent German, a clever sketcher, and competent to take
instrumental observations. Higgins, ex-orderly sergeant of dragoons, a
tall, broad-shouldered, spare, sinewy man, a fine swordsman and
drill-master, a scientific boxer, was a man of unusual firmness,
intelligence, and good judgment, and quiet, gentlemanly manners, and
held the implicit respect, obedience, and goodwill of his subordinates.
He afterwards became the founder, banker, and first citizen of the
flourishing town of Missoula, at Hell Gate, in the Bitter Root valley.
A.H. Robie worked up from the ranks, married a daughter of Craig, and
settled at Boisé City, Idaho, where he achieved a highly prosperous and
respected career. Sidney Ford, a son of Judge Ford, already mentioned,
was a handsome, stalwart young Saxon in appearance, broad-shouldered,
sensible, capable, and kindly. The others were all men of experience on
the plains and mountains, brave and true; several had been members of
the exploring expedition; others had served the fur companies, or
voyageured and trapped on their own account. By all odds the most
skillful and picturesque of these mountain men, and having the most
varied and romantic history, was Delaware Jim, whose father was a
Delaware chief and his mother a white woman, and who had spent a
lifetime--for he was now past middle age--in hunting and traveling over
all parts of the country, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, meeting
with many thrilling adventures and hair-breadth escapes. He had a tall,
slender form, a keen eye, an intelligent face, and reserved manners. He
was reticent in speech, although he spoke English well; but when he was
induced to relate his varied experiences and adventures, his simple and
modest narrative impressed every auditor with its truth. Many of the men
were clad in buckskin moccasins, breeches, and fringed hunting-shirts;
others in rough, serviceable woolen garb, stout boots, and wide slouch
hats. All carried navy revolvers and keen bowie-knives, and many in
addition bore the long, heavy, small-bored Kentucky rifle, which they
fired with great deliberation and unerring skill.

One of the most remarkable men connected with the expedition was the
express rider, W.H. Pearson. A native of Philadelphia, of small but
well-knit frame, with muscles of steel, and spirit and endurance that no
exertion apparently could break down, waving, chestnut hair, a fair,
high forehead, a refined, intelligent, and pleasant face, the manners
and bearing of a gentleman,--such was Pearson. He was destined that year
to render services invaluable in character and incredible in extent. Of
him the governor remarks in his final report, p. 210:

  "Hardy, bold, intelligent, and resolute, having a great diversity of
  experience, which had made him acquainted with all the relations
  between Indians and white men from the borders of Texas to the 49th
  parallel, and which enabled him to know best how to move, whether
  under the Southern tropics or the winter snows of the North, I
  suppose there has scarcely ever been any man in the service of the
  government who excelled Pearson as an expressman."

He was still young, about thirty-five, but, as a Texan ranger, a scout,
Indian fighter, and express rider, knew the frontiers from the Rio
Grande to the Columbia and Missouri like an open book.

The party thus starting on the protracted and perilous expedition was
composed of only twenty-two persons, as follows: Governor Isaac I.
Stevens; James Doty, secretary; R.H. Lansdale, Indian agent; Gustave
Sohon, artist; Hazard Stevens; C.P. Higgins, packmaster; Sidney S. Ford,
Jr., A.H. Robie, Joseph Lemere, Frank Genette, H. Palmer, William
Simpson, John Canning, Frank Hale, Louis Oson, Louis Fourcier, C.
Hughes, John Johnson, William S. De Parris, William Prudhomme, packers,
the last two cooks; Joseph, the C[oe]ur d'Alene guide; and Delaware Jim,
who deserves a place by himself.

The party followed the Nez Perce trail, and, after a short march of
eight miles, made camp on Dry Creek. Two messes were formed,--the
gentlemen of the party, with the guide Joseph, Delaware Jim, Ford,
Genette, and De Parris as cook, comprising the governor's mess, and the
remainder of the party Higgins's mess.

Continuing on the Nez Perce trail, the party in the next three days and
fifty-four miles traversed a beautiful rolling prairie country of
fertile soil, luxuriant bunch grass, and wild flowers, crossing the
Touchet and Tucañon rivers, and ascending the Pa-ta-ha branch of the
latter, and, descending the Al-pa-wha Creek, reached its confluence with
Snake River at Red Wolf's ground. Here was found a village of thirteen
lodges of Nez Perces, under the chiefs Red Wolf and Timothy, with a
fenced field of thirty acres, well watered by irrigation from the
Al-pa-wha, and containing a fine crop of corn and a promising orchard.
"I observed with great pleasure that men as well as women and children
were at work in this field, ploughing and taking care of their crops,"
observes the governor. After some bargaining, for the chiefs were keen
traders and exacted a stiff toll for the service, the party, with packs
and baggage, were ferried across the Snake, a notably swift and
dangerous river, by the Indians in their canoes, and went into camp,
while the animals crossed by swimming.

By appointment Lawyer met the governor here, and with the other two
chiefs took supper with him, the three devouring the lion's share of a
fine salmon, which Timothy had just sold at an exorbitant
price,--clearly the Nez Perces were fast learning the ways of
civilization,--and completed the arrangements for sending their
delegation to the Blackfoot council. Lawyer also gave much information
about his people and country.

Climbing out of the deep cañon of the river next morning by an easy
grade up a lateral creek, the party took a general N.N.E. course across
the high, rolling plains stretching away to the mountains, for five days
traversing a fine fertile and diversified country, clothed with waving
grass and bright flowers, well wooded with groves of pine, and
abundantly watered. They passed on the second day 600 Nez Perces
gathering the kamas root, and having with them 2000 horses, and crossed
the Palouse River, with its broad valley extending far eastward into the
heart of the mountains. Says the governor: "We have been astonished at
the luxuriance of the grass and the fertility of the soil. The whole
view presents to the eye a vast bed of flowers in all their varied
beauty." The governor continually remarks the fertility and agricultural
capabilities of the country traversed. It now forms the most productive
part of the wheat belt of eastern Washington, and is all settled up by a
prosperous farming community. The third day's camp was made at the
kamas prairie of the Coeur d'Alenes, where were found 29 lodges and
250 Indians of that tribe, gathering and drying kamas. This esculent is
about the size and shape of a large tulip bulb, and when dried and
smoked for use has a dark color and sweet taste, and was highly esteemed
by the Indians and mountain men. The governor had a talk with Stellam,
the head chief, and a number of other chiefs, and requested them to meet
him at the mission in order to learn about the treaty the Great Father
desired to make with them. They promised to attend. In the evening came
the Palouse chief, Slah-yot-see, with 30 braves, and complained that no
goods were given him at the recent council. The governor replied:--

  "Slah-yot-see, you went away before the council was ended.
  Koh-lat-toose remained and signed the treaty. He was recognized as
  the head chief of the Palouses, and to him the goods were given to
  be distributed among his tribe as he and the principal men should
  determine. I have brought no goods to give you. Go to Koh-lat-toose.
  He is the chief, and it is from him you must obtain your share of
  the presents. Had you remained until the council terminated, you
  would have had a voice in the distribution of the goods.
  Kam-i-ah-kan, your head chief, signed the treaty, and said that he
  should bring the Palouses into the Yakima country, where they
  properly belonged."

The chief said but little in reply except acknowledging Kam-i-ah-kan as
his head chief. The Palouses had a bad name, and were regarded as
sullen, insolent, and disaffected.

The last day, putting the party in camp on the Coeur d'Alene River,
the governor with Doty and Sohon rode on nine miles farther to the
mission, where he was received with the utmost hospitality by good
Father Ravalli, and where he found Crosby, just arrived from Colville.
The mission was situated on a sightly eminence in the midst of a little
prairie on the right bank of the river. On this beautiful and commanding
site stood a well-proportioned church, solidly built of squared timbers
as smoothly hewn and closely fitted as though done by skillful white
artisans, yet all the work of the Indians, under the direction of the
priests. A long wooden building, plain but comfortable, afforded
quarters for the fathers and two or three lay brothers and the transient
guests. At the foot of the knoll, near the river, were the lodges of the
Indians, constituting their principal village.

At the camp of the party this evening an incident occurred of quite
unusual character,--a wrestling match between Indian and white. A large
number of the Coeur d'Alenes had come down with their canoes, and
assisted the party in crossing the rivers, and had taken the packs by
water a long distance, thus relieving the animals over a stretch of
muddy trail, and at night camped near the whites. After supper they came
over to camp, and, with much talk in Chinook and many signs, at length
conveyed the idea of a challenge at wrestling between an immense,
powerfully formed Indian, whom they brought forward as their champion,
and any "skookum man" of the whites. The latter were rather taken back.
None liked the looks of the big and muscular savage, but all agreed that
it would never do to decline the challenge, and back down before a
parcel of Indians. At last Sidney Ford stepped forward, declaring that
he would try a fall with him, if he broke his back in the effort. In the
struggle which ensued, it was soon apparent that the Indian was the
superior in weight and strength, and Ford had to put forth all his skill
and agility to prevent being forced to the ground. At last, while all
the spectators, both red and white, were breathlessly watching the
straining, panting wrestlers, the whites especially with great anxiety
and apprehension, Ford gave a sudden and mighty heave, the huge Indian's
bare legs and moccasined feet whirled in the air, and the next instant
he struck the ground with a heavy and sickening thud, and lay senseless
as the dead. Ford had thrown him completely over his shoulder by some
skillful wrestling stroke. The Indian soon recovered, and departed with
his companions, well satisfied that the white man was "hi-u skookum"
(mighty strong). This rencounter led to much discussion around the
camp-fire that evening as to the relative prowess of Indian and white.
All agreed that the latter was far superior, not only in courage and
physical strength, but even in endurance and woodland and savage arts
and skill.

The next day the party moved and encamped near the village, and on the
following morning the principal chiefs to the number of thirty assembled
in front of the governor's tent, and listened attentively as he
explained to them the benefits they would gain by learning to "follow
the white man's road," and referred to the treaties made with the other
tribes at the recent council, at which some of them were present, and
asked them to meet him in council with the Spokanes on his return.
Finally he invited them to send with him a delegation to the Blackfoot
council, and make peace with those fierce and feared marauders. The
chiefs received the talk favorably, but declined to send the delegation,
saying that only a few of their people went to buffalo, and besides they
were afraid to go to the council. The Blackfeet would kill them.

At noon, after this conference, the train set out in charge of Higgins,
while the governor, with Doty and Crosby, remained a few hours longer.
The oath of allegiance to the United States was administered by Crosby
to the fathers and lay brothers, who subscribed the naturalization
papers, and seemed much pleased with the idea of becoming American
citizens. Towards evening they bade the hospitable missionaries
farewell, and, riding rapidly eleven miles, found the train snugly
encamped in a large prairie with fine grass, where the governor
encamped, October 12, 1853. The next two days the party were kept in
camp by a pelting summer rain.

Friday, June 29, on a cool and delightful morning after the storm, the
march was continued up the Coeur d'Alene River, retracing the
governor's route of 1853 across the Bitter Root Mountains; the summit
was passed on July 1, and, descending the St. Regis de Borgia, crossing
and recrossing the stream no less than thirty-five times, the Bitter
Root River was reached on the 3d, eighty-six miles distant from the
mission. The Father Superior of the Catholic missions, with two
companions returning from an inspection of the Pend Oreille Mission, was
met the first day, and on the summit a Coeur d'Alene Indian, whom the
governor had previously sent to the Bitter Root valley[7] with
dispatches to Mr. Adams, special agent for the Flatheads, in regard to
holding a council with them, brought the gratifying intelligence that
the Indians were all ready to assemble, all full of the Blackfoot
council, and that everything was quiet in the Indian country. The
governor took great pains in examining the route and the topography of
the country, and in determining the altitude by the barometer.

The Fourth of July was spent in crossing the Bitter Root, which was at
this point one hundred and fifty yards wide, with a swift, strong
current, and fordable only at the lowest stage of water in fall and
winter. It was now swollen from recent rains and melting snows in the
mountains. All hands set to work felling trees and building rafts, with
which to effect a crossing. While thus laboriously engaged, a large
band of Flathead Indians, who were encamped here, took down their
lodges, and ferried themselves over the swift and broad river, with all
their women, children, horses, dogs, lodges, and effects, in less than
an hour's time, and in a simple and ingenious manner, which put the
whites quite to the blush. The buffalo-skin lodge was spread out on a
smooth, flat place at the water's edge, all the blankets, robes,
clothing, bundles of provisions, saddles, packs, everything in short in
the way of goods and chattels were piled in a broad, circular pile upon
it, and the ends and edges of the skin were stretched up and tied
together on top, as one would tie up a bundle of clothes in a
handkerchief. This being completed, a brave rode his horse into the
river until almost swimming, holding by his teeth the end of a line; the
bundle was then pushed and lifted into the river; the squaws climbed on
top of it with the children and babies around them, one of them took and
held the other end of the line, and the brave started his pony swimming
across the stream, holding by the mane or tail with one hand, and
swimming with the other, and soon reached the opposite bank in safety.
It was a curious and exciting spectacle to see ten or twelve of these
bundles, the size of large haycocks, surmounted by groups of squaws and
pappooses, rapidly floating down the stream, while being slowly towed
across, nothing visible of the ponies and braves except their heads,
while the loud, labored breathing of the swimming horses and the shouts
and splashings of the Indians echoed across the water.

The Flatheads were accustomed to train and exercise their horses in
swimming, and were very skillful in crossing streams in this manner. The
buffalo-skin lodges were impervious to water for only a short time, and
would become leaky and useless by a prolonged soaking.

The party built three large rafts, loaded all the goods upon them, and
poled them across the river with long poles. The animals were compelled
to swim. The last, bearing the governor, was the largest and least
manageable, and came near escaping down the river on a voyage of its own
choosing. It was carried farther down than the others, and on nearing
the other bank got into a swifter current, where the poles were quite
useless, and was swept along at break-neck speed, flying past the rocks
and trees of the bank only forty feet away. At this juncture Higgins
seized the end of a pack rope and plunged headfirst into the raging
current, gained the shore in a few powerful strokes, raced along it at
top speed to keep the rope from being jerked out of his hands by the
flying raft until he came to a tree, threw a turn of the rope around it,
and checked the raft, which then swung inshore under the pressure of the
current. In these few minutes the unwieldy craft was carried down two
miles. But everything was gotten together and a comfortable camp pitched
before night. The tired men smoked their pipes around the camp-fire
after supper and recounted the adventures of the day, with great
satisfaction that the river was behind them.

After a late start the next morning the party moved eighteen miles up
the right bank of the beautiful river, traversing tracts of open woods
and prairies, alternating in pleasing variety with the dark, rugged
range just surmounted, frowning on the right. Large schools of salmon or
trout were seen in the clear, pellucid water, motionless over the
spawning-beds, fairly covering and hiding the river's bed, in such
numbers were they. The next day's march was thirty-seven miles. On the
7th, soon after leaving camp, they were met and received by three
hundred chiefs and braves of the Flathead, Pend Oreille, and Koo-te-nay
tribes, in the most cordial manner, with a salute of musketry, and
escorted to their camp near Hell Gate River. After spending some hours
with them, learning their condition, and establishing pleasant relations
between them and his own party, the governor moved to the main river, a
mile distant, and established his camp and council ground.

In the afternoon the three head chiefs, Victor of the Flatheads,
Alexander of the Pend Oreilles, and Michelle of the Koo-te-nays,
accompanied by a number of other chiefs, visited Governor Stevens, and
after the pipe had passed around,--the indispensable introduction to
every Indian conference,--the latter spoke to them in his usual vein,
proposing a treaty, referring to the great council just held with so
many Indians in the Walla Walla valley, and appointing the next Monday
for opening the council with them. He also spoke of his efforts to make
peace with the Blackfeet, and urged them to send a delegation to the
proposed council with these, their inveterate and bloody foes. This was
a sore subject with the Flatheads, for the Blackfeet had but faithlessly
kept their promises of amity and good conduct towards their neighbors.
Many of their young braves, despite the efforts of the chiefs and elders
to restrain them, had continued their predatory raids, saying, "Let us
steal all the horses we can before the great white chief returns and
makes peace with all the tribes, and stops horse-stealing forever," and
had inflicted severe losses upon the Flatheads since the governor passed
through their country nearly two years before, notwithstanding, and that
was what made it all the harder to bear; the Flatheads had scrupulously
heeded the governor's admonitions, and refrained from retaliation. On
one occasion, when some young Pend Oreilles ran off a number of
Blackfoot horses, the chiefs sent them back, at the risk of the lives of
the party returning them. When the governor finished, Victor said:--


  "The Blackfeet have troubled us very much. I am going to tell what
  has happened since you were here. Twelve men have been killed when
  out hunting, not on war-parties. I fear the whites and keep quiet. I
  cannot tell how many horses have been stolen since. Now I listen,
  and hear what you wish me to do. Were it not for you, I would have
  had my revenge ere this. They have stolen horses seven times this
  spring."

The chiefs then returned to their camp, promising to attend the council
the following Monday.

The Flatheads or Salish, including the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays,
were among those who had been driven westward by the Blackfeet, and now
occupied the pleasant valleys of the mountains. They were noted for
their intelligence, honesty, and bravery, and although of medium stature
and inferior in physique to the brawny Blackfeet, never hesitated to
attack them if the odds were not greater than five to one. Having been
supplied by the early fur traders with firearms, which enabled them to
make a stand against their outnumbering foe, they had always been the
firm friends of the whites, and, like the Nez Perces, often hunted with
the mountain men, and entertained them in their lodges. A number of
Iroquois hunters and half-breeds had joined and intermarried with them.
The Bitter Root valley was the seat of the Flatheads proper. The Pend
Oreilles lived lower down the river, or northward, in two bands, the
upper Pend Oreilles on the Horse Plains and Jocko prairies, and the
lower Pend Oreilles on Clark's Fork, below the lake of their name, and
were canoe Indians, owning few horses. The Koo-te-nays lived about the
Flathead River and Lake. All these, except the lower Pend Oreilles, went
to buffalo, and their hunting-trips were spiced with the constant peril
and excitement of frequent skirmishes with their hereditary enemies. The
Jesuits, in 1843, established a mission among the lower Pend Oreilles,
but in 1854 moved to the Flathead River, near the mouth of the Jocko.
They also started a mission among the Flatheads in the Bitter Root
valley, forty miles above Hell Gate, where they founded the beautiful
village of St. Mary, amid charming scenery; but the incessant raids of
the Blackfeet were slowly but surely "wiping out" these brave and
interesting Indians, and the mission was abandoned in 1850 as too much
exposed. The Owen brothers then started a trading-post at this point,
which they named Fort Owen; and fourteen miles above it Lieutenant
Mullan built his winter camp in 1853, known as Cantonment Stevens, which
has been succeeded by the town of Stevensville. The term "Flathead" was
a misnomer, as none of them practiced the custom of flattening
the head.

FOOTNOTES:

  [7] Now known as the Missoula Valley and River.




                              CHAPTER XXXI

                          THE FLATHEAD COUNCIL


After a quiet and restful Sunday in both camps the Indians assembled at
the appointed time, and the council was opened on Monday, July 9, at
half past one P.M., by the governor, in a long speech, explaining, as at
the other councils, the terms and advantages proffered by the
government. Although the Indians were extremely friendly, and very
desirous of "following the white man's road" and coming under the
protection of the Great Father, their only apparent refuge from the
fierce Blackfeet, whose incessant raids threatened them with speedy
extinction, the council proved unexpectedly difficult and protracted,
lasting eight days, and the treaty was only saved by Governor Stevens's
persistence and astuteness in accepting an alternative proposition
offered by Victor at the last moment. The chronic objection of every
tribe to leaving its own country and going on a reservation in the
territory of another was the stumbling-block.

The governor required the three tribes, as they were really one people,
being all Salish, speaking a common language, and closely intermarried
and allied, and also reduced in numbers, to unite upon one reservation.
He offered to set apart a tract for them either in the upper Bitter Root
valley in Victor's country, or the Horse Plains and Jocko River in the
Pend Oreille territory, as they might prefer, and urged them to decide
and agree among themselves upon one of these locations; but neither
tribe was willing to abandon its wonted region, where they were
accustomed to pitch their lodges, and where their dead were buried. The
following brief extracts from the proceedings give an idea of the course
of the difficult and at times stormy and vexatious negotiations.

When the governor finished Victor said:--

  "I am very tired now, and my people. You [the governor] are the only
  man who has offered to help us.... I have two places, here is mine
  [pointing out Bitter Root valley on the map], and this is mine
  [pointing out Flathead River and Clark's Fork]. I will think of it,
  and tell you which is best. I believe you wish to assist me to help
  my children here so that they may have plenty to eat, and so that
  they may save their souls."

  Alexander: "You are talking to me now, my Big Father. You have told
  me you have to make your own laws to punish your children. I love my
  children. I think I could not head them off to make them go
  straight. I think it is with you to do so. If I take your own way,
  your law, my people then will be frightened. These growing people
  [young people] are all the same. Perhaps those who come after them
  may see it well before them. I do not know your laws. Perhaps, if we
  see a rope, if we see how it punishes, we will be frightened. When
  the priest talked to them, tried to teach them, they all left him.
  My children, maybe when the whites teach you, you may see it before
  you. Now this is my ground. We are poor, we Indians. The priest is
  settled over there [pointing across the mountains towards the north,
  the direction of his country]. There, where he is, I am very well
  satisfied. I will talk hereafter about the ground. I am done for
  to-day."

In this speech Alexander expresses the difficulty he has to manage his
unruly young people, and his fear that the white rule might prove too
strict for them.

  [Illustration: THE FLATHEAD COUNCIL]

  Red Wing, a Flathead chief: "We gathered up yesterday the three
  peoples you see here. They think they are three nations. I thought
  these nations were going to talk each about its own land. Now I hear
  the governor: my land is all cut up in pieces. I thought we had two
  places. This ground is the Flatheads', that across the mountains
  is the Pend Oreilles'; perhaps not, perhaps we are all one. We made
  up another mind yesterday, to-day it is different. We will go back
  and have another council."

The governor adjourned the council to the next day, urging them to talk
and agree among themselves as to the reservation.

The following day the governor called on the chiefs to speak their minds
freely.

Big Canoe, a Pend Oreille chief, made a long and sententious speech, in
which he deprecated making any treaty, or parting with any of his
country, and thought the whites and Indians could live together in the
same land:--

  "Talk about treaty, when did I kill you? When did you kill me? What
  is the reason we are talking about treaties? We are friends. We
  never spilt the blood of one of you. I never saw your blood. I want
  my country. I thought no one would ever want to talk about my
  country. Now you talk, you white men. Now I have heard, I wish the
  whites to stop coming. Perhaps you will put me in a trap if I do not
  listen to you, white chiefs. It is our land, both of us. If you make
  a farm, I would not go there and pull up your crops. I would not
  drive you away from it. If I were to go to your country and say,
  'Give me a little piece,' I wonder would you say, 'Here, take it.' I
  expect that is the same way you want me to do here. This country you
  want to settle here, me with you.... You tell us, 'Give us your
  land.' I am very poor. This is all the small piece I have got. I am
  not going to let it go. I did not come to make trouble; therefore I
  would say, I am very poor....

  "It is two winters since you passed here. Every year since, my
  horses have gone to the Blackfeet. Here this spring the Blackfeet
  put my daughter on foot. She packed her goods on her back. It made
  me feel bad. I was going on a war-party as your express passed
  along. Then I think of what I heard from you, my father, and take my
  heart back and keep quiet. If I had not listened to your express, I
  should have gone on war-parties over yonder. We drove one band of
  horses from the Blackfeet. I talked about it to my Indians. I said,
  'Give the horses back, my children.' My chief took them back. You
  talked about it strong, my father. My chief took them back. That is
  the way we act. When I found my children were going on war-parties,
  I would tell them to stop, be quiet; tell them I expect now we will
  see the chief; I expect he will talk to the Blackfeet again."

  Governor Stevens: "I will ask you, my children, if you fully
  understand all that was said yesterday? I ask you now, can you all
  agree to live on one reservation? I ask Victor, are you willing to
  go on the same reservation with the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays? I
  ask Alexander, are you willing to go on the same reservation with
  the Flatheads and Koo-te-nays? I ask Michelle, are you willing to go
  on the same reservation with the Flatheads and Pend Oreilles? What
  do you, Victor, Alexander, and Michelle, think? You are the head
  chiefs. I want you to speak."

  Victor: "I am willing to go on one reservation, but I do not want to
  go over yonder" [Pend Oreille country].

  Alexander: "It is good for us all to stop in one place."

  Michelle: "I am with Alexander."

  Governor Stevens: "The Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays think it well
  to have all these tribes together. Perhaps Victor might think so by
  and by, if the place suits. Alexander and Michelle wish to live
  together, their people on one place,--they have a thousand people,
  the land ought to be good. Each man wants his field. The climate
  ought to be mild....

  "I ask Victor, Alexander, and Michelle to think it over. Will they
  go to the valley with Victor, or to the mission with Alexander and
  Michelle? I do not care which. You will have your priests with you,
  whether you go to the mission or Fort Owen. Those who want the
  priest can have him. The Great Father means that every one shall do
  as he pleases in regard to receiving the instructions of the
  priests."

But the council next day showed no change in the situation. Victor was
unwilling to move to the mission, and Alexander to the valley. Neither
would object to the other coming to his place. It being evident, after
protracted discussion, that no progress would be made by continuing the
council that day, and it appearing that an influence was being exerted
by the priests of the mission which might be adverse to the views of the
government, a messenger was dispatched directing the presence of Father
Hoecken for the purpose of investigating it, the council was adjourned
over to Friday, and the Indians were recommended to have a feast and a
council among themselves on the morrow. Accordingly they had a grand
feast on the 12th, the means for which--two beeves, coffee, sugar,
flour, etc.--were furnished them, after which the day was spent in
discussing the question of the reservation among themselves.

But in council next day they appeared no nearer an agreement, and, after
much and fruitless talk, Ambrose, a Flathead chief, said:--

  "Yesterday Victor spoke to Alexander. He said: 'I am not headstrong.
  The whites picked out a place for us, the best place, and that is
  the reason I do not want to go. Two years since they passed us. Now
  the white man has his foot on your ground. The white man will stay
  with you.' Yesterday, when we had the feast, then Alexander spoke;
  he said, 'Now I will go over to your side. I will let them take my
  place, and come to your place.' But Victor did not speak, and the
  council broke up."

  Governor Stevens: "Alexander, did you agree yesterday to give up
  your country and join Victor?"

  Alexander: "Yes, yesterday I did give up. I listened and he did not
  give me an answer; then I said, 'I will not give up my land.'"

  Governor Stevens: "I speak now to the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays.
  Do you agree to this treaty?--the treaty placing the Pend Oreilles
  and Koo-te-nays on this reservation? [at the mission]. I ask Victor
  if he declines to treat?"

  Victor: "Talk! I have nothing to say now."

  Governor Stevens: "Does Victor want to treat? Why did he not say to
  Alexander yesterday, 'Come to my place'? or is not Victor a chief?
  Is he, as one of his people has called him, an old woman? Dumb as a
  dog? If Victor is a chief, let him speak now."

  Victor: "I thought, my people, perhaps you would listen. I said,
  'This [at the mission] is my country, and all over here is my
  country. Some of my people want to be above me. I sit quiet, and
  before me you give my land away. If I thought so, I would tell the
  whites to take the land there [the mission]. It is my country. I am
  listening, and my people say, "Take my country."'"

  Governor Stevens: "Alexander said yesterday that he would come up
  here. Why did you not answer and say 'Come'?"

  Victor: "Yesterday I did talk."

  Governor Stevens: "Alexander said yesterday he offered to give up
  his land and go to you. Alexander says you made no answer. Why did
  you not say, 'Yes, come to my place'?"

  Victor: "I did not understand it so."

  Governor Stevens: "Ambrose says he understood Alexander to say so.
  Alexander says he said so. You did not speak and say, 'Come to my
  place,' but you were dumb. Does Victor mean to say that he will
  neither let Alexander come to his place nor go to Alexander's?"

Ambrose, Til-coos-tay, Red Wolf, and Bear Tracks, Flathead chiefs, took
up the discussion, pouring oil on the troubled waters, and excusing
Victor for not speaking in answer to Alexander at their own council.

At length the governor said:--

  "My children, I find that things are nearer to an agreement than
  when we began talking this morning. Ambrose says the people are not
  quite prepared, but will be ready by and by. Ambrose says, 'Be
  patient and listen.' I am patient, and have been patient and
  listened to them. Others of you have said they they were hiding
  their minds and did not speak; hence I reproved you and said, 'Speak
  out, let us have your hearts.' It seems many of the Flatheads are
  ready to go to the mission. If their chief says so, they will go.
  Victor says, 'I am ready to go, but my people will not;' but the
  people say they are ready to go. We want all parties to speak
  straight, to let us have their hearts, then we can agree. If
  Victor's people will go, we want Victor as a chief to say, 'I will
  go.'"

Victor here arose and left the council. After a pause of some minutes
Governor Stevens said:--

  "I will ask Ambrose where is Victor?"

  Ambrose: "He is gone home."

  Governor Stevens: "Ambrose, speaking of Victor, said he wanted time.
  Victor is now thinking and studying over this matter. We don't wish
  to drive or hurry you in this business. Think over this matter
  to-night, and meet here to-morrow. I ask Ambrose to speak to Victor
  and tell him what I say. Ambrose loves his chief, let him take my
  words to him."

He then adjourned the council to meet in the morning.

But the following day word was sent by Victor to the governor that he
had not yet made up his mind, and the council was postponed to Monday
morning.

When the council opened at eleven Monday morning, Victor said:--

  "I am now going to talk. I was not content. You gave me a very small
  place. Then I thought, here they are giving away my land. That is my
  country over there at the mission, this also. Plenty of you say
  Victor is the chief of the Flatheads. The place you pointed out
  above is too small. From Lo Lo Fork above should belong to me. My
  stock will have room, and if the Blackfeet will let my horses alone,
  they will increase. I believe that you wish to help me, and that my
  people will do well there. We will send this word to the Great
  Father. Come and look at our country. When you look at Alexander's
  place, and say the land is good, and say, Come, Victor, I will go.
  If you think this above is good land, then Victor will say, Come
  here, Alexander. Then our children will be well content. That is the
  way we will make the treaty, my father."

  Governor Stevens: "Victor has spoken. Do Alexander and Michelle
  speak in the same way? I will ask Alexander if he agrees."

  Alexander: "Maybe we cannot all come together. Here is Michelle, I
  know his mind. He told me, you go this way, I won't go. Here are the
  lower Pend Oreilles. Maybe they are the same way. They have no
  horses; they have only canoes. I am very heavy, as though they tied
  me there."

  Michelle: "I am just following Alexander's mind. If he goes this
  way, I will not go. I have come a long way to see you; when you
  leave I go back."

The governor again asked them if they would agree to Victor's
proposition, and go to the reservation which was found best adapted to
their needs after survey and examination, but both chiefs positively
refused.

The governor then cut the knot by accepting Victor's proposition as far
as it concerned him, and giving the others the reservation at the
mission:--

  "My children, Victor has made his proposition. Alexander and
  Michelle have made theirs. We will make a treaty for them. Both
  tracts shall be surveyed. If the mission is the best land, Victor
  shall live there. If the valley is the best land, Victor shall stay
  here. Alexander and Michelle may stay at the mission....

  "I ask Victor to come up and sign the treaty. [He came up and
  signed.] Now I ask Alexander and Michelle." [They also then signed.]

Moses, a Flathead chief, on being called on to sign, refused. He stepped
forward, and said:--

  "My brother is buried here. I did not think you would take the only
  piece of ground I had. Here are three fellows [the head chiefs];
  they say, 'Get on your horses and go.' ... Last year, when you were
  talking about the Blackfeet, you were joking."

  Governor Stevens: "How can Moses say I am not going to the Blackfoot
  country? I have gone all the way to the Great Father to arrange
  about the Blackfoot council. What more can I do? A man is coming
  from the Great Father to meet me. Does he not know that Mr. Burr and
  another man went to Fort Benton the other day?"


  Moses: "You have pulled all my wings off, and then let me down."

  Governor Stevens: "All that we have done is for your benefit. I have
  said that the Flatheads were brave and honest, and should be
  protected. Be patient. Everything will come right."

  Moses: "I do not know how it will be straight. A few days ago the
  Blackfeet stole horses at Salmon River."

  Governor Stevens: "Ask him if he sees the Nez Perce chief,
  Eagle-from-the-Light; he is going to the Blackfoot council with me."

  Moses: "Yes, I see him. They will get his hair. The Blackfeet are
  not like these people. They are all drunk."

All the principal men came forward and signed the treaty. Governor
Stevens then said:--

  "Here are three papers which you have signed, copies of the same
  treaty. One goes to the President, one I place in the hands of the
  head chief, and one I keep myself. Everything that has been said
  here goes to the President. I have now a few presents for you. They
  are simply a gift, no part of the payments. The payments cannot be
  made until we hear from the President next year."

The presents were then distributed. The chiefs were then requested to
assemble on the morrow with regard to the Blackfoot council.

Thus successfully and happily terminated this protracted council, "every
man pleased and every man satisfied," says the governor. Twelve hundred
Indians were present on the treaty ground.

The jealousy and pride of the chiefs, Victor and Alexander, greatly
increased the difficulty of coming to an agreement. The former
repeatedly asserted his chieftainship over both tribes by claiming that
the countries of both were his, a claim that Alexander offered to
recognize if Victor would move to the Horse Plains (mission)
reservation. Alexander claimed to be chief of the lower Pend Oreilles, a
claim the governor summarily rejected. The influence and advice of the
former Hudson Bay Company employees and half-breeds, to this and to the
other treaties, was prejudicial, instigating the Indians to make
unreasonable demands, and often opposing and misrepresenting the
treaties themselves.

Father Hoecken arrived before the end of the council, in response to the
governor's summons. It did not appear that he was exerting any adverse
influence. On the contrary, he highly approved the treaty, and signed it
as one of the witnesses. It seems, however, as the governor reported,
that the dislike of the Flatheads to the mission establishment was one
cause of their unwillingness to move to the reservation in the Pend
Oreille country. It is probable that the missionaries at St. Mary's had
been too strict and exacting for their independent natures. Moreover, it
was the fact, as the governor had cause to realize later, that the
missionaries feared and dreaded the approach of the settlers, and
sympathized wholly with the Indians as between the two.

This treaty, like all made by Governor Stevens, was remarkably liberal
in its terms to the Indians. The reservation on the Flathead River
comprises a million and a quarter acres. $84,000 in annuity goods;
$36,000 to improve the reservation; salaries of $500 a year for twenty
years, with a house and ten acres fenced and ploughed, to the three head
chiefs; schools, mills, hospitals, shops; teachers and mechanics for
twenty years; the right to fish, hunt, gather roots and berries, and
pasture stock on vacant land; and the provision for ultimately dividing
the reservation among them in severalty,--were all embraced. It was
agreed that the three tribes were to constitute one nation under Victor
as head chief, to be known as the Flathead nation, in which, and on the
same reservation, were to be included other friendly tribes, as the
lower Pend Oreilles and Coeur d'Alenes. Besides Father Hoecken, R.H.
Lansdale, W.H. Tappan, R.H. Crosby, Gustavus Sohon, and William Craig
witnessed the treaty. Some 25,000 square miles were ceded.

All three tribes now occupy the reservation on the Jocko (mission),
together with the lower Pend Oreilles and a few Spokanes. They number
2000, showing little diminution since the treaty, and have made fair
progress. Nearly all have houses with some land inclosed. Many raise
small crops of wheat and have good gardens. They have 20,000 acres under
fence, over ten miles of irrigation ditches, and raised last year 25,000
bushels of grain, 10,000 bushels of vegetables, and 7000 tons of hay.
Their lands have not yet been allotted in severalty. The agent complains
that worthless employees are frequently foisted upon the agency, "many
incompetent men hold positions who take no interest in their work,"[8]
etc.,--a state of things equally unfair to the Indians and disgraceful
to the government.

FOOTNOTES:

  [8] Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1899, pp. 192-194,
      620.




                             CHAPTER XXXII

              MARCH TO FORT BENTON.--MARSHALING THE TRIBES


Before the close of the council, agents Tappan and Craig arrived with
the proposed delegation of Nez Perces under Looking Glass, Spotted
Eagle, Eagle-from-the-Light, and other chiefs. It was agreed that they
and the Flatheads and Pend Oreilles, under their chiefs Victor and
Alexander, and accompanied by agent Thomas Adams and interpreter Ben
Kiser, should cross the mountains to the buffalo country, and hunt on
the plains south of the Missouri, until the time came for holding the
great peace council at Fort Benton, of which they would be notified.
Their agents were instructed to keep the governor informed of their
whereabouts by frequent expresses, and to guard against collisions with
the Blackfoot war-parties, and also to communicate with the Crow Indians
and induce them to attend the council. Dr. Lansdale, agent for the
Flathead nation, remained, and during the summer made extensive
examinations of the reservation on the Flathead River and the
surrounding country.

These arrangements completed, on Wednesday, July 18, the second day
after the close of the council, the governor dispatched Pearson, who had
just returned to the party after his rapid trip to Olympia from the
Walla Walla council, with full reports of the council just held, and
letters to the Indian and territorial officers in Olympia, and resumed
the march to Fort Benton, crossing for six miles the broad level valley
here known as the Hell Gate Ronde, and passing the deep, dark portal of
that name,[9] and, six miles beyond it, encamped on the Hell Gate
River. During the next five days and one hundred miles the party
traversed the broad plateau of the great mountain chain over a beautiful
rolling country of wide grassy valleys and gently rolling prairies,
interspersed with low wooded hills and spurs, and well watered by clear,
cold, rapid mountain streams. It was hard to realize that this beautiful
and diversified prairie country was the top of the Rocky Mountains, the
backbone of the continent. At the second day's camp the Indian hunter
and guide, a Pend Oreille furnished by Alexander, brought in a fine
string of mountain trout, and, not content with this, started out again,
and soon returned with an elk, and after this the messes were rarely out
of game,--elk, deer, antelope, and mountain trout. The trail followed up
the Hell Gate and its chief tributary, the Big Blackfoot, the route of
1853, and crossed the divide by Lewis and Clark's Pass. From the summit
the governor obtained a magnificent and beautiful view of the country
about an hour before sunset, the main chain stretching far to the north,
and the broad plains, broken by many streams and coulees, extending
eastward as far as the eye could reach, like an illimitable sea.

He spent the whole day, with Doty and Sohon, examining the approaches to
the summit pass, and those to Cadotte's Pass, ten miles farther south,
and determining altitudes and grades, and reached camp long after dark,
well fatigued with the day's work. Throughout the expedition the
governor was constantly examining the topographical features of the
country. He would frequently ride ahead of the train, and, sitting on a
log or on the ground, would write up his notes or journal until it came
up. He was accustomed to start the train rather late in the morning,
about eight o'clock, move at a steady, brisk walk, without stopping for
noon rest or meal, and make camp early in the afternoon, and by this
management plenty of time was afforded the animals to feed mornings and
evenings. Twenty miles was the average day's journey, but thirty or
forty miles were made with ease whenever expedient, as often happened.
No better equipped or manned train ever traversed the plains and
mountains.

It always moved in fine order, without delays, confusion, or friction. A
worn-down or sore-backed mule or horse was a rarity. At the first
symptom of need of rest, a fresh animal from the loose herd relieved the
distressed one. The packers worked in couples, each two packing and
caring for ten pack-mules. The riding animals were picked Indian horses.
The mules were of large American stock, mostly those of the exploration
of 1853. Thorough discipline and the best feeling prevailed among the
party. There was scarcely a quarrel during the whole nine months the
expedition lasted. This judicious care of the animals was characteristic
of the governor, and it is noticeable that on his arduous expeditions,
though hard-worked and only grass-fed, they actually improved in
condition,--a unique experience on the plains.

Leaving behind the prairies, groves, and sparkling, rippling streams of
the mountain plateau, the party entered upon the vast rolling plains,
gray and arid, and, traveling over them one hundred and thirty miles,
camping one night on the Dearborn River, one on the Sun, and three on
the Teton, reached the vicinity of Fort Benton on the fifth day, and
went into camp on the last-named river four miles from the fort. The
governor, riding ahead, reached it a day sooner, on the 26th, and was
disappointed in not finding or hearing from his co-commissioner,
Superintendent Alfred Cumming. During this march the party were rarely
out of sight of game. Large herds of graceful, fleet antelopes would
come scouring across the plains, and circle around the slowly moving
train, now abruptly halting to gaze with erect heads and distended eyes
at the strange procession, and now dashing on again in full career, and
presently, their curiosity satisfied, turning away and scampering out of
sight. Deer and elk were constantly seen by the river banks and under
the cottonwood groves. Buffalo trails crossed the country in every
direction, and their skulls and bones were frequent. Thus far the party
followed well-marked trails, but on entering the plains the guide
directed his course by some distant butte or landmark, or by the sun,
for there was no trail leading in a given course, and the buffalo trails
lacing the plains in every direction were very misleading. The plains
were covered with the short, fine, curly buffalo grass, very different
from the luxuriant, waving bunch grass of the Columbia, but equally
nutritious.

Learning of Mr. Cumming's approach, the governor, accompanied by Doty
and Sohon and a small party, made a three days' trip to Milk River,
August 11-13, a distance of eighty miles, where the commissioners met
and formally organized the commission, appointing Mr. Doty secretary,
and Mr. H. Kennedy, who came with Mr. Cumming, assistant secretary, and
returned together to Fort Benton. The governor was seriously concerned
to learn that the treaty goods and supplies were greatly delayed.
Commissioner Cumming had been specially charged with the duty of
transporting them to Fort Benton; but under his dilatory management the
steamboat, which carried them with himself up the Missouri, did not
reach Fort Union until late in the season, and, instead of continuing up
the river as far as possible, discharged her cargo and returned to St.
Louis. The goods were then loaded into boats, which were now slowly
proceeding up the river by cordeling, or towing by a force of men
walking along the bank and pulling on a long tow-rope. This unexpected
and inexcusable delay seriously imperiled the holding of the council.
Governor Stevens had brought with him only sufficient supplies to carry
his small party to Fort Benton, expecting to find there ample stores
sent up by the government under charge of Cumming. The western Indians,
who at his invitation had come so far to attend the council, could not
find subsistence for a long wait; and it was necessary for them, as well
as for the governor and party, to start home before winter set in and
blocked the return journey. The great numbers of the Blackfeet made it
difficult to keep them in hand and assemble them late in the season, for
they were accustomed, and indeed were obliged, to spread over a wide
territory in order to hunt buffalo, and lay in their winter robes,
lodge-skins, and food.

While in Washington the preceding summer Governor Stevens had urged upon
the Indian Department the importance of the early arrival of the goods
at Fort Benton, and on reaching Olympia in December, repeated his
recommendations in writing. Moreover, he wrote a personal letter to the
President urging the necessity of having a steamer start with them at
the earliest moment in the spring, and push up the Missouri above Fort
Union as far as possible, and especially recommended that a boat be
chartered expressly for the trip. He added a prophetic caution, or
warning, against relying upon the American Fur Company to transport the
goods, as they could not be depended upon to make the necessary early
start and vigorous push up the river, which would entail some extra
expense and risk, but would surely pursue their usual methods, and in
the end sacrifice the public interests to their own. Notwithstanding
these wise and urgent recommendations, the whole matter was left to
Cumming, who late in the spring wrote the commissioner, proposing that
the council be postponed to another year. Being thereupon informed that
Governor Stevens was probably already on his way with the western
Indians too far to be recalled, and instructed to proceed, he contracted
with the fur company to transport the goods, with the predicted result.
In this and other ways he manifested a perfect willingness to play into
the hands of the fur company, a willingness which, whatever the motive,
affords the only rational explanation of this transaction, of his entire
indifference to the success of the council, and of his opposition to
making adequate provision in the way of farms and annuities for
civilizing the Indians. Of course, the American Fur Company, like the
Hudson Bay Company, was averse to having its trade impaired and
eventually destroyed by the government's giving goods to, and
civilizing, the Indians.

At the governor's instance, messengers were immediately dispatched to
the boats to ascertain how long before they would probably arrive, and
to the different bands of Indians to advise them that they must wait
longer than was expected, and to ascertain and regulate their movements,
so that they might readily reach the council ground when notified, and
meantime find sufficient buffalo and other game to support them.

Provisions for his own party, now nearly out, were sought at the fort,
but the traders were also destitute, not having yet received their
annual supply from below, and could furnish nothing but a few hundred
pounds of old jerked buffalo meat, exactly like worn-out boot-leather in
appearance,--so black, dry, tough, and dirty was it. It seems that all
the jerked meat, when first obtained, was piled up loose in one of the
store-rooms, and free access to it given the cooks and Indian wives of
the employees. They naturally picked out the best first, so that, after
the winter's use, only the dryest and toughest pieces and scraps
remained. However, two parfleches of pemmican of one hundred pounds each
were found among the goods left by the exploring party two years before.
This pemmican was put up by the Red River half-breeds, and consisted of
jerked buffalo meat pounded fine and mixed with buffalo fat and dried
berries, and then packed in large bags of rawhide called parfleches. It
had become so hardened by age that it had to be chopped out of the
parfleches with an axe, but it was perfectly sweet and good, and
afforded a very palatable and nourishing hash.

The governor now fitted out a hunting party under Hugh Robie, with a
pack-train, and sent them with a party of Gros Ventre Indians to the
Judith River, some eighty miles south of the fort, after buffalo. These
noble game animals were found there in great numbers and very fat. The
hunters, white and red, killed hundreds of them, stripping off the hides
and flesh, which they brought into camp, where the squaws jerked the
meat by cutting it into thin slices and strips and drying it on
scaffolds in the sun, and dressed the skins for lodges. In three weeks
Robie and his party returned with his pack-mules and riding animals
loaded down with fat, juicy buffalo meat,--a two months' supply for the
whole party. Metsic, an Indian hunter, was kept busy hunting in the
vicinity of the fort, and brought in many deer and antelope, and small
parties were from time to time sent to the Citadel Rock, a noted
landmark twenty miles down the river, after bighorn, which were so
abundant there that the hunters would load their animals in a day's
hunt. The governor was desirous that his son should see and experience
all the aspects of the trip, and believed in throwing a boy on his own
resources, without too close supervision, as the proper way of
developing his judgment and capacity; so Hazard, who was now well
hardened to riding and the fatigues of the field, and sufficiently
adventurous, accompanied the buffalo and big-horn hunting parties. There
was no danger of starving, but the governor remarks:--

  "As we had very little bread, sugar, or coffee, the bighorn of
  Citadel Rock were exceedingly delightful as an article of food, and
  are generally preferred by the mountain men to any other game except
  buffalo; so between buffalo, bighorn, and the smaller game we fared
  very well. The parties who extended our information of the country
  in conveying messages to the Indians, etc., invariably lived either
  on the dried meat they took with them, or on the game which they
  killed from day to day. They had no flour, no sugar, no coffee, and
  yet there was not a word of complaint from one of them; but we made
  it the subject of a good deal of merriment when we were able to
  reach the boats and have a sufficiency of those articles which in
  civilized life are deemed indispensable to comfort."

Meanwhile the Indians were all well in hand, ready and anxious for the
council, which nothing delayed but the unfortunate backwardness of the
boats. The Blackfeet were mostly north of the Missouri, the western
Indians south of it, and the governor by his expresses kept himself
informed of and guided their movements. The reports from the agents with
the latter were especially encouraging. The Nez Perces, 108 lodges;
Flatheads and Pend Oreilles, 68 lodges; and 40 lodges of the Snakes,
numbering all told 216 lodges, or over 2000 souls,--were in one camp on
the Muscle Shell River, awaiting the call to the council. The whole camp
of the Gros Ventres, and Low Horn's band of the Piegans of 54 lodges,
were in the vicinity. The hereditary enemies were visiting and hunting
together on most friendly terms, their minds all attuned to peace and
friendship, and all anxious for the council.

An incident now occurred well calculated to test the good faith of the
Blackfeet. When making arrangements in the Bitter Root valley for the
western Indians to attend the council, and they had objected that the
Blackfeet would steal their horses, Governor Stevens assured them of his
belief that the Blackfeet would receive them with kindness and
hospitality, using this expression: "I guarantee that when you pull in
your lariat in the morning, you will find a horse at the end of it."
Relying on his assurance, four young Pend Oreille braves visited the
governor at Fort Benton, and on his invitation turned their horses into
his band, which grazed two miles above the fort. Next morning they were
gone. Two young warriors of the northern Blackfeet had picked them out
from over a hundred animals, and made off with them. The governor
immediately put Little Dog, a prominent chief of the Bloods, to search
for the trail of the raiders, and at the same time dispatched Doty with
one attendant and a guide to the northern camps, judging that the
thieves would seek refuge in that quarter. Little Dog returned
unsuccessful, not finding a hoof-print of the missing horses in one
hundred miles and thirty hours' hard riding, and was sent north to
follow Doty. The latter pushed on fifty miles a day for two hundred and
thirty miles to Bow River in British territory, a tributary of the
Saskatchewan, where he struck a large Blackfoot camp only two hours
after the arrival there of the stolen horses. He immediately called
together the chiefs, and demanded the surrender of the animals. The head
chief, Lame Bull, returned three of them, but stated that one of the
scamps had gotten off with the fourth. He expressed great regret at the
theft, and offered two of his own horses in place of the one not
recovered. Doty placed the rescued animals in charge of Little Dog, who
had overtaken him, and resuming the pursuit of the remaining one, rode
seventy miles to Elk River, another branch of the Saskatchewan, where
he found another large camp of Blackfeet, and where the chief, Bull's
Head, delivered to him the last horse with expressions of regret at the
misconduct of his young men, and the offer of another horse by way of
amends. On the sixteenth day after the horses were taken they were
returned to the Pend Oreille braves at the fort. This was the first and
last instance of horse-stealing by the Blackfeet pending the council,
and afforded most gratifying proof of their good faith. Thus a
depredation which might have led to disastrous results was made the
means of demonstrating the sincerity and strengthening the friendship of
the Indians.

All these Indians professed great willingness to make friends with the
western tribes and the Crows, and agreed to meet them at the council and
conclude a treaty. They arranged with Mr. Doty to so direct their
movements as to bring them within reach of Fort Benton at the proper
time. He also secured James Bird as interpreter, an intelligent
half-breed, said to be the best interpreter in the country, who was then
visiting Low Horn's band.

On August 27 Pearson arrived with letters from Olympia, and reported
that everything was quiet and favorable west of the mountains, and that
many miners and settlers were going into the upper country, gold having
recently been discovered on the Columbia, near Colville.

  "Pearson rode seventeen hundred and fifty miles by the route he took
  from the Bitter Root valley to Olympia, and back to Benton, in
  twenty-eight days, during some of which he did not travel. He was
  less than three days going from Fort Owen to Fort Benton, a
  distance, by the route he pursued, of some two hundred and sixty
  miles, which he traveled without a change of animals, having no food
  but the berries of the country, except a little fish, which he
  killed on Travelers' Rest Creek of Lewis and Clark on the morning
  of starting from Fort Owen, which served him for a single meal," as
  the governor says in his final report.

On his trips Pearson usually drove two extra horses ahead of him, and,
when the one he was riding became tired, changed his saddle to a fresh
one. He could "ride anything that wore hair," and was equally expert
with the lariat which he carried at the horn of his saddle. He always
contrived, too, to procure fresh horses at certain points on his long
trips, as at Walla Walla, Lapwai, and the Bitter Root valley, sometimes
having previously left them, and sometimes by trading with the Indians.
Imagine this little man of steel, insensible to cold, hunger, and
fatigue, galloping like a centaur, day after day, across the vast,
lonely plains, driving before him his two loose horses!

The messenger dispatched to the boats returned with the report that they
would probably reach the mouth of the Judith in twenty days, and Fort
Benton in thirty or thirty-five, or on the 5th to the 10th of October.
The governor proposed that one of the boats be loaded with the most
necessary goods and forced up faster by an extra crew, in order to
hasten the opening of the council, leaving the others to follow; but
Commissioner Cumming refused to consent to this expedient. He was a
large, portly man, pompous, and full of his own importance, and having
been named first as commissioner, and charged with bringing up the goods
and the disbursements for the council, now attempted to arrogate to
himself practically sole and exclusive authority. He even attempted to
dismiss Doty as secretary, and claimed the right to appoint all the
officers for the council; and this was the more unreasonable because he
had not brought with him a single efficient man, and the whole work of
holding and collecting the Indians, furnishing interpreters, and in
short carrying the council through successfully, had to be done, and was
done, by Governor Stevens and the trained force he had provided for the
purpose. But the governor firmly insisted that nothing could be done
except by the act of the commission; sternly informed his colleague that
he would not permit him to repudiate his own action in organizing it,
appointing the secretary, etc.; submitted a series of rules regulating
its proceedings, and required all official communications between them
to be in writing and made a matter of record. Under this firm and
decided treatment Cumming was forced to abate his pretensions and
subside into his proper place; but he opposed most of the governor's
suggestions, disagreed with him on all points, and exhibited a degree of
arrogance, ignorance, and childish petulance hard to be believed, were
they not so plainly shown by the official record.

In framing the treaty the governor proposed that farms be opened for the
Blackfeet on the upper waters of the Sun River, and that $50,000 a year
be allowed the Indians for twenty years, the greater part to be expended
in carrying on the farms, instructing the Indians, etc. This amount was
authorized by their instructions, and did not seem very extravagant for
teaching twelve thousand Indians the ways of civilization, and leading
them to abandon their life-long hostilities and predatory raids, being
only about four dollars per capita. But Cumming flatly refused to agree
to more than $35,000, and objected to the farms as "affording
opportunities for speculating under the guise of philanthropy." As the
Blackfeet were within his superintendency, this was really a reflection
upon himself and his agents not intended by the self-sufficient
official. The commissioners were instructed to report generally on the
Indians and the country. Cumming stigmatized the Blackfeet as utter
savages, bloodthirsty and depraved, and declared that they would use
goods that might be furnished them as the means of buying rum at the
British trading-posts, and, therefore, that annuities of goods, etc.,
would only aid in demoralizing them. As to the country, he adopted, _con
amore_, the Jefferson Davis theory, asserting that "it is a vast and
sterile region, which could not sustain the animals required for even a
limited emigration, and altogether unfitted for cultivation. Every part
of this barren region must forever be closed against all modern
improvements in the way of transportation, with the exception of the
Missouri River." He was as unable to appreciate the philanthropic views
of Governor Stevens, and his earnest desire to improve the Indians, as
he was ignorant of them and of the country.

The governor's views are given at length, and have been remarkably
sustained by the subsequent settlement of the country. The following
extracts will be found interesting, particularly his calculation that a
million and a half buffalo grazed over the region:--

  "It is in the main an exceedingly fine grazing country, of great
  salubrity of climate, much arable land of good quality, with
  abundant cottonwood on the streams, and many localities abound in
  pine of the finest quality. A portion of the country is scantily
  watered, but not seriously to affect its capabilities as a grazing
  country, or to interfere with emigration. At the base of the
  mountains, throughout nearly the whole length of the Blackfoot
  country, the soil is good, in many places exceedingly rich, and the
  grasses abundant and of the finest quality. At the heads of Milk and
  Marias rivers, and at the heads of all the southern tributaries of
  the south branch of the Saskatchewan, between latitudes 48° 30´ and
  49°, there are abundant forests of pine, large tracts of arable
  land, and lakes well stocked with fish. On the Highwood alone, there
  are at least fifteen thousand acres of arable land.

  "So far from this country not being able to supply the wants of
  even a limited emigration, an emigration could not possibly take
  place which would exhaust its capabilities.

  "The quantities of buffalo which these plains subsist, not to take
  into account the vast herds of elk, deer, bighorn, antelope, and
  other game, will alone carry conviction that the territory inhabited
  by the Blackfeet is a good grazing country.

  "The Blackfeet live almost exclusively on the buffalo. They number
  above ten thousand souls. They make twenty thousand robes a year.
  They require nearly twenty thousand skins for their renewal of
  lodges annually and other purposes. All these are the skins of cows.
  For several months they live entirely on bulls, and many bulls are
  killed at all seasons of the year. Making the proper allowance for
  animals that die of disease, are killed by wolves, or other causes,
  and for the known improvidence of Indians, it is believed that one
  hundred and fifty thousand buffalo of three years old and upward are
  required each year to subsist, clothe, and house these Indians. This
  number must be added each year to the herds of grown animals to
  prevent a decrease. Estimating that three quarters of the cows bear
  young, and that one half of these come to maturity, eight hundred
  thousand buffalo of and above three years, and one million and a
  half buffalo of all ages must be roaming on these plains to enable
  the Indians to live. Yet, on a large portion of this region the
  grass is hardly touched from one year's end to another.

  "The whole of the Gros Ventres and nearly three fourths of the
  Piegans, Bloods, and Blackfeet winter on the Milk, Marias, and
  Teton, finding subsistence for their animals in the bottoms, and
  food from the buffalo which frequent the groves of cottonwood.


                    "THE CHARACTER OF THE BLACKFEET.

  "They are called savages, yet their four tribes have lived together
  many years on terms of amity, making war only on the neighboring
  tribes. The chiefs, who promised the undersigned two years' since to
  use their influence to prevent their people from warring on the
  neighboring tribes, have been true to their word, and have in some
  cases incurred the displeasure of their wild young men for their
  persistency. These chiefs, and all the Blackfoot chiefs, have sent
  word to their hereditary enemies, the Flatheads, the Nez Perces, and
  the Crows: 'Come to the council without fear. Your persons and your
  horses shall be under our protection, and if a horse be taken by
  some of our wild young men, his place shall at once be made good.'
  The undersigned looks forward to no disturbance at the council, for
  he believes the Blackfeet will keep their word.

  "The Blackfeet have expressed a strong desire for farms, schools,
  mills, and shops. They are quick to learn, have a great curiosity to
  handle tools and implements, and are excellent herders of animals.
  The women are proverbially industrious, many of them expert in the
  use of the needle, and persons of both sexes seem to fall readily
  into the ways of the whites."

FOOTNOTES:

  [9] Now occupied by the thriving town, Missoula.




                             CHAPTER XXXIII

                         THE BLACKFOOT COUNCIL


By his careful preparation for two years, and masterly handling of them,
Governor Stevens brought and kept these various tribes of Indians within
easy distance of Fort Benton, all ready and anxious for the council, and
in the most friendly and favorable state of feeling, during the whole
month of August and half of September, fully six weeks. Had the goods
arrived at any time during this waiting period, not less than 12,000
Indians would have attended the council, comprising 10,000 Blackfeet,
1100 Nez Perces, 700 Flatheads and Pend Oreilles, and 400 Snakes, the
western Indians numbering 2200. But it now became impossible for the
latter to remain longer on the Muscle Shell and Judith, for lack of
game. The buffalo had disappeared. The grass was drying up. No day could
yet be fixed for the council in the uncertainty of the arrival of the
boats. On September 8 the Nez Perce camp of one hundred and three
lodges, in charge of agent Tappan, was obliged to start southward for
the Yellowstone, hoping to find buffalo. Tappan wrote that, unless the
council was held within three weeks, not twelve Nez Perces would be able
to attend it. Eagle-from-the-Light and other chiefs, with several
lodges, joined the Flathead camp in order not to miss the council. But
on September 10 agent Adams reported that the Flatheads might in twelve
or fourteen days be obliged, also, to go to the Yellowstone for food.
The Snake camp also moved to the same region for the same cause. In
compliance with his instructions, Adams made a trip to the Yellowstone
in search of the Crows, and descended it to a point below the Big Horn
River, where he met Tappan with some Nez Perces on the same quest. But
these Indians could not be found. It was reported that, in consequence
of the measles having broken out among them and many having died, they
had scattered, a part going down the river and part taking to the
mountains.

To prevent, if possible, the failure of the whole council undertaking,
now imminent, the governor dispatched Packmaster Higgins with a few
picked men to visit both camps, and notify them that October 3, or a few
days later, was fixed for holding the council, and directing them to
move to the vicinity of Fort Benton, and to find camps on the Shantier
and Highwood creeks. Mr. Tappan was also instructed to secure, if
possible, the attendance of the principal Crow chiefs.

On the fourth day out Higgins met Adams and Tappan returning to Fort
Benton, despairing of the council, but the former hastened back to the
Flatheads with the new orders, while Tappan joined Higgins, and, with
Craig, Delaware Jim, and the voyageur Legare, pushed across the country
and struck the Nez Perce camp high up on the Yellowstone. Although none
of the party had ever passed over this part of the country before,
Delaware Jim was so thoroughly conversant with the Yellowstone country
and the upper Missouri, and certain mountain heights flanking the route,
that he actually guided them on an air-line, and struck the looked-for
camp without making a detour of a mile on the course, and that, too,
traveling fifty miles a day.

As the result of this prompt and decided action, Adams reached Fort
Benton October 3, and reported that Victor's whole camp would soon be on
the Judith, and that Victor himself, leaving his camp there, would come
with his chiefs and principal men to Fort Benton to attend the council.
On the 5th Higgins and Tappan arrived, and at noon next day a large
delegation of Nez Perce chiefs, under charge of Craig, also came in, but
did not bring the large numbers in their camp, for fear they could not
find sufficient game to feed them. Tappan was unable to learn anything
of the Crows except the report already mentioned. The Snakes, too, had
gone beyond reach, and could not be summoned. In the mean time the
northern bands of the Blackfeet, in accordance with the programme
arranged by Mr. Doty, had been moving down, and were now all on the
Teton and Marias rivers. The Gros Ventres were on Milk River. Low Horn's
and Little Gray Head's bands of the Piegans were on the Honkee.
Alexander, the Pend Oreille chief's camp, was established on the
Highwood. The buffalo were in great numbers between the Marias and Milk,
and herds of them were coming within twenty miles of Fort Benton. "The
arrival of the Nez Perces," says the governor, "brought all the Indians
within the direct purview of the commission, and the most remote camps,
those of the Flatheads and Gros Ventres, could be reached in a single
day." These two camps were some seventy-five miles distant each, in
different directions, and the area within which the Indians were now
brought was little less than the State of Massachusetts, not counting
the large Nez Perce camp on the Yellowstone.

Even yet the boats had not reached the Judith, could not reach it
probably before the 8th, thirty-seven days from the Muscle Shell,
instead of twenty as promised. It would require twenty-five days longer
to drag them up the river another hundred miles to Fort Benton. The
Blackfeet and the western Indians had now been freely mingling together
for several days, and it was important that their present favorable
disposition should be availed of. Accordingly Governor Stevens proposed
to hold the council on the mouth of the Judith, and upon his urgency and
arguments it was so decided on the evening of the 5th, the day the Nez
Perce chiefs arrived, and the 13th was fixed as the time. The necessary
measures to assemble the Indians at that point were devolved upon the
governor as usual, and also to notify the boats to stop and unload
there. By the 7th all the camps were notified, the Flatheads being
already on the appointed ground, and most of the chiefs conferred with
the governor in person, who, during these days, held a constant levee in
his camp at the fort. The northern camps, however, were unwilling to
move seventy miles farther than they expected, with their large supplies
of meat recently taken, and it was decided that the chiefs, with a
portion of their people, should attend, leaving the main camps
undisturbed.

The governor relates the following incident:--

  "My son Hazard, thirteen years of age, had accompanied me from
  Olympia to the waters of the Missouri. Like all youths of that age,
  he was always ready for the saddle, and had spent some days with one
  of my hunting parties on the Judith, where he had become well
  acquainted with the Gros Ventres. When we determined to change the
  council from Fort Benton to the mouth of the Judith, I undertook the
  duty of seeing the necessary messages sent to the various bands and
  tribes, and to bring them all to the mouth of the Judith at the
  proper moment. These Indians were scattered from Milk River, near
  Hammell's Houses, along the Marias, along the Teton, to a
  considerable distance south of the Missouri, the Flatheads being on
  the Judith, and the Pend Oreilles on Smith's Fork of the Missouri,
  with two bands of the Blackfeet lying somewhat intermediate, but in
  the vicinity of the Girdle Mountain. I succeeded in securing the
  services of a fit and reliable man for each one of these bands and
  tribes, except the Gros Ventres, camped on Milk River. There were
  several men, who had considerable experience among Indians and in
  voyageuring, who desired to go, but I had not confidence in them,
  and accordingly, at ten o'clock on Sunday morning, I started my
  little son as a messenger to the Gros Ventres. Accompanied by the
  interpreter, Legare, he made that Gros Ventre camp before dark, a
  distance of seventy-five miles, and gave his message the same
  evening to the chiefs, and without changing horses they were in the
  saddle early in the morning, and reached my camp at half past three
  o'clock. Thus a youth of thirteen traveled one hundred and fifty
  measured miles from ten o'clock of one day to half past three
  o'clock in the afternoon of the next. The Gros Ventres made their
  marches exactly as I had desired, and reached the new council ground
  at the mouth of the Judith the very morning which had been
  appointed.

  "I doubt whether such an express service as we were obliged to
  employ at Fort Benton to keep the Indians in hand was ever employed
  in this country with the same means. Many of our animals, which had
  done service all the way from the Dalles, traveled at express rates
  more than a thousand miles before we started on our return from Fort
  Benton. Many of our mules traveled from seven to eight hundred miles
  with packs in going to the boats for provisions and to the hunting
  grounds for meat; and yet, after our treaty was concluded and we
  were ready to move home, we were able to make very good rates with
  these same animals, although the season was so late as November."

To realize the remarkable extent and efficiency of this express service,
bear in mind Doty's trip to Bow River, three hundred miles north of Fort
Benton; Tappan's and Adams's and Higgins's to the Yellowstone, two
hundred miles southeast; and the expresses down the river to the boats,
one hundred and fifty miles; not to speak of Pearson's trip to Olympia,
one thousand miles. It was as though one in New York, without
telegraphs, railroads, or mails, had to regulate by pony express the
movements of bands of Indians at Boston, Portland, Montreal, Buffalo,
and Washington.

After spending four days in conferences with the chiefs, explaining the
reasons for changing the council ground, etc., the governor broke camp
on the 10th, and on the next day, Thursday, reached the point where the
boats were unloading, a mile below the mouth of the Judith, selected and
prepared the council ground, and received and assigned to their camps
the Indians as they arrived. His colleague descended the river in a
skiff, and did not arrive until the following Saturday. By Monday all
the Indians had assembled, and numbered thirty-five hundred.

On Tuesday Governor Stevens formally opened the council. The Indians, as
usual on such occasions, "reposed on the bosom of their mother," that
is, sat on the ground in semicircular rows, twenty-six principal chiefs
in the first row, lesser chiefs in succeeding rows, and the rank and
file in the rear. The governor administered the oath to the interpreters
to translate truly, having first inquired of the Indians if they were
satisfied with them and received an affirmative reply.

  [Illustration: THE BLACKFOOT COUNCIL]

Governor Stevens said:--

  "My children, my heart is glad to-day. I see Indians east of the
  mountains and Indians west of the mountains sitting here as friends,
  Bloods, Blackfeet, Piegans, Gros Ventres, and Nez Perces,
  Koo-te-nays, Pend Oreilles, Flatheads; and we have the Cree chief
  sitting down here from the north and east, and Snakes farther from
  the west. There is peace now between you all here present. We want
  peace also with absent tribes, with the Crees and Assiniboines, with
  the Snakes, and, yes, even with the Crows. You have all sent your
  message to the Crows, telling them you would meet them in friendship
  here. The Crows were far, and could not be present, but we expect
  you to promise to be friends with the Crows.

  "It was Low Horn who, two years since, said to me, 'Peace with the
  Flatheads and Nez Perces.' The Little Dog, Little Gray Head, and all
  the Blackfoot chiefs said, 'Peace with them; come and meet us in
  council,' and here they are. Here you see them face to face. I met
  them the same year. I told them your words. They said, 'Peace
  also with the Blackfeet.' And the Great Father has said, 'Peace with
  the Crees and Assiniboines, the Crows, and all neighboring tribes.'

  "I shall say nothing about peace with the white man. No white man
  enters a Blackfoot or a western Indian's lodge without being treated
  to the very best. Peace already prevails. We trust such will
  continue to be the case forever. We have been traveling over your
  whole country, both to the east and west of the mountains, in small
  parties, ranging away north to Bow River, and south to the
  Yellowstone. We have kept no guard. We have not tied up our horses.
  All has been safe. Therefore I say peace has been, is now, and will
  continue, between these Indians and the white man."

The treaty was then read to them, after which the governor went over its
provisions, explaining them, etc.

The council lasted three days. The best feeling prevailed, all the
chiefs making earnest and sincere speeches in favor of peace,
contrasting the advantages of hunting in safety and trading between the
tribes with the continual losses of their young braves and the steady
decline in numbers from perpetual war, although some of them expressed
doubts as to restraining the ambitious young warriors. Only one passing
shadow was cast over the assemblage, and that but for a moment. The
treaty made all the country south of the Missouri a common hunting
ground for all the tribes, while the country north of the river was to
be reserved to the Blackfeet for hunting purposes, although open to the
western Indians for trading and visiting. To this restriction Alexander,
the Pend Oreille chief, demurred. Said he:--

  "A long time ago this country belonged to our ancestors, and the
  Blackfeet lived far north. We Indians were all well pleased when we
  came together here in friendship. Now you point us out a little
  piece of land to hunt our game in. When we were enemies I always
  crossed over there, and why should I not now when we are friends?
  Now I have two hearts about it. What is the reason? Which of these
  chiefs [pointing to the Blackfeet] says we are not to go there?
  Which is the one?"

  The Little Dog, a Piegan chief: "It is I, and not because we have
  anything against you. We are friendly, but the north Blackfeet might
  make a quarrel if you hunted near them. Do not put yourself in their
  way."

On Alexander's insisting, the Little Dog said:--

  "Since he speaks so much of it, we will give him liberty to come out
  in the north."

Alexander's contention will be better understood by considering the fact
that his country, on the Flathead River and Clark's Fork, lies directly
opposite the region of the upper Marias, and that by going directly east
across the mountains through the Marias Pass he could reach buffalo in a
short trip, while the journey to the plains south of the Missouri was a
much longer one.

On the last day the commissioners and the chiefs and headmen of all the
tribes present signed the treaty amid the greatest satisfaction and good
feeling. During the next three days, October 18-20, the presents were
distributed, and coats and medals were presented to the chiefs, with
speeches by the commissioners, exhorting them to keep their promises to
their Great Father, and control their young braves. The several tribes
fraternized most amicably throughout all these proceedings, particularly
the Flatheads and Gros Ventres,--who had hunted together and exchanged
friendly visits for many weeks on the Muscle Shell,--the Nez Perces and
Piegans, and the Bloods and Pend Oreilles. Though the Crows were not
present, the Indians pledged themselves not to war upon them, nor upon
any of the neighboring tribes. The officers of this council were: Isaac
I. Stevens and Alfred Cumming, commissioners; James Doty, secretary;
Thomas Adams and A.J. Vaughan, reporters. The interpreters were: James
Bird, A. Culbertson, and M. Roche, for the Blackfeet; Benjamin Kiser,
G. Sohon, for the Flatheads; William Craig, Delaware Jim, for the Nez
Perces.

  [Illustration:             STAR ROBE
                 THE RIDER       HEAVY SHIELD
                              LAME BULL
                 BLACKFOOT CHIEFS]

The treaty was much more than a treaty of peace as far as the Blackfeet
were concerned, for it gave them schools, farms, agricultural
implements, etc., and an agent, and annuities of $35,000 for ten years,
of which $15,000 was devoted to educating them in agriculture and to
teaching the children. At the last moment the governor induced Cumming
to agree to a clause empowering the President and Senate to increase the
annuities $15,000 more, if the amount fixed in the treaty was deemed
insufficient. It contained the usual provision prohibiting intoxicating
liquor. The extensive region between the Missouri and Yellowstone was
made the common hunting ground of all the tribes. All agreed to maintain
peace with each other, including those tribes that were unable to be
present, the Crows, Crees, Assiniboines, and Snakes. The treaty was made
obligatory on the Indians from their signing it, and on the United
States from its ratification, which occurred the next spring, and it was
duly proclaimed by the President on April 25, 1856.

The tribes actually parties to this treaty numbered, by the
commissioners' calculation, Blackfeet, 11,500; Nez Perces, 2500;
Flathead nation, 2000; total 16,000. Nearly all of their chiefs and
principal men attended the council and signed the treaty.

The peace made at this council was observed with gratifying fidelity in
the main. The Blackfeet ceased their incessant and bloody raids, and met
their former enemies on friendly terms upon the common hunting grounds.
Within a few years, in 1862-63, large white settlements sprang up on the
headwaters of the Missouri, but they were spared the horrors and
sufferings of Indian warfare with so powerful a tribe largely in
consequence of this treaty. The council, which Governor Stevens planned
and carried out with such foresight, sagacity, and indefatigable
exertions during two years, bore fruit at last in the perpetual peace he
hoped for and predicted. Few treaties with Indians have been so well
observed by them as this by the "bloodthirsty" Blackfeet. They took no
part in the great Sioux wars, nor in the outbreak of Joseph. They were
afterwards gathered together on a large reservation, including the
country about the Sun River, where the governor proposed to establish
their farms.

The council ground was a wide, level plain covered with a noble grove of
huge cottonwoods. It was on the left bank of the Missouri, nearly
opposite but below the mouth of the Judith. This stream was also
bordered by broad bottoms, which were covered with large sage-brush, and
fairly swarming with deer. The governor's camp was pitched under the
lofty cottonwoods, and lower down was the camp of the crew of men who
had dragged the boats up the river. They were a hundred strong, mostly
Germans, having many fine voices among them, and were fond of spending
the evenings in singing. The effect of their grand choruses, pealing
forth over the river and resounding among the lofty trees, was
magnificent. In the governor's camp an unusually large Indian lodge--a
great cone of poles covered with dressed and smoke-stained buffalo
skins--was erected and used as an office tent, where the records were
copied and smaller conferences held. Every night between eleven and
twelve, when the work of the day was concluded, the governor would call
in the gentlemen of the party, a few chiefs, and some of the
interpreters, and have a real Homeric feast of buffalo ribs, flapjacks
with melted sugar, and hot coffee. Whole sides of ribs would be brought
in, smoking-hot from the fire, and passed around, and each guest would
cut off a rib for himself with his hunting knife, and sit there holding
the huge dainty, three feet long, and tearing off the juicy and
delicious meat with teeth and knife, principally the former. No
description can convey an idea of the hearty zest and relish and
enjoyment, or the keen appetites, with which they met at these
hospitable repasts, and recounted the varied adventures and experiences
of their recent trips, or listened as Craig, Delaware Jim, or Ben Kiser
related some thrilling tale of trapper days, or desperate fight with
Indian or grizzly bear.

  [Illustration: TAT-TU-YE, THE FOX
                 _Chief of the Blood Indians_]

  [Illustration: MEK-YA-PY, RED DYE
                 _Piegan Warrior_]

The other commissioner did not grace these reunions with his presence.
Chafing at the constraint put upon him, and the secondary part which he
could not help taking, despite all his pretensions, he kept his quarters
on one of the boats, and relieved his mind by refusing to recommend the
allowance of the governor's accounts for the extra expenses necessarily
incurred by the two months' delay, the result of his own inefficiency;
refused to allow Mr. Doty more than five dollars a day for his services
as secretary, which pitiful stipend he took pains to call "wages;" and
among other grievances complained that Governor Stevens had insinuated
that he, Cumming, had shown a disposition to repudiate his own acts done
in commission,--all this gravely set forth in official communications
addressed to the Secretary, and made part of the record. This was too
much for the governor's patience, and he replied:--

  "The undersigned has made no such intimation. On the contrary, in
  his communications to the commission he has demonstrated that
  Commissioner Cumming had repudiated his own act, and used every
  exertion to usurp the rights and powers of the commission, and
  reduce the undersigned to the position of a subordinate. Fortunately
  for the dignity of the commission and the success of the treaty,
  this attempt was most successfully resisted, and Commissioner
  Cumming was compelled to surrender his claims. Commissioner Stevens
  has no grievance for which he asks redress from the Department of
  the Interior. He has protected his own rights here."

In the joint report forwarding the treaty, prepared like all the
official papers by Governor Stevens, he states the disagreements between
the commissioners on nearly every point, and adds:--

  "So utterly at variance have been their views that it has only been
  with great difficulty that a concert of action has been effected at
  all."

The governor's last official communication to the secretary of the
commission fitly expressed his indignation at the action of the
department in naming Cumming first on the commission:--

"The undersigned solemnly protests against the instructions of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs placing the name of Commissioner Cumming
first on the commission, and he appeals from said instructions to the
President of the United States.

  "The undersigned was, in his opinion, entitled to be placed first,
  and for the following reasons:--

  "1. He originated the Blackfoot council, prepared the Indians on
  both sides of the mountains for it, and, for all practical purposes,
  has been the superintendent of all these tribes since he explored
  the country in 1853. He has appointed special agents for the
  Blackfeet, distributed goods and provisions among them, and in other
  ways has by authority of the Interior Department had the
  administrative charge of these tribes.

  "2. He was the senior officer by date of priority of commission.

  "3. He was better fitted, by experience and adaptation to the
  duties, to take a prominent part in the negotiations, and he
  fearlessly refers to the official record to show that the success of
  the treaty is mainly due to his previous labors, his forecast in
  bringing the necessary force to the theatre of the principal
  operations, and to the vigilance, energy, and force of character
  which he has exhibited throughout, and that thus was redressed the
  wrong which otherwise would have been done to the public service,
  and injury to the reputation and services of the undersigned, by
  placing his name second on the commission."

  [Illustration: JAMES BIRD         DELAWARE JIM
                     COLONEL ALFRED CUMMING
                WILLIAM CRAIG    ALEXANDER CULBERTSON
                COMMISSIONER CUMMING AND INTERPRETERS]

With this parting shot the governor bade a heartfelt farewell to the
pretentious incapable, who had so nearly wrecked the council, and added
so much to his labors and perplexities. Cumming started down the river
on one of the boats on the 23d.




                             CHAPTER XXXIV

             CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN MIDWINTER.--SURPRISE
                  OF THE C[OE]UR D'ALENES AND SPOKANES


Having made a good riddance of his troublesome colleague, and seen the
Indians depart their several ways with much hand-shaking and many
expressions of goodwill and satisfaction, the governor and his little
party packed up and started on the 24th, and reached Fort Benton the
following day. Two days were spent here preparing for the long return
journey across the mountains; for the animals were well worn by the hard
express service of the summer, and it was necessary to lighten loads as
much as possible. On October 28 the homeward start was made; the party
moved over to and up the Teton, continued up that stream the 29th, and
went into camp thirty-five miles from the fort.

Supper was just over, and the men were gathering around the camp-fires,
for the evening was frosty, when a lone horseman was discerned in the
twilight slowly making his way over the plains towards the camp, and
soon Pearson rode in, or rather staggered in, for his horse was utterly
exhausted, and tottered as it walked. The eager men crowded around, and
helped the wiry expressman from the saddle and supported him to a seat,
for he was unable to stand, and his emaciated, wild, and haggard
appearance bore witness to the hardships he had undergone. He delivered
his dispatches, and, after being revived with food and warmth, was able
to make his report, and surely one more fraught with astonishment and
consternation for that little party on the lonely plains, a thousand
miles from home, could not be imagined.

The great tribes of the upper Columbia country, the Cuyuses, Yakimas,
Walla Wallas, Umatillas, Palouses, and all the Oregon bands down to the
Dalles, the very ones who had signed the treaties at the Walla Walla
council and professed such friendship, had all broken out in open war.
They had swept the upper country clean of whites, killing all the
settlers and miners found there, and murdered agent Bolon under
circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Major Haller, sent into the Yakima
country with a hundred regulars and a howitzer, had been defeated and
forced to retreat by Kam-i-ah-kan's warriors, with the loss of a third
of his force and his cannon. The Indians west of the Cascades had also
risen simultaneously, and laid waste the settlements on Puget Sound and
in Oregon, showing that a widespread conspiracy prevailed. The Spokanes
and Coeur d'Alenes were hostile, or soon would become hostile under
the spur and taunts of the young Cuyuse and Yakima warriors sent among
them to stir them up, and even some of the Nez Perces were disaffected.
A thousand well-armed and brave hostile warriors under Kam-i-ah-kan,
Pu-pu-mox-mox, Young Chief, and Five Crows were gathered in the Walla
Walla valley, waiting to "wipe out" the party on its return; squads of
young braves were visiting the Nez Perces, Spokanes, and Coeur
d'Alenes, vaunting their victories, displaying fresh gory scalps, and
using every effort to cajole or force them into hostility to the whites.

The daring expressman's story of how he ran the gauntlet of the hostile
tribes with the dispatches and information upon which depended the lives
of the party heightened the impression made by his wretched appearance
and doleful tidings. He left the Dalles on his return trip, fresh and
well mounted, and, riding all day and night, reached Billy McKay's ranch
on the Umatilla River at daylight, and stopped to get breakfast. The
place was deserted. After eating he lassoed a fine powerful horse among
a large band grazing near by, and after a hard struggle managed to
saddle, bridle, and mount it. The steed was wild, and started off
jumping stiff-legged. As Pearson rode from under the trees surrounding
the house into the road, he saw a party of Indians racing down the hill
into the valley, evidently on his trail, and heard their yells as they
caught sight of him,--"Whup si-ah si-ah-poo! Whup si-ah!" "Kill the
white man! Kill the white!"--and redoubled their speed in pursuit. His
new mount proved of speed and bottom, and under whip and spur gave over
his jumping for swift running. As he climbed the hill leading out of the
valley on to the high plains and looked back, he again saw the red
devils and heard their yells; and for mile after mile, from the top of
every ridge and roll of the plains crossed by the trail, he would look
back and see his pursuers, or the dust rising under the hoofs of their
horses. But they could not lessen the distance between them; gradually
they fell behind farther and farther, and at length were lost to sight.
Pearson pushed his horse on all day as rapidly as it could stand without
breaking down, and, when night fell, turned off the trail at right
angles for several miles, then struck a course parallel to it, traveled
all night, crossed the Walla Walla River and valley above the usual ford
and crossings, and, having found a secluded depression in the plains
beyond, stopped to rest and let his horse feed a couple of hours.
Pushing on without further adventure, and exchanging his worn-out steed
for a fresh one at Red Wolf's ground, he reached Lapwai the next day.
Here he obtained a day's rest.

Thus refreshed, and securing fresh horses and a young Nez Perce brave as
guide, he started across the Bitter Root Mountains by the direct Nez
Perce trail, the shortest but also the most rugged and elevated route,
and at dark made camp high up in the mountains. That night a furious
snowstorm set in. A tree fell and crushed his Indian companion. Pearson
dragged his insensible body from beneath the tree, and said to himself,
"Now the Nez Perces, too, will break out. They never will believe this
buck's death was accidental. They will deem me his murderer, and always
hunt my scalp after this." But to his great joy the young Indian came to
his senses, and proved not to be seriously hurt. The storm raged three
days; several feet of snow fell, too deep for horses to travel. When it
ceased, Pearson sent the Indian back with the horses, and, packing his
dispatches, blankets, and some dried meat on his back, continued across
on snowshoes, which he had made during the storm, cutting the bows with
his knife, and unraveling his lariat for the webs. The trail was hidden
under the snow, but he guided his course largely by the marks of packs
against the trees made by Indians who had crossed in winter. Struggling
on in this manner for four days, he emerged upon the Bitter Root valley
near Fort Owen, almost dead with fatigue and privation. Stopping only a
few hours for rest, and procuring a good horse and equipments from the
ever friendly Flatheads, he again took the saddle, and on the third day
staggered into the governor's camp on the Teton.

The dispatches fully corroborated Pearson's information. Among them were
letters from Acting-Governor Mason, Colonel Simmons, Major Tilton, and
others, warning the governor on no account to attempt to return home by
the direct route across the mountains, and urging him to descend the
Missouri and return by way of the Isthmus. He was assured that there
were scarcely any troops in the country, that it was impossible to
succor him, and equally impossible for him to get through so many
hostile Indians, and that his only way of safety lay down the Missouri
River.

Governor Stevens's decision was instant and unwavering. It was to force
his way back to his Territory by the direct route through all opposition
and obstacles. He fully appreciated the perils and difficulties of the
attempt, but his determination was unalterably fixed sternly to confront
them all, and by a bold, decided course and rapid movements to force a
passage through the hostile country and hostile savages.

Doty was sent back to the fort the next morning for additional arms and
ammunition. At noon the following day, October 31, leaving orders for
Doty to follow with the train on his return from the fort, the governor,
with Delaware Jim and Hugh Robie, his only companions, started for the
Bitter Root valley, and reached Fort Owen in four and a half days, a
distance of two hundred and thirty miles. Says the governor of this
trip:--

  "The first night we camped on Sun River, having made a distance of
  some twenty-nine miles from about noon to sundown. On the 1st of
  November we were in the saddle at early dawn, pushed towards
  Cadotte's Pass, between the Crown Butte and Rattlers, passed by the
  Bird Tail Rock, crossed the Dearborn, and went into camp four miles
  before reaching the divide, at a point which was the camp of
  Lieutenant Grover and Mr. Robie in their winter trip of 1854. This
  evening a snow came on about an hour before sundown, or we should
  have crossed the divide that night. The weather in the morning was
  clear and beautiful, but as we had no tent, we built up a large fire
  in order to dry ourselves, and got breakfast before leaving camp,
  and at half past eight we were on the road. There were some six or
  seven inches of snow on the ground, but the weather was extremely
  mild, and the snow was rapidly passing away. I went up the divide
  on the ravine north of the usual trail, and was able to find a very
  good route for our animals. There was little or no snow on the
  western slope of the divide; continuing down the Blackfoot valley
  five and one half miles, the snow was only an inch or two deep, and
  entirely passed away before we reached Lander's Fork. We halted on
  Lander's Fork for a few minutes to rest our animals; then, moving
  very rapidly through the Belly prairie and cañon, we came out on the
  large prairie of the Blackfoot at a little after dark, camping where
  I had camped with Lieutenant Donelson in 1853. The next day we were
  in the saddle early, and, moving over this prairie at a very rapid
  rate, ate breakfast at a point some eighteen miles from our
  morning's camp, and made our evening camp within about ten miles of
  the Hell Gate crossing to Fort Owen. The next day we reached Fort
  Owen, meeting at the crossing some Indians, by whom I was able to
  communicate with Dr. Lansdale. On our way to Fort Owen we met a Nez
  Perce delegation on their way home, and made arrangements to meet
  them at the crossing of Hell Gate, in order to confer about
  difficulties ahead. After waiting a day at Fort Owen, I moved down
  to and established my camp at Hell Gate, to await the arrival of Mr.
  Doty. Just before reaching the Dearborn River, Delaware Jim shot a
  deer, but on going up to it they were surprised to find a well-grown
  fawn lying dead beside it, killed by the same ballet as it stood
  beside and concealed by its mother."

Many of the Flatheads came with Dr. Lansdale in response to the
governor's summons to confer with him at this camp, and the conference
with them and also with the Nez Perce chiefs was most satisfactory. In
response to the governor's request to the latter that some of their
number would accompany him, the whole delegation, fourteen in number,
offered to do so, and declared their willingness to share any danger
that might be encountered, and accordingly joined the party. Says the
governor:--

  "I was here able to gain no additional information of the condition
  of the Indian tribes between the Cascade Mountains and the Bitter
  Root, but the reports were that all were in arms except the Nez
  Perces, a large portion of whom were said to be disaffected, and
  some of them even hostile. I now purchased every good mule and horse
  I could get in this valley, for it was my determination to have my
  whole command in a position so that they could move rapidly and act
  promptly. The question was, What should be our route home? It was
  important, it seemed to me, to our success that we should be able to
  cross the mountains and throw ourselves into the nearest tribes
  without their having the slightest notice of our coming. I felt a
  strong assurance that, if I could bring this about, I could handle
  enough tribes, and conciliate the friendship of enough Indians, to
  be sufficiently strong to defy the rest. There would certainly be no
  difficulty from the snow down Clark's Fork; but it was known that
  the upper and lower Pend Oreille Indians were along the road, and no
  party could travel over it without its approach being communicated
  to the Indians; whereas Indian report had it that the Coeur
  d'Alene Pass was blocked up with snow at this season of the year,
  and I felt satisfied that they would not expect us on this route,
  and therefore I determined to move over it. It was the shorter route
  of the two; it was a route where I wished to make additional
  examinations; it was a route which enabled me to creep up, as it
  were, to the first Indian tribe, and then, moving rapidly, to jump
  upon them without their having time for preparation. I knew that
  Kam-i-ah-kan and Pu-pu-mox-mox had sent a body of warriors to cut
  off my party, and that we had to guard against falling into an
  ambush; but an Indian has not patience to wait many days for such a
  purpose, and I thought, looking to all these things, that the line
  of safety was to move over the Coeur d'Alene Pass."

Mr. Doty arrived with the train on the 11th. At the camp on the Teton
occurred the only death that befell the party during the expedition,
that of H. Palmer, who died of a lingering and incurable malady, and was
laid at rest on the lonely prairie by his warm-hearted and sorrowing
companions. Three days more were spent after the arrival of the train in
making necessary arrangements with Dr. Lansdale, who was placed in
charge of the Flatheads as their agent, with Mr. Owen and the
missionaries.

  [Illustration: CROSSING THE BITTER ROOTS IN MIDWINTER]

Keeping his decision as to the route to himself, the governor allowed
the report to become current that he would pursue the way by Pend
Oreille Lake, and this was universally believed, because both Indians
and mountain men pronounced the Coeur d'Alene impassable from snow so
late in the season. Still further to throw any hostile spies or runners,
who might be lurking about, off the scent, and prevent their carrying
word ahead of him, the governor, on the first day's march, November 14,
on reaching the forks, where the trails divided, took that by the Lake
route, moved down it two miles, and went into camp.

At earliest daylight the next morning the train was on the march,
retraced its steps to the forks, and struck rapidly down the Coeur
d'Alene trail a long distance, camping at the governor's camp ground of
October 7, 8, two years before. Pushing on by forced marches, the Bitter
Root River was crossed on the ice November 17, and the summit of the
mountains on the 20th, where, for lack of grass, the half-famished
animals had to be tied to trees all night. The snow was from three to
six feet deep for a long distance, and would have proved a serious
obstacle, had not a large party of Coeur d'Alene Indians crossed a
fortnight before and beaten down a passable trail; but ten dead horses
lying stiff and stark within a distance of eight miles showed how
severely their animals had suffered in the passage.

On this trip the governor adopted the plan of starting at daylight,
moving rapidly for the day's march, and encamping early in the
afternoon, thinking thus to give the animals the best opportunities for
finding grass, now dry and scanty, but their only feed. The precision
and rapidity with which the train packed up, started, and moved was
astonishing. An hour before daylight the cooks were up and preparing
breakfast; half an hour later the mules were driven up and the
pack-saddles placed upon them, and the riding animals were also saddled;
then breakfast, taking about twenty minutes; then the governor, watch in
hand, would give the command to load, and in five minutes from the word
every mule would be packed and the train moving out. The governor took
great pride in this feat every morning, and the men entered into the
spirit of it, strove to outdo themselves at every camp, and made the
gain of half a minute in packing and starting the subject of talk and
congratulation. The mules, by their perverse and vexatious conduct,
arising from their invincible repugnance to water and cold, gave rise to
many comical and diverting incidents. Dreading the icy water, they would
hold back from plunging into the fords, and would seek a dryer way by
going out on the skirt or points of ice which fringed the streams, only
to have it give way and drop them into deeper water. They were
continually getting off the narrow, beaten path in the snow, and
floundering helpless in the fleecy material, and then half a dozen
sturdy packers would unsling the packs, seize the unlucky mule by tail
and ears, neck-rope and saddle, and haul him back on the trail by main
strength.

  [Illustration: C[OE]UR D'ALENE MISSION]

The party reached good grass the day after crossing the divide, and
rested another day to allow the exhausted animals to fill up and
recuperate. On the 23d a long march was made, and the party encamped
twenty-six miles from the Coeur d'Alene Mission. From the appearance
of everything around, the governor was satisfied that no Indian spies
had yet observed his march. He deemed it impracticable to move the train
to the mission in one day without breaking down the animals, yet he
counted on taking the Indians there by surprise, thus giving them no
opportunity to waylay his party if they were hostile, and relying upon
his sudden and unexpected appearance to retrieve their wavering
friendship, if they were not too far committed to hostility. At daylight
the next morning, with Craig, Pearson, and the four Nez Perce chiefs,
Looking Glass, Spotted Eagle, Three Feathers, and Captain John, the
governor pushed on, leaving directions for the train to follow and come
in next day. The evening sun was just sinking behind the mountains when
the seven well-armed horsemen dashed up in front of the Coeur d'Alene
village, rifles in hand and presented ready to fire, and in peremptory
tones demanded of the astonished Indians, as they poured out of their
lodges, "Are you friends or enemies? Do you want peace or war?" The
governor's orders, impressed upon his followers, were, that at the first
hostile act or word they were to fire upon the Indians, disabling as
many of them as possible, and then to fall back upon and occupy the
solidly built church on the knoll overlooking the village, and hold this
stronghold against all attacks until the main party should arrive the
next day.

The Coeur d'Alenes, thus taken by surprise, in response to this
formidable summons declared that they were friends and preferred peace,
and gathered around with apparently friendly greetings. In fact,
however, as became more apparent at the council next day, "they were
much excited, on a balance for peace or war, and a chance word might
turn them either way," as says the official journal. Some of their young
men had joined the hostiles; and the rumor was current that the son of
the chief, Stellam, had recently been slain by the whites. The chiefs
and elders were inclined to be friendly, and wished to avoid war. On the
way to the village the governor charged the four Nez Perce chiefs:--


  "When you reach the Coeur d'Alenes, talk to them Blackfoot; tell
  them about our great council and treaty at Fort Benton; tell them
  that they can hunt buffalo without being disturbed by their
  hereditary enemies, the Blackfeet; tell them the lion and the lamb
  have laid down together; get their minds off their troubles here,
  and turn them to other subjects in which they take an interest."

The train arrived the next day. A council was held with the Indians, and
they were exhorted to continue their friendly attitude, and keep their
young men from war. The emissaries of the Yakimas had left the mission
only five days before the arrival of the party, having despaired of its
crossing the mountains. All sorts of rumors were rife, but nothing
certain except that the tribes below were in arms, blocking up the road,
and that they had threatened to cut off the party, Pu-pu-mox-mox
especially having made his boast that he would take Governor Stevens's
scalp. It was learned, however, that four men, who had brought up the
goods for the proposed Spokane council, with the unfortunate agent
Bolon, were at Antoine Plante's, and that fifteen miners were also at
that point, fearing to go below on account of the hostiles, and
virtually blockaded by the Spokanes.

Governor Stevens at once determined to proceed to the Spokane to rescue
these men, and if possible to restrain the Spokanes from hostilities. He
dispatched Craig with all but three of the Nez Perce chiefs to Lapwai,
there to confer with Lawyer, assemble the nation, and prepare them for
the governor's arrival. He was also instructed to send an express to the
Spokane with information of his success, and the disposition of the Nez
Perces. The chiefs retained with the party were Looking Glass, Spotted
Eagle, and Three Feathers.

As at Hell Gate, the governor's determination rested in his own breast,
and it was currently reported and believed that the party would move
directly south along the base of the mountains to the Nez Perce country,
the shortest and safest route to the refuge of that friendly tribe. To
move away from it and adventure sixty miles farther among the supposedly
hostile, and certainly disaffected, Spokanes seemed little short of
madness. In the evening some of the men, in discussing the matter,
declared that if the governor started for the Spokane, they would not
follow him, but would take the Nez Perce trail; but Higgins swore that
no man should desert the governor if he started for Hell, and the
incipient mutiny went no farther. The next day, November 27, the party
marched down the Coeur d'Alene River to Wolf's Lodge, nineteen miles,
and, starting at daylight the following morning and making a rapid,
forced march of forty miles, reached the Spokane village, just below
Antoine Plante's, before sunset.

The last four miles across the prairie was made at a round trot, and
within thirty minutes after first sighting the rapidly approaching
column, the astonished Indians beheld thirty well-armed men gallop
boldly up, range themselves in front of their lodges ready to open fire,
and heard the peremptory summons to decide instantly for peace or war.
Needless to say that they, too, were friendly and for peace. They were
taken completely by surprise, and had no alternative but to choose the
olive branch. Only three hours before they had heard that Governor
Stevens had gone down the Missouri.

The Indian employees and goods and the miners were safe. They had built
a blockhouse, and were on terms of armed truce with the Indians rather
than actual hostility. Before midnight Indian messengers were dispatched
to Colville and the various camps, summoning the head chief Garry and
the other chiefs, the Hudson Bay Company's factor, McDonald, and the
Jesuit missionaries to meet the governor in council at Plante's. It is
noteworthy that during all these troubles the Hudson Bay Company people
and the Catholic missionaries were not molested by the hostile Indians.

The governor now gave his party, augmented by the four rescued
employees, a military organization and the name of Stevens Guards, the
name being the choice of the men, and appointed as officers C.P.
Higgins, captain; W.H. Pearson, first lieutenant; A.H. Robie, second
lieutenant; and S.S. Ford, third lieutenant. He also appointed Doty
lieutenant-colonel, aide-de-camp, and adjutant, and Tappan captain and
quartermaster. The miners were also formed into a military company, and
adopted the name of Spokane Invincibles, with Judge B.F. Yantis as
captain. The governor ordered guards regularly mounted at night.

A half-breed, who had been captured by Pu-pu-mox-mox and set free by him
on condition that he would take a message to the governor to the effect
that he, Pu-pu-mox-mox, intended to take the governor's scalp, came and
delivered his message.




                              CHAPTER XXXV

                    STORMY COUNCIL WITH THE SPOKANES


During the next few days the Indians were gathering for the council.
Garry and a party of Coeur d'Alenes came on the 29th, and McDonald
with the Colville chiefs, the missionaries, and four white miners on
December 2. The council lasted three days, December 3, 4, 5, and was
marked by disaffected and at times openly hostile views and expressions
and uncertain purposes, on the part of the Indians, and steadfast
determination to hold their friendship and restrain them from war, on
the part of the governor. The Spokanes openly sympathized with the
hostiles. Many of their young braves had joined them. They insisted that
no white troops should enter their country, and urged the governor to
make peace with the Yakimas, for the rumor was current that the troops
had driven them across the Columbia and into the region claimed by the
Spokanes. They objected to the whites taking up their land before they
had made treaties and sold it, and were much stirred up because a number
of Hudson Bay Company ex-employees at Colville had staked out claims,
and filed with Judge Yantis the declaratory statements claiming them
under the Donation Act. Kam-i-ah-kan's emissaries had imbued them with
all kinds of falsehoods concerning the war and its causes, and the
purposes of the whites, particularly of Governor Stevens, and what he
did and said at the Walla Walla council. They were to be driven by
soldiers from their own country, and forced to go on the Nez Perce
reservation without any treaty or compensation. They were to be
deported west of the Cascades, and shipped across seas to an unknown and
dreadful doom. Highly colored but imaginary stories of wrong and outrage
inflicted by whites upon Indians were industriously circulated, and
equally mythical tales of Indian victories and exploits.

Governor Stevens met their excited and hostile talk with a firm and
unruffled front. He appealed to the well-known facts,--to the policy he
had uniformly and consistently urged upon them and upon all the tribes
since first coming to the country, the policy of peace and friendship
with the whites, and of adopting the civilization of the whites, and
which had been proclaimed as from the housetops, and established by
treaty at the Walla Walla council, in the presence and hearing of their
own head chief, Garry, and others of their number. He showed them how
this policy was for their own benefit and protection, and referred to
the Blackfoot council, and the peace he had there established, of which
the Nez Perce chiefs present could give them full particulars. He
declared he was ready to make a treaty with them on the spot, if they
desired one, but in the troubled state of affairs would not himself urge
it. By this firm and conciliatory treatment he at length brought them to
a more reasonable state of mind, and induced them to lay aside all
thoughts of war and preserve their friendship with the whites. The
results of this remarkable conference are graphically stated in his own
words:--

  "We remained on the Spokane nine days, and I had there one of the
  most stormy councils for three days that ever occurred in my whole
  Indian experience; yet, having gone there with the most earnest
  desire to prevent their entering into the war, but with a firm
  determination to tell them plainly and candidly the truth, I
  succeeded both in convincing them of the facts and in gaining their
  entire confidence. At this council were all the chiefs and people
  of the Coeur d'Alenes and of the Spokanes,--the very tribes who
  defeated Steptoe the past season, the very tribes who have met our
  troops since in two pitched battles; and I feel that I can without
  impropriety refer to the success of my labors among these Indians,
  backed up simply with a little party of twenty-four men. When the
  council was adjourned, the Indians gave the best test of their
  friendship by each coming to lay before me his little wrongs, and
  ask redress. They came in a body, and offered me a force to help me
  through the hostilities of Walla Walla valley and on the banks of
  the Columbia, which I declined, saying that I came not among the
  Spokanes for their aid, but to protect them as their father."

The Spokanes preserved the friendship thus gained and confirmed, and
abstained from all acts of hostility for two years after this council,
and until Colonel E.J. Steptoe, against their warning and protest,
entered their country with a force of two hundred dragoons. Then they
flew to arms, attacked, defeated, and drove him in precipitate retreat
eighty miles to the bank of Snake River, where his men were only saved
from massacre by the friendly Nez Perces, who ferried them across the
river in their canoes, and boldly interposed between them and the
victorious Spokanes.

Soon after reaching the Spokane the governor was led to distrust Looking
Glass from his changed demeanor and countenance, and set a faithful
half-breed interpreter to keep watch of him. The spy saw him enter
Garry's lodge late at night, and, stealing up to and lying prone beside
it, overheard the talk between the chiefs, in which Looking Glass
disclosed a plot on his part to entrap the governor and his party when
they went among the Nez Perces, and compel him to enlarge their
reservation to the bounds first proposed by Looking Glass at the Walla
Walla council, and to exact such other payments and advantages as
amounted to a swingeing ransom. Looking Glass strongly advised Garry to
adopt a similar course, and both chiefs seemed bent upon using their
advantages to the utmost. On receiving this alarming report the governor
instantly, but secretly, dispatched a messenger to Lapwai, informing
Craig of the plot, and instructing him how best to forestall and
frustrate it by advising with Lawyer, and committing the other chiefs to
a firm adherence to the treaty and active support of the governor. Thus
forewarned, he was enabled to frustrate the designs of the treacherous
chief without his suspecting that they had been discovered.

The following extracts from the speeches show the excited and
disaffected mood in which they entered the council. Observe in Garry's
second speech his artful advice in aid of his friend Looking Glass's
design to enlarge the reservation:--

  Garry: "When I heard of the war, I had two hearts, and have had two
  hearts ever since. The bad heart was a little larger than the good.
  Now I am thinking that if you do not make peace with the Yakimas,
  war will come into this country like the waters of the sea. From the
  time of my first recollection, no blood has ever been on the hands
  of my people. Now that I am grown up, I am afraid that we may have
  the blood of the whites on our hands....

  "I hope that you will make peace on the other side of the Columbia,
  and keep the soldiers from coming here. The Americans and the
  Yakimas are fighting. I think they are both equally guilty. If there
  were many Frenchmen here, my heart would be like fighting. [Meaning
  Canadians, ex-employees of the Hudson Bay Company.] These French
  people here have talked too much. I went to the Walla Walla council,
  and when I returned I found that all the Frenchmen had gotten their
  land written down on a paper. [Alluding to notifications under the
  Donation Act.] I ask them, Why are you in such a hurry to have
  writings for your lands now? Why don't you wait until a treaty is
  made?

  "Governor, these troubles are on my mind all the time, and I will
  not hide them. When I was at the Walla Walla council my mind was
  divided. When you first commenced to speak, you said the Walla
  Wallas, Cuyuses, and Umatillas were to move on to the Nez Perce
  reservation, and the Spokanes were to move there also. Then I
  thought you spoke bad. Then I thought, when you said that, that you
  would strike the Indians to the heart. After you had spoken of these
  nine different things, as schools, and shops, and farms, if you had
  then asked the chiefs to mark out a piece of land--a pretty large
  piece--to give you, it would not have struck the Indians so to the
  heart. Your thought was good. You see far. But the Indians, being
  dull-headed, cannot see far. Now your children have fallen. They
  [the Indians] have spilled their blood, because they have not sense
  enough to understand you. Those who killed Pu-pu-mox-mox's son in
  California, they were Americans. Why are those Americans alive now?
  Why are they not hanged? This is what the Indians think, that it
  will be Indians only who are hanged for murder. Now, governor, here
  are these young people,--my people. I do not know their minds, but
  if they will listen to you, I shall be very glad. When you talk to
  your soldiers and tell them not to cross Snake River into our
  country, I shall be glad."

  A principal chief of the lower Spokanes said: "Why is the country in
  difficulty again? That comes on account of the smallpox brought into
  the country, and is all the time on the Indians' heart. They would
  keep thinking the whites brought sickness into the country to kill
  them. That is what has hurt the hearts of the Yakimas. That is what
  we think has brought about this difficulty between the Indians and
  the whites. I think, governor, you have talked a little too hard. It
  is as if you had thrown away all the Indians. I heard you said at
  the Walla Walla council that we were children, and that our women
  and children and cattle should be for you, and then we thought we
  would never raise camp and move where you wished us to. We had in
  our hearts that if you tried to move us off we would die on our
  land."

  Stellam, Coeur d'Alene head chief: "We have not yet made friends.
  All the Indians are not yet your children. When I heard that war had
  commenced in the Yakima country, I did not believe they had done
  well to commence. I wish you would speak and dry the blood on that
  land now. If you would do that, then I would take you for a friend.
  You have many soldiers, and I would not like to have them mix among
  my people."

  Schlat-eal: "Now the Yakimas have crossed the Columbia. I would not
  like to have the whites cross to this side. If the whites do not
  cross the river, the Indians will all be pleased. We have not made
  friendship yet. We have not shaken hands yet. When we see that the
  soldiers don't cross the Columbia, we shall believe you take us for
  your friends. When you stop that difficulty, the fighting now going
  on, we shall believe you intend to adopt us for your children. Then
  I will believe that you have taken us for your friends, and will
  take you for my friend."

  Peter John Colville, chief: "My heart is very poor, very bad. My
  heart is of all nations. I never hide it. My heart is fearful. There
  are some who have talked bad. I am always thinking that all would be
  well. I wish all the whites and Indians to be friendly; but even if
  my people should take up arms against the Americans, I myself would
  not. I know we cannot stop the river from running, nor the wind from
  blowing, and I have heard that you whites are the same. We could not
  stop you. I only speak to show my heart. I am done."

  Sno-ho-mish, a chief of the lower Spokanes, near the Columbia: "When
  you went away to the Blackfoot country, and the Yakimas commenced
  fighting, my heart was broken. Ever since my heart is very small.
  Ever since I have been thinking, How will the governor speak to us?
  And yesterday he did speak, and said to the Indians, 'You must keep
  peace;' and I have been thinking what God would say if we should
  spill blood on our land. I never loved bad Indians, nor war; I never
  believed in making war against Americans. I wish they would stop all
  the whites and Indians from fighting. Now I will stop. I have shown
  my heart."

  Big Star, Spokane chief: "The reason that I am talking now is that
  all the Indians did not like what you said at the Walla Walla
  council. They put all the blame on you for the trouble since. The
  Indians say you are the cause of the war. My heart is very small
  towards you. My heart is the same as the others for you. Ever since
  I heard there was war, I was afraid for you. I am afraid you will be
  killed. You have not yet made a treaty, and you passed by us, and
  your people have commenced coming,--the miners,--and they will upset
  my land. This spring, when my people commenced talking about the
  ammunition, I said, 'My children, do not listen to my children who
  wish to do wrong.' I said to the Sun chief, 'What is the reason you
  are getting into trouble? Your father was good. Now he is killed by
  the Blackfeet.' And this summer when the governor passed here, I
  spoke to him again, and he would not listen. That is why my heart is
  small,--that young man would not listen. I left home and went to the
  Nez Perces, and there met Mr. McDonald. After crossing the Columbia
  River those two young fellows overtook me. I spoke to Mr. McDonald
  to give me good advice to help my children. He did speak, and I
  thought he gave me good help. I was glad. We had not yet arrived at
  the fort when that young man [a young Spokane] rushed on the whites
  and choked them. After McDonald and myself had talked to them, I
  thought they would listen. If I had not tried to make them do right,
  it would not have hurt my feelings so much. Since that, I am crying
  all the time."

  Quin-quim-moe-so, Spokane chief, living at Eells's old mission:
  "When I heard, governor, what you had said at the Walla Walla
  ground, I thought you had done well. But one thing you said was not
  right. You alone arranged the Indian's land. The Indians did not
  speak. Then you struck the Indians to the heart. You thought they
  were only Indians. That is why you did it. I am not a big chief, but
  I will not hide my mind. I will not talk low. I wish you to hear
  what I am saying. That is the reason, governor; it is all your fault
  the Indians are at war. It is your fault, because you have said that
  the Cuyuses and Walla Wallas will be moved to the Yakima land. They
  who owned the land did not speak, and yet you divided the land."

  Garry: "When you look at those red men, you think you have more
  heart, more sense, than these poor Indians. I think the difference
  between us and you Americans is in the clothing,--the blood and
  body are the same. Do you think, because your mother was white and
  theirs black, that you are higher or better? We are black, yet if we
  cut ourselves the blood will be red, and so with the whites it is
  the same, though their skin is white. I do not think we are poor
  because we belong to another nation. If you take those Indians for
  men, treat them so now. If you talk to the Indians to make a peace,
  the Indians will do the same to you. You see now the Indians are
  proud. On account of one of your remarks, some of your people have
  already fallen to the ground. The Indians are not satisfied with the
  land you gave them. What commenced the trouble was the murder of
  Pu-pu-mox-mox's son and Dr. Whitman, and _now_ they find their
  reservations too small. If all those Indians had marked out their
  own reservations, the trouble would not have happened. If you could
  get their reservations made a little larger, they would be pleased.
  If I had the business to do, I could fix it by giving them a little
  more land. Talking about land, I am only speaking my mind. What I
  was saying yesterday about not crossing the soldiers to this side of
  the Columbia is my business. Those Indians have gone to war, and I
  don't know myself how to fix it up. That is your business. Since,
  governor, the beginning of the world, there has been war. Why cannot
  you manage to keep peace? Maybe there will be no peace ever. Even if
  you should hang all the bad people, war would begin again, and would
  never stop."

In these speeches can be seen the reflection of the tales spread by the
Yakima emissaries. It was afterwards learned that some of the Yakimas
had really crossed the Columbia to avoid an expedition into the Yakima
valley, under Major Rains with a force of regulars, and Colonel J.W.
Nesmith with a detachment of Oregon volunteers, which proved abortive,
except in the loss of many of the horses and mules belonging to the
regulars, which were run off by the hostile Yakimas.

  [Illustration: SPOKANE GARRY
                 _Head Chief of the Spokanes_]

After the council the Indians were so friendly and well disposed that
they readily exchanged their fine, fresh horses for the jaded and
tired animals of the party and the Indian goods, which had been brought
up for the now deferred treaty, and even sold several rifles, which were
used to arm the Spokane Invincibles.

On the afternoon of the 6th, with transportation reduced to twelve days'
supplies, packs to eighty pounds, the best train of the season, and the
party, with the recent accessions, forty-eight strong, the governor
struck out for the Nez Perce country, "in condition," he says, "that if
the Nez Perces were really hostile, and I was not strong enough to
fight, I could make a good run!" He moved three miles to the Spokane
River, crossed it just above the falls, and encamped on the site of the
present city of that name. The march thence to the Clearwater and
Lapwai, a distance of one hundred and eight miles, occupied four days,
and was made in the midst of a driving and continuous storm of cold
rain, sleet, and snow, wetting and chilling every one to the bone. The
trail was excessively muddy and slippery, and for half a day's travel
the snow was ten inches deep. On the second day an express from Craig
brought the cheering news that the Nez Perces were faithful, and the
whole tribe ready to support the governor to the death. And on reaching
camp the same day two Frenchmen or Canadians were met making their way
from Walla Walla to the Spokane, who reported the valley overrun with
hostile Indians, the settlers killed or driven below, and their stock
swept off by the savages. Fifty miles from the Spokane they struck the
same trail passed over in June on the way to the Coeur d'Alene, and
pursued it for twenty miles, crossing the Palouse, where an enemy was
most likely to be encountered, but no Indians were seen. The Clearwater,
or Kooskooskia, was crossed just above the mouth of the Lapwai. The
river was barely fordable, with a powerful current and rocky bottom, and
two riding horses were swept off their feet into deep water and
drowned, making no effort to swim, benumbed in the icy water, and their
riders barely escaped a similar fate. Moving seven miles up the Lapwai,
Craig's hospitable house, and the end of this severe march, the most
comfortless and trying of the whole trip, was reached, and camp gladly
made on the 11th.




                             CHAPTER XXXVI

                        THE FAITHFUL NEZ PERCES


Although it was now in the midst of winter, and the ground was covered
with snow, Lawyer had assembled two hundred and eight lodges, containing
over two thousand Indians, and able to muster eight hundred warriors. An
animated council was at once held. The council lodge was a hundred feet
in length, built of poles, mats, and skins, and in this assembled two
hundred chiefs and principal men, Lawyer presiding. An ox had been
killed, and young men, who officiated for the occasion, roasted or
boiled the meat at fires in the lodge, and handed it around in large
pans, from which each person selected such choice pieces as suited his
fancy.

The scheme of Looking Glass found no adherent, indeed was not broached,
and the unanimous resolve was not only to maintain their friendship to
the whites and stand by their treaty, but to escort Governor Stevens
with two hundred and fifty of their bravest and best-armed warriors,
stark buffalo hunters and Blackfoot fighters every one, and force their
way through the masses of hostile Indians gathered in the Walla Walla
valley.

Looking Glass, too, was among the first in his professions of
friendship. Jealousy of Lawyer, and the hope of increasing his own
influence among his people by obtaining great and exceptional advantages
for them, were probably the causes of his unworthy plot, rather than
actual enmity to the whites.

  Said Looking Glass: "I told the governor that the Walla Walla
  country was blocked up by bad Indians, and that I would go ahead and
  he behind, and that's my heart now. Now that he says he will go, I
  will get up and go with him. Now let none of you turn your face from
  what has been said. Your old men have spoken, and where is the man
  will turn his back on it?"

  Three Feathers: "Why don't you get up and say you are all going with
  Governor Stevens? We said before coming here they should go over our
  dead bodies before coming to him. That is our hearts now."

And chief after chief spoke in similar vein.

  Red Wolf in his speech said: "I was on the Spokane at the council
  held there by the Indians last summer, when runners sent by
  Kam-i-ah-kan came there to get all the people to go to war."

  Scotum declared: "The chief Pu-pu-mox-mox sent us word, and so did
  the Cuyuses; they sent us word many times, but we have always turned
  our faces from them and kept the laws."

Here was evidence that the treacherous chiefs were inciting hostilities
immediately after signing the treaties.

At this juncture an Indian runner was announced from the Walla Walla
valley with the important news that a force of five hundred Oregon
volunteers, under Colonel Kelly (late United States senator), after a
severe battle of four days' duration, had defeated the hostiles, and
driven them from the valley. The absence of the Palouse Indians during
the forced march through their country was now explained. They were
fighting the volunteers at that very time. The way being thus opened,
Governor Stevens was enabled to dispense with the proffered aid of the
Nez Perces; but in order to confirm their fidelity and good feeling, he
invited a hundred warriors to accompany his party as a guard of honor as
far as the Walla Walla valley.

It was a clear, bright, frosty December morning that the mingled
cavalcade of white and Indian left behind the hospitable lodges of the
Nez Perces, and filed along the banks of the Lapwai and Kooskooskia.
Rarely has the Clearwater reflected a more picturesque or jovial crew.
Here were the gentlemen of the party, with their black felt hats and
heavy cloth overcoats; rough-clad miners and packers; the mountain men,
with buckskin shirts and leggings and fur caps; the long-eared
pack-mules, with their bulky loads; and the blanketed young braves, with
painted visage, and hair adorned with eagle feathers, mounted on sleek
and spirited mustangs, and dashing hither and thither in the greatest
excitement and glee. Each of the warriors had three fine, spirited
horses, which he rode in turn as the fancy moved him. They used buckskin
pads, or wooden saddles covered with buffalo, bear, or mountain-goat
skin. The bridle was a simple line of buffalo hair tied around the lower
jaw of the steed, which yielded implicit obedience to this scanty
headgear. At a halt the long end of the line is flung loosely on the
ground, and the horse is trained to stand without other fastening.

The whole party were ferried across Snake River by the Indians in their
canoes, the animals swimming. Proceeding down the left bank some
distance as the trail to Walla Walla ran, it was found that the Nez
Perces had wholly vacated that side of the river, and removed with their
bands of horses, goods, and lodges, and especially their canoes, to the
other side, in order to cut off intercourse with the hostile Indians.
The demeanor of the young braves on this march was in marked contrast to
the traditional gravity and stoicism of their race. They shouted,
laughed, told stories, cracked jokes, and gave free vent to their native
gayety and high spirits. Craig, who accompanied the party, translated
these good things as they occurred, to the great amusement of the
whites. Crossing a wide, flat plain, covered with tall rye grass, he
related an anecdote of Lawyer, with the reminiscence of which the young
braves seemed particularly tickled. When yet an obscure young warrior,
Lawyer was traveling over this ground with a party of the tribe,
including several of the principal chiefs. It was a cold winter day, and
a biting gale swept up the river, penetrating their clothing and
chilling them to the bone. The chiefs sat down in the shelter of the
tall rye grass, and were indulging in a cosy smoke, when Lawyer fired
the prairie far to windward, and in an instant the fiery element, in a
long, crackling, blazing line, came sweeping down on the wings of the
wind upon the comfort-taking chiefs, and drove them to rush
helter-skelter into the river for safety, dropping robes, pipes, and
everything that might impede their flight. For this audacious prank
Lawyer barely escaped a public whipping.

At the governor's request, the Indians undertook to guard the horses
while the whites guarded the camp at night, and as the country was still
infested with bands of hostiles, who had burned off nearly all the
grass, and the animals were with difficulty prevented from straying far
and wide in search of feed, it will be readily seen that they had chosen
the more arduous task. Every evening, as the young men would linger
around the camp-fires, reluctant to start out upon the cold and dreary
night work, one or more of the chiefs would exhort them to their duty,
bemoan the degeneracy of the present race, and relate instances of the
superior bravery and fortitude of young men in former times. The young
fellows were not slow to retort to these harangues with many a sarcastic
gibe and jest, but finally they would go forth to spend the cold winter
night upon the exposed prairie on horseback, posted around the band of
animals. So faithfully did they perform this duty that not one was lost
during the march.

It was a gala day for the Nez Perces when the party reached the valley,
and were received by the Oregon volunteers with a military parade and a
salute of musketry; and when Governor Stevens dismissed them with
presents and thanks and words of encouragement, they returned home the
most devoted and enthusiastic auxiliaries that ever marched in behalf of
the whites.

On this march the Nez Perce escort captured a strange Indian on
Al-pa-wha Creek, who proved to be the son of Ume-how-lish, the war chief
of the Cuyuses, and who said that the chief, with one follower and a
number of women, was in hiding farther up the creek, having fled from
the valley the last day of the recent fight. The governor sent the young
man to his father with the summons to surrender himself a prisoner. The
next day Ume-how-lish delivered himself up, saying that he had done
nothing bad, and was not afraid to be tried by the white man's law, and
thereafter traveled along with the party to his uncertain fate with true
Indian stoicism. He accompanied the governor to the Dalles, where he was
turned over to the Oregon authorities. He was afterwards released by
Colonel Wright. There was no evidence that he had taken part in the
murder of settlers, although he had undoubtedly fought in the recent
battle.

The valley was reached on the 20th. Major Chinn, commanding the
volunteers, and other officers rode out to meet the governor, and, on
reaching the volunteer camp, the troops, four hundred in number,
paraded, and fired a volley in salute as the picturesque column marched
past, the fifty sturdy, travel-stained whites in advance, followed by
the hundred proud and flaunting braves, curveting their horses and
uttering their war-whoops. The volunteers then formed in hollow square,
and the governor addressed them in a brief speech, complimenting them on
their energy in pushing forward at that inclement season, and gallantry
in engaging and routing a superior force of the enemy, and tendering the
thanks of his party for opening the road. He seized the occasion also to
dwell upon the advantages--the necessity--of a winter campaign to bring
the war to a speedy end. The governor was the first to grasp this idea
of a winter campaign as the most effective method of reducing hostile
Indians to subjection. As will be seen hereafter, he urged this course
upon General Wool and the military authorities, but only to have his
views denounced and ridiculed as "impracticable;" but finally, under the
stern lessons of experience, they had to be adopted. It was only by
winter campaigns that General Crook succeeded in subduing the Snakes of
Idaho and eastern Oregon in 1868-69.

Over a hundred of the Cuyuses and Walla Wallas refused to join their
kindred in the war, and remained friendly, including Steachus,
Tin-tim-meet-see, and How-lish-wam-poo, and were now encamped on Mill
Creek under the protection of a guard, needed unhappily not less against
a few of the unruly volunteers, who had already killed some of their
cattle, than against apprehended raids by the hostiles. The little flock
of Indians under the ministrations of Father Chirouse of the Catholic
mission also remained friendly, thanks to the good influence of the
Fathers.

  [Illustration: UME-HOW-LISH
                 _War Chief of the Cuyuses_]

Colonel Frank Shaw was found with the volunteers, and from him and the
Oregon officers the governor learned the latest news and the condition
of affairs. The fight had been a severe one. The Indians resisted
stoutly for four days, and only gave way at last because they mistook a
large pack-train, seen descending into the valley, for reinforcements to
the whites. Pu-pu-mox-mox had been captured, and slain attempting to
escape. General Wool had arrived at Vancouver, but had refused to
take active measures against the enemy, assuming that the Indians were
not at fault, but that the war had been gotten up by white speculators.
He had even disbanded two companies of Washington volunteers at
Vancouver after they had been actually mustered into the United States
service. And a company that had been raised under the direction of Shaw,
for the express purpose of going to the assistance of the governor, was
dismissed by Wool in spite of the remonstrances of its officers and of
Major Rains.

The first act of the governor after grasping the situation was to indite
a letter to Wool announcing his safe return, and suggesting the
energetic and aggressive military measures by which the outbreak could
be speedily quelled.

Some of the fruits of the delay in holding the Blackfoot council, caused
by the mulish and incapable Cumming, were now apparent. Had it been held
early in August, as it might and should have been, the governor would
have gotten back early in September, in time to cope with the first
outbreak, to infuse the military authorities with a little of his own
sound judgment and energy, to induce harmony and concert of action
between the regular and volunteer forces, possibly to remove even Wool's
prejudiced and utterly wrong views, certainly in time to prevent the
volunteers of his own territory from being paralyzed in action, and
rendered worse than useless. But he was delayed, and in his absence
bitter prejudice and divided councils ruled the hour, and the war, which
should have been brought to an end in a single season by a few quick,
strong blows, was suffered to drag on for years.

After the reception by the volunteers the train moved up the Walla Walla
to a point opposite the mission and went into camp, where it remained
the next three days. The weather grew intensely cold, the glass ranging
27° below zero; nevertheless, the governor kept the officers at work
gathering information concerning trails, crossings of rivers, etc., with
a view to military operations, and had a conference with Major Chinn as
to pushing against the Indians beyond Snake River; but it appeared that
the lack of rations and transportation rendered an advance
impracticable, and of course no move could be made while the severe
weather continued. On the 24th the camp was moved four miles farther
upstream to a more sheltered spot, with plenty of wood, and where there
was a deserted house, which the governor and the officers occupied. The
cold weather continued unabated for fourteen days. The men had all they
could do to keep the fires going and avoid freezing, and many of the
horses in the volunteer camp were frozen to death. Although the ground
was covered with snow, the animals found grass enough projecting above
it, or by pawing it off, to avoid starvation. Herds of cattle, abandoned
by the Indians in their flight, grazed within sight of camp, and were
driven in and slaughtered as needed, and great flocks of
prairie-chickens roosted in the trees about camp, so there was no lack
of food.

On the 29th the governor dismissed the Nez Perce escort, who were to
return home under Craig as soon as the cold abated, thanking them for
their fidelity and services, and charging them to stay on their own side
of Snake River, and shun intercourse with the hostiles. The friendly
Cuyuse, Steachus, attended this conference, very desirous of joining the
Nez Perces and moving into their country, and asking permission to do
so. "I am really afraid of those whites, those volunteers," said he. The
Nez Perce chiefs strongly supported him in his request. Said Spotted
Eagle: "I am glad to hear those Indians ask to go with us. It looks as
if they wished to live and do right when they talk of joining the Nez
Perces." But the governor, after considering the matter for a day,
denied the request, for the reason that he feared that the disaffected
and hostile kindred of these friendly Cuyuses would be constantly
visiting them, and would exert a bad influence upon the Nez Perces, whom
he wished to keep entirely aloof from the hostiles.

On the last day of the year, the cold weather continuing with
unmitigated severity, the governor decided to hasten below in advance of
the train, deeming his presence imperatively required within the
settlements on Puget Sound, and issued general orders directing Colonel
Doty to move the train to the Dalles as soon as the weather permitted,
and there muster out the Stevens Guards and Spokane Invincibles,
constituting the Walla Walla Battalion, appointing Craig lieutenant and
aide-de-camp, and instructing him as to marching home and disbanding the
Nez Perce allies, and taking measures for protecting that tribe against
hostile raids or attempts, and assigning Colonel Shaw of the territorial
militia to take charge of matters in the valley, organize the settlers
and friendly Indians as a military force, to act as their own guards at
least, and appointing Sidney S. Ford and Green McCafferty captain and
lieutenant of volunteers respectively as his assistants, and finally
returning thanks to the battalion

  "for the alacrity with which they have obeyed his orders and
  discharged their duty, for their constancy and manliness in the
  rapid movement which they made from the Spokane to this valley in
  bad weather and in an inclement season, a movement begun and half
  accomplished with the certain knowledge that a large force of
  hostile Indians were to be met in this valley, and no expectation
  that aid was near at hand and would be extended in season.

  "But aid was at hand, and the commander-in-chief would do injustice
  to his own feelings, and those of the men of his immediate command,
  if in the general order he did not acknowledge the services of the
  gallant volunteers of Oregon, who successfully met in arms in this
  valley the combined forces of the hostile Indians at the time he was
  moving from the Spokane to the Nez Perce country."

On New Year's Day, 1856, Governor Stevens started for the Dalles,
accompanied only by his son, Pearson, Robie, the Nez Perce chief,
Captain John, and the captive Ume-how-lish, and reached that point in
three days and a half. The intense cold continued unabated. Every
morning the little party saddled in the darkness and started at daylight
without breakfast, pushed their horses at a speed of ten miles an hour
for about six hours, making about sixty miles, and made camp early in
the afternoon, giving the horses several hours to graze before dark, and
themselves plenty of time to gather wood, build up a rousing fire, and
cook and eat a tremendous meal, breakfast, dinner, and supper in one;
then early to bed, sound slumbers, and off again at daylight. All the
streams were crossed on the ice until the Des Chutes River was reached.
Here was found a great gorge of broken ice twenty feet deep, through the
centre of which the rapid and powerful stream had torn its way, a
hundred yards wide, bordered by perpendicular walls of ice. Carefully
leading their horses over the broken ice masses, they reached the usual
fording-place, only to find the dark, swirling river sweeping past
twenty feet below them at the foot of this perpendicular and impassable
icy cliff, while a similar obstacle stared at them from the other side
of the river, and barred exit from the stream even should its passage be
accomplished. But, nothing daunted, all set to work with stakes and
knives, and at length broke down a barely passable path to the ford.
Captain John now led the way across, the water coming to the
saddle-skirts; a practicable passage out was found, and all felt much
relieved as they again spurred on.

Resting one day at the Dalles, and accompanied only by his son and a
guide, the governor continued his journey by the trail down the Oregon
side of the Columbia. It was a little-used track, barely passable, or
indeed visible, in many places, jammed between the river and the foot of
the great mountain masses and precipices which overhang that mighty and
sublime gorge. Although the severe cold had abated, considerable snow
had fallen, greatly increasing the dangers of the way; but he reached
the lower Cascades without mishap, and crossed to the Washington side
late in the evening of the second day, spending the intermediate night
at Hood River, at the house of Mr. Coe. The next day he continued by
land, passing in rear of Cape Horn, and reached a landing on the
Columbia, six miles above Vancouver, soon after dark. Here a ship's
long-boat, a stout, staunch craft, with a good sail, was obtained, with
a crew of three sturdy fellows. On getting well out in the river away
from land, a terrific gale came tearing downstream, struck the boat, and
drove her on at great speed. The sail was quickly reefed, but the little
craft careened to the gunwale; the waves broke over her; only incessant
bailing kept her afloat. The dark night, the tumultuous waves, the
howling gale, the open boat tearing along with the helmsman braced
against the tiller, the bailer dipping the water overboard with furious
haste, and the rest of the party clinging to the upper rail with
clenched grasp and tense faces, can never be forgotten by one who
witnessed the scene. Vancouver was reached in twenty-six minutes from
starting, and all landed with a strong feeling of relief at having
escaped a watery grave.

The governor again endeavored to communicate with General Wool, and
hastened to Portland to see him, but he had left on the steamer for San
Francisco only the day before.

The journey up the Cowlitz in canoe and across the muddy road to Olympia
was made in three days, without special incident to vary the monotony of
toil and discomfort ever attending it at that season, and on January 19,
after an absence of nearly nine months, the governor reached Olympia,
and found himself once more at home with his family.

During the governor's absence Mrs. Stevens, with her little girls and
the nurse Ellen, spent several weeks on Whitby Island, at the home of a
family named Crockett, in hopes that the stronger sea air of that
locality would overcome the Panama fever, from which they were still
suffering. The Crocketts were hearty and kindly Kentucky farmer folks of
the best type, and received the sick lady and her children with
warm-hearted hospitality and kindness. Mrs. Stevens with the children
used frequently to bathe in the Sound, and on one occasion, as they were
in the water, a band of northern Indians was observed approaching in
their great war-canoes at rapid speed. Mr. Crockett hastened to the
beach in great apprehension and hurried the bathers to the house,
declaring that the predatory savages would be sure to seize and carry
them off, if they were given an opportunity. Under the invigorating
open-air life on the island and the excellent fare, with abundance of
venison and other game, the family rapidly regained health, and after
their visit returned in canoes to Olympia.

Mrs. Stevens afterward visited the military post at Steilacoom, and the
wives of the officers there visited her in Olympia, and it was at her
house that Mrs. Slaughter received news of the death of her husband,
Lieutenant W.A. Slaughter, who was killed by the Indians, December 5.
Several times, after the war broke out, circumstantial and apparently
trustworthy reports were brought of the massacre of the governor and his
party by the Indians, all of which Mrs. Stevens utterly disbelieved.
She scouted even more decidedly the idea that he would return by way of
the Missouri and Isthmus of Panama, which his friends were so strongly
urging him to do, and declared to them that he would certainly come back
by the direct route, no matter what obstacles might intervene.




                             CHAPTER XXXVII

                        PROSTRATION.--THE RESCUE


When Governor Stevens, after his midwinter forced march across the
mountains, reached Olympia, he found the whole country utterly
prostrated, overwhelmed. The settlers in dismay had abandoned their
farms and fled for refuge to the few small villages. They were all poor,
having no reserves of money, food, or supplies, and starvation stared
them in the face if prevented from planting and raising a crop. The only
military post on Puget Sound, Fort Steilacoom, could muster less than a
hundred soldiers, and was so far from protecting the settlers that it
had called for and received the reinforcement of a company of volunteers
for its own protection. The post at Vancouver was also but a handful in
strength, and had also been reinforced by two companies of volunteers.
But even this pitiful force was not to be used against the savage enemy;
for Wool had just gone back to San Francisco after a flying visit to the
Columbia River, during which he had disbanded the volunteer companies,
refused to take any active measures to protect the people, and loudly
proclaimed, both in official reports and through the press, that the war
had been forced upon the Indians by the greed and brutality of the
whites, and that the former would be peaceful if only let alone and not
treated with injustice.

There was a deficiency of arms, and still more of ammunition, in the
country. Six weeks were required to send a letter to Washington City,
and three months before an answer to the most urgent demand or entreaty
could be received. It was no wonder that the pioneers were universally
discouraged, and that nothing kept many of them from abandoning the
country but their absolute inability to get away.[10]

A brief review of the outbreak and course of the war will make clearer
the situation at this juncture.

Scarcely was the ink dry upon his signature to the Walla Walla treaty,
when Kam-i-ah-kan, the leading and most potent spirit, and his Yakimas
were hard at work inciting an outbreak against the whites. They with the
Cuyuse and Walla Walla chiefs assembled the disaffected Indians, and
many of the others, at a council north of Snake River in the summer, and
made every effort to gain over the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and even
some of the Nez Perces, who had intermarried with the Cuyuses, and not
without success among the young braves. Their emissaries stirred up the
tribes on the eastern shore of the Sound, too, the Nisquallies,
Puyallups, and Duwhamish, who had intermarried to some extent with the
Yakimas, and penetrated even to Gray's Harbor and Shoalwater Bay on the
coast, and to southern Oregon. Every falsehood that Indian ingenuity
could invent, or credulity swallow, was employed to fire the Indian
heart. The conspiracy was in full train, but not yet ripe, when the
outbreak was prematurely begun by the murder of the miners in the Yakima
valley in September, by Kam-i-ah-kan's warriors, who could no longer be
held back; and when agent Bolon visited the tribe to investigate the
matter, he was treacherously shot in the back, seized and his throat
cut, and with his horse burned to ashes, September 23. Qualchen, the son
of Ou-hi and nephew of Kam-i-ah-kan, was the chief actor in this
tragedy. Major Haller marched with a hundred men from the Dalles into
the Yakima valley to demand the surrender of or to punish the
murderers; and Lieutenant W.A. Slaughter, with a small force of forty
men, moved from Steilacoom across the Nahchess Pass to the Yakima to
coöperate with Haller. But the Yakimas attacked the latter October 6,
and compelled him to retreat with the loss of twenty-two killed and
wounded, his howitzer, and baggage. Pu-pu-mox-mox then seized and
plundered old Fort Walla Walla, which had no garrison, and distributed
the goods found there, including a considerable supply of Indian goods,
among his followers, who danced the war-dance in front of his lodge
around a fresh white scalp. These Indians, with the Cuyuses and
Umatillas, then drove the settlers out of the Walla Walla valley,
destroyed their houses and improvements, and killed or ran off the
stock. Lieutenant Slaughter, after crossing the summit of the Cascades,
being unable to learn anything of Haller, hastily but wisely fell back
to the western side. Here Captain M. Maloney joined him with seventy
regulars and a company of volunteers, under Captain Gilmore Hays, and
again advanced across the mountains, but in turn retreated, fearing to
leave the settlements on Puget Sound wholly unprotected; but his
messengers were waylaid and slain by the Sound Indians, and the settlers
on White or Duwhamish River, near Seattle, were massacred with
unspeakable atrocity, the bodies of the women and children being thrown
into the wells. These settlers had taken refuge in Seattle, but were
induced to go back to their farms by the friendly professions and
assurances of the very savages who fell upon and butchered them the
night after their return. And settlers on the Nisqually and at other
points met a similar fate.

At Major Rains's request, Acting-Governor Mason called out two companies
of volunteers, which were mustered into the United States service, one
being used to reinforce Fort Steilacoom, and one the Vancouver post. A
company was also raised at Vancouver for the express purpose of going to
the assistance of Governor Stevens, in case he attempted to force his
way through the hostiles.

In November an engagement took place on White River, in which some loss
was inflicted upon the Indians, but they soon reappeared in undiminished
strength, surrounded the troops at night, and captured a number of
baggage animals, and on December 5 killed Lieutenant Slaughter and two
men, and wounded six others. Several more companies of volunteers were
raised for home defense, and efforts were made to separate the friendly
Indians from the hostiles. Acting-Governor Mason did all that was
possible to meet the crisis, and he was ably seconded by Major Tilton,
whom he appointed adjutant-general, and by Colonel Simmons, but the
storm was too great for their efforts. Moreover, they depended upon the
regular officers to conduct the war, which made Wool's action doubly
paralyzing.

The whole region about the Sound, with the exception of the prairies
scattered about the head of it, was covered with the primeval evergreen
forest and a dense and tangled undergrowth, so thick and matted, and
obstructed by immense fallen giants and downfalls of every kind, that
the most energetic hunter or woodsman could traverse through it only
five or six miles a day. There were also numerous river-bottoms and
swamps, even more impenetrable. Only seventy miles back to the eastward
stretched north and south the great Cascade Range, affording innumerable
safe and hidden retreats; and many trails across it, well known to the
Indians, but unknown to the whites, gave access to the Yakima emissaries
and reinforcements to join the hostiles on the Sound, and furnished the
latter the ready means of retreat to the Yakima country when hard
pressed. In the dense forests and swamps the savages lurked at the very
doors of the settlements, and no man ventured out, for fear of ambush by
the wily and omnipresent foe.

After Haller's defeat Major G.J. Rains led an expedition from the Dalles
to the Yakima valley with three hundred and fifty regulars and two
companies of Washington volunteers, under Captains William Strong and
Robert Newell, and was supported by four companies of Oregon volunteers,
under Colonel J.W. Nesmith. He reached the Catholic mission on the
Ah-tah-nam branch of the Yakima, which was found deserted, and destroyed
it, and then returned to the Dalles, having accomplished nothing except
the breaking down of his animals. The Yakimas, avoiding battle with so
large a force, managed to run off fifty-four of his mules and horses,
and immediately their young braves rode post-haste to the neighboring
tribes, proclaiming victory over the troops, and proudly showing the
captured animals with the United States brand on their shoulders in
proof of their success.

Another force of about five hundred Oregon volunteers, under Colonel
James K. Kelly, marched to the Walla Walla valley and defeated the
hostiles there congregated, which opened the road to Governor Stevens,
as already related. But the Indians, although punished, simply fled
across Snake River, and were free to continue their efforts to stir up
the friendly tribes, for the volunteers, from lack of supplies and
transportation, were unable to pursue them.

The Oregon volunteers were not mustered into the United States service,
because both they and Governor Curry were anxious to strike the Indians,
and justly feared that if placed under the orders of regular officers,
they would be held back or placed in garrison.

In December General Wool came up from San Francisco to Vancouver,
mustered out the Washington volunteers, placed the regulars at the
Dalles, Vancouver, and Steilacoom strictly on the defensive, and
denounced in unmeasured terms the brave Oregon volunteers, who had
struck the only real blow inflicted upon the enemy. He disbanded even
the company specially raised for Governor Stevens's relief,
notwithstanding the remonstrances of its captain, of Major Rains, and of
his own aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Richard Arnold.

Thus, at the beginning of the year 1856, the Indians of the upper
country held the whole region, except the point occupied in the Walla
Walla valley by the Oregon volunteers; the Yakimas were more hostile,
active, and triumphant than ever; the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and
Umatillas were made more embittered and defiant by the punishment they
had received; and all were free to instigate more hostility among the
other tribes, which they were industriously doing. The regulars were on
the defensive by Wool's orders, while the volunteers in the valley were
unable to take the aggressive for lack of supplies.

West of the Cascades the Indians infested and held the whole country
except a few points. The whites were virtually in a state of siege,
deserted and maligned by a veteran officer, whose duty it was to protect
them; not knowing where to find succor, or even food, completely
discouraged and dismayed. The great majority of Indians on the Sound had
not yet taken to the war-path, although much disaffected. Even among the
most hostile, the Nisquallies, Puyallups, and Duwhamish, it is doubtful
if a majority of any tribe took active part in the outbreak; but the war
faction comprised the chiefs and the vigorous young warriors, and they
were constantly stimulated and encouraged, and at times largely
reinforced, by their Yakima kinsmen. The hostile warriors on the Sound
probably varied in numbers from two hundred and fifty to five hundred,
but the swamps and forests, with their knowledge of the country, gave
them every advantage. The great danger was that the other Indians,
already disaffected, and many of whose restless young braves were aiding
the hostiles to an extent which cannot be certainly determined, would
openly join in the outbreak, and this danger was aggravated by every
day's delay on the part of the whites in attacking and striking the
enemy. A defensive policy was sure to throw the whole Indian population
into the arms of the hostiles. An additional and imminent danger was
found in the northern Indians, gangs of whom were prowling about the
Sound, ever ripe for murder and plunder.

The first day after his arrival Governor Stevens delivered in person and
orally a special message to the legislature, then in session. He pointed
out how the Donation Act and the advent of settlers had made it
absolutely necessary to treat with the Indian tribes and extinguish
their title to the soil. He showed how this had been accomplished by the
treaties he had made, and described the care taken to deal with the
Indians justly and understandingly, especially at the Walla Walla
council:--

  "The greatest care was taken to explain the treaties, and the
  objects of them, and to secure the most faithful interpreters. Three
  interpreters were provided for each language. The record of that
  council was made up by intelligent and dispassionate men, and the
  speeches of all there made are recorded verbatim. The dignity,
  humanity, and justice of the national government are there signally
  exhibited, and none of the actors therein need fear the criticism of
  an intelligent community, nor the supervision of intelligent
  superiors. By these treaties, had the Indians been faithful to them,
  the question as to whether the Indian tribes of this Territory can
  become civilized and Christianized would have been determined
  practically. The written record will show that the authorities and
  the people of this Territory have nothing to blush for, nothing to
  fear in the judgment of impartial men now living, nor the rebuke of
  posterity. It was a pleasant feeling that actuated me, on my mission
  in making these treaties, to think I was doing something to civilize
  and to render the condition of the Indian happier....

  "The war has been plotting for two or three years,--a war entered
  into by these Indians without a cause; a war having not its origin
  in these treaties, nor in the bad conduct of the whites. It
  originated in the native intelligence of restless Indians, who,
  foreseeing destiny against them,--that the white man was moving upon
  them,--determined that it must be met and resisted by arms. We may
  sympathize with such a manly feeling, but in view of it we have high
  duties.

  "The war must be vigorously prosecuted now. Seedtime is coming, and
  the farmer should be at his plough in the field. In my judgment, it
  would be expedient forthwith to raise a force of three hundred men
  from the Sound to push into the Indian country, build a depot, and
  vigorously operate against the Indians in this quarter, and nearly
  the same force should be raised on the Columbia River to prosecute
  the war east of the Cascade Mountains. It would prevent
  reinforcements from either side joining the bands of the other side,
  and would effectually crush both. But what is more important would
  be the influence upon the numerous tribes not yet broken out into
  hostility. There is a surprising feeling of uneasiness among all the
  tribes who have not broken out, except alone the Nez Perces. These
  tribes may be led into war, if delay attends our operations. The
  Indians must be struck now. But if we delay, in a few months the
  roots and fish will abound, supplying the Indians with food; the
  snows will melt; and the mountain passes will allow them
  hiding-places. It is my opinion that if operations are deferred till
  summer, they must be deferred till winter again.

  "What effect would it have on the Sound should nothing be done until
  May or June? The whole industrial community would be ruined, the
  Sound paralyzed; the husbandman would be kept in a state of suspense
  by rumors of wars, and could not adhere to his pursuits; fields
  would not be tilled; and the Territory would starve out."

While approving as a general rule the mustering into the United States
service of volunteers, and disclaiming any impugning of Wool's motives,
he advised against mustering them into that service, in consequence of
that officer's "disbanding troops in violation of a positive
understanding," and boldly declared:--

  "I am ready to take the responsibility of raising them independent
  of that service, and it is due to the Territory and myself that the
  reasons for assuming it should go to the President and the
  department at Washington.

  "The spirit of prosecuting this war should be to accomplish a
  lasting peace,--not to make treaties, but to punish their violation.
  While justice and mercy should characterize the acts of our
  government, there should be no weakness, no imbecility. The tribes
  now at war must submit unconditionally to the justice, mercy, and
  leniency of our government. The guilty ones should suffer, and the
  remainder be placed on reservations under the eye of the military.
  By such a decisive, energetic, and firm course the difficulty may be
  grappled with, and peace restored.

  "Let not our hearts be discouraged. I have an abiding confidence in
  the future destiny of our Territory. Gloom must give way to
  sunlight. Let us never lose sight of the resources, capacities, and
  natural advantages of the Territory of Washington. Gather heart,
  then, fellow citizens. Do not now talk of leaving us in our hour of
  adversity, but stay till the shade of gloom is lifted, and await
  that destiny to be fulfilled. Let us all put hands together and
  rescue the Territory from its present difficulties, so that we may
  all feel that we have done our whole duty in the present exigency."

To this manly and clear-sighted appeal the legislature made haste to
respond with the alacrity and heartfelt sense of relief, and renewal of
hope and courage, with which men in the extremity of danger ever turn to
a natural leader, and, so far as lay in its power, gave him unlimited
authority to take measures necessary to save the settlements from
extinction.

Forthwith Governor Stevens adopted and put in force, with all the energy
of his determined and vigorous nature, the following measures:--

1. He called upon the people by proclamation, dated January 22, to raise
a thousand volunteers for six months for offensive operations against
the enemy, wherever they might be ordered. He refused to enlist any
troops for local or home defense or short terms, and summarily disbanded
all the companies which were under arms, they having been raised for
such restricted service.

2. He called upon the settlers, wherever three or four families could
join together, to return to their abandoned farms, build blockhouses,
and hold and cultivate the soil.

3. He required all Indians on the eastern side of the Sound to move to,
and remain upon, reservations selected on islands, or on points on the
western shore, under the care and oversight of agents, there to be fed
and protected by the government while the war lasted. Any Indian found
on the eastern side without permission of his agent was to be deemed
hostile.

4. He sent Secretary Mason to Washington to lay the pressing need of
funds to meet the expenses of feeding and caring for the non-hostile
Indians before the government, and to enlighten it as to the war and
general situation.

5. He made effective use of the friendly Indians in scouting operations
against the hostiles, hunting them down in their retreats, and
confirming the fidelity of the doubtful tribes.

6. He sent agents to Portland, San Francisco, and Victoria, B.C., with
urgent appeals for arms, ammunition, and supplies, and published his
appeal in the San Francisco papers.

7. He issued territorial scrip, or certificates of indebtedness, to
defray the pay of volunteers and cost of munitions and supplies.

8. He freely resorted to impressment or seizure of supplies, teams,
etc., whenever necessary.

9. He appealed to the patriotism and good feeling of the volunteers, but
enforced discipline, and punished misconduct by summary and dishonorable
dismissal of the guilty from the service.

It is only by bearing in mind the facts that the entire white population
numbered only four thousand souls, of whom the males fit to bear arms
barely equaled the number of volunteers called for; that they were
destitute of arms, ammunition, supplies, money, and credit; discouraged
and wholly on the defensive; denied protection by the regular troops,
who indeed were too few to afford it; and all hope of support and
sympathy from the government, or from outside, blasted by the
denunciations of Wool,--that one can really appreciate the courage and
self-reliance of Governor Stevens in undertaking the task before him.
The ability and self-devotion with which he successfully accomplished
it, and the remarkable spirit and patriotism of the people, who
sustained their leader, and loyally and patiently submitted to these
stringent measures, furnish one of the brightest pages in the history of
the Republic.

The day after delivering his message, the second after arriving home,
the governor hastened down the Sound to inspect the reservations and
agents, and perfect measures to enforce the removal of the Indians from
the theatre of war. He visited every point of importance on the eastern
side, informed himself thoroughly of the needs and conditions at each,
and returned to Olympia on the 28th. On this trip he secured the aid of
Pat-ka-nim, head chief of the Snohomish, and a force of his warriors,
the first Indian auxiliaries to take the field.

The Indians attacked Seattle on January 26 in force, destroyed the
larger part of the town, driving the whites to one corner of it, and
were only repulsed in the end by the fire of the United States
man-of-war Decatur, Captain G. Gansevoort.

The people responded instantly to the governor's manly appeal, with true
American spirit and patriotism. They made haste to enlist _en masse_ in
the volunteer companies, eager to be led against the savage foe. The
refugee settlers banded together in small squads, returned to the
country, erected blockhouses at or near their farms, and held them with
old men and boys. The merchants of San Francisco refused to be misled by
the libels of Wool, and furnished supplies and munitions. Inside of
three weeks eleven companies were raised, equipped, and taking the
field, besides two bodies of Indian auxiliaries.

A regular and efficient express service was organized throughout the
Territory. An assistant quartermaster and commissary, the two usual
supply departments being united, was stationed in each town and
principal settlement on purpose to collect provisions, transportation,
etc., as well as to provide for the troops. By these skillful measures
the governor so successfully overcame the two great difficulties
attending the prosecution of the war, viz., the vast extent of the
region and the lack of supplies, that the volunteers never had to wait
for orders, nor were they ever put to unnecessary or fruitless marches
or labors; and during all their campaigns on both sides of the Cascade
Mountains, and expeditions of hundreds of miles, they never suffered,
nor lost a day, for lack of supplies.

The military organization is given below, not only as necessary to a
clear presentation of this part of Governor Stevens's life, but as a
tribute to those patriotic men who so gallantly and faithfully served
and saved the Territory of Washington in her hour of extreme need:--

  James Tilton, adjutant-general.

  James Doty, William Craig, B.F. Shaw, E.C. Fitzhugh, H. R. Crosby,
  Jared S. Hurd, S.S. Ford, Edward Gibson, lieutenant-colonels and
  aides.

  W.W. De Lacy, captain of engineers.

  Rudolph M. Walker, ordnance officer.

  Dr. Gallio K. Willard, surgeon and medical purveyor.

  Drs. U.G. Warbass and Albert Eggers, assistant surgeons.

  W.W. Miller, quartermaster and commissary-general.

  James K. Hurd, assistant quartermaster and commissary-general, in
  charge on Columbia River.

  Frank Matthias, assistant quartermaster and commissary, Seattle.

  Warren Gove, Steilacoom.

  Charles E. Weed, Olympia.

  R.S. Robinson, Port Townsend.

  M.R. Hathaway, succeeded by M.B. Millard, Vancouver.

  A.H. Robie, Dalles and in the field.

  S.W. Percival was sent as agent to San Francisco.


  SECOND REGIMENT, RAISED FOR SIX MONTHS.

  Lieutenant-Colonel B.F. Shaw, commanding the right wing, consisting
  of Central and Southern battalions.

  Major J.J.H. Van Bokkelen, commanding Northern battalion.

  Major Gilmore Hays, succeeded by Major George Blankenship, Central
  battalion.

  Major H.J.G. Maxon, Southern battalion.

  Lieutenant Eustis Huger, adjutant; Lieutenants Humphrey Hill, B.F.
  Ruth, W.W. De Lacy, adjutants of Northern, Central, and Southern
  battalions respectively.

  Captain C.H. Armstrong, regimental quartermaster and commissary in
  field with right wing.

  R.M. Bigelow, Justin Millard, M.P. Burns, surgeons, Northern,
  Southern, and Central battalions respectively.

  MOUNTED MEN.

      Company.             Strength.  Captain.

          C                       67   B.L. Henness
          D                       44  {Achilles
                                      {Jephtha S. Powell
          I                       40   Bluford Miller
          K                      101   Francis M.P. Goff
          M                       53   Henry M. Chase
          N                       74  {Richards
                                      {James Williams
      Washington Mounted Rifles   95   H.J.G. Maxon
      Clark County Rangers        81   William Kelly
      Walla Walla Company         29   Sidney S. Ford
                                ----
                                 584


  INFANTRY.

          A                       53   Edward Lander
                                      {Gilmore Hays
          B                       52  {A.B. Rabbeson
                                      {David E. Burntrager
          E                       21   C.W. Riley
          F                       40   C.W. Swindal
          G                       55  {J.J.H. Van Bokkelen
                                      {Daniel Smalley
          H                       42   R.V. Peabody
          I                       35  {Samuel D. Howe
                                      {George W. Beam
          L                       91   Edward D. Warbass
      Train guard                 47   Oliver Shead
      Pioneer Company             40  {Joseph White
                                      {Urban E. Hicks
      Nisqually Ferry Guard        9   Sergeant William Packwood
                                ----
                                 485

      Stevens Guards              25   C.P. Higgins
      Spokane Invincibles         23   B.F. Yantis

  INDIAN AUXILIARIES.

      Nez Perces, Volunteers      70   Chief Spotted Eagle
      Snohomish                   82   Chiefs Pat-ka-nim and John Taylor
      Squaxon                     15   Lieutenant Wesley Gosnell
      Chehalis                    17   Sidney S. Ford
      Cowlitz                      9   Pierre Charles
                                ----
      Total                     1310

  The horses used for mounted men were furnished partly by the
  government and partly by the volunteers.

  Company M was composed of ten white men and forty-three Nez Perces,
  Indians furnishing their own horses.

  Company N was first commanded by Captain Richards, and second by
  Captain Williams.

  A portion of the Pioneer Company, after Colonel Shaw's march across
  the Cascades, served as mounted men in the Puget Sound country.

  Company B was commanded first by Captain Gilmore Hays, second by
  Captain A.B. Rabbeson, and lastly by Captain David E. Burntrager.

  Company E was first commanded by Captain Riley, and second by
  Lieutenant Cole.

  Company G was first commanded by Captain Van Bokkelen, and second by
  Captain Smalley.

  Company I was first commanded by Captain Howe, and second by Captain
  Beam.

Volunteers called out by Acting-Governor Mason:--

  FIRST REGIMENT, RAISED FOR THREE MONTHS OR LESS.

  MOUNTED MEN.

      Company.             Strength.  Captain.

          A                       61   William Strong
          B                       91   Gilmore Hays
          E                       40   Isaac Hays
          F                       63   Benjamin L. Henness
          K                       26   John R. Jackson
      Cowlitz Rangers             39   Henry A. Peers
      Lewis River Rangers         44   William Bratton
      Puget Sound Rangers         36   Charles H. Eaton
                                ----
                                 408

  INFANTRY.

      Company.             Strength.  Captain.

          C                       70   George B. Goudy
          D                       55   William H. Wallace
          G                       22   W.A.L. McCorkle
          M                       75   C.C. Hewett
          I                       84   Isaac N. Ebey
          J                       29   Alfred A. Plummer
      Nisqually Ferry Guard       10   Sergeant William Packwood
                                ----
                                 345

      Newell's Company, mounted        Captain Robert Newell
      McKay's Company       "          Captain William C. McKay

  Captain Strong's and Hays's companies were mustered into the regular
  service. The mounted men furnished their own horses.

FOOTNOTES:

  [10] Bancroft, vol. xxvi. p. 143.




                            CHAPTER XXXVIII

                      WAGING THE WAR ON THE SOUND


The force thus speedily raised was organized into three battalions,
designated the Northern, Southern, and Central, each of which elected
its major, and the two latter were subsequently formed into a single
command by the election of Shaw as lieutenant-colonel.

The Northern battalion, under the command of Major J.J.H. Van Bokkelen,
consisted of companies C, Captain Daniel Smalley; H, Captain R.V.
Peabody; and I, Captain Samuel D. Howe. The Central battalion, under
Major Gilmore Hays, comprised companies B, Captain A.B. Rabbeson; C,
Captain B.L. Henness; E, Captain C.W. Riley; F, Captain C.W. Swindal;
the Pioneer Company, Captain White; and the train guard, Captain Oliver
Shead. The Southern battalion included the Washington Mounted Rifles,
Major H.J.G. Maxon; Company D, Captain Achilles; J, Captain Bluford
Miller; and K, Captain Francis M.P. Goff, all under the command of Major
Maxon. The Southern battalion and Captain Henness's Company C were
mounted, most of the volunteers furnishing their own horses. The others
served as infantry. Besides these, Company A, of forty-two men, Captain
Edward Lander (chief justice of the Territory), was raised at Seattle,
and garrisoned that place.

The plan of campaign was to guard the line of the Snohomish River with
the whole available force of the Northern battalion, to move with the
Central battalion at once into the heart of the enemy's country with
one hundred days' supplies, to operate with the Southern battalion east
of the Cascades, and to combine all the operations by a movement from
the Sound to the interior, or from the interior to the Sound, according
to circumstances.

The most favorable and commonly used passes across the Cascades were at
the head of the Snohomish and its southern branch, the Snoqualmie; about
and opposite the mouth of the river were a good part of the Sound
Indians; it was here that the council of Mukilteo was held, at which
twenty-three hundred Indians were present, and across the Sound, nearly
opposite, was collected the greatest number of non-hostiles. The
occupation of the line of the Snohomish, therefore, was a move of the
first strategic importance as shutting the door against the incursions
of the Yakimas, and cutting off the tribes on the Sound from access to
the back country and intercourse with them and other hostiles.

It was determined to occupy the country permanently by roads and
blockhouses, by which, together with the stockades and blockhouses which
the encouraged settlers were building and holding at many points, to
circumscribe the hostile resorts and coverts, and open up the trackless
back country. Indian auxiliaries were to be used as the best means of
preserving their doubtful fidelity, and of using their knowledge of the
country to search out and hunt down the hostiles.

  [Illustration: THEATRE OF INDIAN WAR OF 1855-56 ON PUGET SOUND AND WEST
                 OF CASCADE MOUNTAINS]

This plan the governor early communicated to Lieutenant-Colonel Silas
Casey (major-general in the Civil War), then commanding at Steilacoom,
and invited and secured his coöperation therewith. So desirous was he to
insure coöperation between the regular and volunteer forces that,
waiving etiquette, he twice visited Casey in person; and early in
February he again made the arduous journey to Vancouver, and by
personal conference with Colonel George Wright, who commanded the
regular troops both on the river and the Sound, sought to arrange
harmonious and combined action between their respective forces,
returning to Olympia by the 17th. During the war the governor spared no
pains to consult with the regular officers and secure their concert of
action with him, and this end he brought about quite fully with Casey,
and partially with Wright, notwithstanding both officers were under the
strictest injunctions from Wool not to recognize the volunteer forces in
any way. The letter which Governor Stevens wrote to General Wool on
reaching Walla Walla gave very fully the results of his knowledge of the
country and the Indians, and his views and suggestions in regard to
prosecuting the war, which, if adopted or heeded by the prejudiced
commander, would have brought the contest to an end in a few months.
After announcing his safe arrival, and giving a brief account of the
numbers and dispositions of the Indian tribes, he describes the features
of the Walla Walla, Palouse, Spokane, and Yakima countries which a
military mail should know for planning the movement of troops, namely,
roads, river crossings, grass, wood, depth of snow, etc., sending also a
map.

The governor recommended Wool to occupy the Walla Walla valley with all
his available force in January, establishing a depot camp there, and a
line of barges on the Columbia between the mouth of the Des Chutes and
old Fort Walla Walla, to bring up supplies; in February to cross Snake
River with 500 men and strike the Indians on the Palouse, where the
hostiles driven out of the valley were congregated; to follow up this
blow by sending a column of 300 men up the left bank of the Columbia
towards the Okinakane River (Okanogan), while 200 remained to guard the
line of the Snake, and keep the Indians from doubling back. The effect
of these movements would be to drive these hostiles across the Columbia
into the Yakima country, when the troops north of the Snake were to
follow them, and all the troops south of that stream, who had been
holding the river crossings and depot camps, were to unite, cross the
Columbia at the mouth of the Snake, and move up the Yakima valley, and
with the other column put the Indians to their last battle, for the
effect of these movements would be to drive the enemy into a corner from
which he could not easily escape. Moreover, and this was of the first
importance, this plan would interpose the troops between the hostile and
friendly tribes. Simultaneous movements against the Yakimas and north of
Snake River would throw the hostiles upon the Spokanes, and might cause
them to take up arms. About 800 effective troops would be required.
There were already 500 mounted Oregon volunteers in the Walla Walla
valley, and Wool had, or would soon have, 500 to 600 regulars available.

In the last paragraph of this letter the governor stated:--

  "In conclusion, it is due to frankness that I should state that I
  have determined to submit to the department the course taken by the
  military authorities in disbanding the troops raised in the
  Territory of Washington for my relief. No effort was made, although
  the facts were presented both to Major-General Wool and Major Rains,
  to send me assistance. The regular troops were all withdrawn into
  garrison, and I was left to make my way the best I could, through
  tribes known to be hostile. It remains to be seen whether the
  commissioner selected by the President to make treaties with the
  Indians in the interior of the continent is to be ignored, and his
  safety left to chance."

On finding that General Wool had left so hastily for San Francisco the
governor sent a copy of this memoir to Colonel Wright, with a letter,
dated February 6, urging him to send at least two companies of the
troops at Vancouver to the Sound, and to push his troops against the
Indians east of the mountains.

But instead of profiting by the valuable information and sound views
given him by Governor Stevens, Wool sarcastically replied that he had
neither the resources of a Territory nor the treasury of the United
States at his command. Instead of making use of, or coöperating with,
the Oregon volunteers already in the Walla Walla valley, he denounced
them as making war upon friendly Indians, and declared that, with the
additional force recently arrived at the Dalles and Vancouver, he could
bring the war to a close in a few months, provided the extermination of
the Indians was not determined upon, and the volunteers were withdrawn
from the Walla Walla valley. He filled the greater part of a long letter
with denunciations of outrages by whites upon Indians in southern
Oregon, and of the Oregon volunteers and of Governor Curry. He declared
that two companies he had just sent to the Sound, with three already
there, making five in all, under Lieutenant-Colonel Casey, would be a
sufficient force to suppress the outbreak in that region. He concluded
by saying:--

  "In your frankness and determination to represent me to the
  department, I trust you will be governed by truth, and by truth
  only. I disbanded no troops raised for your relief; and your
  communication gave me the first intelligence that any were raised
  for such a purpose."

The bad blood and duplicity of this communication was the more
inexcusable from the facts that it was on the requisition of his own
officers that the Washington volunteers had been raised and mustered
into the United States service, that he made no complaint whatever
against them or the people of that Territory, and that his last
assertion was a downright falsehood. Even after receiving the full and
valuable memoir which Governor Stevens sent him, he declared in official
communications: "I have been kept wholly ignorant of the state of the
country, except through the regular officers of the army."

On March 15 Wool made another flying visit to Vancouver, thence by
steamer to Steilacoom, where he tarried but a single day, conferred with
and instructed Colonel Casey, rebuked him for coöperating with the
volunteers, and hurried away without deigning to notify the governor of
his presence. The latter, on hearing that he had left Vancouver for the
Sound, immediately dispatched Adjutant-General Tilton to Steilacoom with
a letter to Wool, stating:--

  "He is instructed to advise you of the plan of operations which I
  have adopted, the force in the field, and the condition of the
  country. I have to acquaint you of my desire to coöperate with you
  in any plans you may think proper to adopt, and I shall be pleased
  to hear from you in reference to the prosecution of the campaign."

But Wool had left before Tilton could reach him.

The first and only result of Wool's flying visit was manifested next day
in a formal demand by Colonel Casey on Governor Stevens for two
companies of volunteers to be mustered into the United States service,
and placed under his orders. He stated in conclusion:--

  "I received yesterday an accession of two companies of the 9th
  infantry. With this accession of force and the two companies of
  volunteers called for, I am of the opinion that I shall have a
  sufficient number of troops to protect this frontier without the aid
  of those now in the service of the Territory."

This demand was made just after the volunteers had defeated the
hostiles, as will soon be narrated.

Thus, instead of the coöperation which he so earnestly sought with the
regular service, he was coolly required by the commanding general to
disband thirteen companies of white troops and four bodies of Indian
auxiliaries, abandon his posts and blockhouses defending the settlements
and in the enemy's country, leave the door of the Snohomish open for the
Yakima emissaries to strike the reservations and the settlements,--in a
word, give up his whole campaign at the moment when he had inflicted a
severe defeat upon the enemy, and, fully prepared, was on the eve of
following it up with his whole force, all posted in the very positions,
and furnished with the needed supplies, which he had secured by so much
labor and foresight, and to leave the defense of this extended and
exposed frontier to an officer whose force would consist of only five
companies of regulars and two of volunteers,--seven in all,--and whose
most extended operations thus far had never gone beyond fifteen miles
from his headquarters at Fort Steilacoom. This artful and impudent
request of Wool--for Colonel Casey made it by his instructions--was
instantly rejected by the governor with the scorn it deserved; and in a
letter to Wool, dated March 20, he administered a well-deserved
castigation to that ill-disposed officer:--

                        EXECUTIVE OFFICE, WASHINGTON TERRITORY,
                               OLYMPIA, March 20, 1856.

  MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL,
    _Commanding Pacific Division_.

  _Sir_,--I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
  communication of the 12th of February, and to state generally in
  answer thereto that the events of the past four weeks, in connection
  with your own official course, afford satisfactory evidence that the
  most objectionable positions of your letter have been abandoned, and
  that you have finally been awakened to the true condition of the
  Indian war, and are seeking to make some amends for the unfortunate
  blunders of the past. You have probably learned how much you have
  been misled in your views of the operations of the Oregon
  volunteers, and how much unnecessary sympathy you have wasted on
  the infamous Pu-pu-mox-mox. For your own reputation I have felt pain
  at the statement made in your letter to me, for I am an
  authoritative witness in the case; and in the letter which submitted
  your own action in refusing to send me succor, I have presented
  briefly the facts, showing the unmitigated hostility of that chief.
  I assert that I can prove by incontrovertible evidence that
  Pu-pu-mox-mox had been hostile for months; that he exerted his
  influence to effect a general combination of the tribes; that he
  plundered Walla Walla and the settlers of the valley, distributing
  the spoils to his own and the neighboring tribes as war trophies;
  that he rejected the intercession of the friendly Nez Perces to
  continue peaceful; that he had sworn to take my life and cut off my
  party; that he and the adjoining tribes of Oregon and Washington had
  taken up their military position as warriors at the proper points of
  the Walla Walla valley,--and all this before the volunteers of
  Oregon moved upon him....

  That some turbulent men of the Oregon volunteers have done injury to
  the friendly Cuyuses is unquestionable, and it is reprobated by the
  authorities and citizens of both Territories. It has, however, been
  grossly exaggerated. Had, sir, the regulars moved up to the Walla
  Walla valley, as I most earnestly urged both Major Rains and Colonel
  Wright both by letter and in person, these Indians would have been
  protected. The presence of a single company would have been
  sufficient. The responsibility, if evil follows, will attach, sir,
  to you, as well as to the volunteers.

  In your letter of the 12th of February you state: "I have recently
  sent to Puget Sound two companies of the 9th infantry. These, with
  the three companies there, will give a force of nearly or quite four
  hundred regulars, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Casey. This force,
  with several ships of war on the Sound, to which will be added in a
  few days the United States steamer Massachusetts, it seems to me, if
  rightly directed, ought to be sufficient to bring to terms two
  hundred Indian warriors. Captain Keyes, in his last report, says
  there are not quite two hundred in arms in that region."

  Here you have expressed a very confident opinion. You thought proper
  to quote Captain Keyes as to the number of Indians, but you found
  it did not suit your purpose to refer to the requisitions he had
  made upon you for six additional companies, two of which only had
  been sent forward; nor could you find time to refer to the fact that
  Colonel Casey had recommended that, after the war was over, eight
  companies should be permanently stationed there for the protection
  of the Sound.

  You think volunteers entirely unnecessary, although after having
  received from the executive information as to the condition of the
  country. It is now March, a month later, and you send two companies
  of regulars, and direct Colonel Casey to call upon me for two
  additional companies of volunteers.

  Thus you have practically acknowledged that you were wrong, and that
  I was right; and thus I have your testimony as against yourself in
  vindication of the necessity of my calling out volunteers. As
  regards this call for volunteers, it is presumed that Colonel Casey
  informed you that the whole available force of the Sound country was
  bearing arms, and that the great proportion of them were actively
  engaging the enemy; that, organized in two battalions, the Northern
  battalion occupied the line of the Snohomish, where they were
  establishing blockhouses and closing the passes of the Snoqualmie.

  That the Central battalion was occupying the military road over the
  Nahchess, in relation to which road and its military bearing your
  aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Arnold, will be able to give you full
  information; and that on both lines decisive blows had been struck;
  and also that it was beyond the ability of our citizens to raise an
  additional company of even fifty men to honor your requisition.

  I have a right to hold you to a full knowledge of our condition
  here. If you say you were misinformed, then you are not fit for your
  position, and should give place to a better man. If you were
  informed, then your measures as a military man manifest an
  incapacity beyond example.

  Therefore the call on me for two companies of volunteers is a call
  upon me to withdraw the troops now in the field with sixty to eighty
  days' provisions, after decisive blows have been struck, and when
  everything is ready to strike a, and perhaps _the_, decisive blow to
  end the war.

  I am, sir, too old a soldier ever to abandon a well-considered plan
  of campaign, or to do otherwise than to press forward with all my
  energies in the path marked out, promising, as it does, the speedy
  termination of the war; and, sir, I am too wary a man not to detect
  the snare that has been laid for me. You never expected, sir, that
  the requisition would be complied with. You knew that it was a
  practical impossibility; but, not having the courage to acknowledge
  your errors, it was resorted to in the hope that my refusing your
  requisition might enable you to occupy my vantage-ground, and throw
  me on the defensive. I hold you, sir, to the facts and necessity of
  the case, clearly demonstrating by your own confession the propriety
  of my course, and the necessity on my part of a steady adherence to
  it.

  You have referred to the atrocities committed upon the friendly
  Indians by the whites. I know nothing of what has occurred in
  southern Oregon; but I have to state that no man, to my knowledge,
  in the Territory of Washington advocates the extermination of the
  Indians. The authorities here have not only used every exertion to
  protect them, but their exertions have been completely successful.
  Did you learn, sir, in your brief visit to the Sound, that nearly
  four thousand Indians--friendly Indians--had been moved from the war
  ground on the eastern shore of the Sound and its vicinity to the
  adjacent islands, and have for nearly five months been living in
  charge of local agents? That not an Indian in the whole course of
  the war has been killed by the whites except in battle? That where a
  military commission, composed of a majority of volunteer officers,
  tried some months since eight Indians, only one was convicted, and
  that the sentence of death passed upon him has not yet been
  executed? It is the good conduct of our people, sir, that has so
  strengthened the hands of the authorities as to enable them to
  control these friendly Indians, and to prevent any considerable
  accessions to the ranks of the hostiles.

  I have recently heard from the Nez Perces, the Coeur d'Alenes, and
  the Spokanes. The former are firm in their allegiance; but the
  Spokanes urge me to have a military force on the great prairie
  between them and the hostile Indians, so these latter may not be
  driven to their country, and thus incite their young men to war. The
  letter of Garry, chief of the Spokanes, is a most earnest and
  plaintive call for help, so his hands may be strengthened in keeping
  his people to their plighted faith; and the coincidence is
  remarkable, that this Indian chief, a white man in education and
  views in life, should have asked me to do the very thing I have
  urged upon you; for you will remember, in my memoir I urge that the
  troops, in operating against the Indians, should be interposed
  between the friendly and hostile tribes to prevent those now
  friendly from joining in the war. I have, sir, studied the character
  of these Indians, and my views as to the influence upon the friendly
  Indians of the mode of carrying on the war against the hostiles are
  confirmed by the only educated Indian of either Oregon or
  Washington, and the head chief of the tribe in reference to which I
  made the recommendation and felt the most solicitude.

  It seems to me that the present condition of things imposes upon you
  the necessity of recognizing the services of the volunteers of the
  two Territories now in the field, and of your doing everything to
  facilitate their operations. But if you waste your exertions in the
  fruitless effort to induce either the authorities to withdraw their
  troops, to abandon their plan of campaign in order to comply with
  your requisition, or to meet your peculiar notions, I warn you now,
  sir, that I, as the governor of Washington, will cast upon you the
  whole responsibility of any difficulties which may arise in
  consequence, and that by my firm, steady, and energetic course, and
  by my determination to coöperate with the regular service, whatever
  may be the provocation to the contrary, I will vindicate the justice
  of my course, and maintain my reputation as a faithful public
  servant. I warn you, sir, that, unless your course is changed, you
  will have difficulties in relation to which your only salvation will
  be the firm and decided policy of the two Territories whose services
  you have ignored, whose people you have calumniated, and whose
  respect you have long since ceased to possess.

  Can you presume, sir, to be able to correct your opinions by a hasty
  visit to the Sound for a few days? And do you expect, after having
  taken my deliberate course, that I shall change my plans on a simple
  intimation from you, without even a conference between us? Were you
  desirous, sir, to harmonize the elements of strength on the Sound,
  you would have seen that it was your duty at least to have informed
  me of your presence, and to have invited me to a conference.

  Whilst in the country, in the fall and winter, you complained that
  the authorities of the two Territories did not communicate with you.
  Why did you not inform me of your presence in the Sound on your
  arrival at Steilacoom? I learned of your probable arrival by simply
  learning on Saturday morning by my express of your having left
  Vancouver, and I immediately dispatched the chief of my staff to
  wait upon you with a letter. But you were gone; and whether you did
  not know the courtesy due the civil authorities of the Territory,
  who had taken the proper course to place themselves in relations
  with you, or whether you were unwilling to meet a man whose safety
  you had criminally neglected, and whose general views you have been
  compelled to adopt, is a matter entirely immaterial to me.

  What, sir, would have been the effect if Governor Curry had not made
  the movement which you condemn, and my party with the friendly Nez
  Perces had been cut off? Sir, there would have been a hurricane of
  war between the Cascades and Bitter Root, and three thousand
  warriors would now be in arms. Every tribe would have joined,
  including the Snakes, and the spirit of hostility would have spread
  east of the Bitter Root to the upper Pend Oreilles.

  I believe, sir, I would have forced my way through the five or six
  hundred hostiles in the Walla Walla valley with fifty-odd white men
  and one hundred and fifty Nez Perces. Would you have expected it?
  Could the country expect it? And what was the duty of those having
  forces at their command? Governor Curry sent his volunteers and
  defeated the enemy. You disbanded the company of Washington
  Territory volunteers raised expressly to be sent to my relief.

  I have reported your refusal to send me succor to the Department of
  War, and have given some of the circumstances attending that
  refusal. The company was under the command of Captain William McKay.
  Before your arrival there was a pledge that it should be mustered
  into the regular service and sent to my assistance. Major Rains
  informs me that he did everything in his power to induce you to send
  it on. William McKay informs me that he called on you personally,
  and that you would do nothing. I am informed that your aide-de-camp,
  Lieutenant Arnold, endeavored to get you to change your
  determination. What was your reply? "Governor Stevens can take care
  of himself. Governor Stevens will go down the Missouri. Governor
  Stevens will get aid from General Harney. If Governor Stevens wants
  aid, he will send for it." These were your answers, according to the
  changing humor of the moment.

  And now, sir, in view of your assertion that you disbanded no troops
  raised for my relief, and that my communication gave you the first
  intelligence that any were raised for that purpose, I would commend
  the chalice to your own lips, "that I trust you will be governed"
  hereafter "by the truth, and the truth only."

  I am, sir, very respectfully,

                      Your obedient servant,

                              ISAAC I. STEVENS,
                       _Governor, Washington Territory_.

Unable to answer this letter, which so clearly exposed and justly
rebuked his reprehensible course and conduct, Wool returned it, with a
note from his aide stating that it was done by his order. In response
the governor, in a final letter to Wool, remarks of this act:--

  "It can only be construed as evincing a determination on your part
  to have no further official communication with the executive of the
  Territory of Washington, at the very time when, from the
  circumstances of the case and the nature of their respective duties,
  there should, and must often be, such communications.

  "It is a matter which is not to be decided by personal feeling, but
  by consideration of public duty, which alone should govern public
  acts. I shall therefore continue in my official capacity to
  communicate with the major-general commanding the Department of the
  Pacific whenever, in my judgment, duty and the paramount interests
  of the Territory shall demand such communication to be made, casting
  upon that officer whatever responsibility before the country and his
  superiors may attach to his refusal to receive such communications.
  My duty shall be done. Let others do their duty."

The governor was always of the opinion, the result undoubtedly of what
he was told by other officers, that, in disbanding the troops raised for
his relief, Wool was actuated by resentment at his, the governor's,
manly declaration in San Francisco, when, disgusted at Wool's
self-laudation and disparagement of a greater commander, he said that
"every officer knew, and history would record, that General Taylor won
the battle of Buena Vista." However that may be, after the caustic
letter given above, Wool's malice knew no bounds. He redoubled his
accusations of making war upon friendly Indians, gathered up and sent on
to the War Department in his official reports newspaper slanders against
the governor, and even declared that he was crazy. He reiterated his
orders to his subordinates to have nothing to do with the territorial
volunteers or authorities, and finally went to the length of directing
his officers to disarm the volunteers, if practicable. No attempt was
ever made in that direction.

Early in February Pat-ka-nim, with eighty Snohomish braves, accompanied
by Colonel Simmons, pushed up the Snohomish and against the hostiles on
Green River under Leschi, the Nisqually chief, and defeated them in a
sharp fight, inflicting a loss of five killed and six wounded, besides
two taken and executed.

As fast as organized, the Northern battalion was advanced on the line of
the Snohomish, where it built blockhouses and a camp known as Fort
Tilton below the Snoqualmie Falls, and Fort Alden above them, and
scouted the surrounding country. This battalion also established a
blockhouse, with a garrison of fifteen men, at Bellingham Bay, and with
blockhouses on Whitby Island and at Point Wilson, near Port Townsend,
and a service of small vessels and canoes, kept watch over the lower
Sound.

The Central battalion, having been assembled on Yelm prairie, twenty
miles east of Olympia, and constructed there Fort Stevens, moved to and
built Camp Montgomery, twelve miles back of Steilacoom, February 19 to
23; the post and ferry at the emigrant crossing of the Puyallup, 25th to
29th; and the post and blockhouses, named Fort Hays, on Connell's
prairie, on White River, by March 2; and later two blockhouses at the
crossing of that river, named Forts Pike and Posey. Small garrisons held
this line of blockhouses; roads were cut and opened through the forest;
and a train of thirty ox-teams, three yoke each, bought, hired, or
impressed from the settlers, hauled out a hundred days' supplies.
Captain Henness's mounted rangers cheerfully dismounted, and, leaving
their horses at Yelm prairie, advanced on foot. The governor visited
Camp Montgomery on the 28th, pressing forward the movement.

Captain Sidney S. Ford, with a force of friendly Chehalis Indians,
scouted the lower Puyallup. Lieutenant-Colonel Casey advanced a
detachment of regulars to the Muckleshoot prairie, eight miles below
Connell's prairie, where they built a blockhouse named Fort Slaughter.

The government vessels on the Sound were the war steamer Massachusetts,
Captain Samuel Swartwout, which remained mostly in Seattle harbor, where
she relieved the Decatur; the Coast Survey steamer Active, Captain James
Alden; and the revenue cutter Jefferson Davis, a sailing vessel, Captain
William C. Pease. These officers were ever ready to aid in the defense
of the settlements by every means in their power. They furnished
ammunition, transported volunteers and supplies, and cruised the Sound
to overawe the northern Indians.

On March 2 two white men were killed by Indians within a few miles of
Olympia; Indians were seen and stock was driven off at other points; a
band of savages under Qui-e-muth were discovered in the Nisqually
bottom; and it appeared that, while the troops were pushing out, the
Indians were coming in behind them to raid the settlements. Unwilling to
arrest the forward movement, the governor immediately ordered Maxon's
company, of the Southern battalion, over to the Sound from Vancouver,
and soon after brought over the rest of the battalion. By a special war
notice he also called a hundred more men from the already denuded
settlements, and, with the few that were able to respond, strengthened
the exposed points.

On March 6 Colonel Casey's troops on Muckleshoot prairie had a sharp
fight with the enemy. On the 10th Major Hays, with 110 men of his
Central battalion, fought the principal and decisive battle of the war
on the Sound, known as the battle of Connell's prairie. It was brought
on by the Indians, who, emboldened by their previous successes, fought
for five hours with a confidence and stubbornness that enabled the
volunteers to inflict severe losses upon them. They were finally routed
by a charge on their left flank by Captains Swindal and Rabbeson, and a
simultaneous attack in front by Captains Henness and White, with a loss
of twenty-five or thirty killed and many wounded. They even abandoned
their war-drum in their flight. Major Hays, who handled his command with
skill and judgment as well as courage, reported that they numbered at
least two hundred warriors. It afterwards appeared that their numbers
were much larger, and that they were aided in the fight by a hundred
Yakima warriors.

The fruits of Governor Stevens's thorough preparations were now
manifested by incessant blows and untiring, unsparing warfare. The
Indians were allowed no respite from attack, and could find no refuge,
even in the densest swamps and thickets. The Central battalion sent out
strong parties to beat up the country of the White, Green, Cedar, and
Puyallup rivers to the base of the mountains. Major Van Bokkelen, with
Captain Smalley's Company G, forty-six men, and seventy-six of
Pat-ka-nim's braves, swept the forests from the Snohomish to Connell's
prairie, thence up the mountain to the Nahchess Pass, thence northward
along the foot of the range to his own northern line, and thence into
and over the Snoqualmie passes. Captain Sidney Ford with his Chehalis
Indians, and agent Wesley Gosnell with a party of friendly, or pretended
friendly, Indians from the Squaxon reservation--own brothers to the
hostiles these--scoured the swamps and bottoms of the Puyallup and
Nisqually; Lieutenant Pierre Charles, with a force of Cowlitz and
Chehalis Indians, scouted up the Cowlitz and Newarkum rivers, and
captured a number of the enemy. The ladies of Olympia, under the lead of
Mrs. Stevens, made blue caps with red facings, with which these red
allies were equipped, to distinguish them from their hostile kindred.
Another company was called out and organized among the settlers of the
Cowlitz plains under Captain E.D. Warbass, which built a blockhouse on
Klikitat prairie, twelve miles higher up the Cowlitz, and also kept
scouting parties constantly on the move. Major Maxon and his company
scouted and searched the whole length of the Nisqually valley far into
the range, leaving their horses and plunging into the tangled forests on
foot, and on one of their scouts killed eight and brought in fourteen
captives of the enemy. Miller's and Achilles's companies joined in the
work, while Goff was sent back to the river to increase his strength to
a hundred, and, with another company to be raised there,--N, Captain
Richards,--to rendezvous at the Dalles in readiness for operations in
the upper country.

The governor urged Captain Swartwout to unite with Captain Lander's
company, by furnishing a detachment and boats from the Massachusetts, in
routing out the Indians who infested the shores of Lake Washington; and
when the naval officer declined, Captains Howe and Peabody led
detachments of the Northern battalion from the Snohomish down through
the unknown and trackless forest, and beat up the shores of the lake.
Lander's Company A was posted on the Duwhamish River, a few miles from
Seattle, where it built a blockhouse, and from which point Lieutenant
Neely led a party in a canoe expedition up Black River into the lake,
and fell upon a camp of the hostiles just after it had been abandoned,
which was found filled with remains of cattle, stores, and goods
recently plundered from Seattle and the settlers. Colonel Casey, after
being reinforced by the two companies brought over from Vancouver,
established a post higher up on White River, from which, and from his
post on Muckleshoot prairie, parties scouted the surrounding forest.
Every blockhouse with its little garrison, every armed train and express
and canoe, as well as the numerous scouting parties, was constantly
watching and searching for hostile Indians, and, worse than all, their
own kindred, of whom Shaw declared "blankets will turn any Indian on the
side of the whites," now joined in the hunt, and, stimulated by rewards
offered for the heads of the hostile chiefs and warriors, showed the way
to all their secret haunts and trails. The tide had, indeed, turned,
after two months of this unrelenting warfare, and nearly every tribe on
the Sound now freely proffered its assistance. The northern Indians,
also, tendered their services, which were declined, excepting eight men,
who joined the Northern battalion, and proved themselves uncommonly
brave, strong, and hardy soldiers.

Thus the whole tangled region, with its dense forests and almost
impenetrable swamps, from the Snohomish to the Cowlitz, nearly two
hundred miles, was beaten up, the Indian resorts and hiding-places
searched out, and their trails discovered and explored, especially those
across the mountain passes, many of which were now for the first time
made known to the whites. The whole policy and plan of campaign were
Governor Stevens's, and the execution almost entirely the work of his
brave and patriotic volunteers. The governor had, indeed, brought about
a real concert of action with Colonel Casey by his frank and considerate
treatment of that officer, but the regular forces kept within a very
short tether of Fort Steilacoom.

It was in the midst of the rainy season that this aggressive campaign
was waged. So impracticable and unwise was it deemed by the brave and
excellent Major Hays that he remonstrated with the governor against
exposing the volunteers to such hardships, and, finding him inexorable,
resigned rather than undertake it, as also did two officers of his
former company. Amid constant rains and swollen streams the volunteers
thridded the dripping forests, where every shaken bough drenched the
toiling soldiers with another shower-bath, following some dim trail, or
oftener cutting or forcing their way through the trackless woods,--heavy
packs of blankets and rations on their backs, the axe in one hand and
the rifle in the other. Scarcely would they return from one scout when
they would be ordered out again. To every demand the volunteers
responded with the greatest alacrity, spirit, and fortitude. The mounted
men without a murmur left their horses and took to the woods as foot
scouts. The Southern battalion, enlisting with the expectation of
campaigning on the plains of the upper country, instantly and without a
murmur obeyed the order summoning them to the Sound, to the discomforts
and hardships of the rains and forests and swamps. The settlers freely
turned out with their teams of oxen, and the storekeepers furnished
blankets, clothing, shoes, and provisions to the extent of their
ability.

On March 26, just as the campaign was well under way, the Yakimas and
Klikitats swooped down upon the Cascades portage on the Columbia, which
was left insufficiently guarded by Colonel Wright with a force of only
nine regular soldiers in a blockhouse, and massacred nineteen settlers,
and killed one soldier and wounded two others. Colonel Wright, who was
at the Dalles preparing an expedition for the Yakima country,
immediately proceeded to the Cascades with a strong force of regular
troops, and the Indians disappeared. Satisfied that the friendly Indians
in that vicinity were implicated in the attack, he caused ten of them,
including the chief, to be summarily tried by military commission and
hanged, an act which, if committed by the territorial authorities or
volunteers, would have caused redoubled denunciations on the part of
Wool and his parasites, but which, done by this regular officer, excited
no comment. This affair at the Cascades is also of interest as being
General P.H. Sheridan's début in the art of war.

The massacre at the Cascades excited new alarm among the settlers about
Vancouver and along the Columbia. To reassure them, and keep them from
abandoning their farms, the governor called out another company of
volunteers under Captain William Kelly, known as the Clark County
Rangers, caused several new blockhouses to be built, and had the rangers
constantly patrol the settlements. It was at this time, and largely in
consequence of the Cascades massacre, that he called out Captain
Warbass's company, for he deemed it essential that the settlers should
not again abandon their farms. He also wrote Colonel Wright proposing a
"thorough understanding between the regular and volunteer service, so
their joint efforts may be applied to the protection of the settlements
and the prosecution of the war," in order that no force need be wasted,
and inviting his suggestions to that end. But Colonel Wright, although
personally ready to coöperate like Colonel Casey, was under the
strictest orders from Wool in no way to recognize the volunteers. In his
reply to the governor he simply stated what he was doing, and proposing
to do, without venturing any suggestions. In truth, between the governor
and his volunteers, who were so efficiently protecting the settlements
and attacking the common foe, on the one hand, and his irate commanding
general, who had positively ordered him to ignore the territorial
authorities and forces, on the other, Colonel Wright was in something of
a quandary, and it must be confessed that he conducted himself with no
little diplomatic skill.

For two months after the fight of Connell's prairie, Governor Stevens
kept his whole force thus incessantly searching the forests and hunting
down the hostiles with unrelenting vigor. The Indians, thrown completely
on the defensive, did not commit another depredation after the Cascades
disaster on all that long line of exposed and scattered settlements.
They were driven and chased from resort to resort; their most hidden
camps and caches of provisions were discovered and destroyed; many were
killed or captured; and by the middle of May over five hundred came in
and gave themselves up, while the guilty chiefs and warriors fled across
the Cascades and sought refuge among their Yakima kindred. The
surrendered were placed on the reservations with the friendly Indians,
except a number of suspected murderers, who were tried by military
commissions; but very few were found guilty for lack of evidence, and
they were also sent to join their people on the reservations. It was not
the governor's policy to punish them for taking part in the war, or
fights only, but he deemed it essential to the future peace of the
country that the murderers of settlers and chief instigators of the
outbreak should be punished, and believed that if they were allowed to
escape scot free they would stir up trouble again.

Thus the war west of the Cascades was ended by the complete surrender or
flight of the hostiles.

In June the posts and blockhouses built by the volunteers on Puyallup
and White rivers, Connell's prairie, and Camp Montgomery were turned
over to the regulars, and the volunteers who were not required for an
expedition east of the Cascades were disbanded in July.

After the suppression of hostilities on the Sound, becoming satisfied
that the reservations set apart at the treaty of Medicine Creek were
inadequate for the Nisquallies and Puyallups, Governor Stevens held a
council with these Indians on Fox Island on August 4, and arranged with
them to give them, in place of those established by the treaty, a larger
reservation for the former tribe on the Nisqually River, a few miles
above its mouth, embracing some excellent bottom land, and for the
latter twenty-one thousand acres of the finest alluvial land at the
mouth of the Puyallup River. At the same time a smaller reservation was
given the Duwhamish Indians on the Muckleshoot prairie. The Puyallup
reservation included thirteen donation claims taken by white settlers,
but the governor had these appraised by a commission which he appointed
for the purpose, and its awards, amounting to some five thousand
dollars, were paid by Congress. On his recommendation the President, by
executive order, promptly established the new reservations, in pursuance
of the sixth article of the treaty, which empowered him to take such
action. The Indians have remained in undisturbed possession of them ever
since. When the Northern Pacific Railroad Company fixed its terminus at
Tacoma in 1874, it cast covetous eyes upon this noble tract of land
situated across the bay, right opposite the proposed city, and the
author, then its attorney in Washington Territory, was instructed to
examine and report upon the validity of the Indian title to it. His
report satisfied the officers of the company that the right of the
Indians to their reservation was indisputable.

Much of the success attending Governor Stevens's prosecution of the
Indian war was due to the able and energetic men he called to his aid as
staff officers. He especially commended General W.W. Miller as having
imparted "extraordinary efficiency to the quartermaster's and commissary
department, the most difficult of all,--which, generally kept distinct,
was a single department in our service,--reflecting the highest capacity
and devotion to the public service upon its chief and subordinate
officers." It was General Miller who collected, largely by impressment,
organized, and led out into the Indian country the large ox-train which
hauled out three months' supplies for the volunteers in the beginning of
the campaign, without which it could not have been waged. He was
distinguished by remarkable sound sense and judgment, and the governor
counseled with and relied upon him more than any other. And after the
Indian war General Miller was his closest friend in the Territory. The
governor also took occasion to make special acknowledgment to General
Tilton for his services as adjutant-general, where his military
experience was of great value. It is much to be regretted that the
limits of this work preclude the detailed mention of their services,
which they so well merit; but the remarkable success of their
departments is their best encomium.




                             CHAPTER XXXIX

                      THE WAR IN THE UPPER COUNTRY


While the war of the Sound was thus vigorously and successfully
prosecuted, operations east of the Cascades were marked by lack of vigor
and purpose, and no impression was made upon the hostile tribes, except
to encourage them to continue on the war-path. The Oregon volunteers,
who wintered in the Walla Walla valley, crossed Snake River in March,
advanced a short distance up the Palouse, then traversed the country
over to the Columbia below Priest's Rapids, from which point they
returned to Walla Walla, and in May moved back to the Dalles and were
disbanded. Thus it will be seen how easy it would have been for the
regular forces, supporting and supplementing this movement of the Oregon
volunteers across Snake River, to have made the effective campaign that
Governor Stevens outlined to Wool. With a little reinforcement, the
volunteers could have pushed beyond Priest's Rapids up the left bank of
the Columbia, driving the hostiles across the river into the Yakima
country, when the main columns of regulars, entering that country from
the Dalles and up the Yakima River, could have "put the hostiles to
their last battle."

But it was not until May that Colonel Wright marched from the Dalles
into the Yakima country with five companies of regulars. He found the
hostiles in strong force on the Nahchess River, one of the upper
tributaries of the Yakima. Instead of fighting, he stopped to parley
with them; but after a week of talking to no purpose, he sent back for
reinforcements.

At this juncture, the hostile Indians on the Sound having been
thoroughly subdued, and those of the upper country being still in
unbroken strength and confidence, Governor Stevens, on May 28, proposed
to Lieutenant-Colonel Casey a joint movement of their respective forces
across the Cascades:--

  "I would suggest your sending three companies to the Nahchess,
  retaining one at or near the pass, and advancing the others into the
  Yakima country.

  "At the same time I will put my whole mounted force through the
  Snoqualmie Pass and down the main Yakima. The Northern battalion
  shall occupy posts on the line of the Snoqualmie from the falls to
  the eastern slope. A depot shall be established on the eastern
  slope; all the horsemen will then be available to strike and pursue
  the enemy."

But Casey, strictly forbidden by Wool to recognize the volunteers, sent
two companies under Major Garnett to reinforce Wright by the circuitous
Cowlitz and Columbia route, declining to "send him across the Nahchess
Pass, for the reason, first, I consider there would be too much delay in
getting across. In the next place, I have not sufficient transportation
to spare for that purpose." From Steilacoom to Wright's camp on the
Nahchess was barely a hundred miles by the direct route across the pass;
by the Cowlitz-Columbia route it was three hundred and fifteen miles,
for a hundred and fifteen of which the troops could be transported by
water, leaving two hundred to march. By these facts, and by the ease and
celerity of Shaw's march a few days later over the rejected route, the
validity and candor of Casey's "reason" may be judged.

Such a combined movement would have given Wright ample reinforcements,
and in the mounted volunteers the very arm he most needed; for infantry
could never reach the Indians on those plains in summer unless the
latter chose to fight. And for the second time he was given the
opportunity, by availing himself of the coöperation of the volunteers,
to inflict a severe punishment upon the enemy. Unhappily Wool's orders
tied his hands, and Wright himself was imbued with Wool's delusion that
the Indians of the upper country--the great hostile tribes that had
plotted and brought on the war fresh from treacherously signing the
treaties at Walla Walla, had murdered the miners and agent Bolon, and
had plundered Fort Walla Walla, and laid themselves in wait to cut off
Governor Stevens and his party--were innocent and peaceably disposed
Indians, who had been forced to war by the aggressions of the whites.

Upon Casey's rejection or evasion of the joint operation he proposed,
Governor Stevens determined to push his mounted men across the
mountains, and throw upon that officer the burden of protecting the
settlements upon the Sound against hostile incursions. Accordingly he
offered to turn over to him his posts on the Puyallup, and on Connell's
and South prairies, and the colonel received and occupied them, for
which he was censured and rebuked by Wool as soon as the latter was
informed of it. The governor was convinced that the war could be brought
to a close only by subduing the hostile tribes of the upper country;
that until this was done the Sound country was liable to their raids and
stirring up of fresh outbreaks among the Sound Indians; and that every
day's delay in striking them was helping Kam-i-ah-kan and his emissaries
in winning over the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and disaffected Nez
Perces to their side. He also deemed it necessary to send supplies and
Indian goods to Craig and Lawyer, and strengthen their hands in keeping
the Nez Perces loyal, now left more exposed by the withdrawal of the
Oregon volunteers from the Walla Walla valley. He proceeded, therefore,
to carry out his plans, cherished from the beginning, of striking a
blow in the upper country.

On June 12 Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw marched from Camp Montgomery with one
hundred and seventy-five mounted men of the Central and Southern
battalions, under their respective majors, Blankenship and Maxon,
comprising Captain Henness's Company C, Maxon's Washington Mounted
Rifles, Company D, under Lieutenant Powell, Captain Miller's Company J,
and a pack-train of twenty-seven packers and one hundred and seven pack
animals, under Captain C.H. Armstrong, the regimental quartermaster and
commissary. On the 20th he reached the Wenass branch of the Yakima, with
the loss of only one animal, finding the road good for a mountain road.
Colonel Wright was still parleying with the Yakimas, trying to patch up
a peace, and not only with them, but also with Leschi, Kitsap, Stahi,
Nelson, and Qui-e-muth, the hostile chiefs who had fled from the Sound
country, and would vouchsafe no information or suggestion to the
volunteer colonel, except the statement that the regular troops were
amply sufficient for the Yakima. Shaw therefore continued his march,
crossed the Columbia at old Fort Walla Walla, and reached and made camp
on Mill Creek, in the valley, on the 9th of July.

Having seen the necessary arrangements made, and orders given for Shaw's
march, the governor hastened in person to the Dalles, arriving there
June 12, where he had already assembled Captains Goff's and Richards's
companies, in anticipation of operating in the upper country.

He had previously, on April 27, inquired of Colonel Wright if he
intended to occupy the Walla Walla valley, and if, in case it were not
occupied, and the Oregon volunteers there were withdrawn, he could
furnish an escort of one company to guard the train to the Nez Perce
country. To this Wright replied that it was no part of his plan of
campaign to occupy the Walla Walla country, "as we are assured that the
Indians in that district are peacefully inclined," and that the matter
of an escort was referred to General Wool, which, of course, was
equivalent to refusal. The governor, on receiving this reply, at once
wrote Wright:--

  "My information in regard to the Indians in the Walla Walla, and on
  the Snake River, is that they are determined to prosecute the war.
  This was the declaration made by the prominent chiefs of the Cuyuses
  to the express of Mr. McDonald some weeks since. This is the opinion
  of my agent in the Nez Perce country and of the Nez Perce chiefs,
  and it would seem to be indicated by the recent attack by the
  Indians on the volunteers at the Umatilla.

  "I have therefore thought it my duty to communicate these views, and
  I will suggest that you receive with great caution any information
  of their peaceful intention, to the end that you may not be thrown
  off your guard."

Thus Wright was fixed in the opinion that these Indians were peaceably
disposed, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. He ignored the
information and views given him by Governor Stevens, who, as
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, was especially charged with the care
and management of them; the information furnished by the Hudson Bay
Company's officer at Colville; the opinions of the Nez Perce chiefs and
agent Craig; and even a recent attack actually made upon a post of
Oregon volunteers on the Umatilla.

The governor now notified Wright of Shaw's march and orders to coöperate
with him:--

  "His orders are to coöperate with you in removing the seat of war
  from the base of the mountains to the interior, and for reasons
  affecting the close of the war on the Sound obvious to all persons.

  "He will then push to the Walla Walla valley, crossing the Columbia
  at Fort Walla Walla.

  "The supplies and escort for the Walla Walla will move from the
  Dalles on Friday morning.

  "The Walla Walla valley must be occupied immediately, to prevent the
  extension of the war into the interior.

  "Kam-i-ah-kan has, since your arrival on the Nahchess, made every
  exertion to induce the tribes thus far friendly to join in the war.
  He has flattered the Spokanes, where he was on the 25th of May, and
  has endeavored to browbeat the Nez Perces. The Spokanes have
  answered in the negative, and the Nez Perces will, I am satisfied,
  continue friendly.

  "I am ready, as the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to take charge
  of any Indians that may be reported by yourself as having changed
  their condition from hostility to peace.

  "From all I can gather, I presume your views and my own do not
  differ as to the terms which should be allowed the Indians, viz.,
  unconditional submission, and the rendering up of murderers and
  instigators of the war to punishment.

  "I will, however, respectfully put you on your guard in reference to
  Leschi, Nelson, Kitsap, and Qui-e-muth, from the Sound, and suggest
  that no arrangement be made which shall save their necks from the
  executioner."

But the governor's wise and patriotic efforts to secure coöperation, and
this fine opportunity to strike the enemy a crushing blow, were
frustrated by Wright's pacific attitude and the cold shoulder he turned
to Shaw. It was indeed hard to induce concert of action, especially
aggressive action, between authorities who knew the Indians as hostile
and murderous, and to be subdued only by defeat and punishment, and
officers who regarded them as wronged, and deserving to be made peace
with and protected. Thus Wool's pernicious and inexcusable views and
orders paralyzed the campaign of his subordinate, who shared his
delusion.

The governor remained at the Dalles some two weeks, combining and
expediting the movements of his two columns to the Walla Walla valley,
and gaining the latest information from the Indian country, and returned
to Olympia June 30.

On this trip the governor summarily dismissed a quartermaster at
Vancouver for dishonest conduct, and the incident was made the subject
of a caricature by John Phoenix, the _nom de plume_ of that inveterate
wit and joker, Lieutenant George H. Derby, who was then stationed at
Vancouver.[11]

It will be recollected that the governor left Captain Sidney S. Ford in
the Walla Walla to organize a company for home defense of the few
settlers who had returned with the Oregon volunteers. He succeeded in
raising twenty-five men, but was soon succeeded by a company under
Captain Henry M. Chase, composed of ten whites and forty-three Nez
Perces. On the withdrawal of the volunteers, they, too, had to be
disbanded, and the valley was wholly abandoned.

On the 22d the two companies under Captains Goff and Williams, who
succeeded Richards, mustering one hundred and seventy-five men, with a
train of forty-five wagons and thirty-five pack-animals, in charge of
Quartermaster Robie, marched from the Dalles, and on July 9 joined Shaw
on Mill Creek, except a detachment of seventy-five men under Captain
Goff, which left the train on the Umatilla to go to the assistance of
Major Lupton, of the Oregon volunteers, who was in the presence of a
force of the enemy in the Blue Mountains. Goff and Lupton followed the
hostiles across the mountains, and on the 15th and 16th inflicted a
sharp blow upon them on Burnt River.

Lieutenant-Colonel Craig, with a force of seventy-five Nez Perce
volunteers under Spotted Eagle, marched from Lapwai and joined Shaw's
command, also on the 9th, so that the three columns, starting from
points as widely divergent as Puget Sound, the Dalles, and Lapwai, all
met in the valley on the same day. The Nez Perces gave assurances of the
continued friendship of the tribe, and Robie proceeded with the train of
Indian goods to their country under their escort alone.

Thus far Shaw had encountered no enemy in his march, the Yakimas being
virtually protected by Colonel Wright and his parleyings, and the
Cuyuses and Walla Wallas having left the valley; but learning that the
hostiles were in the Grande Ronde valley in force, he determined to
strike them. Moving by night by an unused trail across the Blue
Mountains, guided by the faithful Nez Perce chief, Captain John, he
encountered the enemy on the third day, July 17, in the open valley.
Although taken by surprise, they received him in a defiant attitude;
large numbers of braves, mounted and armed, and with a white scalp borne
on a pole among them, confronted him, while the squaws were fleeing
across the valley to seek refuge, and, on Captain John's approaching
them to parley, cried out to shoot him. Upon this, throwing off his hat,
and with a shout, the tall, rawboned leader of the volunteers instantly
charged at the head of his men, his long red hair and beard streaming in
the wind, broke and scattered the Indians, chased them fifteen miles
clear across the valley, killed forty, and captured a hundred pounds of
ammunition, all their provisions, and over two hundred horses and mules,
many of which bore the United States brand, and had been evidently run
off from Wright's and Rains's commands. Shaw's loss was only three
killed and four wounded.

Having driven the hostiles beyond the Grande Ronde, and not having
sufficient supplies to warrant pursuing them farther, Shaw returned to
his camp in the Walla Walla.

Meanwhile Robie had been threatened and ordered out of the Nez Perce
country by the disaffected portion of that tribe, and had returned by
forced marches to the valley, but on learning of Shaw's victory, and in
answer to his message that "if they beat their drums for war, he would
parade his men for battle," the recusant chiefs again made professions
of friendship. Lawyer and the majority of the tribe were unwavering in
their friendship, but there were a considerable number who sympathized
with their Cuyuse kindred, and repented having made the treaty, among
whom Looking Glass, Red Wolf, Joseph, and Eagle-from-the-Light were
leaders.

One of the first acts of Colonel Wright at the Dalles had been to
release the Cuyuse war chief, Um-how-lish, whom the governor had
captured and brought to that point, and to allow him to return to his
people, accepting all his professions at par. Under this encouragement
some of the friendly Cuyuses and the families of some of the hostiles
had taken refuge among the Nez Perces, despite the governor's refusal to
permit them to go there. The very thing he apprehended occurred, viz.,
the disaffected and hostile Cuyuses, visiting their kindred with, and
mingling among, the Nez Perces, had stirred up considerable disaffection
in this hitherto faithful tribe. Moreover, the Yakima emissaries had
assured the Nez Perces that the Spokanes were about to break out against
the whites, and threatened them with the same treatment accorded the
whites, unless they, too, would make common cause against the
encroaching race. Lawyer and Craig, therefore, were sorely troubled to
hold firm the wavering friendship of the disaffected part of the tribe,
and had written the most urgent messages to the governor for assistance.
Hence his great anxiety to have the Walla Walla valley held in force,
and to get through to the Nez Perce country a train bearing supplies and
encouragement to the faithful chiefs.

Shaw's victory occurred most opportunely to restrain the disaffected,
and both he and Craig represented that the moral effect of it was great
and salutary upon them. The governor therefore decided to proceed in
person to Walla Walla, and there hold a council with the Indians, in
order to confirm the friendship of the Nez Perces and restrain the
doubtful and wavering from active hostility. He directed Craig and Shaw
to summon the hitherto friendly Indians, the Nez Perces, Spokanes,
Coeur d'Alenes, and friendly Cuyuses, to the council; and also to send
messengers to the hostiles, inviting them to attend it also, under the
sole condition of submission to the government, requiring them to come
unarmed, and assuring them of safe conduct to, at, and from the council.
He took this course in order to give the hostiles every opportunity to
give up the conflict and accept peace, if their minds were ripe for it,
and also to refute the infamous charges of Wool and satisfy the doubts
or scruples of other regular officers, by demonstrating his earnest wish
to end the war and treat the hostiles with all possible leniency. To
this end, on August 3 he wrote a pressing invitation to Colonel Wright
to attend the council, recommended him to establish a permanent garrison
in the Walla Walla valley, and requested a conference at the Dalles on
the 14th of September.

The governor called out two hundred more volunteers to maintain the
strength of Shaw's command, whose term of enlistment was about to
expire, for he deemed it indispensable to hold the Walla Walla valley.

Colonel Wright, acting on Wool's theory of wronged and innocent Indians,
had suffered himself to be completely deceived by the wily Yakimas, and
had given open ear to their lying tales and treacherous professions,
and, without striking a blow, or seizing a single murderer, or exacting
any guaranty for future good behavior,--not even a promise to observe
their treaty and allow whites to come into their country,--had concluded
a quasi-peace with them. This was as great a victory for their diplomacy
as Haller's defeat was for their arms. It rendered Wright's campaign
utterly abortive, saved them from losses and punishment, recognized as
valid their objections to the treaty and the presence of white settlers,
and left Kam-i-ah-kan and his followers free to continue their
machinations among the doubtful tribes, which they were actively
carrying on.

While these wily Indians were thus beguiling Wright, they also tried
their diplomacy on the authorities on the west side of the Cascades. In
May Indian messengers from Ow-hi and Te-i-as--two of the most cunning
and treacherous of the Yakima chiefs, the former second only to
Kam-i-ah-kan, as well as foremost in bringing on the war--approached
Colonel Simmons through friendly Indians, pretending a desire to make
peace, and were sent to Olympia to the governor. After conversing with
them, the latter was satisfied that they came only as spies and
trouble-instigators, but directed them to return to the chiefs who sent
them, bearing his invitation to all who wished to resume friendly
relations to come with their women and children to the prairie above
Snoqualmie Falls, and submit to the justice and mercy of the government;
that only those guilty of murder and instigating the war would be
punished, and all others would be pardoned and kindly treated, like the
Indians on the reservations. At the same time he charged Colonel
Fitzhugh, in connection with Colonel Simmons, with the mission of
bringing about the surrender of the Indians in question in case they
were acting in good faith. Three weeks later, June 20, Fitzhugh reported
that his mission had turned out a perfect failure, that the governor was
correct in his opinion, that the messengers only wanted to gain time and
information, and added:--

  "The Indians expected to make better terms with Colonel Wright, who
  had been entertaining them and making them presents on the other
  side of the mountains, and had told them that he was the 'Big Dog'
  in this part of the world, and had come a long distance to treat
  with them, and if they would only stop fighting all would be well.
  As things now are, they will have to be well thrashed before they
  will treat. From the beginning of the difficulty to the present
  time, the regulars, from their commander-in-chief down, have
  stultified themselves. They have done no fighting, and now they wish
  to patch up a treaty, so as to get the credit for putting an end to
  the war."

Little did the cunning Ow-hi foresee the tragic fate that awaited him
and his son, only two years later, at the hands of Colonel Wright.

Thus ingloriously was the war carried on, or rather paralyzed, by the
regular forces in the upper country. The only blow inflicted upon the
hostiles of that region during the year was struck by Shaw in the Grande
Ronde, and the effect of that was dissipated by the subsequent behavior
of Wool's officers.

FOOTNOTES:

  [11] In this cartoon two settlers in roughest costumes, slouch hats,
       woolen shirts, huge muddy boots with trousers tucked into them,
       and long, unkempt hair and beard, are represented standing in
       front of a log-hut in the woods, while in the distance appears a
       building, having over the door the sign "Quartermaster's Office,"
       from which a man is being kicked into the street.

       "_First Pike._ That's pretty rough, Bill, yanking a man out
       of office like that, without giving him ary show or trial.

       "_Second Pike._ Well, the governor's generally about right,
       and he's dead right this time, you bet."




                               CHAPTER XL

                      THE FRUITLESS PEACE COUNCIL


It will be remembered that Colonel Wright, hugging his delusion and
shutting his eyes to obvious facts, in April expressed the opinion that
the hostile Cuyuses and Walla Wallas were "peaceably disposed" when
declining to occupy the valley or furnish an escort for the Nez Perce
train. The governor, by bringing him to attend the council and see and
judge for himself, hoped to open his eyes to the real situation, and to
induce him to take a more manly and aggressive course in case the
Indians persisted in the war.

Accordingly, leaving Olympia August 11, Governor Stevens reached
Vancouver on the 13th, and there met Colonel Wright, who informed him
that he was unable to attend the council from pressure of other duties,
but that he was dispatching a force of four companies of regulars under
Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe in season to be present, and that the
governor could rely upon that officer for support in case of need, an
assurance not made good, and which involved him in no little personal
peril.

As it was no longer necessary to maintain Shaw's force in the valley,
since the regulars were to occupy it, the governor now revoked his call
for two hundred more volunteers.

Traveling together to the Dalles, the governor and Colonel Wright had
repeated conferences en route, and at that point also met and conferred
with Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe, Major Lugenbeel, and Captain Jordan,
with the result, as the governor supposed and reported to the Indian
Bureau, of establishing "the most cordial and effective coöperation in
all the measures taken to maintain the friendly relations of the tribes
east of the mountains." It is evident that Governor Stevens, by his
personal ascendency over men, and the manifest wisdom and necessity of
his measures, actually compelled these officers, like Lieutenant-Colonel
Casey, to a degree of coöperation incompatible with Wool's orders, and
probably repugnant to their own prejudices. It is impossible, however,
to acquit Wright and Steptoe of a lack of candor in concealing from the
governor the real character of Wool's instructions, and in leading him
to expect their faithful coöperation and support. For not only had Wool
positively forbidden anything of the kind, but had ordered them to
disarm the volunteers, if they had sufficient force to do so, and expel
them from the Indian country, as appeared from Wool's orders when
subsequently published by the government. He also ordered them to
exclude American settlers from the entire upper country, but not to
interfere with the Hudson Bay Company people, it being his intention to
make the Cascade Range a scientific frontier to the settlements.

It is noteworthy that the officers of the 4th infantry, who garrisoned
the country at and before the outbreak of the war,--Alvord, Rains,
Haller, Maloney, Slaughter, and Nugen,--agreed perfectly with the
territorial authorities and the people as to the causes of the outbreak,
and were always ready to coöperate with them. It was Major Alvord who
first detected and reported the existence of the Indian conspiracy, and
Major Rains who called for the volunteers.

But the officers of the 9th infantry, like Wright and Casey, were
new-comers in the country, bound by Wool's orders, and prejudiced by his
infamous slanders, and undoubtedly affected by professional jealousy.
They were ready to ignore the territorial authorities, and to make peace
by restraining the whites instead of punishing the hostile Indian
aggressors. They prolonged the war east of the mountains and kept back
the settlement of the country for two years, but at last the scales were
torn from their eyes by stern experience; they realized how mistaken had
been their views and fruitless their policy, and found themselves
obliged to adopt the views of Governor Stevens and make war in earnest.
Then, under the severe blows of Wright, the hostile tribes were finally
punished and subdued, and permanent peace assured.

On the day after reaching Vancouver the governor held a council with a
band of Klikitat Indians, at which Colonel Wright was present, and made
arrangements for removing them temporarily to their original home east
of the Cascades on the Klikitat River, with the view of placing them
ultimately on the Yakima reservation. He informed Colonel Wright that he
would receive and care for, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, any
surrendered Indians, except the Sound murderers,--Leschi, Qui-e-muth,
Nelson, Sta-hi, etc.,--to whom he had already cautioned him against
granting amnesty. He now made formal requisition upon Colonel Wright for
the surrender of these chiefs to be tried for their crimes, and notified
him that he had forbidden the Indian agents to receive them on any
reservation either east or west of the Cascades. He gave full and
careful instructions on all these matters to the agents on the
river,--Captain J. Cain, who had general charge of the Indians on the
Columbia, Mr. Field at Vancouver, Mr. Lear at the Cascades, and the
agent near the Dalles,--and made the necessary arrangements to meet all
exigencies. This trip affords one of many examples of the governor's
untiring zeal and energy in the public service. In a single week he
travels sixty miles on horseback, thirty in canoe, and forty by
steamboat to Vancouver; holds a council with the Klikitats, and arranges
for removing them from the settlements; instructs five Indian agents;
revokes his call for volunteers; confers with Colonel Wright; demands of
him the surrender of Indian murderers for punishment; travels eighty
miles farther to the Dalles; and, by repeated conferences with Wright
and his officers, secures their coöperation, as he has reason to
believe. Moreover, he finds time to write the most clear and detailed
reports to the Indian Bureau and to the Secretary of War.

Leaving the Dalles on the 19th, and pushing forward in advance of
Steptoe with a train of thirty wagons drawn by eighty oxen, and two
hundred loose animals, attended only by Pearson, and without escort
except the employees, Governor Stevens reached Shaw's camp in the valley
on the 23d. On the evening of the 28th a small pack-train was captured
by the Indians within a few miles of camp, the packers escaping on their
horses without loss, after firing away all their ammunition. The
governor was much chagrined at this, the only loss of animals or
supplies suffered by his volunteers during the whole war, and in orders
rebuked the parties whose negligence was responsible for the mishap, and
concluded:

  "He desires to impress upon the troops the fact established by
  experience, especially in the present Indian war, that bold and
  repeated charges upon the enemy, even when the disparity of numbers
  is great, will alone lead to results. In this way only can the
  superiority of our race be established. In all mere defensive
  contests with Indians, whether behind breast-works or in the brush,
  an Indian is as good as a white man; few laurels can thus be won,
  and the result may be discreditable."

Craig and Dr. Lansdale, the latter the agent for the Flatheads, just
down from the Bitter Root valley, arrived on the 30th with some of the
Nez Perce chiefs. The next day agent Montour and Antoine Plante came in
from the Spokanes and reported that, although the tribe professed a
friendly disposition, they would not attend the council. Captain D.A.
Russell (later major-general commanding 1st division, 6th corps, Army of
the Potomac) with three companies marched from the Yakima to the
Columbia, opposite old Fort Walla Walla, and, being without means of
crossing, the governor sent him a wagon boat guarded by twenty
volunteers, by means of which he ferried his command over the river. On
the 5th Steptoe reached the valley, and went into camp four miles below
the governor's camp, his force, including Russell's, consisting of four
companies. The volunteers were therefore all started for the Dalles,
their term of service expiring on the 8th, except Captain Goff's
company, which cheerfully consented to remain as a guard at the camp
until relieved by the regulars.

Lawyer and the bulk of the Nez Perces arrived on the 6th, and encamped
four miles above. A train of Indian goods under Robie reached the camp
the next day. On the 8th the governor received the Nez Perce chiefs and
headmen to the number of three hundred, after which he held a conference
with the chiefs, and entertained them at dinner. Father A. Ravalli, of
the Coeur d'Alene mission, arrived in the evening, bringing important
information. Reports the governor:--

  "The Father reports having seen and conversed with Kam-i-ah-kan,
  Skloom, Ow-hi, and his son, and that they will not attend the
  council. The Spokanes also declined coming. He also saw Looking
  Glass, who was not well disposed, and said he would not come to the
  council. From Father Ravalli's report, it became evident to me that
  all the Indians in the upper country, if not openly hostile, were
  yet far from entertaining a disposition for friendship to be relied
  upon. Kam-i-ah-kan had taken advantage of the cessation of
  hostilities against him in the Yakima to circulate the grossest
  falsehoods as to the objects of the government in making treaties,
  against the volunteers, the miners, the settlers, and Americans in
  general, and he declares that no settler shall live in the country.
  These falsehoods are universally credited by the Indians, and thus
  Kam-i-ah-kan, who personally visited most of the tribes, has by his
  intrigues been enabled to excite to a point verging upon open
  hostility all the tribes in the upper country, withdrawing from
  their allegiance one half of the Nez Perce nation. As yet, however,
  the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and Colvilles have not molested the
  settlers or miners passing through their country."

On the 9th provisions were issued to the Nez Perces. In the evening it
was reported that a party of volunteers on their way to the Dalles were
being attacked by the hostile Indians, and Colonel Shaw was dispatched
to their assistance with all the volunteers in camp and a detachment of
Nez Perces. This left the governor with only ten men, and as he expected
to open the council the next day, and had a large quantity of Indian
goods on the ground, he requested Steptoe to send a company of dragoons
to the council ground as early as practicable. In notes to and
conversation with him the governor had repeatedly requested him to camp
at or near the council ground, in order "to show the Indians the
strength of our people and the unity of our councils." In sending the
wagon boat to Captain Russell he made a similar request. He well knew
that the pacific and parleying attitude of the regular officers had
imbued the Indians with the idea that the regular troops were a
different people from the settlers and volunteers. He wished to disabuse
the Indians, and moreover a guard would be indispensable for the
protection of his camp and supplies as soon as the last of the
volunteers moved away. Wright's assurances, and the cordial conferences
with that officer and Steptoe, fully justified him in relying upon their
support.

The next morning Colonel Steptoe moved his camp farther up the valley,
and on his way called at the governor's camp with a company of dragoons.
The latter, supposing that, after his repeated request and the manifest
necessity of the case, Steptoe would of course encamp near by, did not
reiterate his request, and the regular officer continued his march and
established his camp eight miles above the council ground, leaving it
wholly unprotected. Fortunately Shaw, with his small force, returned in
the afternoon, the rumored attack proving a false alarm, and reported
having seen Stock Whitley, chief of the Des Chutes Indians, who said his
people and the Cuyuses would come to the council that day. The opening
of the council was postponed to the morrow. Later in the afternoon these
Indians, with the Umatillas in large force, advanced mounted to within a
short distance of camp, then, without any salutation or shaking hands,
wheeled and moved off to the Nez Perce camp, where they partook of a
feast prepared for them, after which they encamped just above their
hosts. This demeanor, with the facts that they fired the prairie when
coming in, and treated some members of the party with great insolence,
was indicative of anything but a friendly spirit.

The governor now ordered the company of volunteers to march for the
Dalles the next morning, and made a requisition on Colonel Steptoe for
the presence of two companies of troops on the council ground, stating
that the Cuyuses had all come in, and, as the volunteers were about to
leave, it was essential to have a force on the ground to control the
Indians. Incredible as it may seem, Steptoe refused, giving several lame
excuses, and his real reason in the following pregnant sentence: "And
permit me to say that my instructions from General Wool do not authorize
me to make any arrangements whatever of the kind you wish." As the
governor requested no arrangements except that a regular force should
camp near him to protect his council ground and show the Indians "the
unity of our councils," as he bore the President's commission, and was
charged by the government with the care of the Indians, this act shows
to what length the malignity of Wool and the prejudices of a somewhat
weak though well-meaning officer could extend. The fact was that these
regular officers had idealized the Indians, accepting as true the
falsehood of Kam-i-ah-kan, sympathized with the savages, and were "down"
on the settlers and volunteers.

The governor learned for the first time from this note that Steptoe had
moved his camp so far away, for he had taken it for granted that that
officer had encamped near by. Therefore he retained Goff's company of
only sixty-nine men for the protection of the council, countermanding
the order for it to march below in the morning. A portion of it was
already one day's march on their way down, but was immediately brought
back.

The council was duly opened the next day, September 11, the chiefs of
the Nez Perce, Cuyuse, Umatilla, John Day, and Des Chutes Indians being
present. The governor expressed his sorrow at the state of
hostilities,--reviewed the course of Kam-i-ah-kan, Pu-pu-mox-mox, and
the hostiles in accepting their treaties, professing the utmost
satisfaction with them, and then murdering whites traveling through
their country and their agent, Bolon, plundering Fort Walla Walla,
burning the houses of settlers, and threatening the lives of himself and
party returning from the Blackfoot council. He had labored only for
their good as their friend, and could they wonder that he was grieved at
this state of affairs? The provisions of the treaties relating to
punishments for offenses committed by Indians upon whites, or by whites
upon Indians, were fully explained, and the fact stated that under the
treaties they had bound themselves to deliver up the murderers. It was
the law, and to that they must submit. Men were killed on both sides in
battle, but that was not murder. But the Indians who killed their agent,
Bolon, and others must be given up to be tried and punished by the law.
He invited all Indians who desired peace to submit unconditionally to
the justice and mercy of the government; the lives of all except the
murderers should be safe. He spoke of the Indians of the Sound who had
surrendered and been placed on reservations, fed, clothed, and
protected, and treated not harshly, but with kindness. Few of the
hostiles were present. Many conflicting rumors were current as to the
whereabouts of Kam-i-ah-kan and other hostile chiefs.

The council continued the next day. The governor said that he had given
his views in regard to the war and how it could be ended, that his words
were intended for all the Indians of the country, and called upon them
to express their minds. The Indians manifested a reluctance to speak,
each seeming to wait for another. Several chiefs expressed sorrow that
war existed, and hoped a peace might be made. Peeps, a hostile Cuyuse
chief, said there was no haste, as Kam-i-ah-kan was coming, and they
waited for him.

Wee-lap-to-leek, a hostile chief of the Tigh Indians, a band near the
Dalles, said that the Indians were determined to have their country;
they would bet it on a fight with the whites, and the winners should
take it. He was indorsed by Camas-pello, former war chief of the
Cuyuses.

Eagle-from-the-Light, the prominent Nez Perce chief, complained bitterly
because a Nez Perce brave had been hanged in the valley last winter by
the Oregon volunteers, and asserted that the man was guiltless. He was
followed by others in the same strain.

The governor explained the laws of the whites in regard to spies, and
that the executed Nez Perce was punished as one, and that he would speak
further of the case the next day, after he had learned all the facts. He
then adjourned the council, expressing the hope that Kam-i-ah-kan and
Garry would be present the next day.

The Indians held councils in their camps all night. So hostile were the
Cuyuses, Umatillas, Walla Wallas, and others, and so much did more than
half of the Nez Perces sympathize with them, that the friendly Nez
Perces danced the war-dance during the whole night. The lives of the
friendly chiefs were threatened, and the great bulk of the Indians
seemed simply to be waiting for the coming of Kam-i-ah-kan to fall upon
the governor and his party. Some of the Indians were detected attending
the council with arms under their blankets, and posting themselves near
the governor and other members of the party; but although no open notice
was taken of them, the redoubled vigilance of the volunteer guards gave
no chance for their premeditated treachery.

Early the following morning the governor sent the following letter to
Steptoe:--

                       COUNCIL GROUNDS, WALLA WALLA VALLEY, W.T.,
                                      September 13, 1856.

  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL E.J. STEPTOE.

  _My dear Sir_,--The council did not adjourn yesterday till near
  sundown. I understand the feelings of the Indians from what was
  developed yesterday.

  The want of a military force on the ground seriously embarrassed me
  (I have retained for a day some fifty of Goff's company), but having
  called the council in good faith as the Indian superintendent, and
  also as the commissioner to treat with the Indian tribes by the
  appointment of the President, I shall go through with the duty I
  have undertaken.

  One half of the Nez Perces and all the other tribes, except a very
  few persons, are unmistakably hostile in feeling. The Cuyuses, the
  Walla Wallas, and other hostiles were so when they came in. Hence
  the requisition I made upon you for troops.

  I particularly desire you to be present to-day, if your duties will
  permit, and I will also state that I think a company of your troops
  is essential to the security of my camp.

  I shall, as I said, go through with this business whatever be the
  consequences as regards my own personal safety, but I regard it to
  be my duty to the public, to the Indians, and to my own character.

  This communication is marked confidential, but is intended as an
  official communication, and will go on my files as such, only I do
  not think it prudent that my judgment as to the aspect of affairs
  should, at this time, be disclosed to any other person than
  yourself.

         I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
                   Your obedient servant,

                                          ISAAC I. STEVENS,
                                 _Governor and Superintendent_.

While this letter was being dispatched the council reopened, and the
governor took up the case of the Nez Perce spy, showed that he had
joined Kam-i-ah-kan, taken presents from him, participated in burning
settlers' houses and in stirring up hostilities, and pointed out that
Kam-i-ah-kan and his people were to blame for the death of this man, for
they had caused the war, and but for them he would still have been
living. He had visited and been arrested in the volunteer camp in time
of war, and duly tried, convicted, and executed. Finally Red Wolf, to
whose band the spy belonged, admitted that he committed the offense for
which he was punished, and this ended all complaint.

Speaking Owl, a Nez Perce chief and the mouthpiece of Looking Glass, now
spoke up and said, "Will you give us back our lands? That is what we all
want to hear about; that is what troubles us. I ask plainly to have a
plain answer." The governor, in his report to the Indian Bureau,
comments on this demand as follows:--

  "Now thus far there had not been the slightest allusion to the land
  of the Nez Perces in council, and this rapid change of front was
  most extraordinary. The case of the Nez Perce who was hanged was
  simply a device by means of which they hoped to get the desired
  concession from me by way of propitiation. When they were obliged to
  abandon the case, they had no alternative but to show their hand,
  which they did very promptly. I called upon Lawyer, the head chief,
  to speak. He produced his commission and a copy of the Nez Perce
  treaty, remarking that he knew that, if he cast away the laws, he
  should be brought to justice. He pointed out to them the boundaries
  of the country sold, and of the reservation, and spoke of other
  provisions of the treaty, and concluded by saying that fifty-eight
  great chiefs of the Nez Perces had signed the treaty made at the
  council of last year, when all fully understood it, and it was his
  determination to abide by it, and he trusted his people would do the
  same."

Timothy and James expressed a similar determination, but Joseph,
Speaking Owl, Eagle-from-the-Light, and Red Wolf denied that they
understood the treaty, or ever intended to give their land away, and
declared that Lawyer had sold it unfairly. It appeared almost certain
that no satisfactory peace could be made with the hostiles, and that one
half of the Nez Perces, through the intrigues of Kam-i-ah-kan and the
Cuyuses, had become disaffected and desirous of annulling their treaty.

In the afternoon a company of dragoons came with Steptoe's answer to the
governor's dispatch of the morning:--

  "If the Indians," he wrote, "are really meditating an outbreak, it
  will be difficult for me to provide for the safety of my own camp,
  _impossible_ to defend _both_ camps. Under these circumstances, if
  you are resolved to go on with your council, does it not seem more
  reasonable that you shall move your camp to the vicinity of mine? I
  send down the company of dragoons to bring you up to this place, if
  you desire to come. My force is so small that to be efficient
  against the large number of savages in the neighborhood it must be
  concentrated; nor can I detach any portion of it, in execution of
  certain instructions received from General Wool, while the Indian
  host remains so near to me."

In view of the threatening attitude of the hostiles, and the approach of
Kam-i-ah-kan, who was reported as encamped that day on the Touchet, only
a few miles distant, as well as for the protection of the large quantity
of Indian goods brought up for the friendly Nez Perces, and such of the
hostiles as might surrender, the governor the next day moved his whole
party and train to Steptoe's camp, and established a new camp and
council ground within a quarter of a mile of his encampment. They were
met on the march by Kam-i-ah-kan and Ow-hi, with a party of one hundred
warriors under the lead of Ow-hi's son, Qualchen, who clearly meant
mischief; but the coolness with which they were received, and the
manifest readiness of the volunteers and dragoons for battle, checked
them, and they made no disturbance save attempting to provoke a quarrel
with the friendly Nez Perces in rear of the train. The Indians, having
been notified in the morning of the change of council grounds, moved up
to the new location the same day and the following. Kam-i-ah-kan and his
followers encamped a quarter of a mile from the council ground,
separated therefrom only by Mill Creek and its wooded bottom.

The council continued the next two days, the 16th and 17th. The Lawyer
and half the Nez Perces were determined in their adherence to their
treaty and ancient friendship to the whites, and approved of all the
governor said. The other half of the tribe wished the treaty done away
with. The hostiles all said, "Do away with all treaties, give us back
our lands, let no white man come into our country, and there will be
peace; if not, then we will fight."

The governor advised the Nez Perces to stand by their treaty. It was now
in the hands of the President, and could only be set aside by him. To
the hostiles he repeated the terms of peace alone possible: they must
throw aside their guns and submit to the justice and mercy of the
government; but as they were invited under safe conduct, they were safe
in coming, safe in council, and safe in going. The council was then
declared at an end. Many of the friendly Nez Perces departed at once to
their camp, but a large number of hostiles, most of whom it was observed
had arms concealed beneath their blankets, remained loitering around the
council ground. Noting the vigilance and readiness of the volunteers,
they made no disturbance, and by nightfall all retired to their camps.
On every day except the first, known braves of the hostiles came to the
council armed to the teeth, and took positions evincing designs upon the
life of the governor; but picked men watched them closely, ready to
strike down any assailant at the first overt act, so no attempt was
made.

During the night of the 16th there was great excitement among the
Indians. The friendly Nez Perces were much alarmed, and brought frequent
reports that the hostiles were bent upon attacking the camp, and wiping
out the governor and his party. These faithful allies beat the drum all
night, and kept guard around his camp.

The governor called attention especially to the speech of Spotted Eagle
on the last day,--

  "which for feeling, courage, and truth, I have never seen surpassed
  in an Indian council. The Spotted Eagle is the great war chief of
  the Nez Perces, and the right arm of Lawyer. Both the words and
  manner of the Spotted Eagle showed that his object in speaking was
  to set himself and the friendly Indians right, and that he had no
  expectation of changing the hearts of those who were bent on war.
  His words, however, 'I will not follow you into the war,' were
  significant."

The day after the conclusion of the council the governor made
preparations for returning to the settlements. He decided to withdraw
Craig temporarily from the Nez Perce country on the advice of the
friendly chiefs, who feared he might be killed by Kam-i-ah-kan's
warriors as a means of embroiling the Nez Perces in war against the
whites. Said the Spotted Eagle:--

  "If you [Craig] do not return with me, we shall go back as if our
  eyes were shut. I think my people will not go straight if Craig gets
  up from that place. But, my friend Craig, on account of the talking
  I have heard at this place, I am afraid for you."

That afternoon Steptoe had a conference with the Indians, in which he
declared: "My mission is pacific. I have come not to fight you, but to
live among you. Come into my camp when you please. I trust we shall live
together as friends," and he appointed the next day for a fuller
conference with the chiefs. By this action Steptoe intentionally
repelled the governor's wise recommendation and endeavor to "show the
Indians the strength of our people and the unity of our councils."
Reports the governor:--

  "Indeed, the Indians looked upon the Indian superintendent and the
  military officer as not representing a common cause. The former in
  the morning parts from them, having signally failed in making any
  arrangement to end the war; the latter speaks to the Indians as
  though there was no war, and therefore no necessity of making any
  arrangement at all.

  "The Indians, sharp-sighted and constantly on the alert from the
  merest trifles to draw conclusions as to character and policy, saw
  there did not exist between the Indian Department and the military
  the proper coöperation."

What next occurred is graphically related by the governor, in his report
to Secretary of War Davis, as follows:--

  I was occupied the remainder of the day and the next morning in
  establishing Craig's agency in the neighborhood of Steptoe's camp,
  and a little before noon, with some fifty friendly Nez Perces in
  charge of sub-agent Craig, I started with the train and Goff's
  company for the Dalles.

  The Indians did not, however, come to see Steptoe at the time
  appointed. They previously set fire to his grass, and, following me
  as I set out about eleven o'clock on my way to the Dalles, they
  attacked me within three miles of Steptoe's camp at about one
  o'clock in the afternoon.

  So satisfied was I that the Indians would carry into effect the
  determination avowed in their councils in their own camps for
  several nights previously to attack me, that in starting I formed my
  whole party, and moved in order of battle.

  I moved on under fire one mile to water, when, forming a corral of
  the wagons, and holding the adjacent hills and the brush on the
  stream by pickets, I made my arrangements to defend my position and
  fight the Indians. Our position in a low, open basin some five
  hundred or six hundred yards across was good, and with the aid of
  our corral we could defend ourselves against a vastly superior force
  of the enemy.

  The fight continued till late in the night. Two charges were made to
  disperse the Indians, the last led by Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw in
  person with twenty-four men, but whilst driving before him some one
  hundred and fifty Indians, an equal number pushed into his rear, and
  he was compelled to cut his way through them towards camp, when,
  drawing up his men, and aided by the teamsters and pickets, who
  gallantly sprang forward, he drove the Indians back when in full
  charge upon the corral.

  Just before the charge the friendly Nez Perces, fifty in number, who
  had been assigned to holding the ridge on the south side of the
  corral, were told by the enemy, "We came not to fight the Nez
  Perces, but the whites; go to your camp, or we wipe it out." Their
  camp, with their women and children, was on a stream about a mile
  distant, upon which I directed the Nez Perces to retire, as I did
  not require their assistance, and I was fearful that my men might
  not be able to distinguish them from the hostiles, and thus friendly
  Indians might be killed.

  Towards night I notified Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe that I was
  fighting the Indians, that I should move the next morning, and
  expressed the opinion that a company of his troops would be of
  service. In his reply he stated that the Indians had burnt up his
  grass, and suggested that I should return to his camp, and place at
  his disposal my wagons, in order that he might move his whole
  command and his supplies to the Umatilla, or some other point, where
  sustenance could be found for his animals. To this arrangement I
  assented, and Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe sent to my camp Lieutenant
  Davidson with detachments from the companies of dragoons and
  artillery with a mountain howitzer. They reached my camp about two
  o'clock in the morning, where everything was in good order, and most
  of the men at the corral asleep. A picket had been driven in an hour
  and a half before by the enemy,--that on the hill south of the
  corral, but the enemy was immediately dislodged, and all the points
  were held, and ground-pits being dug.

  The howitzer having been fired on the way out, it was believed
  nothing would be gained by waiting till morning, and the whole force
  immediately returned to Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe's camp.

  Soon after sunrise the enemy attacked his camp, but were soon
  dislodged by the howitzer, and a charge by a detachment from
  Steptoe's command.

  On my arrival at the camp I urged Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe to
  build a blockhouse immediately, to leave one company to defend it
  with all his supplies, _then_ to march below and return with an
  additional force and additional supplies, and by a vigorous winter
  campaign to whip the Indians into submission. I placed at his
  disposal for the building my teams and Indian employees.

  The blockhouse and stockade were built in a little more than two
  days. My Indian store-room was rebuilt at one corner of the
  stockade.

  In the action my whole force consisted of Goff's company of
  sixty-nine men, the teamsters, herders, and Indian employees,
  numbering about fifty men, and the fifty Nez Perces. Our train
  consisted of about five hundred animals, not one of which was
  captured by the enemy. We fought four hundred and fifty Indians,
  and had one man mortally, one dangerously, and two slightly wounded.
  We killed and wounded thirteen Indians.

  One half the Nez Perces, one hundred and twenty warriors, all of the
  Yakimas and Palouses, two hundred warriors, the great bulk of the
  Yakimas, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas were in the fight. The
  principal war chiefs were the son of Ow-hi and the Isle de Père
  chief, Quil-to-mee, the latter of whom had two horses shot under
  him, and who at the council showed me a letter from Colonel Wright
  acknowledging his valuable services in bringing about the peace of
  the Yakima.

In his report to the Indian Bureau the governor adds:

  "The Indians were greatly surprised at Steptoe's sending a force to
  my assistance, and Kam-i-ah-kan said on learning it, 'I will let
  these men [referring to the regular troops] know who Kam-i-ah-kan
  is.'"

On the 23d the combined force, accompanied by Craig and the fifty Nez
Perce auxiliaries, started for the Dalles, where they arrived on October
2 without incident of moment. Thus, as the governor remarks:--

  "Circumstances had brought about the coöperation between the
  military and the Indian service which had not previously existed,
  and the words of Steptoe to the hostiles and mine to the friendly
  Indians corresponded. I had sent messengers to the Nez Perce country
  directing the friendly Nez Perces to separate from the hostile Nez
  Perces, and to keep the latter out of their portion of the country.
  Steptoe sent word that good Indians he would protect, and bad
  Indians he would punish."

In truth, a great change had come over Steptoe's views. The burning of
his grass and the attack on his camp were too strong even for the orders
of Wool and his own prejudices. He writes to Colonel Wright from his
camp on the Umatilla, September 27:--

  "In general terms I may say that in my judgment we are reduced to
  the necessity of waging a vigorous war, striking the Cuyuses at the
  Grande Ronde, and Kam-i-ah-kan wherever he may be found."

The day before the attack on the governor, he wrote the same officer:--

  "As it is, he [Governor Stevens] complains that I have, by not
  aiding him, or by not coöperating heartily with him, actually
  opposed him. This may be so, but I certainly have done for him all,
  and more than, my instructions warranted."

The governor warmly commends--

  "the admirable conduct of the volunteers and the Indian employees
  not only during the council, but in all the operations east of the
  Cascade Mountains.... There was not a single case of injury either
  to the person or the property of a friendly Indian, or of injury to
  the persons or property of the hostiles, during the council. The
  kindness and forbearance of officers and men, agents and employees,
  even when treated with rudeness by the hostiles, was extraordinary.
  The strayed cattle and horses of the Indians were restored to them.
  The volunteers were well supplied, and were not tempted to plunder
  for subsistence. I have the permission of Colonel Steptoe to refer
  to him and his officers as witnesses of what I have stated, and have
  the assurance from Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe that he has reported
  it to Colonel Wright, and of Colonel Wright that he has forwarded
  the report to General Wool."

But Wool's malignant animosity was not to be abated by the testimony of
his own officers. He augmented his charges by declaring that Governor
Stevens had called the council on purpose to force war upon the friendly
Indians.

Immediately on reaching the Dalles, Governor Stevens renewed his demand
upon Colonel Wright for the delivery of the Sound murderers for trial.
Writes Wright in reply:--

  "You know the circumstances under which the Indians referred to were
  permitted to come in and remain with the friendly Yakimas. Although
  I have made no promises that they should not be held to account for
  their former acts, yet in the present unsettled state of our Indian
  relations I think it would be unwise to seize them and transport
  them for trial. I would therefore respectfully suggest that the
  delivery of the Indians be suspended for the present."

But the governor firmly reiterated his demand, declaring:--

  "If the condition of things is so unsettled in the Yakima that the
  seizing of these men will lead to war, the sooner the war commences
  the better. Nothing in my judgment will be gained by a temporizing
  policy."

The result was that Colonel Wright gave an order on Major Garnett, who
commanded the post in the Yakima, to deliver up to the governor, for
trial before the courts, Leschi, Nelson, Qui-e-muth, and Stahi.

But any embarrassment that might be caused to the peace on the Yakima by
the execution of this order was very cleverly obviated by sending these
Indians, or permitting them to go, back to the Sound country, and
placing them under the protection of Colonel Casey, as will more fully
appear hereafter.

On the 5th Wright and Steptoe started for the Walla Walla, their force
being increased one company. One of Colonel Wright's first acts on
arriving there was to hold councils with the disaffected and hostile
chiefs, the same who had so recently attacked the governor and the camp
of his own officer, Steptoe, at which he assured them that "the bloody
cloth should be washed, past differences thrown behind us, and perpetual
friendship must exist between us." He gave ready ear to their complaints
and demands, adopted their views in regard to the Walla Walla
treaties, and actually recommended that they never be confirmed.
Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe put forth a proclamation, by order of General
Wool, forbidding all white settlers to return to the country except the
missionaries and Hudson Bay Company people. Wool instructs Wright under
date of October 19: "Warned by what has occurred, the general trusts
you will be on your guard against the whites, ... and prevent further
trouble by keeping the whites out of the Indian country."

A month later Steptoe, who seems to have had doubts of the good faith of
the Indians, and to apprehend that they might resume active hostilities
in the spring, ventured to recommend that "a good industrious colony" be
permitted to settle the Walla Walla valley, but Wool promptly negatived
this suggestion, declaring that "the Cascade Range formed, if not an
impassable barrier, an excellent line of defense, a most valuable wall
of separation between two races always at war when in contact. To permit
settlers to pass the Dalles and occupy the natural reserve is to give up
this advantage, throw down this wall, and advance the frontier hundreds
of miles to the east, and add to the protective labors of the army." He
charged Steptoe to carry out his orders strictly. Thus he joined hands
with the Indian enemy to keep out American settlers from the region to
which they had been especially invited by Congress by the Donation Acts,
and strove to frustrate the policy of his own government of
extinguishing the Indian title and settling up the country. Seldom has
our history shown a more shameful betrayal of duty than this veteran
officer and his subordinates making a quasi-peace by surrendering to the
demands of the hostile Indians for the abrogation of the treaties they
had accepted, and the exclusion of white settlers from their country,
and seeking to lighten "the protective duties of the army" by abandoning
the defense and protection of their own race.

Governor Stevens remained at the Dalles until the 6th, settling up the
business of the expedition and the Indian service, when he proceeded
down the river, and, after spending some days at Vancouver and Portland
in discharge of his multifarious duties, reached Olympia on the 15th.

In his reports, both to the Indian Bureau and to Secretary of War Davis,
Governor Stevens condemned with just severity this craven policy.

On learning of Colonel Wright's pacific and sympathetic talks with the
disaffected and hostile chiefs in the valley, he again protested to
Secretary Davis in the following indignant strain:--

  "It would seem that, to get the consent of Colonel Wright to take
  the ground that a treaty should not be insisted upon, it was simply
  necessary for the malcontents to attack the Superintendent of Indian
  Affairs and his party. Now, one half of the Nez Perce nation,
  including the head chief, Lawyer, wish the treaty to be carried out.
  They have suffered much from their steadfast adherence to it. Are
  their wishes to be disregarded?

  "It seems to me that we have in this Territory fallen upon evil
  times. I hope and trust some energetic action may be taken to stop
  this trifling with great public interests, and to make our flag
  respected by the Indians of the interior."

The following, from his report of October 22 to the Indian Department,
sums up the mistaken policy of the regular officers and its deplorable
results, and gives his opinion of those neutrals in the war, the Hudson
Bay Company and the missionaries:--

  The department is aware that for many months I have been of opinion
  that a large portion of the Nez Perces were on the verge of
  hostilities, and that I deplored the mistaken course of Colonel
  Wright in the Yakima as tending directly to inflame the whole
  interior and prepare it for war. The war commenced, on our part, in
  the Yakima, in consequence of the attempt to arrest the murderers of
  Bolon, Mattice, and others, killed without provocation and under
  circumstances of unsurpassed atrocity. Two expeditions were made to
  effect this object and to punish the tribe. After the massacre of
  the Cascades, the third expedition, under Colonel Wright, went to
  the Yakima with the avowed object of pacifying the Indians, and a
  quasi-peace is made, and murderers are allowed to come into camp
  with impunity.

  No effort is made to strike the Indians when within reach, and they
  breathe nothing but war, and the result of the campaign is that,
  after the chiefs had refused to come into council as they had
  promised, and weeks are fruitlessly expended in the attempt to
  negotiate, certain Indians with their families come in, and the
  master spirits of these tribes, with the flower of the young men, go
  east of the Columbia to prepare for continuing the war.

  I state boldly and plainly to the authorities that this mode of
  managing affairs is disgraceful to the government, and will bring
  with it in the future the most bitter consequences to the character
  and prosperity of the people of this most remote portion of our
  country.

  The demand for the murderers should have been inflexibly insisted
  upon; the Indians should have been struck in battle and severely
  chastised. Then there would have been peace in the Yakima. There
  would not have been war in the interior.

  But feeble and procrastinating measures having been pursued, even to
  the extent of impressing the Indians with the belief that the
  regular troops were a distinct people from the Americans, and were
  even allies of the Indians, Kam-i-ah-kan and Looking Glass have
  effected that combination in the interior which I apprehended and
  predicted. The brilliant victory of the Grande Ronde, which caused
  for a time the lower Nez Perces to break from the war party, has
  proved unavailing.

  I have therefore determined to have no agent on the Spokane,
  believing, in view of certain influences there, to which I will
  briefly allude, his presence would not be beneficial.

  In times of peace the influence of the Catholic missionaries is good
  in that quarter, and their good offices are desirable till some
  outrage is committed, or war breaks out. But since the war has
  broken out, whilst they have made every exertion to protect
  individuals, and to prevent other tribes joining in the war, they
  have occupied a position which cannot be filled on earth,--a
  position between the hostiles and the Americans. So great has been
  their desire for peace that they have overlooked all right,
  propriety, justice, necessity, siding with the Indians, siding with
  the Americans, but advising the latter particularly to agree to all
  the demands of the former,--murderers to go free, treaties to be
  abrogated, whites to retire to the settlements. And the Indians,
  seeing that the missionaries are on their side, are fortified in the
  belief that they are fighting in a holy cause. I state on my
  official responsibility that the influence of the Catholic
  missionaries in the upper country has latterly been most baneful and
  pernicious.

  Again, what is the interest of the Hudson Bay Company? There are
  unquestionably large deposits of gold, both north and south of the
  49th parallel, east of the Cascade Mountains. A road has been made
  connecting Fraser River with the British interior, and the Hudson
  Bay Company have established a post in connection therewith on the
  main Columbia, north of the 49th parallel. This post and Fort
  Colville were supplied over this road the present year.

  I ask again, what is the interest of the Hudson Bay Company? Most
  unquestionably to develop the British interior and its mines of
  gold, and to keep the Americans out, which will be most effectually
  accomplished by yielding to the demands of the Indians east of the
  Cascades, and making peace by an abandonment of the country.

  I charge no man of that company with collusion with the Indians, but
  I know what human nature is; it will look out sharply for its own
  interests, and the interest of the Hudson Bay Company is the same as
  the Indian conceives to be his interest in that quarter.

  It will be impossible for Dr. Lansdale to return to the Flathead
  agency this year; both the hostility of the Indians through whose
  country he would have to pass and the lateness of the season forbid
  it. I regret this, as the Flathead nation have stood firmly by the
  Blackfoot treaty, and take a proper view of the acts of the hostiles
  between the Cascades and the Bitter Root.

  Thus, sir, east of the main Columbia the result of the operations of
  the regular troops has been that I am compelled to withdraw all my
  agents, except that it is barely possible that Craig, when he
  reaches the Walla Walla valley on his return, may be able to go to
  the Nez Perce country.

  What is the remedy for this state of things? I answer, vigorous
  military operations,--the whipping of hostile Indians into absolute
  submission, the hanging of murderers on conviction, and the planting
  of these Indians on reserves established by Congress.

Agent Craig did return to Lapwai at the request of the Lawyer.

The soundness of Governor Stevens's views and the accuracy of his
foresight were abundantly vindicated within two years. During the
following year, 1857, the settlers were excluded, the regulars lay
inactive in their posts, and the quasi-peace continued. But in 1858 the
Yakimas waxed too insolent and predatory for even Wright's patience. He
sent Major Garnett through their country with a large force, who
summarily seized and hanged a number of the chiefs and warriors, shot
seven hundred of their ponies, and these severe acts humbled the haughty
savages and reduced them to good behavior at last.

Colonel Wright also ordered Steptoe, with two hundred dragoons, to
advance from Walla Walla across Snake River towards Spokane. The
Spokanes had warned the troops not to invade their country, alleging
that they were neutral, and would permit neither the Yakima braves nor
the white soldiers to enter their limits. Disregarding this warning,
Steptoe marched some eighty miles north of the Snake, when he was
assailed by the whole force of the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes, badly
defeated, and driven in precipitate retreat the whole distance back to
Snake River, hotly pursued by the victorious Indians, and his force was
only saved from massacre by the friendly Nez Perces, who ferried the
fugitive troops over the river in their canoes, and boldly interposed
between them and the pursuing savages.

As soon as he could organize a powerful force, Colonel Wright in
September, two months later, marched to the Spokane in person,
encountered and defeated the Indians near the scene of Steptoe's defeat,
and reduced them to submission, hanging a number of them offhand without
trial, and killing many of their horses. On his return to Walla Walla he
seized and executed in like manner several of the more turbulent Cuyuse
and Walla Walla warriors. And this was the end of Wool's theory of
peaceable and injured Indians, and the prejudiced officers, who clung to
it so long and so obstinately, were at length obliged to adopt the very
policy that Governor Stevens urged upon them in the beginning.

The Yakima chief, Ow-hi, most active next to Kam-i-ah-kan in bringing on
the war and inciting the other tribes to hostility, and cunning and
treacherous in his diplomacy, boldly entered Wright's camp on the
Spokane soon after the fight, and was forthwith arrested and held a
prisoner by that commander. The next day Ow-hi's son, Qualchen,--the
murderer of agent Bolon,--rode into camp, putting on a bold face and
fully expecting to be treated with the consideration formerly shown the
Yakima chiefs. Far different was his fate. Wright sternly ordered him to
immediate execution, and the wretched brave was forthwith hanged by the
guard, despite his frantic pleadings and protestations. His father, the
chief Ow-hi, was killed a few days later while attempting to escape. But
Wool and his parasites, so vociferous in denouncing the slaying of
Pu-pu-mox-mox under like circumstances, raised no voice in rebuke of the
merciless severity of Wright.




                              CHAPTER XLI

                       DISBANDING THE VOLUNTEERS


On returning to Olympia the governor issued the order disbanding the
entire volunteer organization, and took the necessary steps for
disposing at public auction of the animals, equipments, and supplies on
hand, and settling the accounts. The animals captured by Shaw in the
Grande Ronde were sold at Vancouver, and brought enough to defray the
entire cost of the expedition. In fact, owing to the large number taken,
there were more animals actually sold at the several auctions than the
whole number purchased for the volunteer service, notwithstanding the
many worn out during the months of hard service. The sales of property
realized some $150,000, and the articles sold generally brought more
than the original cost. "I trust," remarked the governor, "that in view
of the fact that our transportation has cost us nothing, that our people
have let their animals go into the service from three to nine months,
and have taken them back at a premium, the enemies of the Territory will
be more guarded in their speech." As all the expenses of the volunteer
organization had been defrayed by scrip, the sales were made for scrip,
and many of the settler-volunteers were glad to purchase stock, wagons,
or supplies to take home with them, instead of paper promises to pay,
yet at that time the scrip was but little depreciated.

An incident showing the scrupulous regard for orders and public property
maintained among the volunteers is related of Captain Henness. He
captured a mule at the battle of the Grande Ronde and rode it home to
Olympia, a distance of some five hundred miles. Desirous of owning the
animal, he bid for it when put up at the public auction, but it was
struck off to another for $475; and this brave officer, who had served
in the field as captain of a company for ten months, was unable to
secure his own riding mule, and one, too, captured by himself.

When the accounts were finally adjusted, the scrip issued amounted to--

      Equipments, supplies, etc.,          $961,882.39
      Pay-rolls of the troops               519,593.06
                                         -------------
              Total                      $1,481,475.45

The aggregate number of volunteers was 1896. About one thousand were in
service at one time. They were about equally divided between mounted and
infantry troops. Oregon furnished 215,--the companies of Miller, Goff,
and Richards (afterwards Williams). As the whites capable of bearing
arms in the entire Territory did not exceed 1700, it is evident that
this aid from Oregon was of great value.

Thirty-five stockades, forts, and blockhouses were built by the
volunteers, some of them being quite large works, twenty-three by the
settlers, and seven by the regular troops. Besides which, the roads and
trails cut by the volunteers involved an immense amount of labor.

The strict discipline, high _morale_ and good conduct of the volunteers
were remarkable, and very creditable to them, and to the firm and
sagacious mind that organized and commanded them. All captured property
was turned over to the quartermasters, and properly accounted for. There
was no case of murder, or unauthorized killing of Indians, by the
volunteers. There was no plundering or serious offenses of any kind
charged upon them. They obeyed their orders with alacrity and zeal, no
matter how arduous or how dangerous the duty required of them. They were
the best type of American settlers, brave, intelligent, patriotic,
self-respecting. They went into the war in self-defense, and were
determined to put it through as soon as possible.

Study the maps of their marches and scouts; count the blockhouses they
built, the roads and trails they opened; consider the unknown and almost
impenetrable forest region the theatre of war; the rains; the hardships,
the labors they underwent; and reflect how uniformly successful they
were, not only in engagements, but in throwing the savage enemy wholly
on the defensive, in completely putting an end to his attacks and
depredations, and hunting him down so vigorously that only flight or
submission could save him from death,--and one cannot but realize how
necessary were their patriotic services and achievements, and how well
they justified the wisdom and ability of Governor Stevens in calling
them to the defense of the country, and carrying on an aggressive war.


    FORTS AND BLOCKHOUSES BUILT BY VOLUNTEERS.

          Stockade, Cowlitz Landing
          Blockhouse, Cowlitz Farms
          Blockhouse, Skookumchuck
          Blockhouse, Chehalis River, at Ford's
          Fort Miller, Tanalquot Plains
          Fort Stevens, Yelm Prairie
          Blockhouse at Lowe's, Chambers' Prairie
          Blockhouse, Olympia
          Stockade, Olympia
          Fort Hicks, Camp Montgomery
          Blockhouse, Camp Montgomery
          Fort White, Puyallup Crossing
          Fort Hays, Connell's Prairie
          Blockhouse, Connell's Prairie
          Fort White, White River Crossing
          Fort Posey, White River Crossing
          Fort McAllister, South Prairie
          Blockhouse, Lone Tree Point
          Fort Ebey, Snohomish River
          Fort Tilton, below Snoqualmie Falls
          Fort Alden, Ranger's Prairie
          Blockhouse, Port Townsend
              "       Point Wilson
              "       Bellingham Bay
              "       on Skookumchuck
              "       Vancouver
              "       Fourth Prairie
              "       Washougal River
              "       Lewis River
          Fort Mason, Walla Walla Valley
          Fort Preston, Michel Fork of Nisqually
          Blockhouse, Klikitat Prairie
          Fort Kitsap, Port Madison
          Fort Lander, Duwhamish River
          Stockade, Seattle

    BY SETTLERS FOR MUTUAL PROTECTION.

          Blockhouse at Davis's, Claquato
          Stockade at Cochran's, Skookumchuck
          Stockade, Fort Henness, Grand Mound Prairie
          Stockade at Goodell's, Grand Mound Prairie
          Blockhouse, Tanalquot Plains
          Blockhouse, Nathan Eaton's, Chambers' Prairie
          Two blockhouses, Chambers' Prairie
          Blockhouse at Ruddell's, Chambers' Prairie
          Stockade at Bush's, Bush Prairie
          Blockhouse at Rutledge's, Bush Prairie
          Two blockhouses at Tumwater
          Blockhouse, Dofflemyer's Point
          Blockhouse, Whitby Island
              "       Port Gamble
          Fort Arkansas, on Cowlitz
          Blockhouse, on Miami Prairie
          Blockhouse, Port Ludlow
              "       Port Madison
          Two blockhouses, Boisfort
          Two blockhouses, Cascades

              BY REGULAR TROOPS.

          Fort Slaughter, Muckleshoot Prairie
          Fort Maloney, Puyallup River
          Fort Thomas, Green River
          Blockhouse, Black River
          Fort, Walla Walla Valley
          Fort, Yakima Valley
          Blockhouse, Cascades

A few days after his return Governor Stevens was requested by Colonel
Casey to take charge of a band of about a hundred lately hostile Sound
Indians who had recently returned, or been sent back, from the Yakima.
The colonel complained that he had already sent them to the reservation,
but the agent had refused to receive them, and, in order to prevent any
disturbance that might arise from the "strange conduct of your agent,"
he had again received and was feeding them. The governor, having learned
that Stahi and other known murderers were with this band, and that
Leschi had been recently seen near Fort Nisqually, the Hudson Bay
Company post, at once replied, positively refusing to receive them until
the murderers among them were arrested for trial, and formally demanded
Colonel Casey's aid to that end:--

  "I have therefore to request your aid in apprehending Leschi,
  Qui-e-muth, Kitsap, Stahi, and Nelson, and other murderers, and to
  keep them in custody awaiting a warrant from the nearest magistrate,
  which being accomplished, I will receive the remainder.

  "In conclusion, I have to state that I do not believe any country or
  any age has afforded an example of the kindness and justice which
  has been shown towards the Indians by the suffering inhabitants of
  the Sound during the recent troubles. They have, in spite of the few
  cases of murder which have occurred, shown themselves eminently a
  law-abiding, a just, and a forbearing people. They desire the
  murderers of Indians to be punished, but they complain, and they
  have a right to complain, if Indians, whose hands are steeped in the
  blood of the innocent, go unwhipped of justice."

In response to this Colonel Casey declared that these Indians "delivered
themselves up to Colonel Wright when in the Yakima country, made their
peace with him, and were promised protection. Colonel Wright informed me
of these facts." He declined, therefore, to assist in arresting the
murderers, on the ground that it would be bad policy, if not bad faith,
to do so, and added that he would refer the matter to General Wool. He
also remarked: "The Indians on the Sound, there is no doubt, can, by
neglect and ill-usage, be driven to desperation."

The governor controverted the position assumed by Colonel Casey that
protection had been promised these Indians by Colonel Wright, and
renewed his demand:--

  "I have the statement to me by Colonel Wright that he had made no
  terms with them, and had guaranteed to them no immunity from trial
  and punishment. This statement was made to me repeatedly by Colonel
  Wright, and in the presence of witnesses, one of whom is Mr.
  Secretary Mason. On the contrary, I have twice in writing made
  requisition on Colonel Wright for the delivery to me, in order that
  they might be brought within reach of the civil authorities, of
  Leschi, Qui-e-muth, Kitsap, Stahi, and Nelson,--a requisition which
  he has not pretended to disregard, but which he simply asked my
  consent to have suspended for the present in view of the
  circumstances under which they came in. I renew my requisition upon
  you, as I did upon Colonel Wright, and I inclose for your
  information the correspondence with Colonel Wright in relation to
  the subject.

  "Granted that it was a case of legitimate warfare, the men for whom
  I make requisition committed the murders in a time of profound
  peace, wider circumstances of unsurpassed treachery and barbarity,
  when their victims were entirely unsuspicious of danger, and this,
  too, in violation of the faith of treaties, which expressly
  stipulated for the giving up of men guilty of such offenses.

  "Nor is there any analogy between the cases of known Indians who
  have murdered white men and certain unknown white men who have
  murdered Indians. Your soldiers killed an Indian. Where are they?
  The citizens have killed Indians. Where are they? Two are in your
  own garrison in confinement awaiting trial; and the others,--proof
  has not yet been found, after every exertion has been made to insure
  a bill from a grand jury in regard to the persons suspected.

  "I do not understand, in view of the known humanity and energy of
  the Indian service on the Sound, aided as it has been by the body of
  the citizens, the necessity, in communications to me, of this
  constant reference to the ill-treatment of the Indians, for it must
  be borne in mind that we have managed some four thousand five
  hundred Indians on temporary reservations on the Sound during the
  war. Indians taken from the war ground, by unwearied vigilance and
  care, have been seen to pass from a state of uncertainty as to
  whether they would join the war party, to one of contentment and
  satisfaction, with no assistance from the military whatever."

The governor also sent Colonel Casey a copy of Colonel Wright's order on
Major Garnett to deliver up the murderers.

This correspondence seems to raise an ugly question of veracity between
the two regular officers in regard to whether protection had or had not
been promised the Sound murderers, but the strenuous efforts to shield
them from punishment for their crimes made by these officers is passing
strange.

Colonel Casey persisted in his refusal, saying: "This is a case in which
the rights and usages of war are somewhat involved, and in consequence I
consider myself and military superiors the proper persons to judge in
the matter," and he referred it to General Wool. That officer, of
course, swiftly directed him to protect Leschi, and all other Indians
professing friendship, against the whites.

A few days later Colonel Casey again referred to the case of the
Indians, suggested that the reports which his agents and others carried
to the governor should be received with great caution, and remarked:--

  "The one which I had the honor to receive from you a few days since,
  that more than one hundred Indians had left the reservation for the
  purpose of joining Leschi, proves to have been, what I believed at
  the time, a baseless fabrication. With a sincere desire to do
  justice to all, I will say that it is my firm belief, after weighing
  I trust with due consideration all the circumstances connected with
  the matter, that if, in dealing with the Indians on the Sound, a
  spirit of justice is exercised, and those who have charge of them
  are actuated by an eye single to their duties and the peace of the
  country, there need be no further difficulty."

This unwarrantable slur called forth the following pungent reply from
the governor. He had made no such report as Casey attributed to him:--

  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SILAS CASEY.

  _Sir_,--My reasons for declining to receive the Indians at your post
  have been already stated, and remain in full force. When the
  murderers, and those accused of murder, are, in compliance with my
  requisition, placed by you in the hands of the civil authority, the
  Indians will be received. The agents have positive orders to receive
  none of these Indians except by my written instructions. The
  Indians have been or will be indicted by the grand jury of the
  several counties. As you have proclaimed that hostilities have
  ceased, they are in your military possession.

  In regard to your observations about the reports which my "agents
  and others carry to me," as well as the reiterations of former
  observations in reference to the exercise of a spirit of justice,
  and the efforts of persons in charge of Indians being "actuated by
  an eye single to those duties and the peace of the country," I have
  simply to state that the tone of them is offensive, and comes with
  an ill grace from the authority which has done little to that which
  has done much. It is not my disposition to retaliate, but the
  occasion makes it proper for me to state that the greatest
  difficulty I have had to encounter in stopping the whiskey traffic
  with the Indians at Steilacoom and Bellingham Bay has been the
  conduct of your own command. It would seem to be more appropriate
  that you should first control and reform the conduct of your own
  people, before going out of your way to instruct and rebuke another
  branch of the public service,--a service, too, which, both from its
  experience and the success which has attended its labors, is
  entitled to the presumption that it is as much interested in, and as
  much devoted to, the peace of the country as yourself, and as well
  qualified, to say the least, to consider dispassionately and to
  judge wisely of affairs at the present juncture.

  I have also been informed of your thanking God, in the presence of
  Mr. Wells, who informed you how the Muckleshoot reservation was laid
  off, that the iniquity of it was not upon your hands,--a remark
  highly presumptuous and insulting, as well from the fact that the
  business did not concern you, as from the fact that the reservation
  was laid off both in the way I arranged with the Indians at the
  council on Fox Island and to their entire satisfaction on the
  ground.

  Very respectfully your obedient servant,

                                         ISAAC I. STEVENS,
                          _Governor and Supt. Indian Affairs_.

  N.B. I will respectfully ask you to send me a copy of my letter
  notifying you that one hundred Indians had left to join Leschi.

It is perhaps creditable to Colonel Casey's discretion that he attempted
no reply to this letter, but simply acknowledged its receipt, and
admitted that, in attributing the report about Leschi to the governor,
"it was an error on my part, and I cheerfully correct it." A thoroughly
well-meaning man, he was evidently affected by Wool's orders and
influence; and, moreover, he suffered himself to give ear to, and was
consequently misled by, the clique of lawyers and politicians who had
instigated the martial law trouble in order to embarrass the governor,
and were now hounding him with unabated rancor.

Notwithstanding Casey's scruples and Wool's orders, Leschi and other
accused murderers were duly indicted, arrested, and delivered to and
received by Colonel Casey for custody at Fort Steilacoom, and thereupon
the governor relieved him of his unwelcome protégés by sending them to
the reservation. Leschi was tried in due time, but the jury disagreed.
He was convicted at a subsequent trial, and expiated his crimes on the
gallows. The regular officers at Fort Steilacoom, with certain lawyers
and Indian sympathizers, made desperate efforts to save him from
punishment, but in vain. The well-meaning Casey was even hanged in
effigy by the people, indignant at his course.

Leschi's brother, Qui-e-muth, was captured near Yelm prairie, November
18, and brought to the governor's office in Olympia at midnight. The
governor gave strict orders for guarding and protecting him there until
morning, when he was to be taken to Steilacoom. Just before daylight, as
he was sleeping on the floor, surrounded by his guards, who were also
asleep, a man rushed into the room, the door being unlocked, shot
Qui-e-muth in the arm with a pistol, and, as he rose to his feet, drove
a bowie knife into his heart, and rushed out as suddenly as he had
entered. The deed was done, the assassin vanished, the victim sank
lifeless to the floor, all in an instant, ere the startled and
astonished guards could raise a hand to protect their charge. The
governor, who had retired to rest in his quarters in the next building,
aroused by the shot and the trampling of feet, came immediately to the
scene, and was horror-struck and filled with indignation at the crime,
and denounced it in unmeasured terms as a disgrace to the good name of
the people and of the Territory. He made every effort to identify and
punish the murderer, but without avail. None of the guards could
identify him, and no testimony could be found against any one. Yet it
was currently whispered that vengeance for the murder of McAlister, a
settler on the Nisqually and one of the earliest victims of savage
treachery, had nerved the arm of his son-in-law, Joseph Bunting, to
strike the blow.

Nothing that occurred during the whole war excited greater indignation
in the mind of the governor than this act, or caused him more regret and
chagrin. He had been unremitting in his efforts to protect the Indians
from lawless violence, and with such remarkable success that the
volunteers were wholly free from reproach; only six cases had occurred
among the exasperated settlers, and several of these he had brought to
trial. And now this dastardly deed brought reproach to his very door.




                              CHAPTER XLII

                  MARTIAL LAW.--DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME


During all the Indian outbreak and hostilities a number of Hudson Bay
Company ex-employees, Scotchmen and Canadians, were living in the Indian
country back of Steilacoom in safety, when every American settler was
murdered, or had fled to the towns. They had Indian wives and half-breed
children, and claimed to be neutral. They were in frequent communication
with the hostile Indians, and were not molested by them. Captain Maxon
and other officers reported that they were undoubtedly giving
information, aid, and comfort to the enemy, and that their scouting
expeditions were fruitless in consequence. The Indians who killed White
and Northcraft in March so near Olympia were tracked straight to the
houses of two of these neutrals, who acknowledged having been visited by
the savages, but disclaimed any knowledge of their deeds. The volunteer
officers, however, believed that they were not only sympathizers with,
but active allies of, the hostiles, and were ready at the least
intimation from the governor to treat them as hostiles. Colonel Casey
declared that they ought not to be suffered to remain on their farms,
where they could aid the enemy, if so disposed. The governor therefore
ordered them to leave the Indian country and remove to Olympia, Fort
Nisqually, or Steilacoom, and there remain until further orders, in
order to place them where they would be unable to give information or
aid to the enemy, and also for their own safety, for the indignation of
the volunteers was at white heat against them. Accordingly they moved
in as ordered, twelve of them.

Most of them had already taken out their first naturalization papers,
and filed on their claims under the Donation Acts, and were entitled to
all the rights of American citizens. A few lawyers at Steilacoom,
political or personal opponents of the governor, most active of whom was
Frank Clark, saw here a chance to embarrass him,--in their own
vernacular, "to get him down." They went to these ignorant men, exhorted
them in regard to their rights as citizens, assured them that the
governor had no authority to order them to abandon their claims, which
Congress had bestowed upon them, and that they could return to their
homes with safety, because the law and the courts would protect them in
so doing. Thus persuaded, five of these misguided men, Charles Wren,
Sandy Smith, John McLeod, Henry Smith, and John McField, went back to
their farms. As soon as informed of their return, the governor caused
them to be seized by a party of volunteers, taken to Fort Steilacoom,
and turned over to Colonel Casey for safe custody, there being no jails
in the Territory.

Clark and his coadjutors lost no time in suing out a writ of habeas
corpus. They represented matters to Colonel Casey in such a light that
he notified the governor to relieve him of the prisoners. But the
governor was not the man to suffer a few political tricksters to
frustrate his necessary military measures. He well knew that if he
surrendered in this case, he would have to abandon the practice,
indispensable for carrying on the war, of impressing teams and supplies,
and that his hold upon and discipline of the volunteers would be
seriously impaired. On April 3 he proclaimed _martial law_ over the
county of Pierce, and suspended the functions of all civil officers
therein. He caused the prisoners to be taken from the custody of
Colonel Casey, brought to Olympia, and incarcerated in a blockhouse.

As the regular May term of the United States Court for Pierce County
drew near, the mischief-makers were urgent for Judge F.A. Chenoweth, of
whose district that county formed part, to hold court and enforce the
writ of habeas corpus; but he, being sick, or else, as was currently
believed at the time, fearing trouble and feigning sickness, requested
Chief Justice Edward Lander to hold the term in his stead. Judge Lander
at the time was captain of Company A, and with his company was
garrisoning the post on the Duwhamish, near Seattle; but without a word
of notice to his military superiors he forsook his post, hastened to
Steilacoom, and opened court on May 7. The governor previously urged him
to adjourn his court for one month, by which time there was every
prospect that the Indians would be subdued, and the exigency
necessitating the restraint of the prisoners would have passed. But
Lander refused this way of avoiding a conflict, and persisted in what he
doubtless deemed his duty.

The governor resolutely met the issue thus raised. The court was duly
opened on the appointed day, the lawyers were ready with their motions,
when a detachment of volunteers under Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw marched
into the court-room, arrested the chief justice on the bench and the
clerk at his table, and carried them under guard to Olympia, where they
were released.

As soon as the detachment had departed with the prisoner judge and
clerk, the clique, which had so cunningly engineered this conflict
between the federal governor and the federal judge, both commissioned by
the same President, made haste to hold a meeting of the "bar,"
vociferously to denounce the "flagrant usurpation and high-handed
outrage" of the governor, and to pass a long string of condemnatory
resolutions, which were signed by all the members participating in the
meeting, nine in number. Immediately afterwards the same parties held a
"citizens' meeting" with a few others in the same room, and gave vent to
more vituperative oratory, and passed more denunciatory resolutions. The
whole proceedings were then published in a circular and in the
newspapers. Undoubtedly some who took part in these demonstrations were
sincere in believing the governor's action to be wrong and uncalled for,
but the real motives and animus of the prime movers were abundantly
shown by the false, bitter, and scandalous statements and affidavits
they made against him, and dispatched to the President, committees of
Congress, and the Eastern press. They vehemently accused him not only of
high-handed tyranny and usurpation, but of getting up the war by his
Indian treaties, which he had made in obedience to the instructions of
the government; of vindictively oppressing and persecuting the Indians,
when he was feeding five thousand of them on the reservations, and
standing like a rock to protect them from abuse; and even of drunkenness
and embezzlement of public funds. These charges, from their very excess
and bitterness, largely defeated themselves with the government, and
with all by whom Governor Stevens was personally known; but they excited
a deep prejudice against him in the minds of many, as he afterwards
found in his congressional career. Wool, too, welcomed with avidity
these reinforcements to his crusade, and immediately forwarded copies of
the resolutions, together with anonymous articles reflecting on the
governor, to the War Department.

The signers of the resolutions were: W.H. Wallace, George Gibbs, Elwood
Evans, C.C. Hewitt, Frank Clark, B.F. Kendall, William C. Peas, E.O.
Murden, H.A. Goldsborough.

Wallace and Gibbs were the principal speakers at the citizens' meeting;
Thomas M. Chambers, chairman; E. Schrotter and E.M. Meeker, secretaries;
S. McCaw, R. S. Moore, Hugh Patteson, William M. Kincaid, William R.
Downey, committee on resolutions.

Evans and Kendall came among the aides whom Governor Stevens brought to
the country with the Northern exploration, and who settled in Olympia.
The former became distinguished as an eloquent speaker and writer and
historian of the Pacific Northwest, and, in after-years, paid the most
warm, heartfelt, and appreciative eulogies to Governor Stevens's
character and public services. Gibbs and Goldsborough, whom it will be
remembered the governor had employed in the Indian service and treated
with great kindness and consideration, were unsuccessful and
disappointed men. The former nursed a grievance, in that the governor
had rejected an extensive and ambitious policy of Indian treaties and
Indian management which Gibbs had elaborately set forth in his report on
the Indians, and which, if accepted, would probably have furnished a
good position for himself.

The circular contained many misstatements, and was highly colored to
give a wrong impression of the actual condition of affairs. To correct
this, the governor published his vindication for proclaiming and
enforcing martial law in Pierce County. In this he clearly and forcibly
states the facts and conditions rendering it necessary, for the success
of military operations, that the suspected men be removed from the
Indian country, and sums up:--

  "It is simply a question as to whether the executive has the power,
  in carrying on the war, to take a summary course with a dangerous
  band of emissaries who have been the confederates of the Indians
  throughout, and by their exertions and sympathy can render to a
  great extent the military operations abortive.

  "It is a question as to whether the military power, or public
  committees of the citizens, without law, as in California, shall see
  that justice is done in the case.

  "And he solemnly appeals to the same tribunals, before which he has
  been arraigned in the circular, in vindication of his course, being
  assured that it ought to be, and will be, sustained as an imperious
  necessity, growing out of an almost unexampled condition of things."

Judge Lander's own district included Thurston County and Olympia, and
the term of his court was to be held in a few days after his release
from arrest. The governor's opponents and the judge determined to call
him to account for contempt of court in proclaiming martial law and
arresting the judge; and a strong-room was quietly prepared by the
United States marshal for his incarceration in case of sentence to
imprisonment. The governor issued his proclamation declaring martial law
in Thurston County on May 13, and sent two of the prisoners, Charles
Wren and John McLeod, to Cape Montgomery for trial before a military
commission. The others were released and permitted to go to Steilacoom,
on giving their parole to remain there.

Judge Lander opened his court on the 14th, and issued notice, and then a
writ, summoning the governor to show cause why he should not be punished
for contempt. No notice being taken of these missives, on the 15th a
writ of attachment was issued to be served _instanter_, and United
States Marshal George W. Corliss, with a strong posse, armed with this
document, proceeded to the executive office for the purpose of arresting
the governor and bringing him before the court. The governor received
them, when they announced their business, with a quiet, cool dignity,
which completely nonplussed them, and remarked, "Gentlemen, why don't
you execute your office?" As they still hung back, and looked at each
other, as though at a loss to know what to do, the clerks, aided by
some gentlemen present, ejected the posse from the office, to which they
offered no resistance. Major Tilton, Captain A.J. Cain, James Doty,
Quincy A. Brooks, R.M. Walker, A.J. Baldwin, Lewis Ensign, Charles E.
Weed, and Joseph L. Mitchell were they who expelled the posse; but it is
evident that the latter made only a formal show of executing the writ.

This farcical attempt had scarcely ended when a force of mounted
volunteers rode rapidly into town. Judge Lander, hearing of their
approach, hastily adjourned court, and took refuge in the office of
Elwood Evans, the acting clerk of court, a wooden building of two rooms,
situated on the east side of Main Street, between Fourth and Fifth
streets. To this, a few minutes later, came Captain Bluford Miller with
a file of men, and demanded admittance. Finding the door locked, he
remarked, "I'll add a new letter to the alphabet: let her rip," and
kicked in the door with his heavy boots. Entering, he found the judge
and Evans in the rear room, and arrested them. Mr. Evans was immediately
released, and Judge Lander was taken to Camp Montgomery, where he was
held in honorable custody until the war on the Sound was practically
over, when he was set at liberty.

Immediately on the departure of the volunteers with their judicial
prisoner, an attempt was made to hold a public meeting to protest
against the governor's action. Evans and Kendall were the chief movers
and speakers, and harangued a small crowd on Main Street, in front of
the governor's dwelling and office. Mrs. Stevens, with her little girls,
happened to be sitting in the front doorway as they approached, and
refused to withdraw; but her presence did not deter nor mollify the
speeches. Despite the would-be indignation of the promoters, the whole
proceeding fell flat, for nearly every one approved the governor's
course, and only a mere handful took part in the demonstration. At
length, having emptied the vials of their wrath, one of the speakers
moved to adjourn in order to spare the feelings of Mrs. Stevens, who had
sat apparently unmoved through it all, and the assemblage dispersed.

A mass meeting, one of the largest ever convened in Olympia, was held at
the blockhouse on the public square, Judge B.F. Yantis presiding, and
J.W. Goodell, secretary, and the course of Governor Stevens in the
matter of martial law was emphatically indorsed, with but twelve
dissenting votes. Memorials strongly defending his action were almost
unanimously signed by the volunteers, and sent to the Oregon and
Washington delegates in Congress. Both Judge Lander and Judge Chenoweth,
in their reports to the Secretary of State, complaining of the governor
for enforcing martial law, admit that the people indorsed his course,
and that the marshals or sheriffs were powerless to resist his orders.

The two prisoners, Wren and McLeod, were tried by military commission on
the charge of giving aid and comfort to the enemy; but owing to lack of
evidence and the end of the war, they were not convicted, and were
finally set at liberty.

Martial law was revoked by proclamation on May 24. Judge Lander held his
court at its next regular term in July. In response to notice the
governor appeared by counsel, disclaimed any intentional disrespect to
the court, but justified his action in proclaiming and enforcing martial
law on the ground of imperious public necessity. A fine of fifty dollars
for contempt was imposed, which he paid. Anticipating a heavy fine, his
friends and admirers were preparing a popular subscription to defray it,
but they were not called upon. The judge's action in imposing a merely
nominal fine was taken to be an acknowledgment, in accordance with the
opinion of nine tenths of the community, that the governor's course, if
technically illegal, was necessary and right. No action was taken
against the volunteers who broke up the courts, or the citizens who
turned the marshal and his posse into the street. In his communications
to the government in defense of his course in proclaiming martial law,
Governor Stevens advanced almost identically the same reasons and
arguments that were afterwards adduced by President Lincoln to justify
his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

By a letter of the Secretary of State, dated September 12, Governor
Stevens was informed that the President, while having no doubt of the
purity of his motives, disapproved his action in proclaiming martial
law.


                         THE CASE OF COMPANY A.

The chief punishment by which the governor maintained such excellent
discipline among the volunteers was that of dishonorable dismissal from
the service, which carried with it the loss of pay. This was inflexibly
enforced in flagrant cases of disobedience or misconduct, and, being
regarded as a disgraceful stigma, was found sufficient. The good conduct
and discipline of the volunteers was doubtless promoted by the incessant
activity and labor to which they were put; but they were due still more
to the superior intelligence and character of the settlers who turned
out _en masse_ in defense of their hearthstones, and carried on the war
with such patriotic zeal.

In one case, however, the governor felt constrained to dismiss a whole
company, an act afterwards made the pretext for much political
denunciation and censure. It will be remembered that almost the first
act of the governor, in the prosecution of the war, was to disband all
local and home guards, and to enlist volunteers for general defense, to
serve wherever and whenever ordered. On February 1 he directed Judge
Lander to disband a company he had raised in Seattle for home defense,
and to enlist there a company for six months, subject to the orders of
the executive, in conformity with the proclamation calling out
volunteers. "Every man," wrote the governor to Lander, "who enlists,
must do so with the understanding that he enlists for the general
defense of the Territory, and that he must move to any point where his
services, in the opinion of his commanding officer, are most needed."

Under these instructions Lander disbanded his first company and raised
another, Company A, which garrisoned Seattle for a time, and then built
and occupied a post on the Duwhamish River, a few miles above Seattle,
and rendered good service in scouting that vicinity and Lake Washington.
It was this post and command that Lander abandoned in order to hold
Judge Chenoweth's court, with such mortifying results to himself.

On June 9 Lieutenant A.A. Denny, who succeeded to the command of Company
A on Lander's abandonment of it, was ordered to detail an officer and
eight men to hold the post, and to move with his company to Fort Hays,
on Connell's prairie, thence to assist in cutting a road to Snoqualmie
Falls. On his representation that a greater force was needed for the
protection of the citizens in his vicinity than was designated, he was
directed to leave twenty men at the post, and to send the remainder of
his company by canoe to Steilacoom, thence to march to Camp Montgomery,
where he would receive supplies. He was informed that--

  "the representation of Captain Lander that forty men could be
  spared, the fact of parties of from three to five having traveled in
  safety the route from the falls of the Snoqualmie to Porter's
  prairie, and the reports of Mr. Yesler that but six or eight
  Indians are still out east of Seattle, are sufficient to warrant the
  leaving of the town of Seattle to the protection of the naval forces
  and the regulars at Fort Thomas;"

and that fifteen days would probably be occupied in cutting the road.
The Massachusetts lay in the harbor of Seattle, and fifteen of her men
were on shore garrisoning the town. Lieutenant Denny, in a long and
argumentative letter dated June 19, reiterated his opinion that it would
not be safe to withdraw the company from its post. He wrote:--

  "I am extremely surprised at the opinion represented as expressed by
  Judge Lander. During the period of his command it was often publicly
  stated by him that this company was expressly organized (by private
  understanding with the governor and commander-in-chief) for the
  protection of this immediate neighborhood."

It is hard to reconcile this with the governor's explicit orders and
letter to Judge Lander.

For such failure to obey orders Lieutenant Denny was directed to turn
over his command to the next officer in rank, and was relieved from duty
in the volunteer service until further orders. Lieutenant D.A. Neely,
the next in rank, was ordered to assume command of the company, and
detail twenty men to proceed to Camp Montgomery for work on the road.
But Lieutenant Neely and the whole company proved equally recusant, and
signed and transmitted to the governor resolutions fully indorsing the
course of Lieutenant Denny, and declaring that they considered the
course of the commander-in-chief in suspending Lieutenant Denny from his
command an act of injustice and an insult to the company, wholly
unjustifiable and uncalled for.

With great forbearance, regarding the company not as willfully
disobedient, but as led astray by feeling and bad advice, the governor
sent his aide, Colonel Fitzhugh, to endeavor to bring them to reason and
due sense of duty, and gave him the following instructions:--

  "You will show these resolutions to the company, and request the
  signers to either repudiate or modify them in such a manner as to
  relieve themselves from the position of disobedience to the orders
  which these resolutions condemn.

  "You will represent to the company that the resolution disapproving
  of the course of the commander-in-chief, and considering it 'an act
  of injustice and wholly uncalled for,' places the company in an
  attitude of insubordination which will necessarily preclude the
  possibility of their being honorably discharged from the service
  until they, by their own acts, occupy different ground from that of
  justifying disobedience to orders.

  "There is nothing improper or objectionable in Company A requesting
  the reinstatement of Lieutenant Denny, and a request to that effect
  would be properly considered, but by indorsing and sustaining that
  officer in his refusal to obey orders they participate in a state of
  indiscipline and insubordination which is destructive to efficiency,
  and injurious to the reputation of the volunteer service of
  Washington Territory.

  "In the hope that the intelligent and gallant men of Company A will
  see the matter in the true light, and by their act in rescinding
  these unmilitary and insubordinate resolutions will place themselves
  upon the same footing as the rest of the regiment, and so enable the
  commander-in-chief to report as efficient and useful the whole body
  of troops raised from the citizen soldiery of Washington Territory,
  I have the honor to be," etc.

But Colonel Fitzhugh was unable to induce the company to rescind the
resolutions, and reported that a false sense of shame restrained them.
He was then sent back to formally disband the company, which he did July
28, and they were dishonorably discharged. The governor, however, did
not allow this discharge to deprive them of full pay, but in this
respect presented their claims on the same footing as the other
volunteers. All were finally paid by Congress.


                    CONTROL OF DISAFFECTED INDIANS.

Governor Stevens's responsibilities and labors were vastly increased by
the great number of Indians on the Sound who did not actively join in
the outbreak, but who caused constant care and anxiety on the one hand
to prevent their aiding their kindred who had taken the war-path, and on
the other to protect them from retaliatory violence at the hands of
infuriated settlers, whose nearest and dearest had been sacrificed in
savage massacre, and from the destructive whiskey traffic with vicious
and debased white men. Five thousand of such Indians were placed upon
the insular reservations and supported, in large part, under the charge
of reliable agents; while three thousand more remained on the Strait of
Fuca and the western shore of the Sound in less strict custody, as they
were more remote from the scene of hostilities. For a time these
reservation Indians were in a very excited and disaffected state. It was
impossible to prevent hostile emissaries from mingling among them, or
some of the young braves from slipping away to help their brethren
against the hated whites. The agents lived among them in constant and
imminent danger of massacre; they carried their lives in their hands.
The governor's plan of enlisting them as auxiliaries, and sending them
out under white officers to hunt down the enemy, although attended at
first with great risk of treachery, was the most effective means of
confirming their fidelity, and when the tide turned against the enemy,
all were eager in their professions of friendship and offers of
services. The first of these expeditions, that of Pat-ka-nim and his
Snohomish warriors under Colonel Simmons, was considered a very doubtful
and dangerous experiment; but heavy rewards were offered the chief for
the heads of the hostiles he might slay, and one that he sent in was
said to have been that of his own brother. Well might Shaw exclaim,
"Blankets will turn any Indian on the side of the whites." After this,
Pat-ka-nim's allegiance was well secured.

When Sidney Ford led a party of Chehalis Indians on a scout against the
enemy, he lay one night pretending slumber, while he listened to a long
discussion between his _friendly_ Indian followers as to the expediency
of killing him and joining the hostiles. Agent Wesley Gosnell had a
somewhat similar experience. What iron nerves, what devoted patriotism,
thus to venture into the trackless forests at the head of these
uncertain and treacherous savages! There is not the slightest doubt that
a few weeks of Wool's pacific and defensive policy would have united all
these disaffected Indians in the outbreak, and swept the whole country
with a whirlwind of savage war. Nothing but Governor Stevens's prompt,
aggressive, and masterly measures prevented the catastrophe.

By many of the settlers the governor's treatment of the Indians was
deemed too lenient and generous. They declared that Indians who received
and concealed the visits of hostile warriors, and allowed their young
men to join in the raids and fights, ought themselves to be treated as
hostile, and warred down without mercy. On one occasion a worthy and
intelligent clergyman pleaded long and earnestly with the governor,
urging him to attack and put to the sword the Indians on the Squaxon
reservation, many of whom were Nisquallies, the tribe that had taken the
lead in the outbreak. But the governor disregarded all such appeals, and
remained as firm in protecting the friendly or merely disaffected
Indians as inflexible in requiring the punishment of the murderers who
first instigated the war by the wanton massacre of inoffensive settlers.

Summary measures were taken with whiskey-sellers, when caught about the
reservations. The agent would arm his employees, and when necessary a
few stout and trustworthy Indians, descend on the culprit, stave, smash,
and destroy his poisonous stores, and drive him to instant flight. There
was no fooling with legal proceedings or courts. The means were
effective, if somewhat high-handed, and the only ones that could be made
so. It was more difficult to prevent the Indians from obtaining liquor
away from the reservations, especially about the towns, and the governor
complained that the regular soldiers were among the worst offenders in
this respect.

In a private letter to Colonel Nesmith, who succeeded him as
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the governor says of his Indian
agents:--

  "I have never known a more faithful and efficient body of men than
  the officers and employees connected with me in the Indian service.
  I have never known, all things considered, a body of men at all to
  be compared to them in the high qualities which fit men for duty in
  times of emergency. They literally for months went with their lives
  in their hands, and moreover in the economy of the service they were
  vigilant and faithful. I look upon it as the duty of all officers,
  without waiting for instructions, to guard the treasury. I have had
  some difficulties to contend with in the past, growing out of
  political antipathies. I have from the beginning set my face sternly
  against all cliques, combinations, and sinister influences in the
  discharge of my duty."

On these temporary insular reservations were collected some 5000
Indians. The Snohomish and other tribes, numbering 1700, were placed on
Skagit Head, the southern point of Whitby Island, under Colonel M.T.
Simmons; the Lummi, Nooksahk, and Samish, 1050, at Penn's Cove, Whitby
Island, under R.C. Fay; the Duwhamish, etc., 1000, on Port Madison Bay,
Dr. D.T. Maynard, H. L. Yesler, and G.A. Paige taking charge of them;
the Puyallaps, and Nisquallies, 806, on Fox Island, under Sidney S.
Ford; the Quaks-na-mish, 400, on Klah-shemin or Squaxon Island, under
Wesley Gosnell; the Chehalis, 400, on the Chehalis River, near Judge
S.S. Ford's, and under his charge; the Cowlitz, 300, near Cowlitz, under
Pierre Charles.

On the Columbia River, under general charge of agent J. Cain, 200
Chinooks were collected at Vancouver; 200 Klikitats on the White Salmon,
under A. Townsend; and 300 Yakimas, opposite the Dalles, under A.H.
Robie.

The Indian Department, in response to Governor Stevens's urgent letters
taken to Washington by Secretary Mason, and the latter's clear statement
of the emergency, promptly remitted $27,000 to feed these Indians, and
followed it with large sums for that purpose.

The northern Indians, gangs of whom persisted in visiting the Sound in
their great war canoes in spite of the prohibition and warnings of both
American and British authorities, caused great anxiety and apprehension.
The governor urged the naval officers to keep a vessel constantly
cruising the lower Sound to overawe and restrain them. On February 17 he
wrote Captain Gansevoort that, from information received, he was
apprehensive of a descent on the settlements by fourteen war canoes of
these savages, and urged that the Active be kept cruising the whole time
between Port Townsend, Bellingham Bay, and Seattle, saying:--

  "These northern Indians, in daring, force, and intelligence, greatly
  surpass the Indians of the Sound. Their war canoes, carrying
  seventy-five men, can be moved through stormy seas, and with great
  rapidity. I deem it essential to the safety of the lower portion of
  the Sound that a steamer should be constantly in motion there."

Apparently reliable reports were brought to the governor from time to
time that these desperadoes were seeking to join the hostiles. Some of
them actually offered their services to fight for the whites. They were
attracted to the scene of war like vultures to the carrion, and were
equally ready to fight and spoil either party to the conflict, or both.
In July one of these unwelcome visitors was killed in a drunken brawl by
a regular soldier at Steilacoom. From their well-known vindictive
character, it was certain that they would avenge the death sooner or
later by some act of atrocity. The governor therefore reinforced Whitby
Island with fifteen men from the line of the Snohomish, and the
Massachusetts and Hancock were kept diligently cruising. When, in
November, another party appeared near Steilacoom, committing
depredations, and had a fight with the Indians on the reservation, in
which two of their number were killed, Captain Gansevoort hastened to
the scene in the Massachusetts, determined to compel them to leave the
Sound. They had already started down it, but he pursued and overtook
them at Port Gamble, where he found them encamped on an island. After
exhausting all efforts at conciliation, offering to pardon all their
depredations, and even to tow their canoes to Victoria if they would
only depart from the Sound, and all friendly overtures being treated
with the utmost contempt and ridicule by the Indians, Captain Gansevoort
opened fire upon them from his guns, and, throwing a party ashore,
attacked them on land also. Their canoes were destroyed, and they were
driven back into the woods, but they fought with desperate courage and
determination, and continued the contest the entire day. To a message
sent by a captured squaw, inviting them to surrender with the sole
condition of leaving the Sound, they returned the defiant answer that
they would fight as long as there was a man left alive. But being on a
small island, and all their canoes and supplies destroyed, they were
forced by hunger to surrender, which they did after holding out for
forty-eight hours. The party consisted of one hundred and seventeen men,
besides squaws and boys, and lost twenty-seven killed and twenty-one
wounded. Captain Gansevoort took the survivors in his vessel to
Victoria, where he purchased canoes for them and started them northward,
exacting their promises never to return to the Sound. Even this severe
punishment did not deter them from seeking revenge. The following year a
party of them landed on Whitby Island, murdered Colonel Isaac N. Ebey,
the United States collector of customs, cut off his head, plundered his
house, and departed northward with their booty and ghastly trophy.




                             CHAPTER XLIII

               LEGISLATIVE CENSURE.--POPULAR VINDICATION


The family remained in Olympia during this year of Indian troubles. The
children attended the public school, and found kind and judicious
teachers in the Rev. George F. Whitworth and his estimable wife. Mrs.
Stevens, escorted by her son, frequently rode on horseback over the
neighboring prairies, heedlessly running a greater peril than they knew
of, for the Indians murdered two men and committed depredations quite
near the town. There was not much social gayety at such an anxious time,
but the little community were drawn closer together by the dangers
surrounding it.

When not absent on his trips, the governor usually worked in his office
till long after midnight, and his assistants and clerks were kept hard
at it to dispose of the multifarious orders, reports, accounts, and
other details of the war and the Indian service. He kept both the War
and Indian departments in Washington constantly informed of the progress
of the war and the condition of affairs by frequent detailed and graphic
reports, and these, with his correspondence, made a volume of four
hundred pages as published with his message of 1857. His physical labors
were also extreme, involving journeys to the Columbia River, the Dalles,
Walla Walla, and down the Sound, aggregating over two thousand miles.
And it should be borne in mind that he was not assisted by any regularly
long established and tried services, but had in a measure to create the
organizations, and to make use of hastily selected and inexperienced
officers. He had by this time fully adopted the rough, serviceable
costume of the country,--slouch hat, woolen shirt, and heavy
riding-boots,--and, indeed, no other garb was practicable for one so
constantly engaged on long and arduous journeys by horseback and canoe,
frequently in stormy weather.

  [Illustration: HOMESTEAD IN OLYMPIA]

In the summer and fall the governor caused his block of land No. 84,
which he purchased on his first arrival, to be cleared, and the late
Benjamin Harned built for him a plain, square dwelling, with a wide hall
in the centre and rooms on either side, a story and a half high. A
smaller building, for an office, on the northeast corner of the block,
and a stable in the rear on the southwest corner were also built. The
family moved into the new home in December, and found the spacious
rooms, with the magnificent view of the Sound and the Coast Range, a
most agreeable change from the former contracted quarters and noisy
surroundings.

The governor gave a house-warming, to which he invited the members of
the legislature, a number of naval officers, who happened to be in the
harbor, and about all the townspeople, including Elwood Evans and others
who had been unmeasured in their denunciation of his course.

The site of the residence had been covered with immense fir-trees, and
all within reach of the dwelling had to be felled to avoid danger of
their falling and crushing the house during some storm, which involved
the felling of the trees over an area of ten acres. But notwithstanding
all this care, one of these forest monarchs was left standing some
distance in front of the office, and the following winter fell directly
across it, cutting the building clear to the ground. The labor of
digging out the immense stumps was very great and expensive, and when
the governor, late in the winter, assured Colonel Cock and Mr. George A.
Barnes that he meant to have the finest garden in town the next spring,
and would send them the earliest vegetables, these old settlers laughed
in confident incredulity.

The governor was unable to follow up the improvement of the Taylor claim
this year, but John Dunn, the hired man, and Hazard, now an active lad
of fourteen, rode out there from time to time and planted and raised
quite a crop of potatoes, celery, cabbages, etc., on the beaver meadow,
which also afforded several tons of hay.

The legislature met in December, and Governor Stevens, in a strong
message, accompanied by the correspondence with the War Department and
military officers, rendered a clear and graphic account of his
successful prosecution of the war. In view of his herculean labors and
entire self-devotion, and the outrageous abuse heaped upon him, the
concluding paragraph is touching in its manly simplicity and
confidence:--

  "I have endeavored faithfully to do my whole duty, and have nothing
  to reproach myself with as regards intention. I could have wished
  some things had been done more wisely, and that my whole course had
  been guided by my present experience. I claim at your hands simply
  the merit of patient and long labor, and of having been animated
  with the fixed determination of suffering and enduring all things in
  your behalf. Whether in the wilderness contending with the hostile
  elements, managing and controlling the more hostile aborigines, or
  exploring the country, or at the Capitol struggling with
  disaffection, the subject of obloquy and abuse, I have had no end
  but my duty, no reward in view but my country's good. It is for you
  to judge how I have done my part, and for the Almighty Ruler to
  allot each man his desert."

It was generally believed that the legislature, like the people, would
gladly recognize the great services of the governor, and do all in their
power to sustain him. But his political and personal enemies had been
very active, and had covertly secured a number of members, some of them
elected in the guise of pretended friends. From Whitby Island was chosen
an able but corrupt man, J.S. Smith, commonly known as "Carving Fork
Smith," from the current report that his too pressing advances towards a
married woman in Oregon had been repulsed with such an implement by the
insulted matron. This worthy called upon Governor Stevens at the
beginning of the session and proposed some deal, with the result that
the governor indignantly ordered him out of the office. Angered at this
repulse, he made common cause with the governor's enemies, and eagerly
sought means to attack and injure him. His general course in the
prosecution of the war, and even in the martial-law difficulty, was so
universally approved that it would be useless to assail him on that
score, but finally they concluded to make a handle of the dismissal of
Company A. Their object was to obtain some sort of legislative censure
of the governor in aid of the untiring and unscrupulous efforts they
were making for his removal. A resolution pronouncing the charge of
insubordination against Company A to be without sufficient foundation
and also a resolution condemning martial law were introduced, and by the
combination of the supporters of the two, and the strenuous efforts of
the governor's enemies, were passed by a bare majority.

A committee was appointed to present them to him in person, in order to
make the censure more emphatic and offensive. The governor received the
committee with his wonted dignity and equanimity. One of the members was
Colonel William Cock, whom the governor had always treated with
consideration, whose son he had befriended and employed in the Indian
service, and who had always professed a warm friendship for the
governor, and approval of his course. But Colonel Cock had been won
over by the conspirators by appeals to his vanity, and had allowed
himself to be placed on the committee. When it had delivered its
message, the governor, genuinely grieved at the defection of a friend,
addressed Colonel Cock in a quiet and friendly manner, pointing out how
he had stultified himself, repudiating his own sentiments and
declarations, endeavored to strike down the man who had done so much to
defend the country, and his own professed friend, and finally, against
his better feelings and judgment, had allowed himself to be made a tool
of as a member of the committee. Colonel Cock, realizing at last the
ignoble part he was playing, was thoroughly ashamed and took his leave,
expressing his regret and sorrow at his course. The remainder of the
committee sneaked out, feeling small and crestfallen. But the
conspirators were jubilant, making sure that this legislative censure,
coming on top of General Wool's attacks, the martial-law resolutions,
and the numerous secret affidavits sent on, would certainly cause the
governor's removal, and went about exclaiming, "Governor Stevens is a
dead lion at last."

After this deliverance, the legislature passed all the measures and
memorials that the governor recommended. Some of the members who voted
for the resolutions of censure regretted their action like Colonel Cock,
and all were soon compelled to cower and apologize before the
indignation which their action excited all over the Territory.
Everywhere the real people, the stalwart settlers, the men of worth and
character, were denouncing this underhanded and cowardly attempt to
misrepresent their sentiments, and strike down the man who had saved the
Territory in her peril and defended her fair fame against the slanders
of high officials, whose patriotic self-devotion and herculean labors
they had witnessed, whose courage, force of character, and ability they
admired, and whose leadership they were proud to follow. The people
were eager to manifest their approval and support of Governor Stevens,
and in response to this sentiment the Democratic convention, meeting at
Cowlitz Landing, unanimously nominated him for delegate in Congress.

Meantime the governor, least disturbed of all at the unjust but impotent
censure, enjoyed a little respite after four years of incessant and
overwhelming responsibilities and labors. He was comfortably established
in his new home, and hugely enjoyed his garden and farming. He employed
two excellent men about the place, Joel Risden and William Van Ogle, and
fully redeemed his promise of the finest garden and earliest vegetables
in Olympia. He purchased a yoke of oxen, had a cart built, and commenced
clearing the Walker claim, situated half way to Tumwater. The malignant
charges and attacks upon him failed to cause his removal.

The governor, however, felt that he had not been properly supported at
Washington. His Indian treaties were left unconfirmed, and Wool's course
in excluding settlers from the upper country and vilifying the people
was not rebuked. He declared with great feeling that he would never
accept another appointive civil office.

On January 26, 1857, at the instance of the governor, the legislature
passed an act incorporating the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, with
a capital of fifteen millions, which might be increased to thirty
millions, and authority to build a railroad from one of the passes in
the Rocky Mountains, on the border of Nebraska, westwardly across
Washington by the Bitter Root valley, crossing the Coeur d'Alene
Mountains, and traversing the plain of the Columbia, with two branches,
one down the Columbia, the other over the Cascade Mountains to the
Sound, with a line from the river to the Sound. Among the incorporators
were Governor Isaac I. Stevens, Senator Ramsay, and General James
Shields, of Minnesota, Judge William Strong, Colonel William Cock,
Elwood Evans, A.A. Denny, and W.S. Ladd. The governor expected a rapid
development of the Territory, and evidently thought that an organized
company with a charter was a practical step towards starting the great
railroad enterprise.

Early in the year 1857 General Wool was relieved of the command of the
Pacific Department by General N. G. Clarke, colonel 6th infantry, and
went to New York, where he continued his malignant warfare upon the
authorities, volunteers, and people of Oregon and Washington, by whose
governors and legislatures he was denounced, "and whose respect he had
long since ceased to possess."

After his nomination the governor determined to make a canvass of the
Territory, and invited Alexander S. Abernethy, who was nominated by the
Whig convention, to accompany and meet him in joint discussion. The
newly appointed receiver of the Land Office, just arrived from the East,
Selucious Garfielde, a man of fine, showy presence and great oratorical
gifts, offered to assist in the canvass by discussing national politics.
A small steam-tug, the Traveler, W.H. Horton owner and captain, was
chartered to take the party around the Sound. Mr. Abernethy declined the
invitation, but Colonel William H. Wallace went in his stead, and the
governor, accompanied by Garfielde, Wallace, his son Hazard, and a few
friends, started from Olympia in May, and visited Steilacoom, Seattle,
Ports Madison, Gamble, Ludlow, and Townsend, thence up Hood's Canal to
Sebec, thence Whitby Island, thence Bellingham Bay, and thence returned
to Olympia. At each point the governor spoke at length, defending his
course, but devoting more time to pointing out the needs of the
Territory and the measures necessary for its benefit, such as the
confirmation of the treaties, payment of the war debt, additional roads
and mail service, and especially the Northern Pacific Railroad and its
relation to the trade of Asia. With much feeling he indignantly denied
the personal charges against himself, denounced the traducers, and
defied them to meet him face to face and repeat them. Though not a
fluent speaker, he was clear, strong, earnest, and convincing, and was
everywhere received with the greatest attention and respect.

A plot was formed at Steilacoom to get up a row at the meeting to be
held there, and under cover of it to assassinate the governor; and in
consequence of the earnest entreaties of his friends there, who had
discovered the plot at the last moment and were wholly unprepared for
it, he made but a short stop at that point. In July he again visited
Steilacoom, and held a meeting and joint discussion, but no attempt at
disturbance was made, his friends being ready for it.

As the little Traveler slowly churned her way into Bellingham Bay, a
great war canoe, manned by the northern Indians,--those dreaded sea
wolves,--went speeding across the entrance to the bay twice as fast as
the Traveler could possibly go, and the little party felt rejoiced to
have escaped meeting them. It was only a few weeks later that the
unfortunate Colonel Ebey met his tragic fate at the hands of a crew of
these savages. They were forbidden to enter the Sound, and the
appearance of one of their war canoes betokened only violence and
robbery.

After returning to Olympia the governor spoke at meetings of the
settlers there, at Tumwater, and Yelm, Chambers', and Grand Mound
prairies. Then he proceeded down the Chehalis River and traveled along
the coast, crossing Gray's Harbor and Shoalwater Bay, to the mouth of
the Columbia, holding meetings on Miami prairie, and each of these
points; thence, continuing the canvass, he went up the river, speaking
at Cathlamet, Monticello, Lewis River, Vancouver, and the Cascades, and
then, returning home by way of the Cowlitz, he spoke at Cowlitz Landing
and Judge Ford's.

In this canvass, in five weeks Governor Stevens traveled by steamer,
canoe, and on horseback fourteen hundred and sixty miles, and spoke at
forty meetings. His friends supported him with great enthusiasm, and one
of the features of the contest was the "Stevens Hat," adopted as a badge
by his more enthusiastic supporters,--a black slouch hat, the rougher
and shabbier the better.

The election took place July 13, and he was chosen by a vote of 986
against 549 for his opponent.

During the governor's absence on the canvass occurred the untimely death
of James Doty, his faithful secretary and assistant in so many difficult
and dangerous Indian councils and expeditions. "I have never been
connected with a more intelligent and upright man," declared the
governor. He was buried on Bush prairie beside his friend, George W.
Stevens.

After his election as delegate Governor Stevens resigned as governor,
August 11, 1857, and Lafayette McMullan, of Virginia, was appointed his
successor. The governor turned over the gubernatorial office to the new
appointee on his arrival, and the Indian superintendency to Colonel
Nesmith, who was appointed superintendent for both Oregon and
Washington, the two superintendencies having been united by the last
Congress, in May. At his invitation Colonel Nesmith visited him at
Olympia, and the governor took the greatest pains to impart to him all
the information and assistance in regard to his new duties in his power.

It was on a beautiful morning in the early fall that Governor Stevens
with his family started from Olympia on the return journey to the East.
He rode his noble gray charger Charlie, and his son was also mounted,
while Mrs. Stevens and the three little girls rode in an easy spring
wagon. The roads were dry, the weather of the finest, the country in its
most beautiful garb, and all the family were in high health and spirits;
and the governor, buoyant with courage, hope, and vigor, having
accomplished the tremendous tasks laid upon him by the government,
carried the Territory through the Indian hostilities, overcome all
obstacles, and put down his enemies, now looked forward with renewed
confidence to vindicating his course in Washington, and compelling a
deceived and misguided Congress and administration to do justice to his
people and himself.

The return journey to the Cowlitz, and down that stream in canoes, and
up the Columbia to Portland by steamboat was uneventful but pleasant, in
strong contrast to the discomforts of the trip on entering the country
three years previously. San Francisco was reached after a short voyage
down the coast, where the governor was again welcomed by his old
friends, and everywhere received with the attention and deference
considered due his remarkable achievements in face of unprecedented
obstacles.

On the voyage to Panama, the steamer Golden Gate broke her shaft the
second day out, and had to creep back to port with one wheel, like a
bird with a broken wing, losing an entire week. The Golden Age, which
took her place, came near meeting a worse disaster; for one stormy and
misty afternoon, as the captain and cabin passengers were at dinner, a
steerage passenger on the forward upper deck espied a rock-bound island
directly in front of the steamship, upon which she was rushing at full
speed, and gave the alarm. The great paddle-wheels were instantly
reversed, and the vessel just managed to back off before striking.

Colonel John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, the Republican candidate for
the presidency, was one of the passengers,--a slender, alert man,--as
was also one of the Californian senators, John Broderick, who fell in a
duel with Judge Terry soon afterwards. The passage across the Isthmus
was made safely and easily all the way by rail; and the voyage from
Aspinwall to New York was unmarked, save by a severe storm, with
mountainous billows for three days, off Cape Hatteras. They arrived in
New York in time to make a short visit in Newport, and to spend
Thanksgiving at Andover with the Puritan father.




                              CHAPTER XLIV

                  IN CONGRESS.--VINDICATING HIS COURSE


Governor Stevens lost no time in hastening to Washington, and the very
next day after his arrival called upon the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs in regard to the funds for, and accounts of, Superintendent
Nesmith. The large numbers of Indians, chiefly in Oregon, still being
restricted to reservations and partially supported by the government,
necessitated heavy expenditures, some of which were made without
previous authorization, and it was essential for the peace of the
country that they should be approved and Nesmith sustained. Following
the matter up with his accustomed energy and thoroughness, he calls upon
the commissioner and Secretary of the Interior again and again; he has
all the suspended accounts, estimates, and papers brought together, and,
having mastered them, he sits down with the chief clerk,--"an old friend
of mine," he writes Nesmith,--posts him up and satisfies him on all
points, and secures his favorable report, and then convinces the
commissioner and secretary. By the very next steamer the funds for
Washington Territory liabilities are sent to Nesmith, and during the
next few months, by unremitting and painstaking efforts, his deficiency
payments are allowed, his estimates approved, and ample funds remitted.
This was an extremely difficult and laborious task, for the expenditures
for the Indian service in the two Territories were unexpectedly large,
the department was naturally reluctant to authorize them, and the
difficulties were largely increased by the rasping and peppery, if not
insubordinate, letters which Nesmith, indignant at the neglect of his
recommendations, addressed to the commissioner, and which the governor
ingeniously neutralized by personally vouching for Colonel Nesmith, and
submitting extracts of Nesmith's letters to himself evincing the
superintendent's devotion to duty.

The still more important duty of vindicating his Indian treaties and
procuring their ratification engaged his closest attention. In one short
fortnight, by his clear exposition of their wise and beneficent
provisions, and by his graphic portrayal of the conditions in the
Pacific Northwest, he satisfies Commissioner Mix, Secretary Thompson,
and President Buchanan that the treaties ought to be confirmed, and
secures their urgent recommendations to the Senate in favor of
confirming them without delay. He seemed to take his former attitude of
personal influence with the highest officers of the government at a
bound, despite the serious charges that had been made against him. On
December 2 he writes Nesmith:--

  "We have had many conferences with the commissioner, and two with
  the President and Secretary of War, in regard to Indian affairs. I
  am working very hard with the department in order to have everything
  completely in train against the meeting of Congress.

  "I have been most cordially received in all quarters since my
  arrival, and I hope I shall be useful to our Territories."

And again, on December 17:--

  "Lane and myself will canvass the Indian committees. Have seen
  Senator Sebastian, chairman Senate committee. Pushing armed steamer
  for the Sound. Indian and War departments and President all concur.
  I have had a most attentive and courteous hearing from all these
  gentlemen. Years since, I learned brevity and directness in the
  transaction of business here, and I find no difficulty whatever in
  effecting a good deal in very brief interviews."

His old friends in Washington--Professors Bache, Henry, and Baird,
General Totten, Mr. John L. Hayes, former brother officers, and
others--welcomed him back, and were glad and proud to observe that he
was unchanged except in increased maturity and strength of character,
and that his very presence, with his simple, earnest, and dignified
demeanor, refuted the infamous slanders that had been circulated against
him. General Joseph Lane, the delegate from Oregon, received him with
open arms, delighted to have so able a coadjutor to fight the battles of
the far-distant and neglected Northwestern Territories. General Lane was
highly esteemed by all parties, and had much influence with the
Democratic leaders. The governor said he was a tower of strength. A
devoted friendship grew up between the two whole-souled and patriotic
men.

It will be remembered how inflexibly Governor Stevens insisted upon the
trial and punishment of the Indian murderers who so treacherously
massacred unoffending settlers, deeming the example absolutely
necessary, to deter the commission of outrages by the Indians in the
future. Having brought Leschi and the Sound murderers to condign
punishment, in spite of the efforts of the regular officers to shield
them, he now urged the Indian Department to make requisition upon the
War Department for the arrest and delivery to the civil courts, for
trial, of the Yakima murderers, whose atrocious slaying of their agent,
Bolon, and the miners, precipitated the war, but who thus far had been
virtually safeguarded by the pacific and temporizing policy of the
regular officers. After a number of interviews with the Indian
commissioner and the two secretaries, the demand was about to be
complied with, for all agreed that the murderers ought to be punished,
when the objection was raised by the military authorities on the Pacific
that an attempt to seize the offenders would lead to further
hostilities, and it was intimated that the Indians regarded the
quasi-peace operations of Colonel Wright in 1856 as promising them
immunity for the murders. The Secretary of the Interior, doubtful how
far the good faith of the government might be involved, was consequently
reluctant to make the necessary requisition on the War Department. The
governor thereupon addressed an able letter to the commissioner, in
which he pointed out that an inflexible adherence to the policy of
punishing perpetrators of unprovoked murders was the only course to
impress savage tribes with respect, and deter them from the commission
of similar outrages; that, while such a course in this case might be
attended with the renewal of hostilities on a small scale with the
recalcitrant faction of the Yakimas, it would do more than all else to
strengthen the hands of peaceful and friendly Indians in other tribes.
He declared that he had always understood, from repeated interviews with
Colonel Wright, that that officer had given no immunity to murderers.
Moreover, the very manner in which the military objected showed
conclusively that no such immunity was ever granted; for, if it had been
granted, they would have avowed it positively as their own act, and not
merely have referred to it hypothetically, as it were, and as
subordinate to the question of expediency. For if the faith of the
government had been pledged, questions of expediency were subordinate.
He concluded:--

  "I must therefore urge the requisition, unless the military will
  take the responsibility of saying, 'We did make a pacification on
  the ground of immunity to the murderers,' in which case I shall
  press the matter no further, except to suggest that measures be
  taken to prevent such pacifications hereafter."

Thus ably and ingeniously the governor forced upon the military the onus
of acknowledging having patched up a fictitious peace by granting
immunity to murderous savages, whom it was their duty to punish. This
they could not bring themselves to do; they were obliged to abandon
their protégés to their fate, and the requisition was made. One cannot
but think, after a careful study of all the evidence, that the Indian
murderers were led to believe in the promise of immunity, if it was not
explicitly promised them.

At the end of December he broke away from these engrossing cares and
labors for a few days, and went North for his family, having leased a
commodious brick house, No. 510, on the north side of Twelfth Street,
between E and F, at $200 a month; but on January 4 he is again at his
post in the House. He installed Mr. James G. Swan as his secretary, set
apart the upper rooms in the house as an office, and plunged with
redoubled energy into the important and multifarious duties and objects
he had undertaken, chief of which was the confirmation of the Indian
treaties; payment of the Indian war debt; advocacy of the Northern
route, separate Indian superintendency for Washington Territory, armed
steamer for Puget Sound, mail route, military roads, appropriations for
Indian service, and for other needs of the Territory; and pressing
before the departments many private claims growing out of the Indian
war. Besides all these, he published, February 1, a circular letter to
emigrants, giving useful information for those wishing to move to the
Territory. In this month he also wrote a strong appeal to the Indian
Department, urging that the farms promised the Blackfeet by the treaty
of the Blackfoot council be established without further delay, and
suggesting that the commissioner confer with Alexander Culbertson, who
was then visiting Washington,--an appeal which bore fruit, for the
commissioner immediately sent for Mr. Culbertson, and took steps to
start the farms. The governor also gave effective aid to Mr. Culbertson
in collecting an account due him from the government.

The appropriation of $30,000 for a wagon-road between Fort Benton and
Walla Walla--made in 1855--had never been used, in consequence of the
Indian hostilities, and the governor now induced the Secretary of War to
authorize the commencement of the road, and to place Lieutenant Mullan
in charge of it. The topographical engineers of the army were not a
little put out at the governor's action in Mullan's behalf, claiming
that the duty rightfully belonged to one of their corps, and that he was
disregarding the rights of the engineers in bestowing it upon a line
officer; but he had found Mullan one of the most zealous and efficient
officers of the Exploration, and one, moreover, especially conversant
with the country. His recommendation had great weight with the War
Department, thus to overcome the influence of the corps and the almost
invariable usage. Another incident which occurred at this time afforded
further evidence of his influence. An officer of General Wool's staff,
Captain T.J. Cram, in 1857 made a report to him upon the upper Columbia
country, much of which was taken from Governor Stevens's exploration
reports without acknowledgment. Moreover, the navigability of the great
river was pronounced utterly impracticable, and the country itself
stigmatized as essentially barren and worthless; and the report was made
the vehicle for reiterating all Wool's exploded charges against the
territorial authorities, people, and volunteers, and collecting and
retailing all the stories of outrage upon Indians by whites that could
be trumped up. This precious "topographical memoir" was widely published
in the newspapers, and was submitted by General Wool to the War
Department, with the evident design of defeating the confirmation of
the treaties and the payment of the war debt. When the report arrived,
the governor filed a statement in the department exposing its character;
and at his instance Captain A.A. Humphreys, who had charge of all the
Pacific Railroad reports, also filed a similar statement, pointing out
Cram's unreliability and plagiarisms, so thoroughly discrediting the
report that the department would never give it out, and it failed of its
intended effect.

It was a hard fight over the treaties before the Senate committee.
Wool's charges, widely spread in the newspapers, had excited much
prejudice against them, and they were strenuously opposed by most of the
regular officers on the Pacific. But by the middle of March the governor
was equally successful in convincing that committee that they ought to
be confirmed, and was able to write Nesmith that the committee would
report favorably, and that there was every prospect of confirmation.

The Northwestern boundary, with the disputed question of the San Juan
archipelago, also claimed his attention. His resolute letter of May,
1855, to Sir James Douglass, declaring that he would sustain the
American right to the islands to the full force of his authority, having
been submitted to both governments with Sir James's protests, had
brought home to them the risk of armed collision unless the boundary
question were speedily settled. Accordingly commissioners were appointed
on both sides to determine and delimit the boundary as drawn by the
treaty of 1846. But as the controversy turned on the construction of the
treaty itself, it could not be settled by any survey, and in this, the
most important part of their task, the commissioners soon became clever
disputants, each advocating his own side of the question. Jefferson
Davis, now a senator of great influence, writes Governor Stevens, March
18, requesting him "to call on the President and Secretary of State, and
give them your views as to the importance and necessity of marking the
boundary," etc. The American commissioner was Mr. Archibald Campbell,
and Captain J. G. Parke, of the engineers, was the chief surveyor, both
old friends of Governor Stevens. With his thorough knowledge of the
islands in dispute, and of the astute, grasping, and persistent
character of the Hudson Bay Company and British officials, the governor
strove to stiffen the backbone of the administration, and to expedite
the boundary survey.

Governor Stevens's first speech in the House occurred May 12, on his
bill to create additional land districts in his Territory, and was a
brief one. The next day a bill came up to reimburse Governor Douglass
for the supplies he had furnished in the Indian war, and the governor
seized the opportunity to deliver a powerful speech in behalf of the war
debt. He referred to Sir James's emphatic testimony that his, the
governor's, course was the only one which could have protected the
settlements, or prevented their depopulation, and vigorously defended
the people and volunteers:--

  "During the whole course of that war, not a friendly Indian, nor an
  Indian prisoner, was ever maltreated in the camp of the volunteers
  of Washington. For six months the people of Washington had to live
  in blockhouses; and yet so obedient were the people to law, so proud
  of their country, doing such high homage to the spirit of humanity
  and justice, that during all that time the life of the Indian was
  safe in the camp of the volunteers. Why, sir, there were nearly five
  thousand disaffected Indians during all this time on the
  reservations lying along the waters of the Sound, and not a man ever
  went there to do them harm.

  "I trust that the same measure of justice, which the committee
  propose to deal out to Governor Douglass, will be dealt out to the
  people of the Territories of Oregon and Washington. The debt in all
  the cases rests upon the same foundation. Our people furnished
  supplies and animals and shipping, and rendered their own services,
  on the faith of the government."

On the 31st he delivered a long and exhaustive speech on the same
subject, giving the history of the war, vindicating his own course, and
the patriotism and conduct of the volunteers and people.

On May 25 he delivered a speech of an hour upon the Pacific Railroad,
the subject of all others in which he took the greatest interest and
expended the greatest exertions. He took the broad national view,
embracing the whole country, and advocated three routes, and then
pointed out the superior advantages of the Northern route, and dwelt
upon its value for gaining the trade of Asia:--

  "Therefore I would not carve our way to the Pacific by a single
  route. It would not satisfy the country. It is not for its peace and
  harmony politically. It could not do the business of the country. It
  is not up to the exigencies of the occasion. But carve your way to
  the Western ocean with at least three roads.

  "Considering, therefore, the greater shortness of the Northern
  route, and its nearer connections with both Asia and Europe, it must
  become the great route of freight and passengers from Asia to
  Europe, and even of freight from Asia to the whole valley of the
  Mississippi."

These views have become established facts for so many years that it is
hard to realize how far in advance of his contemporaries Governor
Stevens was in holding them. He was one of the first, if not the very
first, to discern the necessity for three transcontinental railroads,
and the opportunity for securing the trade of Asia offered by the
Northern route.

A few days later he sprang to his feet in defense of his friend Nesmith,
who was bitterly assailed by M.R.H. Garnett, of Virginia, and answered
him in a manner so complete and satisfactory as to defeat an amendment
offered by him.

On the 27th he spoke in support of an appropriation for a military
survey of the upper Columbia, and in a sharp and breezy debate had the
satisfaction of exposing Cram's report.

Congress adjourned on June 9. The treaties were not reached, but the
governor writes Nesmith that a test vote showed that the Senate was
strongly in favor of them, and that they would all be confirmed next
session.

During the session Governor Stevens introduced nineteen bills and
resolutions, and offered four amendments. He spoke nine times, making
five considerable speeches, including two on the war debt, one on the
Pacific Railroad, one on the survey of the Columbia, and the defense of
Nesmith. The following synopsis gives the matters which claimed his
attention in Congress:--

          Indian war debt.
          Military roads.
          Additional land districts.
          Settlement of accounts of clerks of courts.
          Erection of public buildings.
          Survey of Columbia River.
          Geological survey.
          Military road, Columbia to Missouri.
          Increased pay for land surveys.
          Relief of C.H. Mason.
          Additional post and mail routes.
          Pacific Railroad.
          Port of entry at Vancouver.
          Marine hospital.
          Land for lunatic asylum.
          Port of delivery at Whatcom.
          Enrolling clerk for legislature.
          As to false reports of Wool.
          Bringing on Indian chiefs.
          Payment territorial deficiency.
          Extending certain acts to Washington Territory.

The above summary gives but a faint idea of the amount of work and
attention involved in the several matters enumerated. With
characteristic thoroughness, the governor always paved the way for his
measures by first obtaining the support and recommendation of the
department to which each pertained, and was equally indefatigable in
following them up before the committees. But nothing engrossed so much
of his time and attention as the numerous claims for losses and services
growing out of the Indian war, sent to him by his constituents, almost
all poor men, all of which he presented and pressed with the greatest
pains and assiduity.

So intent had he become upon all these important measures that, as he
writes Nesmith, he determined to remain in Washington during the recess
of Congress, and prepare for success the next session.

On July 21 Governor Stevens submitted an able and exhaustive memoir to
Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, on the unjust and exorbitant exactions
imposed upon Americans, who were then flocking to the newly discovered
gold fields of New Caledonia,--now British Columbia,--on Fraser and
Thompson rivers, having previously, on May 18 and June 29, informed him
of this emigration, and the impositions placed upon it by Governor
Douglass. The chief of these were, a license tax of five dollars a month
for the privilege of mining, and the prohibition of all navigation and
trading except by license from the Hudson Bay Company, and the
requirement that all supplies must be purchased from that company. He
showed that with forty thousand miners, nearly all of them American
citizens, entering the gold fields, as was the estimate of the most
intelligent gentlemen of the Pacific coast, the license tax would amount
to $2,400,000 per annum; while the Hudson Bay Company, from the
exclusive right of furnishing supplies, would reap the enormous harvest
of $14,000,000 per annum. Moreover, as the bulk of these supplies could
not be furnished from the present resources of that company, they would
have to be drawn by it from California, Oregon, and Washington, so that
in fact those States were compelled to make that company their factor
for the sale of their products, and allow it all the profits from the
sale of their own products to their own citizens.

The governor declared that this state of things could not be submitted
to by American citizens unless imposed by positive and imperative law,
and that the exactions in question had been imposed without any legal
authority which should be respected by the citizens or government of the
United States.

He held that, the British government having passed no law levying a
mining tax, Governor Douglass, as governor of Vancouver Island, was not
given authority by his commission or instructions to impose such tax;
that he was governor of Vancouver Island only, and his political
jurisdiction did not extend to the mainland, where, in fact, he had
always declined to exercise authority over the Indians as governor,
while he had dealt with them as chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company.

That the company, a mere Indian trading company, had no authority under
its charter to set up a monopoly of selling supplies to white men,
whether American citizens or British subjects, such monopoly, moreover,
being expressly prohibited by British law.

And he concluded by asking, in behalf of the citizens of our whole
Pacific coast, that the government would interpose with the British
authorities for the removal of the restrictions, and would demand the
repayment of all mining taxes collected, and of the value of all vessels
and cargoes confiscated. In the last paragraph he takes pains to
acknowledge the assistance of his friend, John L. Hays, Esq., in the
investigation of the legal questions involved.

The memorial was widely published in the papers, and produced an
excellent effect on the Pacific coast. The Hudson Bay Company
relinquished its attempt to compel the miners to purchase supplies from
it exclusively, and the monthly mining tax was reduced to a moderate
yearly one. The memorial was a timely and much-needed warning to the
Buchanan administration to stand up against the ever greedy and bull-dog
demands of the British upon the Pacific Northwest.

The news of Steptoe's defeat reached Washington in June, and created a
great sensation. It was looked upon as a complete vindication of
Governor Stevens's views and policy in regard to the management of the
Indians, and a convincing proof of the folly and failure of the Wool
military peace policy. The very officers who had condemned and denounced
the governor's plan of punishing and subduing the hostiles in order to
preserve the fidelity and peace of the friendly and doubtful tribes, now
that their weak temporizing had drawn the latter into hostilities,
breathed nothing but war. Writes Colonel Nesmith with glee, natural
enough considering how his request for two howitzers had been brusquely
refused, and himself treated with contumely, by Wool:--

  "General Clarke and the whole military are now fully answered, and
  they believe there _is a war_. The military now find themselves in
  something like your position when the Indians, in violation of all
  pledges, attacked your camp in the Walla Walla. I say again, 'Hands
  off;' they have a fair field, and I hope they will have a _free
  fight_!"

The War Department took energetic measures in consequence of Steptoe's
defeat. Colonel Wright was largely reinforced, and in September led a
thousand troops into the Spokane country, defeated the Indians in two
engagements, and summarily hanged sixteen of them without trial. The
same month Oregon and Washington were constituted a separate military
department, and the veteran general, William S. Harney, was sent out in
command. This appointment was highly satisfactory to Governor Stevens,
for General Harney adopted all his views in regard to the military
problem, the Indians, the opening of the country to settlement, and
later, as will be seen, in regard to defending our right to the San Juan
archipelago. The governor writes Colonel Nesmith and Governor Curry
requesting them to call on the veteran commander on his arrival, and
extend to him their good will and support.

General Harney's first act on reaching his new command was to throw open
to settlement the whole upper country, revoking Wool's orders excluding
settlers therefrom. This was a notable victory for Governor Stevens, and
wiped out the last of Wool's reactionary measures.

The governor spent the whole recess in Washington, except for a flying
visit North in July (when, in passing through New York, he had his
phrenological chart again drawn by Fowler) and a visit of three weeks in
the fall to Newport and Andover.

In the evening of December 2 he delivered before the American
Geographical and Statistical Society, in New York, an elaborate address
on the Northwest, comprising fifty-six printed pages. Mr. E.V. Smalley,
the historian of the Northern Pacific Railroad, says of this address
that "he presented the whole argument in behalf of the Northern route.
Some of his statements were received with a great deal of skepticism,
but time has shown that they were strictly and conscientiously
accurate."

Mr. Swan returned to the Pacific coast in the fall, and a very capable,
faithful, and agreeable young man, Mr. Walter W. Johnson, succeeded him
as secretary. The adjacent house on the south side was occupied by Mr.
Johnson's aunts, Mrs. W.R. Johnson and Miss Donelson, most estimable,
cultivated, and attractive ladies, and the two families contracted the
warmest friendship for each other.

Congress reassembled December 6. During the session Governor Stevens
offered seven bills and five resolutions, and moved four amendments. His
longest and most important speech was on the payment of the war debt,
delivered February 21, 1859. He also spoke on bringing Indian chiefs to
Washington, twice on the Northwest boundary, and on the military road
between Fort Benton and Walla Walla.

In January he had two hearings before the Senate Indian Committee. The
treaties were all confirmed in the Senate on March 8 without serious
opposition, for by this time their wisdom and merit were recognized on
all hands. J. Ross Browne, special agent sent out by the Interior
Department to investigate matters, strongly urged their confirmation.
Judge G. Mott, another special agent, who had been dispatched to examine
Nesmith's superintendency, did the same. Colonel Mansfield, the
inspector-general of the army, after visiting the upper country and
studying the conditions there, strongly recommended the treaties. And
even General Clarke and Colonel Wright, nobly acknowledging their
mistake in opposing them, joined in the recommendation. At last Governor
Stevens's great work was vindicated by the test of experience, and
approved by its former opponents.

It has already been related how Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War,
summarily rejected Governor Stevens's plans for continuing the surveys
on the Northern route, throwing the whole influence of the government in
favor of the Southern route, and strove to discredit his report of the
superior advantages of the former; and how the governor, on his
expedition to the Blackfoot council, notwithstanding this rebuff,
indefatigably continued his surveys, taking barometrical observations,
and making careful examinations of different passes and routes, using
the officers and parties of the Indian service for the purpose.
Throughout all the labors and responsibilities of the Indian war he
kept up the determination of important points, and the collection of
data concerning the climate, snows, navigability of the great rivers,
passes, etc., making use in like manner of the volunteer parties.

During this fall and winter he made his final report on the Northern
Pacific Railroad route, giving the results of his labors since the first
report, made some three years before. This final report was published in
two large quarto volumes, containing 797 pages. The first volume
contains the Narrative, 225 pages; Geographical Memoir, 81 pages;
Meteorology, 25 pages; Estimate, 27 pages; and, with the exception of
the meteorological tables and a paper on the hydrography of Washington
Territory, comprising 28 pages, was entirely the governor's own
composition, and equal to about 700 ordinary printed pages. The second
volume contains the botany, zoölogy, ichthyology, etc., with numerous
plates.

The governor expected, on returning from Fort Benton, to devote a year
to the preparation of his final report, but this was interrupted by the
Indian war, and then, with largely increased data, he found himself
absorbed in these congressional duties and labors, which completely
engrossed all his time and attention. It was a physical impossibility
for any man to write out with his own hand in a few months such a
report, even if it lay all composed and arranged in his mind. The way in
which Governor Stevens overcame the difficulty was original, and showed
his remarkable mental grasp and powers of memory. He dictated the whole
report. Every morning an expert stenographer came at six, and the
governor, walking up and down in the dining-room, dictated to him for
one or two hours before breakfast. The reporter then took his notes,
wrote them out, and had the manuscript ready for the governor's revision
at the next sitting. Walter W. Johnson, Dr. J.G. Cooper, and other
assistants were kept hard at work on the report, and on February 7,
1859, the governor had the satisfaction of submitting it to the
Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, Jefferson Davis's successor.

The report is written in a clear and graphic style. The facts presented
in it fully sustained and confirmed the conclusions of the first report,
and made a crushing answer to Jefferson Davis's doubts and criticisms.
And Governor Stevens's views set forth therein have been fully and
strikingly borne out in the subsequent development of the country.

Ten thousand copies of the report were ordered to be printed by the
Senate March 3, and afterwards the House ordered ten thousand extra
copies March 25, and the Senate as many more May 9, 1860. Those first
printed were not satisfactory to the governor in execution, paper, or
binding, and he was at no little pains to have the twenty thousand extra
copies ordered. Being disappointed in a certain senator whom he expected
to pass the desired order in the Senate, the governor frankly applied to
Jefferson Davis to secure the order, and Davis was manly and magnanimous
enough to do so at once. It was characteristic of Governor Stevens, as
has already been pointed out, to base all his action and objects upon
the high ground of public needs and welfare, and therefore, ignoring any
personal considerations, he demanded Davis's aid, on the ground that the
valuable data in his final report ought to be published for the benefit
of the country.

The governor was inclined to attribute good motives to his opponents, or
those who differed from him; was quick to see and admit their points of
view; and never assailed their motives, nor descended to personal
attacks. Indeed, he was inclined to think too well of men, and to expect
too much of them.




                              CHAPTER XLV

                            SAVING SAN JUAN


Six weeks after the final adjournment of Congress, Governor Stevens left
New York in April, on the steamer Northerner, on the long journey to
Puget Sound, via the Isthmus and San Francisco. He was accompanied by
his family, except his son, who remained at school in Boston, and by his
brother-in-law, Mr. Daniel L. Hazard, who was going to the Pacific coast
to seek his fortune, which he found after six years' devotion to
business. The journey out was a pleasant one, and they reached Vancouver
on the Columbia, and repaired to the hotel of the town. General Harney
immediately called, and insisted on taking the governor and family to
his house, where they remained several days. The incident is significant
as showing the close relations between the veteran commander and
Governor Stevens, and helps explain the prompt and decisive action of
the former on the San Juan controversy a few weeks later. This dispute
was in the acute stage; the boundary commissioners were as busy with
arguments and contentions as a whole bar of lawyers, and as far from
agreement. Undoubtedly the governor, in his earnest and convincing
manner, fully imbued the general with his views of the American right,
and the duty of the authorities to defend it.

The journey from Vancouver to Olympia was made in the manner usual in
those days,--down the Columbia in river steamboat, up the Cowlitz in
canoes paddled and poled by Indians, and across country in wagons to
Olympia. The governor was everywhere received with demonstrations of
popular confidence and goodwill. The Democratic convention unanimously
renominated him as delegate to the next Congress.

Colonel William H. Wallace was nominated by the Republican convention.
Selucious Garfielde, having been removed from his office of receiver of
the Land Office for misconduct, now vehemently opposed the governor, and
came out in support of Wallace. Governor Stevens at once entered upon a
systematic and thorough canvass of the Territory, inviting his
competitor to accompany him, which he did. But Garfielde and Judge
Chenoweth started around the Sound ahead of the candidates, hoping to
capture the vote of the people for Wallace beforehand. Mr. Daniel L.
Hazard accompanied the canvassing party. The governor, as was too much
his habit, crowded into a short space of time a greater amount of
speaking and traveling than most men could stand. Colonel Wallace broke
down on the Columbia River under the strain, and had to return home,
whereat the governor seemed rather pleased, not at his opponent's
misfortune, but at his own superior endurance.

The election took place July 11, and he was chosen by a vote of 1684
against 1094.

Mr. Charles H. Mason, the secretary of the Territory and at times the
acting governor, died on July 23, rather unexpectedly. He was beloved by
every one, and the whole town was plunged in mourning. The governor felt
his loss as that of a brother, and was very much affected. Two days
later the funeral services were held in the Capitol building. Governor
Stevens delivered an eloquent and heartfelt eulogy, moving all present
to tears, after which a procession was formed, and almost the entire
population followed the remains to the grave. He was laid at rest on
Bush prairie, beside his friend, George W. Stevens.

A row over a pig precipitated a crisis in the San Juan dispute. An
American settler shot a Hudson Bay Company's porker found rooting in his
garden, whereupon Governor Douglass promptly dispatched a steamer to the
scene, bearing his son-in-law, who was a high official of the company
and also of the colony, and two members of the colonial council.
Landing, they loudly claimed the island as British soil, and ordered the
settler to pay one hundred dollars for the slain pig, on penalty of
being taken to Victoria for trial if he refused. But the settler, who
had already offered to pay the reasonable value of the pig, did refuse,
and boldly defied arrest, revolver in hand. The British officials
retired, baffled for the time, but declaring that the settler was a
trespasser on British soil, and must submit to trial by a British court
for his offense. A few days after this episode General Harney, returning
from a visit to Governor Douglass, stopped at San Juan, and the American
settlers there invoked his protection against British aggression,
relating the story of the pig. They also begged protection against the
raids of the northern Indians, who had committed many depredations on
Americans, while they never molested the English or Hudson Bay Company
people, whom they regarded as friends. The old soldier realized the
defenseless condition of the settlers. His blood was stirred at the
attempted outrage. On his way back to Vancouver he stopped at Olympia
and dined with Governor Stevens, and discussed with him what action the
emergency required. Immediately on reaching his headquarters at
Vancouver, General Harney ordered Captain George E. Pickett,--the same
who, a Confederate general, led the famous charge at Gettysburg,--to
proceed with his company of the 9th infantry from Bellingham Bay to San
Juan Island, occupy it, and afford protection to American settlers.
Pickett landed on the island July 27, and at once issued a proclamation
declaring that, in compliance with the orders of the commanding general
(Harney), he came to establish a military post on the island, notifying
the inhabitants to call on him for protection against northern Indians,
and stating that "this being United States territory, no laws other than
those of the United States, nor courts except such as are held by virtue
of said laws, will be recognized or allowed on this island." This was
throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the British lion with a
vengeance; and Governor Douglass, a bold, haughty, and determined man,
hurried three warships to the island, with positive orders to prevent
the landing of any more United States troops; but Pickett took up a
position on high ground, threw up intrenchments, and notified the
British that he would fire upon them if they attempted to land.

Governor Douglass now issued his proclamation, protesting against the
"invasion," and reasserting that the island was British soil; and, armed
with this document, his three naval commanders waited on Pickett, and
formally demanded his withdrawal. On his refusal, they proposed a joint
occupation. But the daredevil American officer was equally obdurate in
rejecting this compromise, and repeated his warning to them not to land.
Nothing remained for them but to report their mortifying failure to
Governor Douglass. It happened that Admiral Baynes, commanding the
British Pacific fleet, had just put into Esquimault Harbor, the British
naval station on Vancouver Island, four miles from Victoria, with a
strong naval force. Sir James, his indignation at white-heat, and
fiercely determined to expel the Yankees from the coveted island, now
ordered the admiral to take his whole force and drive them from it. As
governor of a British colony, Sir James was authorized to give the
order, and it was the admiral's duty to obey it. But Admiral Baynes
took the responsibility of not obeying it. It would be ridiculous, he
declared, to involve the two great nations in war over a squabble about
a pig. But he reinforced the ships blockading San Juan, and renewed the
orders to prevent the landing of any more American troops. Five British
ships of war, carrying 167 guns and 2140 men, closely beset the
southeastern end of the island, charged with the execution of these
orders.

Governor Stevens visited San Juan soon after Pickett landed, and on
August 4 left it in the steamer Julia. Captain Jack Scranton, with
dispatches from Captain Pickett to General Harney, reached Olympia the
next day, and at once forwarded the dispatches by special messenger to
General Harney at Vancouver. In return, Harney's orders reached Olympia
on the 8th, were forwarded immediately by the Julia to Steilacoom, and
in pursuance of them Colonel Casey embarked on the steamer with three
companies, hastened down the Sound, silently stole through the
blockading fleet in a dense fog, and effected a landing on San Juan on
the 10th. The sight of the empty steamer anchored close to the shore in
the gray of the morning, and the cheers of the reinforcements as they
marched into Pickett's fort on the hill above, first apprised the
British navy of the successful landing.

Soon afterwards Admiral Baynes withdrew his ships and relinquished the
blockade, leaving the American forces in undisputed possession.

While the British were omnipotent on the water, they were ill prepared
to sustain a contest on land, and undoubtedly the knowledge of this fact
influenced Admiral Baynes, and Governor Douglass, too, after his first
indignation, in their forbearing attitude. Victoria and all the points
on Fraser and Thompson rivers and other places on the mainland were
thronged with American miners, attracted by the recently discovered gold
fields. The British were but a handful. The brave and adventurous
pioneers of Washington and Oregon, the Indian war volunteers, were close
at hand. The first clash of arms on San Juan would have signaled the
downfall of every vestige of British authority in northwest America,
except on the decks of their warships. There is no doubt that Governor
Stevens and the American commander intended to press their advantage to
the utmost in case of conflict. The governor of the Territory was then
R.D. Gholson, a well-meaning and respectable Kentuckian, who had
recently succeeded McMullan, and who reposed wholly on Governor Stevens
for advice and guidance, constantly consulting him. This governor now
tendered to General Harney the support of the territorial militia in
case of need, sending him a return showing the number of stands of arms
the Territory possessed, with the statement that there was a lack of
ammunition. In response General Harney immediately dispatched a large
quantity of ammunition to Fort Steilacoom and placed it at the
governor's disposal. Truly the times were changed since General Wool
refused ammunition to the settlers battling for their homes against the
savage foe, and maligned their patriotic efforts.

The directing hand of Governor Stevens is manifest in this resolute
assertion of American rights. It was his determined stand, when
governor, against the persistent encroachments of the British, which
first put our government on its guard. He it was who instructed General
Harney as to the merits of the controversy, encouraged him to take
decisive action, visited San Juan and noted the conditions there at the
critical time, and saw to hurrying reinforcements to Pickett. It is not
too much to say that he was the master spirit whose bold and decided
action repelled the foreign aggression, aroused public opinion, deterred
a weak and timid administration from surrendering our rights, and saved
the archipelago to the United States.

Judge James G. Swan, who was acting as the governor's secretary at this
time, quotes from his diary how General Harney and Governor Gholson
consulted Governor Stevens, and declares that the stand he took and his
influence were the great means of saving San Juan to the United States;
that, without his clear and decided counsel, General Harney would hardly
have felt justified in taking such vigorous action as he did; that there
was a deal of doubt felt and expressed among officers of the army, and
it needed the strong, outspoken action of such a man as Governor Stevens
at that crisis to turn the scale.

Alarmed at the risk of war, and the scarcely veiled threats of the
British minister, the government hastened to send General Scott to the
seat of war, big with compromise. He withdrew Captain Pickett and all
the troops save one company from the island. Admiral Baynes established
a post of an equal number of marines on the opposite or western end, and
the joint occupation was maintained thirteen years, and until terminated
by the Emperor William's award in favor of the United States.

Scott then endeavored to perform a still more ungracious task, laid upon
him by the administration, to wit, to remove Harney in deference to
Great Britain, without arousing the indignation of the people at such a
rebuke for his spirited and patriotic action; to cringe to the Lion
without exciting the Eagle. He gave Harney an order to relinquish his
command on the Pacific and take the Department of the West, with
headquarters at St. Louis, with permission to accept or decline the
order as he saw fit. But Harney was not disposed to assist in his own
rebuke, or smooth the way of truckling to England, and kept his post.
Hardly had Scott turned his back, when Harney ordered Pickett back to
San Juan, an order in turn countermanded by the general-in-chief.[12]

The people of the Pacific coast were enthusiastic over Harney, the
legislatures of Oregon and Washington applauded his course by public
resolutions, and the public opinion thus aroused put a needed check to
the compromising spirit of the administration.

Governor Stevens spent the remainder of August and part of September in
Olympia. He enjoyed visiting his farms and planning their improvement,
for his early and hereditary love of the soil was always strong. In
September he started eastward by the Isthmus route with his family, and
reached Washington the following month.

FOOTNOTES:

  [12] Major Granville O. Haller, in an article on the San Juan
       affair, states that immediately on receipt of news of the
       action of the British he was sent with his company by Colonel
       Casey from Steilacoom to San Juan, ostensibly as a guard
       against northern Indians, but with instructions to confer with
       Pickett, and if he needed aid, to land and assume command. On
       reaching the scene of action he was closely questioned by the
       British officers as to the latest news from the east,--the
       American mail had just brought news of the battle of
       Solferino,--for their mails were delayed, and they were
       somewhat restrained by the reflection that their government
       might have already relinquished the archipelago, and advices of
       it not yet arrived. Major Haller remained on his vessel a few
       days, probably not wishing to precipitate a conflict by forcing
       a landing, but did land soon afterwards.



                              CHAPTER XLVI

                       THE STAND AGAINST DISUNION


The Indian treaties confirmed, Governor Stevens was more determined than
ever to secure the payment of the Indian war debt. This had been
thoroughly examined and audited by a commission appointed by the
Secretary of War, consisting of Captains Rufus Ingalls and A.J. Smith,
of the army, and Mr. Lafayette Grover, the brother of Lieutenant Grover
and afterwards governor of Oregon, and their report had been referred by
the last Congress to the third auditor. It was a long time before he
reported, and his report, when made, was a very unjust and condemnatory
one, manifestly tinged with the prejudice so widely spread by Wool's
slanders. The friends of the debt for some time were unable to get it
before the House, and had to content themselves with enlightening
individual members and the public.

The governor followed up the various matters in behalf of the Pacific
Northwest with his usual energy this session. He spoke on the Pacific
Railroad, on steam vessels for Puget Sound, on Indian appropriations,
military post on Red River, appropriations for surveys, separate Indian
superintendency for Washington Territory, etc. He succeeded in obtaining
an appropriation of $100,000 for the military road between Fort Benton
and Walla Walla, which Lieutenant Mullan was now building, $10,000 for a
military road between Steilacoom and Vancouver, $4500 for the boundary
survey between Oregon and Washington, $95,500 for the Indian service,
and secured a new land office and district for the southern part of the
Territory. During the session he offered thirteen bills, eight
resolutions, and two memorials.

His chief interest and labors, however, were on the Northern Railroad
route. He was indefatigable in making known its great national
advantages. On April 3 he addressed an elaborate letter on the subject
to the railroad convention of the Pacific coast, held at Vancouver. In
this he again advocated three routes; showed the national importance of
the Northern route, its advantages for securing the trade of Asia, and
the danger, if that route were neglected, that the British-Canadians
would build a line to the Pacific within their own borders, and thereby
forestall this country in developing its Pacific ports and securing the
Asiatic commerce. He declared that the explorations thus far made were
simply reconnoissances; that two years would be required to complete the
surveys, and probably ten years to build the road. He urged the
convention to reject absolutely the compromise in the shape of a branch
line from some point on the central route to the Columbia River and
Puget Sound, which had been urged in Congress and elsewhere, and firmly
to insist on the Northern route as a great national work. As published,
this letter makes twenty-four printed pages, and Mr. Smalley, the
historian of the Northern Pacific Railroad, already quoted, says of it
that--

  "he gave so clear and condensed an account of the Northern route,
  its distances and grades, as compared with the line then projected
  to Benicia, California, its advantageous situation in relation to
  the China and Japan trade, and the adaptability of the country it
  would traverse for continuous settlement, that the document, printed
  in pamphlet form, became a cyclopedia in miniature, from which facts
  and arguments have ever since been drawn by the friends of that
  route."

Governor Stevens had now become the recognized authority on the Northern
route, and the acknowledged leader of its advocates in Congress. He was
ably supported by General Lane, and by the Minnesota senators, Rice and
Ramsay, and was indefatigable in furnishing them with data and points
for use in debate. At a dinner party on one occasion, Senator Gwin
openly taxed the governor with writing the speech which a certain
senator had just delivered in behalf of that route, and which made some
stir, declaring that no one could mistake the governor's style and
ideas; and the charge was well founded.

During Governor Stevens's first term in Congress great efforts were made
by the friends of the Central route to pass a bill granting a subsidy in
lands and bonds to that route, and the bait of a branch from the
vicinity of Salt Lake to the Columbia River and Puget Sound was held out
to placate the adherents of the Northern route. Governor Stevens
strenuously fought this scheme of a branch instead of the through
Northern route. The proposed bill failed.

In the next Congress the adherents of the Central and Southern routes
joined forces. The extreme secessionists, on the eve of withdrawing from
Congress in order to break up the Union, were ready enough to vote
subsidies to the united routes, and the Union sentiment was invoked by
the argument that the aid extended to the Southern route would help
satisfy the South and strengthen the Union. By this combination the
House, on December 20, 1860, passed a bill for a land grant and subsidy
to both the Central and Southern routes. The Northern route was
completely ignored. An amendment offered by Governor Stevens, granting
ten sections of land per mile for a road from Red River to Puget Sound,
was rejected. But when the bill came before the Senate, an amendment
was offered by Senator Wilkinson, of Minnesota, and adopted, the New
England senators aiding those from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Oregon,
giving a subsidy of twenty-five millions for a railroad from Lake
Superior to Puget Sound, and a land grant of six alternate sections per
mile on each side of the track in Minnesota, and ten alternate sections
for the rest of the way. The amendment created the Northern Pacific
Railroad Company, and empowered Charles D. Gilfillan, of Minnesota,
Nathaniel P. Banks, of Wisconsin, and Isaac I. Stevens, of Washington
Territory, to act as a board of commissioners to organize the company.
The bill thus amended went back to the House for concurrence, but the
session was almost at an end, and repeated efforts to take the bill from
the speaker's table, to get it before the House for consideration,
failed for lack of a two thirds vote.

Governor Stevens rapidly overcame--lived down--the prejudice excited by
the charges and reports against him, and won the respect of his fellow
members. Several of them expressed to him their surprise at finding him
so different a man from what they had been led to believe. Said one
gentleman, "I expected to find you a loud-voiced, tobacco-chewing,
drinking, swearing, violent man, and instead I find a gentleman of quiet
manners, education, ability, and high aims and ideals." The governor
used to regard this change of opinion, which he personally made upon
members, with a good deal of satisfaction.

He usually rose early, and spent the two hours before breakfast at work
in his office. After breakfast and until noon, when Congress met, he
would spend in visiting the departments. He kept a light carriage with
one horse for this purpose, and for going to and from the Capitol,
having the colored servant Bob drive it, or driving himself. He had
unbounded influence in all the departments. The clear, lucid way in
which he presented his cases; his brief, prompt, business-like methods;
the fact that he never asked anything that he did not believe to be
right, and called for by public interests, and that he would not submit
to delay or neglect, but would follow up his matters until they received
due attention, even to the President himself if necessary,--made him
respected and somewhat feared, while his uniform courtesy and
consideration for the clerks and subordinates won their goodwill.

He acquired great influence with President Buchanan. His son Hazard was
desirous of entering West Point, and he took the youth to call on the
President and ask an appointment for him. Mr. Buchanan very naturally
asked the governor why he did not give his son the appointment within
his own gift as a member of Congress. The latter declared he could not
do this with propriety, and pointedly requested the desired appointment,
which the President seemed reluctant to make, pleading the many claims
upon him for the few cadetships at his disposal. But finding the
governor still firm in his request, he promised unequivocally and
positively to appoint his son. The governor carefully refrained from
advising or influencing the latter in the choice of a profession,
telling him that he had better decide the matter for himself. An uncle,
however, very strenuously urged him not to go to West Point. At last the
young man besought the advice of his father, who simply said that he
would not advise him to enter West Point, or adopt the army as a
profession, but told him to decide according to his own judgment and
inclination. Under these circumstances he concluded to give up West
Point. Within a year the rebellion broke out, and he was carrying a
musket in the ranks of the Union volunteers. How little can we foresee
the future!

The governor appointed Robert Catlin as cadet to West Point from
Washington Territory.

He dined at six, and spent the evening in social intercourse. Sometimes
he would make the rounds of the hotels, meeting old friends and
acquaintances, and frequently would work late in the night on some
matter that engaged his attention. Like all rising and influential men,
he was more and more sought after in behalf of all sorts of people and
schemes. Mrs. Stevens relates that on one occasion, when she was reading
in the rear end of the large double parlors and the governor was
receiving two gentlemen in the front room, she was startled to see him
suddenly spring from his chair, face his visitors with upright,
soldierly bearing and head erect, exclaiming in a stern and indignant
voice, "Look at me, gentlemen, and tell me what you see about me that
you dare intimate such a proposition! Leave my house!" They slunk off
without a word.

The governor delighted in hospitality, and was never happier than when
entertaining his friends. While in Washington he was visited by many of
his own and Mrs. Stevens's relatives.

Governor Stevens was preëminently a national man in all his ideas and
sympathies. His Revolutionary ancestry, his West Point training, his
participation in large national interests,--as the Mexican war, the
Coast Survey, the exploration of the continent and upbuilding of the
Pacific Northwest, together with the natural bent of his patriotic
nature and comprehensive, far-sighted mind,--strengthened his love for
and pride in the great Republic, and made sectionalism or disunion
utterly abhorrent to him. Like Webster, he regarded the Union as the
palladium of national liberty, life, and power, and its preservation the
highest patriotic duty.

There was an aggressive disunion faction, in the Southern tier of slave
States, seeking to disrupt the Union by magnifying Northern
encroachments against the Southern institution of negro slavery; but the
great bulk of the Southern people still held fast to their ancient
moorings. Governor Stevens firmly believed that to maintain unimpaired
the compromises of the Constitution in regard to slavery was not only
the highest statesmanship looking to the preservation of the Union, but
a matter of justice and good faith to the Southern Unionists. He
believed that as long as the Northern Democracy stood by the
constitutional rights of the South, they would continue to hold fast to
the Union, and defeat the Secessionists, and that thus, by the league of
broad-minded national men both North and South, the extremists could be
kept down and the Union maintained.

The political issues of the day sprang up over the question of slavery
in the Territories. The Republican party held that Congress had the
right, and it was its duty, to prohibit slavery within them; and its
more progressive leaders openly expressed the belief that the
institution, if debarred from extension and confined to the existing
slave States, would ultimately become extinct. The Democratic party was
divided between two doctrines on the question. The majority of Northern
Democrats upheld the "Squatter Sovereignty" doctrine of Stephen A.
Douglas, to wit, that the people of each Territory had the right to
decide for or against slavery; while the Southern Democrats and a large
part of those in the North, including many of the oldest and ablest
leaders and public men, held that, as the Territories had been acquired
by the blood and treasure of all the States, neither Congress nor the
citizens of a Territory could lawfully prohibit slavery therein as long
as they remained Territories; but when they assumed Statehood, the
people could prohibit or establish slavery, as they saw fit. The latter
doctrine had the support of a dictum of the Supreme Court. Moreover,
well-informed men knew that, as a practical matter, there was no
probability that negro slavery could be extended into any of the
existing Territories, for both natural conditions and the great
preponderance of Northern emigration to the West were adverse to it. A
few brief years would settle the question in the Territories, and remove
it from national politics; and meantime, if the Southern people, the
great majority of whom were Union-loving and patriotic, could be
reassured that their constitutional rights as to slavery would be
respected, the disunionists would become powerless, the dangerous
controversies over slavery would die out, and the Union would be saved,
stronger and more glorious than ever. Such were the views of Stevens and
many of the ablest Democratic leaders, the same views that actuated Clay
and Webster and their compatriots when they allayed the storm of an
earlier strife over the same subject. No spirit of subserviency to the
South actuated them, but a strong sense of justice to the weaker
section, of fidelity to the Constitution, of loyalty to the Southern
Unionists, and, above all, a broad-minded national patriotism. Thus it
was that the men of whom Governor Stevens was a type, after striving to
the utmost to safeguard the Southern constitutional rights, when
sacrilegious hands assailed the nation's life, and the Southern people,
frenzied with the madness of the hour, were swept into the maelstrom of
the great rebellion, were foremost in defense of the country, in
self-devotion and self-sacrifice for her sake. In this school of
patriots are numbered two members of Lincoln's cabinet, Edwin M.
Stanton, the great War Secretary, and Joseph Holt, the Attorney-General;
General John A. Dix and Daniel L. Dickinson, of New York; Generals
Grant, Sherman, Halleck, Sheridan; Benjamin F. Butler, of
Massachusetts; John A. Logan, of Illinois; and many others, all of whom
supported Breckinridge and Lane.

Although deeply immersed in the important practical measures for the
advancement of the Northern route and the Pacific Northwest, Governor
Stevens was as earnest and decided in his political views as in
everything else he undertook. He attended the Democratic National
Convention, which was held in Charleston, S.C., April 23, as a delegate
representing Oregon, the Territories having no representation. He
ardently advocated the nomination of General Lane, his friend and
co-worker in behalf of the Pacific Territories. General Lane had
achieved much distinction in the Mexican war, was a man of broad,
statesman-like views, sound judgment, upright, high-toned, generous, and
considerate of others, and universally esteemed. He was just the man for
a compromise candidate, and his chances were good for the nomination
after the more prominent candidates should defeat each other. But the
convention split upon the platform, the Northern delegates insisting
upon the squatter sovereignty doctrine; whereupon the representatives of
nine extreme Southern States seceded from the convention, which, without
making any nominations, adjourned to meet at Baltimore on June 18. In
the few ballots taken, General Lane received six votes; but the
opportune moment for which his friend hoped never arrived, owing to the
disruption of the convention.

The Baltimore convention served but to emphasize the irreconcilable
difference between the two doctrines and wings dividing the Democracy.
Douglas's doctrine was adopted, and himself nominated, by a reduced
convention; while the delegations of eight more States, withdrawing from
it, met in separate convention on June 28, in the same city, and
nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for President, and Joseph
Lane, of Oregon, for Vice-President, on a platform declaring the other
doctrine, and assuming the name of the National Democratic party.

President Buchanan and the entire influence of the administration
supported the latter, and, as the election showed, not only the majority
of the foremost public men of the Northern Democracy, but one third of
its voters.

Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin were nominated by the Republican
party on a platform opposing the extension of slavery in the
Territories; and a convention representing the old Whigs, and many
moderate men and Unionists in both sections, nominated John Bell, of
Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, on the bare declaration
of "The Union, the Constitution, and the Enforcement of the Laws."

The National Democratic party, thus launched into the struggle, was
destitute of any national organization, so essential for carrying on a
presidential contest. The leaders, including the nominees and members of
the cabinet, after full consultation, besought Governor Stevens to
accept the position of chairman of the National Executive Committee,
organize it, and carry on the canvass. Ever ready to devote himself to
any cause in which he was enlisted, the governor undertook the herculean
task. In a single night he wrote the party address to the country,--an
address covering a whole page of a large metropolitan newspaper, a feat
for which General Lane years afterwards expressed unbounded admiration
and astonishment, both for its ability and for the ease and rapidity
with which it was dashed off.

During the next four months Governor Stevens drove on the canvass with
his accustomed energy and ability. Headquarters were opened in New York,
contributions collected, meetings organized, and large numbers of
speeches and documents circulated all over the country. On September 5
he entertained at dinner, in Washington, General Lane, Secretaries
Howell Cobb and Jacob Thompson, of the cabinet, and a delegation from
New York. The situation seemed by no means hopeless to the adherents of
Breckinridge and Lane. The Republican vote at the last presidential
election was far in the minority, even in the North; and now, with four
candidates in the field, it seemed probable that there would be no
popular election. In such case the choice of President would devolve
upon the House of Representatives, voting by States, and the Democratic
members controlled a majority of the States, and could therefore choose
one of the Democratic candidates. In the event that the House failed to
elect, owing either to dissensions among the Democratic members, or the
abstention of enough members to break a quorum, which the Republican
members could bring about, as they had the numerical majority, then the
Senate had the election of Vice-President, who would act as President,
and that insured the choice of General Lane, because the majority of the
States were represented in the Senate by senators who supported
Breckinridge and Lane.[13]

The election of Lincoln in November overset all these hopes and
calculations, and the drama of the great rebellion, which was to humble
the arrogant fire-eaters of the South, free the land from the curse of
slavery, and vindicate the Union by the sword, the last argument of
kings and nations, was ushered in.

At the last session of this, the 36th Congress, the bill to pay the
Indian war debt was passed, notwithstanding the most strenuous and
bitter opposition, led by a member from New York, General Wool's State,
and inspired by him. The report of the third auditor, which greatly and
very unfairly cut down the award of the Ingalls commission, was made the
basis of the bill. Governor Stevens, in his speeches in Congress,
severely criticised and exposed the mistakes and unfair findings of the
auditor, without impugning his honesty. He was a well-meaning but narrow
man, who had allowed himself to be prejudiced against the volunteers.
Other advocates of the bill were less considerate towards him. On one
occasion he thanked the governor with great warmth and sincerity for
always treating him, and referring to him, as an honest man and
well-meaning public servant, much to the governor's surprise.

He also succeeded in having his Territory made a separate Indian
superintendency, and his friend W.W. Miller appointed superintendent. He
also increased the mail service on the Sound from weekly to semi-weekly,
and secured appropriations of $59,700 for the Indian service, $61,000
for general expenses, and had Lieutenant Mullan's report on building the
military road across the mountains printed. He offered five bills, six
resolutions, and four amendments, and spoke on the Northern Pacific
Railroad, in defense of the Coast Survey, Indian war debt, increased
mail service on Puget Sound, military post on Red River, etc.

During his congressional tour the governor was particularly
indefatigable and successful in establishing new post-roads, and
increasing mail facilities in all parts of the Territory. Years
afterwards General Miller declared that the government had done nothing
since his death but to cut down the mail service, and abolish the
post-offices and routes he had caused to be established.

The military road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla, which the
governor caused to be opened, and in charge of which he had placed
Lieutenant Mullan, known as the Mullan road popularly, was for a number
of years the highway across the Bitter Root and Rocky Mountains,
traversed by thousands of trains, and the great artery for communication
with and supply of thousands of settlers and miners in Montana, until
superseded by the railroads.

The payment of the Indian war debt was a great triumph for Governor
Stevens, and completed the vindication of his course, as the
confirmation of his treaties vindicated his Indian policy.

During the last seven years, what severe and unremitting labors he had
undergone, what great results he had achieved, and what tremendous
obstacles and opposition he had overcome! He had made the exploration of
the Northern route the most complete and exhaustive of all; had
demonstrated its superiority, not simply as a transcontinental line, but
as a world route for the world's commerce, and had made himself the
authority and exponent of that route. By his Indian service he had
treated with over thirty thousand Indians, extinguished the Indian title
to a hundred and fifty million acres, established peace among hereditary
enemies over an area larger than New England and the Middle States, and
instituted over thousands of savages a beneficent policy of instruction
and civilization. By calling out volunteers and waging an aggressive war
against the savage foe, when all was gloom and terror, and the settlers
were not only forsaken but vilified by the military authority, whose
duty it was to protect them, he saved the settlements of his Territory
from extinction, and the progress of the Northwest from being set back
for years. And his firm and patriotic stand against British aggression
saved the San Juan group to the United States.

Entering Congress vilified by high and low, with the censure of his
territorial legislature and the disapproval of the President recorded
against him, he had so ably demonstrated the wisdom and rightfulness of
his course that he secured the ratification of his Indian treaties, the
payment of the Indian war debt, the reversal of the reactionary policy
of Wool, the opening of the interior to settlement, and the punishment
of Indian murderers.

During his brief career up to this time he disbursed over three quarters
of a million dollars for the government, as follows:[14]--

  As an officer of engineers, the larger part on Fort Knox   $278,108.29
  As Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs            386,642.66
  In the Northern route exploration                           114,103.56
                                                             -----------
                                                             $778,854.51

Events followed fast that winter in the great national drama. The
ultra-secessionists in the cotton States had it all their own way; and
the Democratic leaders throughout the South, regardless of their
Northern allies, who had stood by them so bravely and against such odds,
were only too ready to follow in the same treasonable path, some
accepting Seward's doctrine of an irrepressible conflict between slavery
and freedom, and believing that separation and an independent government
were the only means by which slavery could be maintained; while others,
furious at the loss of political power, like Lucifer, would rather reign
in hell than serve in heaven,--would ruin where they could no longer
rule.

Great efforts were made by the moderate men, especially of the border
States, to heal the breach; the Republican leaders, frightened at the
storm, displayed a conciliatory spirit; and it seemed for a time that
the differences might be compromised, the fears of the South allayed,
and the Union peacefully preserved. Governor Stevens clung to this hope
to the last. He thought that if a constitutional convention could be
held, the breach could be healed; that the strong Union sentiment in
most of the Southern States would cause them to adhere to the Union; and
that the few seceding States, isolated and helpless, would soon be glad
to resume their places. It is altogether probable that this view was
correct, but one essential condition of such a plan was that no overt
act of hostility should be committed. The secessionists, by violently
seizing the national forts and property, and beginning hostilities,
rendered peaceful adjustment hopeless.

Governor Stevens was firm and decided in his opinion that it was the
duty of the President to protect the national property and forts and
enforce the laws. The following sentences culled from his correspondence
show his views and feelings at this trying and momentous crisis:--

  December 10. Should Carolina attack the forts, or seize the revenue,
  there must be collision. The government must protect its property
  and execute its laws.

  Let all men agree to a convention of all the States. When the
  delegates meet, I am sure it will be found easier to unite than to
  separate. If Union seems to be accompanied by occasional discord,
  separation will threaten perpetual war. If in Union there is not
  always harmony, in separation there will never be peace.

  December 17. That the President will protect the public property and
  execute the laws, no one can doubt. That he has troops in readiness
  to embark at a moment's warning to succor the forts in the event of
  their attack by South Carolina cannot be doubted. I do not believe
  that the authorities of South Carolina will make any attack of the
  kind, or resist the collecting of the revenue, at least until ample
  notice has been given. When the case arises will be the time for the
  President to act. That he will act decisively I do not doubt. But
  the great problem to be solved is to vindicate the laws without
  collision. The only hope of reconciliation is in avoiding collision.
  Never were wanted more the qualities of forbearance and moderation
  in connection with those of decision and of action.

  January 3. The blow of the secessionists in seizing the arsenal and
  forts at Charleston has been followed up by the seizure of the
  arsenal at Augusta, and of the forts on the Savannah River. There is
  no doubt that the secessionists here sent word South some time ago
  to seize all the forts on the Gulf, and most if not all are probably
  now in their hands.

  The mad, headlong, and unjustifiable course of the Southern States
  is tending to unite the North as one man. The firm course which the
  President is taking will rally around him all true, Union-loving,
  conservative men.

When secession raised its treasonable head among his political
associates, Governor Stevens denounced it, and broke with them at once
and forever. He took an active part in urging President Buchanan to
withdraw his confidence from the Southern members of his cabinet, and
take a positive stand in defense of the government and country. He
called on Mr. Buchanan repeatedly, and strongly urged this course. His
recent position as chairman of the National Democratic Executive
Committee added strength to the personal influence he already had, and
aided much in bringing the President to the firmer attitude which
distinguished the last days of his administration. The governor
respected Mr. Buchanan, while he pitied his lack of firmness and moral
courage. He said that for a time Mr. Buchanan presented a pitiable
spectacle of indecision and lack of firmness and courage. He even feared
personal violence, and had been threatened with it by some of the
Southerners.

During the winter Washington was filled with alarming rumors that the
secessionists were plotting to seize the capital, to assassinate the
President-elect, to prevent his inauguration, and there was considerable
foundation for them. To guard against such dangers, Governor Stevens
aided in the organization of a regiment of District of Columbia militia,
and was one of the chief advisers and supporters of Colonel C.P. Stone,
who raised and commanded it, assisting him in procuring arms and
equipments. Colonel Stone was the General Stone who was so unjustly
persecuted for the disaster at Ball's Bluff. The governor personally
urged Mr. Buchanan to sustain Major Anderson in his bold move of
occupying Fort Sumter, to give his entire confidence to General Scott,
and approved and defended his bringing regular troops to Washington. In
these matters Governor Stevens was intimately associated and acted with
Holt, Stanton, Dix, and other Democrats, most of whom had been
supporting Breckinridge and Lane, and who rescued Mr. Buchanan from the
hands of his secessionist cabinet, and inspired him to assert the
national authority.

FOOTNOTES:

  [13] Alexander H. Stephens, _The War Between the States_, vol. ii.
       p. 276.

  [14] The accounts for this vast sum were all found correct, and were
       all passed by the accounting officers of the treasury, except
       some of the expenditures on the exploration, and it is
       instructive to note these items as an example of how great
       injustice the rigid rules, or notions of accounting officials,
       ofttimes inflict upon the most scrupulous and careful officers.
       Governor Stevens was charged with a balance of $8856.14, the
       largest item in which ($2626) consisted of the payment to ten
       regular officers on the exploration of one dollar per diem
       each, while engaged in topographical duty, according to an
       established regulation. Other items were for payments for
       subsistence and transportation; for compensation paid civil
       employees; for interest on the protested drafts, which were
       necessary to continue the survey, and for which Congress made
       appropriation; for articles and animals necessarily lost or
       worn out in so widespread and extended a service; and even for
       recompense paid certain of the party who had to abandon their
       clothing and effects in the mountains in a snowstorm. No
       compensation was ever allowed Governor Stevens for his services
       in conducting the exploration and preparing his final report.
       Although the disallowed items were referred to Captain A.A.
       Humphreys (General Humphreys) for examination, and he reported
       in favor of Governor Stevens, and recommended the allowance of
       nearly every item, no action was taken before the latter fell
       at the battle of Chantilly, the following year. Since then
       application has been made to Congress, resulting in one bill
       passing the House and another the Senate at different times,
       but neither passed both branches. And General Stevens, after
       serving his country so faithfully, and accomplishing so much in
       her behalf, is accounted a _debtor_ to the government.



                             CHAPTER XLVII

                    THE OFFER OF SWORD AND SERVICES


Immediately after the inauguration of President Lincoln, Governor
Stevens hastened to return to the Territory. General Miller wrote:--

  "I believe that the National Democracy can easily keep possession of
  the Territory. As to your own prospects, they seem as good to me as
  ever they were. Now that you have won a national fame, you will
  always be looked upon as the leading man of the Northwest. Should
  you be thrown out of the delegateship at the next election, in two
  years you would be the strongest man on the coast. But you cannot be
  beaten even at the next election."

General Lane, however, had just been defeated in Oregon by a coalition
of the Republicans and Douglas Democrats, and Colonel J.W. Nesmith was
chosen his successor.

Breaking up the Twelfth Street establishment, and leaving Mrs. Stevens
and the three girls in Newport and his son at Harvard, Governor Stevens
sailed from New York on the steamer Northern Light, March 12, by the
Isthmus route, and arrived in Olympia the last of April. There he
denounced secession, took strong ground in favor of supporting the
government, and recommended organizing and arming the territorial
militia. Accordingly a company was raised in Olympia, known as the Puget
Sound Rifles; he was elected captain, accepted the command without
hesitation, and was duly commissioned and sworn in. This was before the
news of the attack on Fort Sumter and the grand uprising of the nation
had reached the Pacific slope, and the minds of many were still in
doubt.

The Democratic convention was held at Vancouver in May. Untiring efforts
had been made by the faction opposed to Governor Stevens to defeat his
renomination, and the showy and oratorical Garfielde headed the
opposition. The governor's friends felt too secure in his well-earned
and undiminished popularity, and the prestige of his successful career
in Congress, just crowned by the payment of the war debt, and neglected
the active work and support the occasion called for. Notwithstanding
this, a clear majority of the delegates were elected as Stevens men; but
when the convention met, the opposition were found well organized,
active, and bitter; they won over a number of delegates, several of them
by bribery, as was publicly charged, and rendered the governor's
nomination doubtful, and only to be made at the cost of a protracted
contest. Indignant at such unworthy treatment at the hands of the party
he had served so faithfully and well, and disdaining such a contest at
such a time, for the news of the firing on Sumter had just been
received, and he had resolved to tender his service to the country,
Governor Stevens at once withdrew his name as a candidate before the
convention. Garfielde was then nominated, and the governor accepted the
situation in the following manly and magnanimous speech:--

  MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION, AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF
  THE TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON,--I congratulate you on the harmonious
  termination of your labors. Notwithstanding great differences of
  judgment as to the admission of delegates and the fairness of the
  organization of this convention, you have at length, with almost
  entire unanimity, agreed upon a platform and a candidate. By your
  action I shall abide. The choice of this convention is my choice,
  and shall receive my cordial and unwavering support. For one, I
  shall not look mournfully into the past. This, the hour of agony of
  our country's life, is no time for recrimination and the indulgence
  of selfish feeling. It appeals to whatever is noble and patriotic in
  behalf of that country's cause. Our beloved Union is in most
  imminent peril. The sad spectacle of civil and fratricidal strife is
  being exhibited to the world, and doubt has arisen as to the
  capacity of man for self-government. No longer devotion to our whole
  country, no longer an enlarged view of the liberties and progress of
  mankind, shapes the policies of parties and prevails in the councils
  of the government, but the strife of jarring sections and an insane
  grasp after ascendency has precipitated upon the country a cruel,
  internecine war. It is the duty of the Democracy to unite for the
  sake of the union of these States. The sundered Democracy of the
  States has already come together. Let not our hitherto united
  Democracy now separate.

  I most heartily indorse the platform of the convention that
  secession is revolution. There is no such thing, indeed, as
  peaceable secession. From the beginning of this controversy, not
  only have I deprecated, but I have denounced secession. I have
  deemed it the worst possible remedy for the redress of the
  grievances of the South. I have considered it an aggravation
  ten-thousand-fold of all their wrongs. I feel that, as the
  representative of the most northwest Territory, I have been true and
  unfaltering to my constituency and my country. For during the entire
  winter past I have used every exertion of my nature in behalf of the
  union of these States and against secession.

  Gentlemen, it is our duty as patriots, and as true lovers of
  liberty, to stand by our government and our country in this its
  great emergency. The aggressions of the South upon the property and
  the forces of the general government must be sternly repelled. The
  government must be maintained as well against domestic as foreign
  foes. Let these States become the prey of revolutionary schemes, let
  the doctrine be admitted that one of the parties can alter or break
  up the compact without the consent of the others, and anarchy will
  reign throughout the land and all hopes of regulated liberty will
  come to an end. We must, I repeat, stand steadfastly by the
  constituted authorities in their efforts to sustain the government.

  Fellow citizens and fellow Democrats, I am profoundly grateful for
  the confidence which, during eight long years of labor, you have
  placed in me. I am especially grateful for the marks of confidence
  which I have received in this hour of uncertainty and doubt. My own
  views and opinions are known to you. I have nothing to explain, to
  retract, or to apologize for. I have sought faithfully, under all
  circumstances, to do my duty. I feel that at my hands the honor of
  the Territory has been sustained, and I can look every man in the
  face, knowing, as I do, that I have done no man intentional
  injustice.

But many of his friends were so indignant at the rascally methods
employed to compass his defeat that they refused to support Garfielde,
and he was badly defeated in the election.

The day the convention adjourned, Governor Stevens tendered his services
to the government in the following letter:--

                                 PORTLAND, OREGON, May 22, 1861.

  HON. SIMON CAMERON, _Secretary of War_.

  _Sir_,--I have the honor to offer my services in the great contest
  now taking place for the maintenance of the Union in whatever
  military position the government may see fit to employ them.

  For my services in the war with Mexico I will respectfully refer you
  to General Scott, on whose staff I served as an officer of engineers
  during that war.

  For my services in the subsequent Indian wars of the country, I will
  refer you to the Hon. J.W. Nesmith, one of the senators from Oregon.

  I need not add that, throughout this unhappy secession controversy,
  I have been an unwavering and steadfast Union man.

        I am, sir, very respectfully,

                            Your obedient servant,
                                  ISAAC I. STEVENS.

  [Illustration: _Facsimile of Letter offering Services_]

The same day, from Vancouver the governor wrote Senator Nesmith,
requesting him to see the Secretary and--

  "let him know that the offer is made from the earnest purpose and
  desire to do my duty in this great emergency of our country's
  history.... I am afraid there is to be a protracted contest. I want
  to see the rebellion crushed out. The policy of conciliation, to
  which I adhered as long as it presented the least hope, has not only
  been exhausted, but it has been contemptuously rejected by the
  South. The war ought to be prosecuted with the utmost vigor. Let us
  see if we have a government. Nothing can be worse than anarchy."

The governor was anxious to reach Washington at the earliest possible
moment in order to renew in person his tender of services, but was
detained in Portland over the sailing of one steamer by a severe though
brief fit of sickness. At this time he was obliged to borrow $600 of
Judge Seth Catlin,--a warm personal and political friend,--for his
expenses in Washington had been heavy and he had nothing laid up. He was
always too much engrossed in public affairs to give due attention to his
private interests, but he was always careful to meet his bills and
expenses. He was able to take the next steamer down the coast, the
Cortez, and on board of her he wrote General Totten as follows:--

                                        STEAMER CORTEZ, June 19, 1861.

  MY DEAR GENERAL,--I am on my way to the States to offer my services
  in a military capacity to the government, and for the war.[15] I
  feel and know that I can do good service. Educated at the public
  expense, my country has a right to my services. This secession
  movement must be put down with an iron hand. Anarchy and
  interminable civil wars will be the inevitable, logical consequence
  of yielding to it.

  I do not propose a permanent return to the service, but simply
  service for the war. Whilst I shall accept any military position the
  government may tender me, I take it for granted proper regard will
  be had to my somewhat large military experience since I left the
  army, and my position before the public.

  I want, therefore, the confidence of those in authority. You can
  render good offices in the matter. I want the confidence of General
  Scott. I have ever been his discriminating friend. Last winter I
  sustained his entire course. I personally urged the President to
  give his entire confidence to General Scott. I approved and defended
  the bringing of regular troops to the city, the organizing, arming,
  and promptly officering the District militia, of which, except the
  late President and Secretary of War, the inspector-general, Colonel
  Stone, is more cognizant than any one else. I had frequent
  conferences with him about the District militia, and was able to be
  of some service to him in consequence of my relations with Mr.
  Buchanan and Mr. Holt.

  It has been most fortunate that, notwithstanding my intimate
  relations with most of the secession leaders, in consequence of the
  part I took in the presidential campaign, I never wavered for a
  moment in resolutely fighting secession. I was actively at work the
  moment it arose. I gave it no quarter. My position was well known in
  Congress.

General Totten forwarded this letter with the following indorsement:--

  "With a high order of talent, his great characteristics of
  promptness, boldness, and energy cannot fail to mark prominently any
  career that may be opened to him as a soldier, and I trust the
  government will at once avail itself of his high qualifications by
  assigning him a position that will give full play to powers so well
  suited to the present wants of the country."

Governor Stevens also wrote Professor Bache, Colonel Stone, and others
to present his merits to the new administration; for, confident in his
own powers, he was most anxious to secure such a position as would
enable him to render his best service to his country.

He reached New York early in July, and went straight to Washington, not
even stopping to visit his family in Newport. His reception there was
cold and discouraging. The very active part he had taken in the recent
presidential campaign, and his intimate association during it with men
who were now foremost in striving to destroy the country, prejudiced
many against him, and Douglas Democrats even more than Republicans.
Senator Nesmith rather turned the cold shoulder, alleging that he felt
bound to reserve all his influence for the benefit of men from his own
State. Governor Stevens called upon the new President, and made a good
and lasting impression upon him, but no response was made to his tender;
and while the whole country was aroused, and troops were flocking to
Washington, and the great needs of the hour were military ability and
experience, it seemed as though the services of one of her best
qualified and most patriotic sons would be rejected, and he be denied
the opportunity of serving his country in her extremity. He offered his
services to General McDowell as aide, or in any capacity, for the
movement which culminated in the defeat of Bull Run, but they were
declined. The only bright spot in this time of disappointment and
mortification was his meeting General Scott, and regaining the esteem
and confidence of his old chief.

Meantime his friends and patriotic men of all parties, who were anxious
that his services should not be lost to the country, were sending on
recommendations in his behalf. Governor Sprague and the legislature of
Rhode Island, Governor Andrew, Senator Wilson, Representatives Rice,
Train, and others, of Massachusetts, Senator John P. Hale, of New
Hampshire, Nesmith, of Oregon, Rice, of Minnesota, and many other
members of Congress urged his appointment as brigadier-general. The
"Springfield Republican" strongly set forth his qualifications, and
urged the government to employ his services. As, contrary to
expectations, it was not made, Governor Andrew offered him the colonelcy
of a Massachusetts regiment, and Governor Sprague that of a Rhode Island
regiment, both explaining that they would have made the offer before,
had they not supposed he would be given the position of general. But
just before these offers were received, the Secretary of War tendered
him the colonelcy of the 79th Highlanders, a New York regiment, which
had been badly cut up at Bull Run, and he had accepted it. A few days
later a paragraph appeared in the papers to the effect that he had
declined this position, and immediately Governor Andrew telegraphed,
"Can you now accept regiment temporarily while we try for brigade?" and
Governor Sprague telegraphed, "I hear you decline position in 79th. Will
you accept my offer?" But having tendered his services to the government
without qualification, Governor Stevens felt in duty bound to accept any
position to which he might be assigned, and therefore was obliged to
decline both offers.

Before entering upon the new duty he made a hasty visit of two days to
his family in Newport, where he addressed a Union meeting with General
Burnside.

At this time he was still reduced in health and strength from the
overwork of the last year, and mortified and depressed in spirit, almost
the only occasion his buoyant and self-reliant character was thus
affected. To a personal friend he exclaimed, "I will show those men in
Washington that I am worthy of something better than a regiment, or I
will lay my bones on the battlefield."

FOOTNOTES:

  [15] Governor Alexander S. Abernethy writes the following anecdote
       of Governor Stevens. Meeting him just before starting East, the
       governor said that he had told the Southern gentlemen, with
       whom he had been associated in the Democratic Executive
       Committee and in the convention, that, if a war should result
       from the action they had taken, he would be found supporting
       the government against them. "And," said he, "I am going to
       Washington at once, and shall offer the President my sword and
       my services as long as this war shall last."




                             CHAPTER XLVIII

             THE 79TH HIGHLANDERS.--THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC


For many years the Highland Guard was a crack New York city militia
battalion, composed of Scots, or men of Scottish lineage. They wore the
kilt as their uniform, and, for fatigue or undress, a blue jacket with
red facings, and trousers of Cameronian tartan. At the breaking out of
the rebellion, the battalion was raised to a full regiment by the
addition of two companies and filling up the ranks, and on May 13, 1861,
entered the United States service for three years as the 79th
Highlanders, New York volunteers.

Few regiments even in those patriotic days contained a finer, braver, or
more intelligent body of men. Nearly every walk of life was represented
among them except common laborers; but business men, clerks, and
mechanics, with some sailors and even a few veteran British soldiers,
filled the ranks. One company contained so many bookkeepers and clerks
that it was known as the clerks' company. If a skilled man was wanted at
headquarters for any purpose, from clerk to mule-driver, from manning a
light battery to rowing a boat, the Highlanders were always called upon
to furnish the detail, and their successive commanders had all they
could do to prevent the regiment from being depleted by such calls.

At the battle of Bull Run the Highlanders were terribly cut up, losing
one hundred and ninety-eight killed, wounded, and missing, including
eleven officers. The colonel, James Cameron, brother to the Secretary of
War, was killed gallantly leading his regiment, which was considerably
scattered after the battle. It was collected together in a few days, and
moved to a camp on Meridian Hill, at the head of Tenth Street, north of
Washington, named Camp Ewen. The officers and non-commissioned officers
now petitioned the secretary to order the regiment home to recruit and
recuperate. The secretary, visiting the camps, repeatedly expressed
great regard for the regiment, and promised to do anything in his power
for it. When the petition reached him, he indorsed it as follows:--

  The Secretary of War believes that in consideration of the gallant
  services of the 79th regiment, New York volunteers, and of their
  losses in battle, they are entitled to the special consideration of
  their country; and he also orders that the regiment be sent to some
  one of the forts in the bay of New York to fill up the regiment by
  recruits, as soon as Colonel Stevens returns to the command.

                                   SIMON CAMERON,
                                          _Secretary of War_.

The men were informed of the secretary's order, and notified to prepare
for the homeward trip, to which they looked forward with eager
anticipations and longing. But the military authorities remonstrated so
strenuously against the order, on the ground of the bad effect on other
troops of allowing one regiment to go home, that the secretary allowed
it to be set aside, yet no notice of the revocation was given the
Highlanders. As day by day went by without the much-desired homeward
orders, they became more and more dissatisfied; the officers, as much in
the dark as the men, could not satisfy their doubts and misgivings, and
the spirit of insubordination grew daily.

On August 7 Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel M. Elliott was directed from
Headquarters First Division, New York State Militia, to convene the
commissioned officers, after five days' notice, for the purpose of
electing a colonel, and accordingly notified them to meet on the 13th at
four P.M. for such purpose. Apparently the state authorities ignored the
action of the War Department in appointing a new colonel, and it does
not appear that the appointment of Colonel Stevens was announced to the
regiment, except by his own order assuming command.

On August 10 Colonel Stevens arrived at the camp, and at dress parade
that evening the following order was read:--

  The undersigned, in pursuance of orders from the War Department,
  hereby assumes command of the 79th regiment, New York State Militia.
  He will devote himself earnestly to the regiment, and trusts that
  its high reputation, gained by honorable service in the face of the
  enemy, will not suffer at his hands. He doubts not that zeal,
  fidelity, and soldierly bearing will continue to characterize every
  member of the regiment.

                                     ISAAC I. STEVENS,
                                                       _Colonel_.

The new colonel spent the next day in simply observing the officers and
men and inspecting the camp, taking no active steps. On the following
day, however, he summoned the major and several other officers to his
tent, and demanded and exacted their resignations. On the 13th, the
third day of his command, he issued an order at dress parade that the
regiment should move camp on the morrow.

This brought matters to a climax. The men plainly saw that they were not
to go to New York, and felt that they had been trifled with and
deceived. They gathered in knots like angry bees to discuss their
wrongs. Many of them went into the city that night and returned late,
more or less intoxicated. Whiskey was smuggled into the camp, and some
of the forced-to-resign officers had a hand in this, and by the
eventful morning of the 14th the regiment was ripe for mutiny.

When, after an early breakfast, the order was given to strike tents, all
flatly refused except two companies,--I and K,--which remained faithful
and obedient during the trouble. These were the new companies recently
organized, and probably were less infected with militia notions than the
others. Colonel Stevens visited the refractory companies in turn, but
the men, deaf to orders and expostulations, stubbornly refused
obedience, and told how they had been deceived and disappointed.
Lieutenant-Colonel Elliott attempted to explain his action, but without
satisfying the colonel, who gave him half an hour in which to resign, on
penalty of court-martial. Elliott resigned.

Colonel Stevens continued going freely and fearlessly among the men,
remonstrating with them and urging them not to bring disgrace upon the
regiment, but in vain. When the officers attempted to strike the tents
themselves, they were forcibly prevented, and several of them roughly
handled. Colonel Stevens, coming to a group where some officers had just
been thus repulsed, the armed and angry mutineers threatening to shoot
any one who touched a tent, at once exclaimed, "Then I will take it down
myself," and, disregarding threatening words and looks, laid hold of the
tent to strike it. At this the men, struck with admiration at his
intrepidity, exclaimed, "Dinna mind, colonel; we'll take it doon for ye
this ance."

At length, finding all efforts to restore obedience fruitless, Colonel
Stevens felt obliged to report the mutiny, and ask for troops to
suppress it. In response the camp was surrounded late in the afternoon
by an overpowering force of regular infantry, artillery, and cavalry,
which, in presence of the refractory regiment, ostentatiously loaded
muskets, drew sabres, and charged the guns with canister and trained
them on the camp. Colonel Stevens then addressed them, standing in the
midst of the camp:--

  "I know you have been deceived. You have been told you were to go to
  your homes, when no such orders had been given. But you are
  soldiers, and your duty is to obey. I am your colonel, and your
  obedience is due to me. I am a soldier of the regular army. I have
  spent many years on the frontier fighting the Indians. I have been
  surrounded by the red devils, fighting for my scalp. I have been a
  soldier in the war with Mexico, and bear honorable wounds received
  in battle, and have been in far greater danger than that surrounding
  me now. All the morning I have begged you to do your duty. Now I
  shall order you; and if you hesitate to obey instantly, my next
  order will be to those troops to fire upon you. Soldiers of the 79th
  Highlanders, fall in!"

His voice rang out like a trumpet. The men, thoroughly cowed, made haste
to fall into the ranks.

The regiment, guarded on both flanks by the regulars, was then marched
into Fourteenth Street, the colors were taken away by order of General
McClellan, and thirty-five men, reported by the officer of the guard as
active in the disturbance, were marched off to prison. The regiment
resumed its march for the Eastern Branch, crossed that stream, and
bivouacked for the night near the Maryland Insane Asylum,--a suggestive
coincidence, remarks the historian of the regiment. Soon after daylight
the next morning the new camp was reached, named Camp Causten, after a
resident of Washington, who had shown the Highlanders many kind
attentions after Bull Run, tents were pitched, and the routine of camp
life established.

Fourteen of the so-called ringleaders were soon afterwards released and
returned to the regiment, and the remainder were sent to the Dry
Tortugas on the Florida coast, where they were kept on fatigue duty
until the 16th of the following February, when they were also released,
and rejoined the regiment at Beaufort, S.C.

Colonel Stevens commanded his regiment with a firm and severe hand. He
enforced early roll-calls, hard drilling, and strict cleanliness in
person and camp. There were some men so demoralized, by homesickness or
otherwise, that they could not be induced to keep themselves decent, or
attend to their duties, and he made the guard take them daily to the
river, and strip and scrub them with soap and brooms. Under such drastic
treatment they speedily recovered their tone. He promptly and severely
punished every neglect of duty. He selected a number of bright,
efficient young sergeants, and promoted them to be officers of the
companies. He daily sent out detachments on scouting expeditions, or
marches of ten or twelve miles, and had sketches and measurements made
for a topographical map. By these means he varied the monotony of camp
life, and infused hope and spirit into the command. He obtained
furloughs for a limited number of men, those with families having the
preference, and thus assisted some forty to visit their homes for
fifteen days each. He was especially strict with the officers, taught
them to assert their authority, and broke up the time-honored habit, the
curse of militia organizations, of deferring to, and hobnobbing with,
the rank and file.

On the 26th the regiment broke camp, marched through Washington, the
band playing the dead march, by order of the colonel, in token of their
disgraced condition and loss of the colors, and went into camp on
Kalorama Hill, beyond Georgetown, a mile from the Chain Bridge. Colonel
Stevens named the new location Camp Hope, and in a brief address to the
regiment bade them hope, and declared that together they would win back
the colors and achieve a glorious career. With all his matter-of-fact
judgment, he had a pronounced vein of enthusiasm and poetic feeling, and
had a singular power of arousing them in others, and of appealing to the
higher motives. It was Napoleon who declared that in war the moral is to
the physical as three to one.

At this camp Colonel Stevens dispensed entirely with camp guards, which
in all the new regiments were deemed indispensable, and appealed to the
sense of honor and discipline of the Highlanders to refrain from
wandering from camp, and from annoying, or pilfering from, the country
people. The men responded nobly to this appeal, and took great pride in
scrupulously obeying these orders, and in the confidence reposed in
them. The inhabitants felt safe when they saw the uniform of the
Highlanders, and frequently spoke of the difference between them and
other troops. The Highlanders still wore the blue jacket with red
facings, but the regulation uniform as to the remainder. Later, when the
jackets were worn out, they were uniformed like other troops.

On the evening of the 6th of September a large force, including the
Highlanders, crossed Chain Bridge to the southern side of the Potomac,
and took up positions in front and extending to the left, connecting
with troops from Arlington. At midnight, as the regiment was drawn up in
line, Colonel Stevens addressed them as follows:--

  "'Soldiers of the 79th! You have been censured, and I have been
  censured with you. You are now going to fight the battles of your
  country without your colors. I pray God you may soon have an
  opportunity of meeting the enemy, that you may return victorious
  with your colors gloriously won.'

  "As cheering was prohibited," says the historian, "the men listened
  in silence, but with a determination to do all in our power to
  recover our lost honors."

It was an impressive scene,--the long line of silent soldiers dimly seen
in the gloom of night, as they gained new courage and determination from
the brief, brave, and soldierly words of their leader.

The troops in front of Chain Bridge constituted a division under General
W.F. Smith (Baldy Smith), of the Army of the Potomac, forming under
General George B. McClellan, and Colonel Stevens was placed in charge of
the First Brigade, consisting of the 2d and 3d Vermont, the 6th Maine,
and his own regiment, and was intrusted with building Fort Ethan Allen,
a strong and extensive earthwork on the left of the Leesburg turnpike,
and of felling the woods in the vicinity. The Maine men, all expert
woodsmen, armed with axes and deployed in a long line at the foot of a
wooded slope, worked upwards, chopping every tree nearly through, so
that it stood by only a narrow chip, until they reached the top of the
slope; then at the signal of the bugle the last few quick strokes of the
axe resounded against the top row of trees, which fell crashing on those
below, and they on the next lower, and so on, until the whole forest
crashed down together in thundering ruin.

The troops were kept hard at work, thus felling forests and digging
forts, and also in outpost duty, for a strong picket line to cover the
front, posted nearly a mile in advance, had to be maintained. Alarms
from this line were frequent, and on one occasion the enemy were
reported as advancing in heavy force, and the troops were hastily gotten
under arms. Every one expected to take post in the fort, but Colonel
Stevens led his brigade out nearly to the picket line, deployed them on
a commanding position on both sides of the road, and coolly awaited the
attack. This movement, so promptly but deliberately made, visibly raised
the confidence and _morale_ of the troops; and when, the alarm proving
unfounded, they marched back to camp, they felt able and eager to
encounter the enemy on equal ground.

On the 11th, under orders from General Smith, but with strictest
injunction not to bring on a general engagement under any circumstances,
Colonel Stevens, with two thousand troops, made a reconnoissance in
force of Lewinsville, a hamlet six miles in advance of Chain Bridge. His
force comprised the Highlanders; the 3d Vermont, under Colonel Breed N.
Hyde; two companies of the 2d Vermont, under Lieutenant-Colonel George
J. Stannard; four companies of the 1st Chasseurs or 65th New York, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Shaler; five companies of the 19th Indiana,
under Colonel Solomon Meredith; four guns of Griffin's battery, 5th
United States artillery, Captain Charles Griffin; a detachment of fifty
of the 5th regular cavalry, under Lieutenant William McLean; and one of
forty volunteer cavalry, under Captain Robinson.

With skirmishers in advance, and exploring the ground on both flanks to
the distance of a mile, the command advanced steadily to Lewinsville,
the enemy's cavalry pickets falling back without resistance, and
occupied the village at ten A.M. Cavalry pickets were thrown out on all
the roads; three guns and some five hundred skirmishers were posted well
out to command the approaches on all sides; and the position was held
for five hours, during which Lieutenant Orlando M. Poe, of the engineers
(afterwards General Poe), and Mr. West, of the Coast Survey, made a
topographical map and sketch of the place and vicinity. Colonel Stevens,
with Captain Griffin and Lieutenant Poe, thoroughly examined the whole
position of Lewinsville, of which he reported, "It has great natural
advantages, is easily defensible, and should be occupied without delay."
During this time small bodies of the enemy were seen observing the Union
force at a safe distance, and a cavalry picket, or reconnoitring party
of fifty men, was driven off by Lieutenant McLean.

The accompanying sketch shows the roads and dispositions of the force to
cover the reconnoissance. Colonel Meredith, with three companies of his
regiment and one gun, held the road leading north to the Leesburg pike.
The same road, running south of the village to Falls Church, was guarded
by one company of the same regiment with one gun. Colonel Hyde, with the
3d Vermont and one gun, held the road leading westward to Vienna, and
also the new road to Vienna, which fell into the Falls Church road half
a mile south of the hamlet. The remaining gun, with the two companies of
the 2d Vermont, was kept in reserve at the cross-roads; while the
Highlanders and Chasseurs were held in reserve a third of a mile back
from the village, and two companies of the former were thrown out as
skirmishers to cover the left flank and rear, and connected with the
Indiana skirmishers on the Falls Church road.

About three in the afternoon the skirmishers were called in, and the
column formed for the return march. Just as the bugle sounded "Forward!"
a section of artillery, which the enemy, stealing up under cover of the
woods as the Highlanders' skirmishers retired, had adroitly planted on
the left rear, opened a brisk fire of shells over the head of the column
as it marched back; and simultaneously a considerable force of their
skirmishers from the Vienna and Falls Church roads advanced on the
village and commenced firing on the withdrawing troops, but were
directly repulsed, and gave no further trouble. For a few minutes there
was some flurry in the column under the shell fire at a turn in the road
where it was most exposed. Some of the officers and men threw themselves
flat on the ground at every missile that burst or hurtled overhead, and
once twenty men ranged themselves in line behind a tree barely a foot
in diameter. But this confusion was over in a few minutes; the excitable
ones, under the jeers and laughter of their comrades, resumed their
places in the ranks, and the column was not broken or delayed.

  [Illustration: RECONNOISSANCE OF LEWINSVILLE, SEPTEMBER 11, 1862]

Colonel Stevens posted Griffin's battery in a good position on the
right, or north of the road, which opened a rapid and well-sustained
fire on the enemy's guns, and in half an hour silenced them. The column
continued its march meantime in admirable order, and Lieutenant McLean
brought up the rear unmolested. Colonel Stevens, having thus withdrawn
his column from the village and well past the annoying battery, selected
other positions for the guns, a section on each side of the road, and
disposed his troops to meet the enemy's attack, or to attack him if
opportunity offered. The troops were in fine spirits, and obeyed every
order with alacrity. But the enemy having ceased his artillery fire, and
making no demonstration, showing glimpses only of cavalry and infantry
at a distance, the return march was continued, and the troops reached
their camps without further incident.

The Union loss in this affair was two killed and thirteen wounded,
besides three captured, the latter having, in their eagerness to get a
shot at the enemy, ventured too far in front of the skirmish line of the
19th Indiana, to which they belonged.

The enemy's force consisted of the 13th Virginia, a section of Rosser's
battery of the Washington artillery, and a detachment of the 1st
Virginia cavalry, all under command of Colonel J.E.B. Stuart, of the
latter. Colonel Stuart made a most exaggerated and magniloquent report
of the action, and was actually promoted to brigadier-general for it.

The action was over, and the Union troops were calmly marching down the
road, when General Baldy Smith came galloping up it in hot haste,
followed by his staff and a section of Mott's battery, and manifesting
considerable anxiety, for the artillery firing had been brisk and noisy
while it lasted, and his orders from McClellan--the same he had
impressed on Colonel Stevens--charged him not to bring on a general
engagement. But perceiving the fine order and undaunted bearing of the
troops, and learning how well they had all behaved, and that the enemy
was keeping his distance, he resumed his wonted coolness, and heartily
congratulated Colonel Stevens and his command on the well-conducted and
successful reconnoissance. Half an hour later General McClellan, with a
large following of staff and escort, came tearing up the road to the
returning column, showing even greater excitement and anxiety. He, too,
calmed down on learning that the affair was all over, congratulated
General Smith, ostentatiously visited and commiserated the wounded, and
returned to Washington without noticing Colonel Stevens.

A few days later the colors were restored to the Highlanders by General
McClellan in person, in recognition of their soldierly conduct since
recrossing the Potomac, especially in the affair at Lewinsville.

Colonel Stevens took great pains in disciplining and training the
regiments under his command, one of which, the 6th Maine, was raised at
Bucksport and vicinity, and some of whose officers he knew when building
Fort Knox, and he looked forward with confidence and pride to forming
and commanding in them a fine body of soldiers. They, too, were
responding to and appreciating his efforts, and strong feelings of
mutual esteem and devotion were fast growing up between the commander
and command. Before moving from Camp Hope, President Lincoln had assured
him of his appointment as brigadier-general within a week, and he was
daily expecting it. He never doubted that the troops he was so
carefully instructing would form his brigade when he became a general,
nor did they. His surprise and chagrin, therefore, were great when the
Maine and Vermont regiments were summarily taken from him to make up a
brigade for General W.S. Hancock, who, a new brigadier, had just
reported to Smith, and three newer and greener regiments were sent to
replace them. They were the 33d and 49th New York and 47th Pennsylvania.
Colonel Stevens was deeply hurt and disappointed at this action. With
the unexplained delay in his promised appointment, and McClellan's
significant and averted demeanor, it seemed to indicate a fixed
intention on the part of the authorities to deny him promotion, and to
keep him down to his colonelcy indefinitely. But he uttered no word of
remonstrance or repining at this unworthy treatment, and took the new
regiments in hand with unabated care and vigor. He declared to his son,
in strict confidence, that, if his appointment as general was not soon
made, he would relinquish the command of a brigade and devote himself to
the Highlanders; that he would make them the best-disciplined and the
best-drilled regiment in the army, and would so infuse them with the
spirit of devotion to the country and the cause that, like Cromwell's
Ironsides, nothing could resist their onset. He dwelt much at this time
on Cromwell, and how he had formed and trained his invincible soldiers.

Before embracing the contemplated course, however, Colonel Stevens sent
his son to see the President and deliver a brief message to the effect
that, although several weeks had elapsed since the assurance was given
of his appointment as a general officer within a week, he had heard
nothing of it, and feared that the President, under the great weight of
care and responsibilities, might have forgotten it. The young man
accordingly rode into the city and presented himself at the White
House. His card was taken; the ante-rooms were crowded with anxious
applicants and callers, and among them he waited for hours, unable to
get access to the President, or secure any attention. At last he
accosted a colored messenger, who from time to time entered the
President's room with cards, and begged his assistance in obtaining an
interview, stating that he had a message of great importance from his
father, Colonel Isaac I. Stevens, who had sent him expressly to deliver
it to the President. The messenger would scarcely listen, indeed, had to
be almost forcibly detained, until the name struck his ear, when his
whole manner changed. "Do you mean Governor Stevens?" he exclaimed. "Is
Governor Stevens your father? I used to see him here often in Mr.
Buchanan's time, and I am glad to do anything in the world I can for
him. I'll take your name in the next time, and you shall see the
President, if I can fix it." He was as good as his word, and soon
ushered the youth into the inner office.

Mr. Lincoln received him in a kindly and fatherly manner that at once
placed him at ease, listened to the message, and said: "Tell your father
that I have not forgotten my promise, nor him; that I should have had
his appointment made before this, if it had not been for General
McClellan; that General McClellan said Colonel Stevens had better remain
in command of the Highlanders some time longer; that they were not yet
reduced to proper discipline, and it would be unsafe to take away their
colonel at present. But tell your father," he added, "that it shall be
no longer delayed." He then took a small blank card and wrote a line
upon it, directing that Colonel Stevens's appointment as
brigadier-general be made out, and handed it to his visitor, bidding him
take it over to the War Department and deliver it to the
adjutant-general. This was soon done, and the young man, plying the
spur, joyfully galloped back to camp with the gratifying news.

Any military man knows perfectly well that as brigadier-general he could
have as much oversight and control over a regiment in his brigade as
though he remained its colonel. In fact, General Stevens retained
personal and immediate command of the Highlanders, although he commanded
a brigade, and long after he became a general.

On the 25th General Smith advanced to Lewinsville with five thousand
troops on a foraging expedition. Colonel Stevens, with the Highlanders
and the 2d Vermont, led the advance, and the skirmishers of the former
captured an officer of Stuart's regiment with his horse. The enemy made
no resistance, and after loading ninety wagons with corn and grain, the
expedition returned.

                               CAMP ADVANCE, September 27, 1861.

  MY DEAR WIFE,--I appointed Hazard adjutant of the Highlanders
  yesterday. He has been with the regiment under fire three times,
  acting as my aide on two occasions, and the aide of Captain Ireland
  on the third. The appointment is very acceptable to the regiment.

  Hazard will make an excellent adjutant. It will be easy for him to
  learn the technical part. His general experience will make
  everything easy.

  I am looking somewhat for my brigadier's commission this week.

The young man joined the regiment immediately after it crossed the
Potomac, and had borne a musket in some of its skirmishes, and was
appointed adjutant on the advancement of the former adjutant, David
Ireland, to a captaincy in the regular army.

General Stevens's appointment as brigadier was made on the 28th, and on
the following day he was formally assigned to the command of the third
brigade of Smith's division, consisting of the four regiments already
under his charge, viz., the Highlanders, 33d and 49th New York, and
47th Pennsylvania. He retained the immediate command of the Highlanders
in addition to that of the brigade.

A few days afterwards Smith's division and other troops of the right
wing were advanced some four miles permanently, without encountering the
enemy. About noon, soon after the troops had come to a halt, General
McClellan, escorted as usual by a numerous staff, appeared on the scene,
and, after visiting different points, dismounted, and sat down to a
lunch which his attendants spread for him. He invited General Smith and
some other officers to partake of the repast, but ignored the presence
of General Stevens, who was quite near. The latter may have been unduly
sensitive, but he regarded the omission as an intentional slight, and
remarked that he actually pitied McClellan.

General Stevens named the new position occupied by his brigade, which
was not far from Falls Church, the Camp of the Big Chestnut, from a huge
sylvan monarch near by. A train of one hundred and forty-four wagons
came over from Washington to move the tents and baggage of the
command,--what a contrast to later campaign days, when four wagons only,
or even less, were allowed to a brigade!--but even this number proved
inadequate to bring everything at one trip. The new adjutant of the
Highlanders directed the wagon-master to send some wagons back for what
was left behind, but that functionary flatly refused, alleging that he
was under orders to make but one trip, and then return to the city. The
adjutant thereupon applied to the general for instructions in the
premises, but his reception was hotter than he bargained for. "Have you
a thousand men at your disposal, and suffer yourself to be set at
defiance by a wagon-master? If you are not man enough to make your
authority respected, you are not fit to be an officer. Go back to your
regiment and attend to your duty."

Smarting under this unexpected rebuke, the young officer again summoned
the wagon-master and reiterated the order, and, on his second refusal to
obey it, had him lashed fast to a neighboring tree. Four of his
wagoners, equally contumacious, shared the same fate; and a sergeant and
four soldiers of the ever ready and capable Highlanders were soon
driving the teams back to the old camp, and in a few hours safely
returned with the left-behind goods. The bound wagon-master and
teamsters were then set free and ordered to mount their wagons and drive
off instantly, an order which they obeyed with alacrity, and returned to
Washington doubtless madder if not wiser men. Although at times a severe
and exacting man, General Stevens always encouraged his subordinates to
self-reliance, to do things, "to take the responsibility," in Jackson's
phrase, and was sure to back them up if they acted in this spirit.

Drilling, picketing, and tree-felling fully employed the troops, at Camp
of the Big Chestnut. By McClellan's orders the woods, which covered a
good part of the country, were slashed, the roads blocked, and the whole
front obstructed by felled trees. The troops were ordered to get under
arms and stand in line for half an hour before daylight every morning in
anticipation of an attack which never came. This was an especially
disagreeable and unhealthy task, for the Potomac fog shrouded the
country at that hour, the autumnal mornings were damp and chilly, and
the men would stand coughing all along the line. Many a poor fellow owed
his death or disablement to this useless exposure. Strict orders were
issued to avoid any movement which might lead to a collision with the
enemy, and especially to shun everything which might bring on a general
engagement. The orders frequently repeated these cautions, and seemed to
be filled with a nervous apprehension of fighting. General Stevens
thought this passive-defensive attitude all wrong. He took great pains
to inculcate and develop a bold and enterprising spirit in his own
brigade, especially charging his pickets to hold their ground in case of
attack, and was delighted when a detachment of the 49th New York stood
firm, and handsomely repulsed a dash of the enemy.

At breakfast on October 16 General Stevens unexpectedly received orders
to turn over the command of his brigade to the senior colonel, and
report in person to General Thomas W. Sherman at Annapolis, Md., by
daylight the next morning. By eleven o'clock A.M. he had written
farewell orders to the brigade and to the Highlanders, devolved the
command upon Colonel Taylor, of the 33d New York, had all his belongings
packed up, and mounted his horse to ride to Washington.

To avoid anything like a scene, the general was about to ride away
without visiting the regiment and bidding them farewell, but Captain
David Morrison, the senior officer, came and begged him to say good-by
in person, saying that the regiment was formed and was most anxious to
see him. He rode in front of the line, and in a few feeling words
expressed his regards and hopes for them and bade them farewell. As he
wheeled and rode off, a spontaneous and universal cry of "Tak' us wi'
ye! Tak' us wi' ye!" burst from end to end of the line, and tears stood
in many a manly eye.

Stopping only two hours in Washington, during which he called at the War
Department and secured the appointment of his son as captain and
assistant adjutant-general of United States volunteers, and to make
necessary purchases, he took the cars in the afternoon for Annapolis.

As they rolled along through the pleasant rural scenery of Maryland,
General Stevens threw off all traces of care and became as cheerful and
light-hearted as a boy. He fell to talking about the recent experiences
in the Army of the Potomac in a most interesting and instructive way,
exposing and condemning the mistakes and evil effects of McClellan's
passive-defensive management, and pointing out what he deemed to be the
right course. Instead of obstructing the entire front with blocked roads
and tracts of slashed woods, which would impede the enemy's attack
indeed, but would also confine the Union troops to the strict defensive,
making it impossible to manoeuvre them offensively outside the works,
the front should have been kept clear and unobstructed, and the ground
carefully studied and understood by subordinate commanders, with the
view of throwing a heavy force upon the enemy's flank, or any weak point
he might offer, in case he attacked. Instead of restraining the natural
enterprise and ardor of the troops, prohibiting and deprecating all
hostile contact with the enemy, as if they were no match for the rebels,
thus keeping them under the cowing of Bull Run, and aggravating the awe
of the enemy's prowess inspired by that defeat, they should have been
continually brought face to face with the foe, scouts and
reconnoissances kept afoot and boldly pushed, and parties of picked men
under picked officers sent to fall upon the enemy's pickets and exposed
detachments at every favorable opportunity. Such a course, he declared,
would most speedily give the troops confidence and restore their
_morale_, would foster and develop their natural enterprise and bravery,
and would most effectively and quickly make them reliable soldiers. He
had none of that distrust of volunteers often felt by regular officers,
and which undoubtedly influenced McClellan, for he knew how quickly such
splendid material as the brave young volunteers then flocking to the
country's defense would become soldiers, if well officered and under a
bold and skillful commander. He discussed, also, McClellan's character
without the least trace of animosity, admitting his ability and
patriotism, but lamenting his fatal lack of boldness and decision,
which, he said, rendered his failure inevitable, and finally he
exclaimed, with great feeling and conviction, "I am glad to leave
McClellan's army. I am rejoiced to get out of that army. I tell you that
army under McClellan is doomed to disaster."

They reached Annapolis that evening, and were most cordially received by
General Sherman, and by Colonel Daniel Leasure, of the 100th
Pennsylvania, known as the "Roundheads," which was to form part of
General Stevens's new brigade. His first act on reaching Annapolis was
to apply by telegraph to the Secretary of War, in conjunction with
General Sherman, for the Highlanders. He also personally telegraphed the
President to that effect. Colonel Leasure, too, telegraphed the
Secretary that his regiment was largely composed of the descendants of
Scotch Covenanters and Cromwell's soldiers, and were anxious to be
joined by the Highlanders. Both the President and secretary were
desirous of granting the request, but it was first referred to General
McClellan, and properly, as the regiment was in his army. He strenuously
objected to it, protesting that he could not possibly spare one of his
best veteran regiments. But Mr. Lincoln again overruled the "Young
Napoleon," and ordered the Highlanders to Annapolis to rejoin their
beloved commander.

  [Illustration: Hazard Stevens,
                 Capt. & Asst. Adj. Gen'l.]




                              CHAPTER XLIX

                       THE PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION


The force which General Sherman was fitting out at Annapolis was
destined, in conjunction with the navy, to secure a harbor on the
Southern coast to serve as a base for the blockading fleets. General
Sherman was a veteran regular officer of artillery, who had greatly
distinguished himself at the battle of Buena Vista, a thorough soldier,
a strict disciplinarian, devoted to his profession, and moreover a man
of ability, sound judgment, and true patriotism, but perhaps somewhat
deficient in enterprise. He personally applied for General Stevens, for
whom he entertained great esteem, as one of his brigade commanders. His
force numbered some twelve thousand, all new, raw volunteers, except two
regular batteries and the Highlanders, who, having fought at Bull Run,
were looked up to as veterans by the other troops, and was divided into
three brigades, commanded by Brigadier-Generals Egbert L. Viele the
first, Isaac I. Stevens the second, and Horatio G. Wright the third.

General Stevens's brigade consisted of the Highlanders, the 100th
Pennsylvania or Roundheads, Colonel Daniel Leasure; the 50th
Pennsylvania, Colonel B. C. Christ; and the 8th Michigan, Colonel
William M. Fenton. They were all brave, patriotic, and intelligent men,
the best types of American volunteers, and destined to render great and
glorious service to the very end of the war, participating in many
battles and engagements, and preserving their colors without a stain.
The Michiganders, as they were familiarly called, were largely of New
England stock, many of them farmers' boys, and had all the grit,
intelligence, and enterprise of their lineage. The 50th Pennsylvania
were Pennsylvania Dutch, descendants of the Germans who settled the
central part of the State before the Revolution, and were slower, more
heavily moulded than the others, but always steadfast and reliable. The
Roundheads came from the western, more mountainous part of the Keystone
State, and were of the vigorous Scotch-Irish stock, with many tall,
rawboned men.

The regiments were quartered in the Naval Academy buildings and grounds.
On Colonel Leasure's recommendation, General Stevens took a large brick
building as headquarters, but soon after moving into it an ambulance was
driven up to the front door, and a soldier in an advanced stage of the
smallpox, his face perfectly black and festering, was taken out of the
vehicle on a stretcher and borne into the house, which, it seems, had
been selected as a smallpox hospital. Needless to say that headquarters
fled before this visitation. General Stevens, indignant at Leasure's
carelessness in the matter, summarily ordered him out of his own
spacious quarters and took them for himself, greatly to the colonel's
disgust, who was heard to exclaim that there were too many Roundheads
about for him to submit to such an indignity; but the incident had a
good effect in showing that the new commander would stand no trifling.

The Highlanders arrived on the 18th, and the next day the troops were
taken off in small bay steamboats to the large ocean steamships anchored
two miles out, and embarked upon them. The largest of these vessels, and
second only to the Great Eastern, was the Vanderbilt, a noble side-wheel
ship of three thousand tonnage, which had recently been given the
government by Cornelius Vanderbilt, the old commodore, and was named
after him. His favorite captain, Le Favre, a skillful navigator and
accomplished gentleman, commanded her. On this fine steamer were crowded
General Stevens and staff, the Highlanders, the 8th Michigan, and a
hundred quartermaster's employees, all together over two thousand men. A
large number of surf-boats and quantities of tents and baggage were
piled in confusion on her decks, leaving scarce standing-room for the
troops. The Roundheads and one battalion of the 50th embarked on the
Ocean Queen, while Colonel Christ with the remainder of his regiment
were loaded on the Winfield Scott.

Captain and Assistant Quartermaster William Lilly here joined the
command as brigade quartermaster. He had met General Stevens during the
presidential campaign and won his confidence, of which he proved
unworthy, and owed his appointment to the general's recommendation.
General Stevens was also joined by Colonel William H. Nobles, who had
seen much service on the frontier, and whom he appointed
lieutenant-colonel of the Highlanders, but he was unequal to the
position and soon afterwards resigned. The general appointed as his
first aide-de-camp Lieutenant William T. Lusk, of the Highlanders, an
educated and high-toned gentleman, who had abandoned his studies in
Germany to fight for his country, and who proved a brave and excellent
officer, and has since achieved distinction in his profession as a
physician. The remaining members of the staff were Dr. George S. Kemble,
brigade surgeon; Captain L.A. Warfield, brigade commissary; and
Lieutenants Henry S. Taft and William S. Cogswell, signal officers.

The transports sailed on the 20th and reached Fortress Monroe the next
day. Here were awaiting them a fleet of thirty warships, under Commodore
Samuel F. Dupont, and a large number of sailing vessels laden with
munitions and stores. The expedition lay here at anchor for a week,
completing the necessary preparations. Commodore Dupont held many
conferences on his flagship, the Wabash, with General Sherman and the
brigade commanders, at which the objective point was decided upon. The
weather was fine, the sea smooth, and the blue road-stead, covered with
the great fleet, comprising every variety of vessel,--the great, grim,
black warships, with their frowning batteries; the transports, swarming
with blue-clad soldiers; the deep-laden sailing ships, with their tall
spars,--presented an impressive and animated scene, enlivened by the
numerous launches and cutters darting from ship to ship with officers
bearing dispatches or exchanging calls. One of the swiftest and nattiest
of these small craft was the captain's gig of the Vanderbilt, manned by
a crew of fine oarsmen from the Highlanders, which attracted much
attention from the army and navy alike, was the envy of other
headquarters, and was kept busy conveying General Stevens and staff over
the waters blue.

It was a fine, bracing autumn afternoon, October 29, when the great
fleet sailed out of the Chesapeake in two parallel columns a mile apart.
The giant warship Wabash led the right column, followed in single file
by the war vessels, thirty in number, a black and formidable array. The
left column was composed of the transport steamers, crowded with troops,
each towing one of the sailing-vessels, and also contained some thirty
ships. The Vanderbilt towed the Great Republic, a four-masted,
full-rigged ship of four thousand tons, the largest sailing-ship then
afloat. Besides a vast cargo of stores, she carried on her main and
upper decks a great number of artillery horses. Thus the mighty armada
steadily ploughed its way out to sea, with flags waving and bands
playing, a glorious and awe-inspiring sight; while the troops,
exhilarated by the novel and stirring scene and the excitement of
sailing to an unknown destination, their hearts swelling with the hope
and determination of soon dealing the rebel lion a mighty and perhaps
fatal blow, cheered and cheered again until they could cheer no more.

The third day a furious storm struck the combined fleet and scattered it
far and wide. At midnight, in the height of the tempest, the great
hawsers by which the Vanderbilt was towing her consort threatened to
tear off her quarters under the terrific strain of the mountain billows,
and had to be cut asunder with axes, and the Great Republic was
abandoned to her fate in the raging storm, furious sea, and black night.
When day broke no other sail was visible amid the driving and tossing
billows. Later in the day General Stevens opened the sealed orders with
which every ship was provided, to be opened in case of separation from
the fleet, in presence of Captains Le Favre, Stevens, and Lilly, and
announced that the destination and point of rendezvous was off Port
Royal, one of the finest harbors on the Southern coast, situated midway
between Charleston and Savannah. The Vanderbilt, the swiftest of the
fleet, arrived off the entrance on November 3, among the first. The
other ships came straggling in, and by the 6th were nearly all assembled
and anchored just outside the bar, save four, the Governor and Peerless,
that foundered in the storm, and the Osceola and Union, that were driven
ashore. The loss of life, however, was small under the circumstances,
being seven drowned and ninety-three captured. The 50th Pennsylvania, on
the Winfield Scott, came near going to the bottom, and were only saved
by incessant pumping and bailing, and throwing overboard the entire
cargo.

Port Royal was defended by earthworks on each side of the entrance, Fort
Walker on Hilton Head, the south side, and Fort Beauregard on Bay Point,
on the north. These were strong and well-constructed forts, with heavy
parapets, traverses, and bomb-proofs, mounted forty-one guns of large
calibre, and were garrisoned and defended by three thousand troops,
under General Thomas F. Drayton, whose brother, Captain Percival
Drayton, commanded the gunboat Pocahontas in Dupont's fleet. The enemy
had also three small gunboats in the bay, under Commodore Tatnall,
formerly an officer of the United States navy.

After reconnoissance by his gunboats, Commodore Dupont decided to attack
the forts with his fleet, and arranged with General Sherman that the
troops were to land in small boats on the open beach during the naval
bombardment and carry the works by assault, in case the navy failed to
shell the enemy out. Accordingly, on the morning of November 7 the
surf-boats, of which there were a large number, and all the boats
belonging to the vessels, were launched, and brought up alongside or
astern of the transports, and the troops of Stevens's and Wright's
brigades were provided with ammunition and one day's cooked rations, and
held in readiness to land and attack. While they awaited this movement
in high-wrought expectation, the following order was written by General
Stevens and read to them, and had a marked effect to increase their
determination and ardor:--

         HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, EXPEDITIONARY CORPS,
               S.S. VANDERBILT, November 7, 1861.

  GENERAL ORDERS No. 5.

  The brigadier-general commanding the second brigade trustfully
  appeals to each man of his command this day to strike a signal blow
  for his country. She has been stabbed by traitorous hands, and by
  her most favored sons. Show by your acts that the hero age has not
  passed away, and that patriotism still lives. Better to fall nobly
  in the forlorn hope in vindication of home and nationality than to
  live witnesses of the triumph of a sacrilegious cause. The Lord God
  of battles will direct us; to Him let us humbly appeal this day to
  vouchsafe to us his crowning mercy; and may those of us who survive,
  when the evening sun goes down, ascribe to Him, and not to
  ourselves, the glorious victory.

  By order of BRIGADIER-GENERAL STEVENS.

                                       HAZARD STEVENS,
                                   _Capt. and Ass't Adj't-Gen_.

At nine o'clock on the bright, clear morning, with a smooth sea, the
great war fleet crossed the bar, and deliberately advanced to attack the
forts in a long column of single ships, while the transports lay at
anchor just outside with their decks, masts, and shrouds covered with
the troops, eagerly watching the scene. Commodore Dupont in the Wabash
led the long string of warships slowly up the middle of the bay,
receiving and replying to the fire of both forts until two miles beyond
them, then turned to the left in a wide circle and led back past Fort
Walker, at a thousand yards distance, opening upon it broadside after
broadside. At the same time a flanking column of five gunboats steamed
up the bay nearer to Bay Point and poured its broadsides into Fort
Beauregard, and, steering towards the other side, advanced against
Tatnall's fleet, driving it into Skull Creek, which cuts off Hilton Head
on the inside, and then, taking position near the shore and flanking the
fort, opened upon it a destructive fire. Meantime the main column, led
by the Wabash, was majestically and slowly passing the work, each
succeeding vessel opening its batteries upon it in turn as it came
within range, and maintaining a rapid fire as it drew past. The naval
gun fire was terrific, rising at times to a continuous roar; dense
clouds of smoke belched forth and hung about the ships, while the white
puff-balls showed where the great 11 and 9-inch shells were bursting
over and about the work. The enemy replied with a brisk and
well-maintained fire, and many of his missiles could be traced by the
great columns of water dashed up as they ricochetted across the bay
beyond the vessels. After passing down the bay as far as the depth of
water permitted, Dupont turned and again led the fleet in front of Fort
Walker, at much closer range than before, pouring upon the devoted work
a still more terrific fire. As the admiral repeated this manoeuvre for
the third time, one of the light-draught gunboats, pushing closely in at
six P.M., discovered that the enemy had fled, and sent a boat with a
small party ashore, who pulled down the rebel flag and hoisted over it
the glorious stars and stripes. What cheers then burst forth from ship
to ship of the crowded transports, what joy and relief from suspense
were felt by the officers who had so anxiously watched the bombardment
for hours, momentarily looking for orders to land and assault the works,
which were so stubbornly resisting the navy, can never be realized by
those not actors in the scene.

The flight of the enemy was panic. They left their flags flying, their
tents standing, and all their supplies. Tatnall's mosquito fleet
hastened up Skull Creek, and, with the aid of some large flatboats,
ferried the fugitives across that stream. The fact that the enemy's
retreat might have been cut off and his entire force captured, by
sending gunboats up the inner channels separating Hilton Head and Bay
Point from adjacent islands, lent wings to his flight. The opportunity
was not improved. Fort Beauregard was abandoned in equal haste, although
not subjected to nearly so severe a battering as Fort Walker. The navy
lost only thirty-one killed and wounded; that of the enemy was
sixty-six.

The morning after the bombardment the Highlanders went ashore on Bay
Point, and occupied Fort Beauregard and the deserted camp, and the rest
of the troops were landed on Hilton Head. The beach shoals very
gradually, and the men and impedimenta had to be loaded from the ocean
steamers into small boats, which took them in until they grounded, a
hundred yards or more from the beach, when the troops had to jump
overboard and wade ashore. All the camp equipage and supplies had to be
taken ashore in the arms of men detailed for the purpose, so that the
landing was a very laborious and tedious process.

The enemy's camp bore witness to his panic flight; clothing, bedding,
half-cooked provisions, even a rebel flag over one tent and a sword
inside, and in another an excellent repast, with jelly, cake, and wine,
were found abandoned. General Drayton's headquarters, in a large
building near Fort Walker, was abandoned in such haste that the horses
in the stable were left behind, and General Drayton's own charger, a
fine, handsome bay horse of medium size, but compactly built and of
great spirit and endurance, was captured here and became the favorite
horse of General Stevens. Back of the fort was a large field in sweet
potatoes, and it presented a singular appearance after the soldiers
landed and discovered it, covered with thousands of men, all digging the
tubers for dear life. General Sherman facetiously remarked that General
Drayton planted that potato-field on purpose to demoralize his army.

Immediately after landing, General Sherman held a conference with his
general officers as to undertaking an offensive movement. The enemy was
evidently demoralized, and either Charleston or Savannah might fall
before a sudden dash, and offered a tempting prize. But the general
opinion was that a movement upon either involved too great risks, and
that the first duty was to fortify and render absolutely secure the
point already gained. General Stevens alone dissented from this view. He
strenuously urged an aggressive movement inland to the mainland, then,
turning to right or left, against one of the cities. In answer to
objections, he declared that the overpowering naval force rendered
Hilton Head already secure, and it could be fortified at leisure. The
navy, too, could support an advance, and cover a withdrawal in case of
need. The country was full of flatboats used by the planters for the
transportation of cotton. Hundreds of these could be collected among the
islands by the negroes, and would furnish means of transporting the
troops up, or ferrying them across the inland waters, which, instead of
an obstacle, could thus be made an aid to the movement. But the cautious
counsel prevailed, and General Sherman reaped the reward of his lack of
enterprise by being superseded a few months later, after rendering
faithful service. Certainly he lost a great opportunity. With such
subordinates as Generals Stevens and Wright, and the navy to assist, he
might have taken Savannah, and could not have been badly damaged, even
if repulsed. General Stevens had visited Savannah as an engineer officer
shortly after the Mexican war, and his habit of acquiring information
about every subject that interested him entitled his views to more
attention. But, after all, the general, like the poet, is born, not
made, and Sherman may have been wisely governed by his own limitations.
As will be seen hereafter, this idea of a movement inland, and making
use of flatboats, took a deep hold of General Stevens's mind.

He placed his brigade in camp a mile back from the beach, and was given
charge of an extensive line of works, laid out by Captain Q.A. Gilmore,
the chief engineer officer. He pushed this work with his accustomed
vigor, detailing daily the greater part of his force as working parties.
He had a full quota of officers turn out with the men, the details
verified every morning, and kept some of his staff always on the work.
The troops, seeing that no shirking was tolerated, gave diligent labor,
and within a month the line, over a mile in length, was completed. The
Highlanders, however, continued to occupy Bay Point, and made many
scouting expeditions on neighboring islands. Considerable sickness broke
out among the troops on Hilton Head,--smallpox, measles, and
typhoid,--and there were many deaths, so that the practice of playing
the dead march at funerals was forbidden, notwithstanding which the
troops were generally in fine condition and spirits. General Stevens
himself had a severe attack of bilious fever, from which he but slowly
recovered. The following letters give a pleasant sketch of life at
Hilton Head:--

                              HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, E.C.,
                                  HILTON HEAD, November 28, 1861.

  MY DEAREST WIFE,--We are getting on in the most quiet manner
  possible. As I wrote you a day or two since, my brigade is almost
  exclusively occupied in throwing up intrenchments. It has been hard
  at work the last ten days, working even the last Sunday. I have
  to-day nearly thirteen hundred men in the trenches. We are living at
  my headquarters quite comfortably. For instance, to-day is
  considered a sort of Thanksgiving Day, being the day set apart for
  Thanksgiving in some of the States. I have for dinner, at half past
  five o'clock, roast turkey, boiled turkey, and a fine boiled ham.
  This ought to be pretty satisfactory. In our stores we have two
  dozen fine turkeys, growing in better condition every day. These
  turkeys we buy from the negroes. We have plenty of beef and mutton
  and sweet potatoes, also oysters and fish.

                              HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, E.C.,
                                  HILTON HEAD, December 5, 1861.

  MY DEAR WIFE,--We are enjoying fine weather, and the health of the
  troops is daily improving. My brigade is still at work on the
  intrenchments. They have done an immense amount of work, much to the
  satisfaction of General Sherman. Hazard takes great interest in
  everything. We are living quite comfortably; have an old house with
  a fireplace, which answers for my office and Hazard's office and our
  quarters. Hazard has three and sometimes four clerks, two
  messengers, and, when needed, an officer to assist him. Our mess
  consists of the brigade quartermaster, Captain Lilly; the brigade
  surgeon, Dr. Kemble; my aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Lusk; Hazard, and
  myself. We have a most excellent cook, brought from New York, and a
  good dining-room servant picked up here. We have our breakfast at
  seven o'clock, lunch at twelve, and dinner between half past five
  and six. How long we shall remain here, I cannot form an
  idea,--probably some months. We are most wanting in books. I must
  also get some more military books, and now regret I left so many
  behind me. Hazard is in the trenches to-day. I keep a large force
  out, and all my staff that can be spared.

  [Illustration: PORT ROYAL AND SEA ISLANDS OF SOUTH CAROLINA]




                               CHAPTER L

                 BEAUFORT.--ACTION OF PORT ROYAL FERRY


Scarcely were the works at Hilton Head completed when General Stevens
was ordered, early in December, to occupy Beaufort, as an advanced post
threatening the mainland, and affording protection to the negroes on the
islands. This was a town of five thousand souls, delightfully situated
on Port Royal Island on the banks of Beaufort River, some fifteen miles
above Hilton Head. It was a place of fine mansions and houses, almost
wholly exempt from the poorer class, the seat of wealth and refinement,
and often styled the Newport of the South. It was the headquarters of
the Sea Islands, upon which alone was grown the fine, long stapled Sea
Island cotton, worth a dollar a pound during the war. With unbounded
confidence in the strength of the forts at the harbor entrance, and in
the prowess of their defenders, the most chivalric blood of Carolina,
the people of Beaufort listened to the thunder of Dupont's guns on the
eventful 7th of November, and from the steeples and roofs watched the
moving masts and clouds of smoke of his fleet as he attacked the works;
and when the appalling news reached them of his victory, the whole white
population fled in terror, only one white person, and he a native of New
England, remaining in the town. From all the islands the flight of the
planters was equally hasty and complete. Negroes, live-stock, large
quantities of cotton, household goods and furniture, and even wearing
apparel, were all abandoned in the panic exodus. Since the bombardment,
raiding parties of the enemy were venturing over with increasing
boldness, burning the cotton and terrorizing the negroes. These numbered
at least ten thousand, thus abandoned by their masters, and were
scattered over the extensive archipelago, but chiefly upon Port Royal,
Ladies', and St. Helena islands.

The more intelligent house servants having gone with their owners,
nearly all the negroes left on the islands were in the densest
ignorance, some of them the blackest human beings ever seen, and others
the most bestial in appearance, and there were even some native
Africans, brought over by slavers in recent years. They were not put to
hard labor, judging by Northern standards, and were set so light a daily
task in the cotton-field that they would usually finish it in the
forenoon, and have the rest of the day to themselves. The only food
furnished them was a peck of shelled Indian corn a week apiece, which
the black women had to grind into meal upon rude stones turned by hand;
but this ration was eked out by fish and oysters, with which the waters
abounded, by the poultry which they were allowed to keep, and also by
the vegetables from their little garden patches. At Christmas they were
given a liberal dole of fresh beef for a grand feast. The turkeys, of
which great numbers were kept on every plantation, were deemed a kind of
royal fowl, reserved for the whites like the cattle, and tabooed to the
blacks, who were not allowed to raise them as they did the common
barnyard fowl. But upon the flight of their masters the negroes were
prompt enough to take them for their own, and used to sell them to the
troops at generous prices.

These ignorant and benighted creatures flocked into Beaufort on the
hegira of the whites, and held high carnival in the deserted mansions,
smashing doors, mirrors, and furniture, and appropriating all that took
their fancy. After this loot, a common sight was a black wench dressed
in silks, or white lace curtains, or a stalwart black field-hand
resplendent in a complete suit of gaudy carpeting just torn from the
floor. After this sack, they remained at home upon the plantations, and
reveled in unwonted idleness and luxury, feasting upon the corn, cattle,
and turkeys of their fugitive masters.

Embarking his brigade and a section of Battery E, 3d United States
artillery, under Lieutenant Dunbar R. Ransom, on steamers at Hilton
Head, General Stevens on the Ocean Queen, with the 50th Pennsylvania,
reached Beaufort at seven in the evening of December 11, landed, and
threw out a strong picket on the main road across the island, known as
the shell-road. The negroes stated that a party of rebel cavalry had
visited the town that afternoon, and threatened to return at night and
lay it in ashes. At midnight they came riding down the shell-road; but
being fired upon by the picket, the whole party, with the exception of
the "colonel" and his son, took to their heels, and never drew rein
until they reached the mainland, ten miles distant, according to the
report of the doughty commander.

The next morning the remainder of the troops landed, and General Stevens
advanced across the island on the shell-road to Port Royal Ferry on the
Coosaw River, with two regiments and Ransom's guns. The rebel cavalry,
falling back without resistance, crossed the ferry, taking to the
farther side the ferry-boat and ropes and all other boats. The Coosaw is
a large and deep tidal river, separating the island from the mainland.
It is bordered by wide, impassable marshes, across which at the ferry
long causeways extended on each side from the firm land to the main
river. A small, square ferry-house stood at the end of each causeway,
and the one on the farther side had been strengthened and converted into
a blockhouse, and from it the enemy fired on the Union advance. But the
first shell from the 3-inch rifled gun went crashing through the
extempore blockhouse, and sent its brave defenders scampering up the
long causeway. Two adventurous soldiers then swam the river and brought
back a boat, in which a party crossed over, demolished the blockhouse,
and returned with the ferry scow and paraphernalia.

A strong picket-line was posted along the river, a good force left in
support at a cross-roads some miles back on the shell-road, and the
general with the remainder of the party returned to Beaufort.

General Stevens at once cleared the blacks out of town, and established
a camp in the suburbs for the temporary reception of refugees and
vagrant negroes. He placed the troops under canvas in the outskirts, and
prohibited their entering the town without a permit, and strictly
forbade all plundering, or even entering the empty houses. Guards were
posted over a fine public library, the pride of the town, which,
however, had been thrown about in utter disorder; patrols were kept
scouring the streets, and the strictest order and discipline were
enforced.

In order to protect the negroes and keep the enemy within his own lines,
General Stevens strongly picketed the western or exposed side of Port
Royal and Ladies' islands, guarding all the landing-places, and watching
the Coosaw and Broad rivers for twenty-five miles. Knowing the
difficulty of maintaining so long and exposed a line of outposts against
an enterprising enemy, he threw him on the defensive by the boldness of
his advanced line, and by a succession of well-planned and daring raids
upon his pickets on the opposite shore. Thus Lieutenant Benjamin F.
Porter, of the 8th Michigan, on the night of December 17 captured a
picket of six men on Chisholm's Island, and on several occasions small
parties were thrown across the Coosaw in boats, the enemy's pickets
were driven off, and the buildings from which they fired upon the Union
pickets were destroyed. So successfully was this policy carried out that
the enemy made but one counter attack during the six months that General
Stevens occupied the islands, viz., an attempt on the picket on Barnwell
Island, February 11, 1862, and that was repulsed without loss on our
side.

The first and, as it turned out, only serious operation undertaken by
General Sherman was the siege of Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the
Savannah River. A large force of troops, under General Viele, and heavy
guns and mortars were dispatched to this quarter, and Captain Q. A.
Gilmore, the chief engineer officer, was given charge of the siege
works.

General Wright was sent down the coast with a considerable force, and in
March occupied Fernandina and Jacksonville, Fla., which had been
abandoned by the enemy.

By the end of December the enemy erected a strong field-work on the
mainland, opposite and commanding Port Royal Ferry, and repulsed the
efforts of the gunboats to dislodge him. The naval authorities
pronounced it impracticable to reduce the work, or to keep the river
open with the light wooden gunboats which alone could operate in those
waters. Negro refugees reported a large force of the enemy at Garden's
Corners, only four miles from the ferry. They were endeavoring to
obstruct the channel by driving piles in it. Opposite Seabrook, at a
point a mile and a half above the ferry, they were throwing up a
formidable-looking battery. Their increased activity and boldness, as
well as their success in closing the river to the navy, indicated
aggressive action; for with the river closed they could throw a force
upon Port Royal Island without fear of its being cut off, could raid the
plantation and negroes, and could compel the Union commander to
maintain a large force on the island, or run the risk of losing a small
one.

Impressed with the importance of dislodging the enemy and keeping the
river open, General Stevens laid before General Sherman a plan to that
end, which the latter promptly approved. It was simply to throw a
sufficient force across the river several miles below the ferry, advance
up the left bank, beat any force that might be found covering the work,
and take it in the rear. Three light-draught gunboats were to coöperate
in the movement. At the same time, two gunboats entering the Coosaw from
Broad River through Whale Branch and small bodies of troops from
Seabrook Landing and opposite the ferry were to threaten the enemy on
the upper side, and distract his attention from the real attack. It was
decided to reinforce General Stevens with two regiments from Hilton Head
for the movement,--the 47th and 48th New York.

Nearly every plantation on these islands was supplied with large
flatboats, used chiefly for the transportation of cotton. Ever since his
occupation General Stevens had been quietly collecting these scows at
Beaufort, with a view to using them in future operations. During the
night of December 30 over one hundred of these flats, with a crew of
negro oarsmen and a guard of two soldiers in each boat, were sent up
Beaufort River, Brickyard Creek, and an inlet or creek which branches
from the Coosaw near the northeast corner of the island and extends
inland southwesterly several miles. There was an excellent landing-place
two and a half miles up this creek, and only eight miles from Beaufort,
with good roads between. At this landing, screened from sight of the
enemy by well-wooded banks, the fleet of flatboats lay during the day.
Every precaution was taken to prevent any negro from leaving the party
and giving information of the movement.

  [Illustration: ACTION AT PORT ROYAL FERRY, JANUARY 1, 1862]

Commodore Dupont furnished the desired gunboats, placing them under the
command of Captain C.P.R. Rodgers. About noon on the 31st that officer
reached Beaufort with the Ottawa and Pembina, followed by the Hale, and
the details of the joint movement, and particularly the signals to
enable the troops and ships to act in concert, were arranged between him
and General Stevens. About dark the 47th and 48th New York, under
Lieutenant-Colonel James L. Fraser and Colonel James H. Perry
respectively, arrived on the transport steamer Boston.

Two companies of the Roundheads were left to guard the town and depot of
Beaufort. Another company of that regiment took post three miles out at
the cross-roads. Two companies of the Highlanders and two of the
Roundheads, under Captain William St. George Elliott of the former, were
posted at Seabrook, with orders, when the gunboats came through Whale
Branch and opened on the enemy's battery, to cross over and take it if
practicable. Colonel Leasure, with the remainder of his Roundheads and
one company of the Highlanders, was stationed at the ferry to observe
the enemy, make a demonstration against him, and cross over if
circumstances permitted. Flatboats were collected at both points in
readiness for the crossing. Lieutenant Ransom, with his guns, was also
posted near the ferry. Four companies of the 50th Pennsylvania were left
in Beaufort with orders to embark on flats at midnight and proceed
upstream to the mouth of the creek already mentioned.

After dark the remainder of the brigade, viz., the 8th Michigan and six
companies of the 50th Pennsylvania from Beaufort, and seven companies of
the Highlanders from Seabrook and other advanced posts, from which they
had been relieved by the Roundheads during the day, marched to the
well-hidden landing-place on the creek, where the flats lay awaiting
them. At one A.M. New Year's morning the embarkation commenced. The
landing-place was narrow, and only two or three flats at a time could be
loaded, which made the embarkation slow, tedious, and confused. Each
boat was ordered to push off into the stream as soon as loaded, and
proceed far enough down it to give plenty of room for others. But the
creek became almost blocked with flats crowded with men, laden to the
gunwale, and apparently floating about without aim or order. The night
was dark, a pale mist rose on the water, the sickly beams of a half moon
struggled through the gloom, the fires and lanterns flared at the
landing, the smothered orders, oaths and calls of officers from flat to
flat, striving to avoid becoming separated from their regiments, made a
babel of voices, and all added to and heightened the appearance of
hopeless confusion. The scene to the painter or poet was weird and
picturesque in the extreme, but to a soldier most exasperating.

When half the troops were afloat, and the embarkation of the remainder,
proceeding steadily though slowly, was assured, General Stevens entered
his barge and, rowing rapidly downstream, placed himself at the head of
the flotilla. Each boat as passed was ordered to follow. Their progress,
deeply laden as they were, was necessarily slow, but as they took up the
movement, the dense and confused mass very soon lengthened out into an
orderly column, and the perplexities and misgivings of many an officer
gave place to the alacrity and confidence which aggressive action ever
inspires. The first faint pencilings of dawn were streaking the eastern
sky as the flotilla slowly drew out of the mouth of the creek and
entered the river. The fog lay low upon the water, and completely
shrouded the farther shore. Here joined Captain Rodgers with four
launches, each armed with a 12-pounder boat howitzer, and the four
companies of the 50th Pennsylvania, which embarked at Beaufort. Then
hove in sight the gunboat Ottawa.

Noiselessly the stalwart blacks strained at the muffled oars, the long
ashen blades steadily rose and dipped; the blue-coated masses sat in
silence, muskets in hand, straining their eyes ahead; while the
flotilla, like a huge black cloud, slowly crept over the face of the
broad sound, here a mile and a half wide. After an age of cramped
waiting and suspense, the dim, spectral trees lining the low shore
opposite comes in sight; the launches and swiftest boats now shoot
rapidly ahead, the rowers straining every nerve, and the soldiers
anxiously scanning the hostile shore; a score of gray forms are
discerned among the trees; a straggling volley spatters harmlessly over
the water, and the next instant the boats drive upon the bank, and the
landing is effected. General Stevens's barge outstripped the other
boats, and he leaped ashore the first man, closely followed by Captain
John More and ten picked men of the Highlanders, and the enemy's pickets
took to their heels.

It was now found that the 8th Michigan, through some strange mistake,
had remained near the mouth of the creek, notwithstanding the explicit
orders, repeated, too, by General Stevens in person when passing down
the creek. Orders were immediately dispatched to Colonel Fenton to
proceed across and up the river and land at the Adams House, some three
miles above, where there was an excellent landing-place. Colonel Perry
had received orders the night before to follow the gunboats, and debark
his two regiments at the same point as soon as it was in the possession
of the landing party. Thither were also sent the empty flats.

Skirmishers and scouts were thrown out while the troops were landing,
and several negroes were picked up who proved useful as guides. With
the Highlanders in the advance, preceded by two companies deployed as
skirmishers, and followed by two boat howitzers under Lieutenant Irwin,
of the navy, and the 50th Pennsylvania bringing up the rear, the little
column pushed rapidly on, taking a course parallel to the river, and
traversing woods and swampy and difficult ground, without any road for
most of the way, and at eleven A.M., after a hot and fatiguing march,
reached a position abreast of the Adams house. Small parties of the
enemy, who fired a few shots, were observed at several points on the
march, but a few shells from the howitzers and the Highlanders'
skirmishers easily brushed them aside.

The column now rested for two and a half hours while the remainder of
the troops were debarking, for the landing-place was contracted, and the
regiments on the Boston had to be put ashore in small boats. At 1.30
P.M. General Stevens formed his order of march, and moved forward for
the fort, marching parallel to the river. The Highlanders, with two
companies skirmishing in advance, led the way; the two naval howitzers
followed; Colonel Christ's 50th Pennsylvania and Colonel Fenton's
Michiganders formed the support, and the 47th and 48th New York the
reserve. The column advanced in echelon, the Highlanders nearest the
river, and each succeeding regiment battalion distance in rear of and to
the right of the one preceding it. This formation was equally well
adapted to meet an attack in front or on the right flank. The river
protected the left.

A broad belt of cotton-fields stretched along the river to and beyond
the ferry, some three miles distant. Back of the open fields a body of
woods presented an irregular front, from a mile to half a mile distant
from the river. Over these fields the skirmishers advanced steadily,
followed by the entire command in the order by echelon described, each
regiment moving in line, or occasionally by the flank, or by column of
companies, according to the ground, with the regularity of parade. The
signal officer, Lieutenant Henry S. Tafft, kept with the skirmishers,
signaling constantly with his colleague, Lieutenant Cogswell, on the
Ottawa, thus directing her fire, and establishing perfect concert of
action afloat and ashore. The shells from the gunboat tore the wood just
in front of the skirmishers as they advanced. As the troops advanced in
this order the scene from the gunboats was most inspiriting,--the wide
strip of open country, the dark, frowning forest beyond it, the broad,
silver-hued river with the black gunboats, and line after line of
dark-blue infantry, tipped with steel, moving onward over the fields
with the steady, rapid, irresistible flow of billows rolling across the
sea.

The column had advanced a mile in this order when a puff of smoke and
the roar of a gun burst from the edge of the woods, followed by others
in rapid succession, and a battery, well screened in the timber, opened
a rapid fire of shells over and among the leading regiments. But,
without pause, General Stevens continued his movement, regardless of the
noisy shelling, until the third regiment, the Michiganders, was fully
abreast with the battery. Then halting, he brought his three leading
regiments into line, facing the woods, wheeling them to the right, and
advancing the Highlanders and 50th on a line with the Michiganders, and
threw out four companies of the latter upon the battery to develop the
enemy's force. He left the reserve regiments as they stood when halted,
being already considerably to the right and in advance of the newly
formed line.

The Michigan skirmishers had scarcely disappeared within the bushes
which masked the battery, when a rolling volley of musketry rattled
among the trees, and out they came, falling back. At the same time a
large regiment of the enemy appeared from behind a point of the woods
which partially screened its advance, bearing directly down upon the
50th Pennsylvania. Colonel Christ was directed to meet and not to await
the attack. At the command his regiment deliberately fixed bayonets and
moved forward, presenting a long and imposing line. The charging rebel
regiment first ceased its shouts and yells, then fired a scattering and
ineffective volley, and broke and fled to the cover of the woods so
precipitantly that the 50th had scarcely time to fire a round after
them. General Stevens now threw one wing of the 50th upon the flank of
the enemy's position, and Colonel Perry's regiment upon the other flank.
But the hostile battery ceased its fire, and the troops, on reaching its
position, found the enemy gone, with every sign of a precipitate
retreat.

Meantime the Highlanders' skirmishers, never halting, had reached the
fort, and entered it simultaneously with the force under Colonel Leasure
which crossed at the ferry. A single gun, a 12-pounder, was found in the
work; the others had been removed by the enemy. The troops were
recalled, the wounded cared for, and the march was resumed to the ferry
without further opposition. Colonel Leasure and Captain Elliott were
found at the fort, and reported the complete success of the movements
intrusted to them. Two gunboats--the Seneca, Captain Daniel Ammen, and
Ellen, Captain Budd--entered Whale Branch as prearranged, and opened
fire on the battery opposite Seabrook. Captain Elliott immediately
crossed over with his party, found the battery ready for guns, but none
there, and, after destroying the work, returned to Seabrook. Thence
hastening to the ferry, he joined Colonel Leasure, and crossed at that
point just as the skirmishers from the main column appeared.

The troops bivouacked that night at the ferry, with pickets well out,
and two naval howitzers, under Lieutenant J.H. Upshur, in position
commanding the main road, while at short intervals the gunboats fired
big 11-inch shells as far into rebeldom as heavy charges could throw
them. It was afterwards reported by the refugee negroes that one of
these "rotten shot," as they termed the bursting shells, fell at
Garden's Corners, four miles away.

During the night the ferry was completely restored. The captured gun and
wagons, with the wounded, crossed early in the morning. The captured
work was leveled, and at nine A.M. the troops commenced crossing, using
both the ferryboat and flats. By noon the entire force of three thousand
men was over. The enemy remained quiet back in the woods. The troops
marched into Beaufort that afternoon in fine spirits, and with
confidence in themselves heightened by the brush with the enemy and the
success of the expedition. Both officers and men had shown themselves
steady, prompt, and ready to march, manoeuvre, and fight, and it was
not their fault if the enemy would not give them a harder tussle.
Excepting the Highlanders, all were green troops, never having even seen
an enemy before, except as distant witnesses of the naval bombardment of
Hilton Head. The 47th and 48th New York embarked on their transport at
Beaufort, and returned to Hilton Head the next morning.

The enemy's forces in the action, as reported by him, comprised the 14th
and four companies of the 12th South Carolina, a section of Leake's
Virginia battery, and a detachment of cavalry, forty-two in number, who
are commended as participating with their double-barreled shotguns and
navy revolvers. Colonel James Jones, of the 14th, commanded. Besides
these troops General Pemberton hurried forward from Pocotaligo a large
part of a Tennessee brigade, under General Donelson, which met the
retreating troops after the action was over.

The Union losses consisted of three men of the 8th Michigan killed, and
one officer, Major Watson, and eight men of the same regiment, three men
of the 48th New York, and two of the 50th Pennsylvania, wounded,--in
all, seventeen.

The enemy acknowledged, in official reports, the loss of an officer and
seven men killed, and an officer and twenty-three men wounded,--in all,
thirty-two.

General Stevens warmly commended the conduct of his troops and the
services of his staff, Captain Hazard Stevens, assistant
adjutant-general; Lieutenants William T. Lusk and Benjamin R. Lyons,
aides; Andrew J. Holbrook, volunteer aide; Henry S. Tafft and William S.
Cogswell, signal officers; and Captain Charles A. Fuller, quartermaster.

This action was almost the first Union success achieved by the army
since the disaster of Bull Run, and the thanks of the government were
extended in general orders to General Stevens and his command for their
victory, styled the battle of Port Royal Ferry.




                               CHAPTER LI

             BEAUFORT.--CAMPAIGN PLANNED AGAINST CHARLESTON


After the action of Port Royal Ferry, General Stevens continued to hold
Beaufort and the neighboring islands for five months, without the
occurrence of any military event of importance, chiefly occupied in
thoroughly drilling and disciplining his troops. Lieutenant Abraham
Cottrell, of the 8th Michigan, was added to the staff as aide. A
battalion of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel
H.B. Sargent, was added to his command; also another section of Battery
E of the 3d artillery, Captain A.P. Rockwell's Connecticut light
battery, and a company of Serrell's New York engineers, under Captain
Alfred F. Sears, with a pontoon bridge equipment. His attention,
moreover, was largely taken up with other matters, not military, but
growing out of the peculiar conditions there. He caused the public
library, which has already been mentioned, with several fine private
libraries added to it, to be put in order, restored to the shelves and
catalogued, and thrown open for the use of the troops. Corporal Joseph
Matthews, Joseph Hall, and George Lispenard, of Company E of the
Highlanders, were busy at this work for several months. He intended that
the library, thus preserved, should be cared for and kept in the town
where it belonged, and restored to the inhabitants when they resumed
their allegiance and returned to their homes. But one day the treasury
agent, Colonel William H. Reynolds, presented himself, and demanded the
books as captured rebel property, to be sold for the benefit of the
government,--a demand which General Stevens indignantly and peremptorily
rejected. A month later the agent again appeared with a formal demand
from the Secretary of the Treasury for the library, indorsed by General
Sherman with an order to give them up. Even then General Stevens
suspended the order, and wrote a strong protest to General Sherman,
setting forth the vandal character of the proposed action, and urging
him to represent the matter in its true light to the government, and
secure the revocation of the order. But General Sherman was unwilling to
take such a responsibility, and there was no alternative but to give up
the books.

General Stevens disapproved the action of the government in sending such
treasury agents into the field, with independent authority to gather up
cotton and other property, as meddling with military operations,
encroaching on the authority of military commanders, and opening the
door for dishonest or over-zealous agents to plunder private property.
Such work, he declared, should be done by the army through the
quartermaster's department, and the captured property then turned over
to the Treasury Department.

Apprehensive that the numerous negroes within his lines might become
vagrant and burdensome unless brought under control and made
self-supporting, General Sherman issued an elaborate order, providing
for teaching them the elementary branches, and inducing them to plant
crops. The latter requirement General Stevens heartily approved, but he
seriously doubted the propriety of the former, and wrote General
Sherman, pointing out that to educate the blacks and raise hopes of
freedom in their breast would make their condition doubly hard in case,
on the suppression of the rebellion, they had to return to their
masters, and that the order, manifestly looking to freeing the slaves,
might alienate the support of the border States from the Union cause.
This view now seems reactionary, but it should be borne in mind that the
great mass of Union soldiers sprang to arms, not to free the slaves, but
to preserve the Union. Lincoln himself guided his course by the same
view of not alienating the border States, withholding his emancipation
proclamation until the progress of public opinion made it expedient.
Writes General Sherman in reply:--

  "After all, my dear general, the government will do as it sees best
  in this matter. My order can be reversed at its pleasure. But, of
  myself, it would be doing some violence to my own views of duty to
  make the change you desire in the system therein indicated. But
  allow me to express to you my warmest thanks for the thoughtful and
  considerate manner in which you have done me the honor to write.
  Although we may differ in our views in one or two points,--both
  admitted to be delicate ones,--it will not permit any change of my
  exalted opinion of your talents and your personal character."

But the generals were only wasting time in discussing the negro problem,
for by the next steamer, early in March, there descended on the
Department of the South, like the locusts on Egypt, a swarm of treasury
agents and humanitarians, male and female, all zealously bent on
educating and elevating the "freedmen," as they immediately dubbed the
blacks. The irreverent young officers styled these good people the
"Gideonites," and were disposed to make all manner of fun of them; but
among the number were persons of the highest respectability and purest
motives, and they undoubtedly accomplished some good. They met with a
cold and ungracious reception from General Sherman, who declared that
their coming was uncalled for and entirely premature, and incontinently
packed them off to Beaufort to the care of General Stevens, thus washing
his hands of them.

The latter treated them with the utmost courtesy and kindness, assigned
them good quarters in town, and detailed a capable and gentlemanly young
officer, Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, to see to their
comfort and needs. He not only gave them every facility and assistance
in his power in their care of the blacks, but took a real interest in
their mission, talked and advised with the chiefs, and exerted a decided
and salutary influence in modifying some of their crude and extravagant
ideas, and bringing them down to judicious and practicable measures. It
is a curious fact that in several instances he had to curb the attempts
of some of the more zealous, who strove to work the blacks harder than
their old masters did. Always frank and outspoken in his opinions, and
differing widely from many of the views of these visitors, General
Stevens impressed them with his sincere and earnest sense of duty, and
won their gratitude and goodwill. Hon. Edward L. Pierce, the biographer
of Sumner, who was the chief agent, thus acknowledged their feelings and
obligations toward General Stevens:--

  "General Stevens was an officer with whom subordination was a
  controlling duty. The order for sending able-bodied negroes to
  Hilton Head to be armed imposed on him an uncongenial service, but
  he performed it faithfully and with dispatch, and even aided in the
  selection of the officers to drill them. His preconceived opinions,
  although he desired them humane treatment, were understood to be
  unfavorable to an effort at the present time to raise them to
  intelligent citizenship; but to the industrial and educational
  movement to that end he offered no opposition, but gave to it in
  good faith his official protection and aid, and the special agent of
  the Treasury Department, who was charged with its direction, never
  asked facilities which he denied, often more being granted than was
  requested. The better part of the territory to which that movement
  applied was under his command, and its friends will gratefully
  remember him for his personal courtesies and honorable coöperation."

Mrs. Stevens also arrived on the same steamer to visit her husband, with
her youngest daughter, Kate, a beautiful and engaging little girl of
ten, and remained nearly a month. Their visit was a great solace to
General Stevens, and the last time he was to see them.

The Washington ladies, Mrs. Johnson and Miss Donelson, their neighbors
and warm friends for four years, came with the Gideonites, actuated by
benevolence. Other visitors were Mr. Caverly, whom General Stevens had
met in Washington, and his beautiful young wife. He was in the last
stages of consumption, and the general had him taken into his own
quarters and carefully nursed and cared for until his death. Hon. John
M. Forbes, of Milton, Mass., and his wife, whose son, William H. Forbes,
was an officer of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry, then at Beaufort, also
visited there that winter; and Hon. W.J.A. Fuller, of New York, an
eminent lawyer, and brother to Captain Charles A. Fuller, was another
visitor.

During all this time General Stevens was chiefly engaged in training and
disciplining his command. Besides company and battalion drills in the
forenoon, brigade drills were had four afternoons a week, usually in
some extensive cotton-field below the town, and occasionally these
drills were varied by movements through timber, bridging and crossing
streams, or overcoming other obstacles, the three arms being exercised
to act in concert. There was no other brigade in the armies on either
side that was put through such a complete and thorough course of brigade
drill as General Stevens gave his command at Beaufort. Schools of
instruction for officers and for non-commissioned officers were also
vigorously kept up. The picketing of the widely extended and exposed
points on the islands involved a line twenty-five miles in extent, and
was a severe task on the troops. An entire regiment was required for
this duty, and was changed every ten days. To insure the vigilance of
the pickets, General Stevens organized a system of nightly inspections
by members of his staff and other officers specially sent out from
Beaufort, in addition to the grand rounds and inspections by their own
officers. Besides the staff officers already mentioned, Lieutenant
Benjamin R. Lyons, of the 50th Pennsylvania, and Lieutenant A. Cottrell,
of the 8th Michigan, were detailed as aides, and Captain Charles A.
Fuller took the place of Captain Lilly as quartermaster, the latter
being court-martialed and cashiered.

A fine mansion in the edge of town, in the midst of a luxuriant
semi-tropical garden, with the negro quarters and kitchens in detached
buildings, served as headquarters. On the open space on one side,
brigade guard-mounting was held every morning to the martial and
inspiring music of the Highlanders' band. This was one of the finest
bands in the service, or, indeed, in the country. It had been long
established in New York, and was maintained with indefatigable zeal and
industry by Lieutenant William Robertson, the band-master.

Thus well occupied with drills, dress parades, guard-mountings,
picketing, and study, in that beautiful region and delightful winter
climate, profusely supplied with fresh beef, poultry, and sweet
potatoes, in addition to the ample regular ration, the troops greatly
enjoyed their sojourn at Beaufort, while they rapidly gained soldierly
discipline and efficiency. In April a detachment of two hundred and
fifty of the 8th Michigan escorted Lieutenant James H. Wilson on a
reconnoissance to Wilmington Island, on the Savannah River, and in a
very creditable action defeated and drove an entire rebel regiment, the
13th Georgia, suffering, however, a loss of forty-two killed and
wounded.

The following letters from General Stevens to his wife give interesting
sketches of this period:--

  [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS AT BEAUFORT]

                            BEAUFORT, S.C., February 16, 1861.

  MY DEAR WIFE,--I am devoting my energies to perfecting the
  discipline of my brigade. All the regiments are now in very
  respectable drill,--one in very superior drill. For five weeks I
  have had brigade drills, an average of four per week. In this week
  they will have been instructed in all the evolutions of the line.
  Hazard is very expert both at battalion and brigade drill, and he
  can drill a brigade much better than any of my colonels. Then I have
  a regiment doing picket duty on the island. I relieve it every ten
  days, so each regiment has been thoroughly instructed in picket and
  outpost duty. I have here the second battalion of the 1st
  Massachusetts cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Sargent. It
  is finely officered, and is a splendid body of men. I have also a
  Connecticut light battery of six guns. It will, however, take months
  to make this battery efficient. For the last three weeks I have had
  regimental schools for officers and non-commissioned officers. They
  are doing well, and both officers and non-commissioned officers take
  great interest in them. Hazard's health is excellent. He takes very
  great interest in everything, is full of life and energy, very
  industrious, studies carefully his tactics, regulations, etc. He is
  making a very superior officer indeed; is a very efficient
  adjutant-general. My aides, Captain Lusk and Lieutenant Cottrell,
  are good men.

  April 17.... I have endeavored to do all I could with propriety to
  facilitate everything which tended to the improvement of the
  condition of the negroes. Many of the people here, both men and
  women, understand pretty well the circumstances of the case, and are
  getting to take practical views of the subject.

  April 21.... Mrs. Johnson and Miss Donelson leave day after
  to-morrow on the Atlantic. We shall send for them and see that they
  are comfortably taken on the ship. Two officers of my brigade return
  at the same time on leave of absence, in whose special charge I will
  place them.

  The 8th Michigan regiment had a very brilliant affair last
  Wednesday. Whilst about two hundred and sixty of the regiment under
  their colonel (Fenton) were reconnoitring Wilmington Island, they
  were attacked by a full regiment (the Georgia 13th), eight hundred
  strong. After a desperate conflict of nearly two hours our men
  whipped them, drove them off the ground, pursued them for a mile,
  and then carefully and leisurely held the field for five hours. All
  our dead and wounded and every particle of baggage were brought off.
  We lost two officers and ten men killed, and thirty men wounded,--a
  very heavy loss, being one fifth of the entire command. On Friday
  and Saturday we buried the dead. The services were very affecting.
  The regiment returned on Saturday afternoon, and the whole brigade
  turned out to receive them. We had invited the ladies from the Pope
  plantation to come to Beaufort on Friday to attend a concert given
  by the Highlanders on Friday evening. Mrs. Johnson, Miss Donelson,
  and Miss Ward came over. They returned on Saturday evening. We had
  the burial of the dead, the concert, and the reception while they
  were here. We entertained them at the house, and they really enjoyed
  their visit. Indeed, Mrs. J. and Miss D. have found it rather lonely
  on Ladies' Island, and I thought, in view of old acquaintance' sake
  and their kind and excellent natures, that we ought to do something
  to give them a little change.

  May 24. We have had a sad household the last few days. Mr. Caverly
  has been sinking gradually since Wednesday morning, and died this
  morning at one o'clock. He was exceedingly patient and resigned, and
  very grateful for the attentions he had received here. I am very
  thankful I did not hesitate, in his enfeebled condition, insisting
  upon his coming to my house. His wife has borne herself with great
  fortitude and courage throughout. Lieutenant Pratt, of the
  Massachusetts cavalry, is going home on leave of absence, and will
  take charge of Mrs. Caverly.

  May 18. Above is a view of the steamer Planter, a dispatch boat of
  General Ripley in Charleston harbor, which was run off by the pilot
  Robert and the black crew last week. It is a very remarkable affair,
  and makes quite a hero of Robert. She was tied up at the wharf close
  to Ripley's office. Yet he slipped out of the harbor unobserved, and
  gave the steamer up to our blockading fleet. The Planter lay at
  Beaufort from Thursday morning to this morning. She was run off on
  Tuesday, May 13.

The following to Mr. Fuller gives General Stevens's views on the proper
war policy, and the severity of the contest yet to be fought. It was at
this time that the government, rendered over-confident by Western
successes, stopped recruiting. It will be seen how exactly he read the
military situation:--

                              BEAUFORT, S.C., March 15, 1862.

  MY DEAR SIR,-- ... At this moment every effort should be made to
  keep our ranks full by enlistments. We are only at the beginning of
  the hard fights. Our men will fall in battle, and die in the
  hospitals. The best troops rapidly melt away in aggressive
  movements. We must take nothing for granted except the determination
  on the part of the South to make a stern and protracted resistance.
  The great point is to open the Mississippi down to the Gulf, and
  this can be done by driving our forces southward in Tennessee, and
  farther south into Alabama and Mississippi. This should be combined
  with a great movement from the Gulf. The Mississippi River in our
  control, everything westward will fall by vigorous, rapid,
  comparatively short movements. We must husband our men and
  resources. We, if we don't look out, will find our victorious march
  stayed in mid-course by the melting away of our attacking columns,
  not kept full in consequence of a too great dissemination of our
  force.

At this time General Stevens wrote Professor Bache a memoir, to be laid
before the President, giving his views of the military policy and
operations to be undertaken. Dr. Lusk, who, as his aide, copied the
letter from the rough draft, declares that he urged the very movements
that were afterwards adopted, and was greatly impressed with the ability
and prophetic foresight of the memoir. Unfortunately, no copy of it has
been found.

                              HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, E.C.,
                              BEAUFORT, S.C., February 25, 1862.

  W.J.A. FULLER, ESQ.,

  _My dear Sir_,--I hope not the least suggestion will be made in any
  quarter in relation to placing me in command of the expeditionary
  corps of General Sherman. I am induced to write you in relation to
  it, because I have learned from a reliable source that it is being
  spoken of in some influential quarters in Massachusetts. General
  Sherman has treated me with marked kindness and consideration, and I
  feel that I would be acting badly towards him if I did not express
  decidedly my views and feelings in regard to the matter. It would
  be, however, sheer affectation on my part to say that I did not
  desire a separate command. I of course most earnestly desire one,
  but not at the expense of a friend, or with injustice to any one.

The advanced position of General Stevens's command was a constant threat
to the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, justly regarded by the enemy as
the vital line of communication between the two cities. The railroad
crossed the many rivers which empty along this part of the coast by long
pile or trestle bridges of hard Southern pine, full of pitch, and
exceedingly combustible. In thirty miles it thus crossed, going north
from Savannah, the Coosawhatchie, Tulifiny, Broad, Pocotaligo, Combahee,
and Ashepoo rivers, with six miles of bridges in the aggregate, and at
Pocotaligo, the centre of this stretch, was only eight miles distant
from Port Royal Ferry and the Union lines. So important was the
preservation of this railroad regarded by General Robert E. Lee, the
Confederate commander, and so probable did he deem our advance in this
direction, that he made his headquarters at Coosawhatchie, posted strong
detachments with guns and intrenchments at the bridges, and supported
them with considerable bodies of troops at central points, all under
General J.C. Pemberton, with headquarters at Pocotaligo. And that
officer, on succeeding Lee in command of South Carolina and Georgia in
March, remained at the same place, and continued the same attitude of
watchful defense.

General Stevens early fixed his eye upon these bridges as affording the
most feasible way of breaking up the railroad. He was eager to cross
swords with Lee and confident, more than once remarking that he could
beat "Bob Lee,"--that he felt himself more than a match for him. From
negro refugees he learned that the enemy held them in force, but nothing
sufficiently definite and reliable to be of much value. Anxious to gain
exact and full information of the bridges, the enemy, and his
dispositions, and of the roads and nature of the country, he offered the
task to Captain Elliott, of the Highlanders, who undertook it with
alacrity. During January, February, and March, this intrepid officer
made trip after trip within the enemy's lines, explored the whole
region, and examined every bridge between the Coosawhatchie and the
Ashepoo, located the enemy's posts, ascertained their forces,
intrenchments, guns, etc., and gleaned much information in regard to the
roads, approaches, and country. On these scouts Captain Elliott went in
uniform. He would start at night in a small canoe with a trusty negro
guide, paddle noiselessly up one of the rivers until within the enemy's
lines, then land and pursue his explorations on foot. By day he usually
lay hid in the swamps or pine woods. The service was not only fraught
with danger, but extremely arduous, involving every hardship of cold,
hunger, and exposure. It was so well performed that it is doubtful if
the Confederate commander himself was much better informed as to the
state of things within his lines than was his opponent. No whisper of
suspicion of Captain Elliott's scouts was suffered to get out; and
although his long and frequent absences on special duty excited comment,
all knowledge of them was confined to himself, General Stevens, and the
assistant adjutant-general of the brigade.

In the latter part of February General Stevens sent Captain Ralph Ely,
of the 8th Michigan, with four officers and twenty-two men, in boats on
a reconnoissance up the Combahee River. Captain Ely performed this duty
with skill and success, was gone three days, and went entirely around
some of the enemy's posts without revealing his presence to them.

With the thorough knowledge of the enemy's defenses he had so carefully
gained, General Stevens conceived the plan of moving suddenly by land
and water upon the railroad, breaking it up irremediably by destroying
every bridge for thirty miles, thus cutting the communication between
the cities and threatening both, and then rapidly to countermarch the
whole force to the ferry, Beaufort, or Broad River, embark on
transports, and, reinforced by every available man of Sherman's command,
to strike for Charleston by the inner waterways of the North Edisto,
Wadmalaw, and Stono, thus completely turning the heavy harbor and sea
defenses which protected the city against a front attack.

He worked out the details of this movement against the railroad with
great pains, knowing that he would have it to execute. He counted
largely upon the flotilla of launches and flatboats, by means of which
he would be enabled to throw strong forces up the rivers, and cut off
and isolate every position and bridge in turn. Port Royal Ferry had
demonstrated the practicability of thus moving troops by water, and had
given them the idea. He had plenty of flats, great numbers of negroes
trained to the oar, and there was no lack of good boatmen among the
soldiers.

The largest part of the attacking force was to be thrown directly on the
railroad, moving simultaneously in two columns, one overland from Port
Royal Ferry via Garden's Corners, the other ascending Broad and
Pocotaligo rivers in flatboats, supported by naval launches and
light-draught gunboats. Strong detachments were boldly to press the
enemy's posts on the Coosawhatchie and Tulifiny, and be ready to join in
the attack upon them later by the main force. A picked detachment was to
ascend the Combahee in boats, carry the enemy's posts on that river and
on the Ashepoo, and destroy the railroad bridges, and then, proceeding
along the railroad, join and coöperate with the main column in
destroying the bridge over the Pocotaligo, when the united force were to
press southward down the railroad towards Savannah, sweeping everything
clear beyond the Coosawhatchie, and leaving the railroad in smoking
ruins for thirty miles.

In connection with the siege of Pulaski, General Sherman desired to
operate against Savannah. He complained that a combined movement in
force upon that city planned by him in January was balked by the refusal
of the navy to coöperate. Later, he was ordered by McClellan to abandon
the design. Naturally impatient of delay, and anxious to achieve some
success, he was ripe for new undertakings. As the fall of Pulaski was
evidently impending, General Stevens unfolded his plan to General
Sherman, and the two officers, in several long and confidential
conferences, discussed it fully. General Sherman decided to adopt and
carry it out as soon as the fall of Pulaski should free his whole force
for the operation. Commodore Dupont also heartily entered into the plan,
and was ready to give it all requisite naval support. Moreover, he
proposed making a strong naval demonstration on Bull Bay, north of
Charleston, in order still further to distract the enemy at the critical
time.

The objective point to be seized as the key to Charleston--the
turning-point of the campaign--was known as Church Flats, situated on
the stream extending from the Wadmalaw to the Stono River. From this
point a good road led to Charleston, fourteen miles distant. The
gunboats could approach within two miles of it. The movement of
Sherman's entire force was to be so combined and timed that every
effective man--Wright from Florida, Viele from Pulaski, Williams from
Hilton Head, and Stevens's flying column fresh from their attack on the
railroad, leaving ruined bridges and a beaten, disconcerted enemy behind
it--was to be transported by water and thrown upon Church Flats. True,
the point was fortified and garrisoned, but the navy would cover the
landing, and afford support in case of repulse. A successful dash might
take Charleston at a blow. Or, if a foothold only were gained, the army
could force its way by the Stono, turn all the defenses on James Island
and the harbor, and reduce or destroy the city from the banks of the
Ashley. This movement was taking the enemy by the throat. The subsequent
attacks on the sea front were taking the bull by the horns, and met the
usual fate of that performance.

Fort Pulaski fell April 11. With due allowance for preparation and
delays, the railroad should have been destroyed and our army in
possession of Church Flats by May 1. What means of defense had the enemy
at this juncture? Lee had been sent to Virginia, and during the six
weeks succeeding his departure Pemberton was stripped of regiment after
regiment, dispatched to Richmond or to Corinth. About April 20 he
withdrew all troops except the cavalry between the Ashepoo and Oketie
for the defense of the two cities. "This," he reports, "will leave the
line of the Charleston and Savannah Railroad with no other protection
than what the cavalry companies can afford, which is altogether
insufficient." At this time also he moved his headquarters from
Pocotaligo to Charleston, and abandoned the defenses of Georgetown north
of Charleston, removing the guns therefrom for the protection of the
latter.

Only four thousand men, under Colonel P.H. Colquitt, 46th Georgia,
guarded the long and exposed line south of the Ashepoo clear to
Savannah. Colquitt's headquarters, with his own regiment and two field
batteries, were at Pocotaligo; the remainder of his force was scattered
along the road.

There were no obstructions yet planted in the Stono, except possibly at
Church Flats, where, as late as April 29, Pemberton orders Evans, "Sink
the obstructions at Church Flats immediately." The line of defenses
across James Island was not commenced. The guns with which it was
afterwards armed were in the exposed, advanced batteries on Cole and
Battery islands, and must have been abandoned there.

The returns of Pemberton's forces for May 11, 1862, give the effective
force in his department:--

          Georgia                            9,172
          South Carolina                    18,514
                                            ------
                  Total                     27,686

The South Carolina troops were disposed as follows:--

  Charleston defenses, Brigadier-General Ripley               9750
  James Island to the Ashepoo, Brigadier-General Evans        4883
  Ashepoo to Savannah, Colonel Colquitt                       3881

General Stevens's movement on the railroad, if successful, would
effectually break up Colquitt's command, and prevent succor reaching the
threatened point at Charleston from the troops at and about Savannah for
at least a week, most probably two weeks; for they would have to be sent
around by way of Augusta, Ga., and by this route the rail was not
continuous, there being a gap of over forty miles.

Consequently Pemberton's available force to resist the proposed movement
would be reduced to Ripley's and Evans's commands, which mustered,--


          Infantry                        10,477
          Artillery                        3,032
          Cavalry                          1,133
                                          ------
                  Total                   14,642

Counting out the garrisons of the forts and batteries about the city and
harbor, and on James, Cole, and Battery islands, it is clear that
Pemberton could not possibly have concentrated over six or seven
thousand troops to meet Sherman's advance on the Stono. In all
probability he would not have had half that number at the critical point
in time; for the vigor of the attack on the railroad, sweeping
southward, would surely have impressed him that Savannah was in danger,
causing him perhaps to hurry part of his troops to the relief of that
city via Augusta, while Dupont's demonstration on Bull Bay would have
still further distracted his attention from the real point of attack
until too late.

Returns of the Union forces for April 30 show present for duty some
17,000, as follows:--

      Brigadier-General Viele, Daufuskie, Bird and
        Jones islands                                    3077
      Brigadier-General Stevens, Beaufort                3881
      Brigadier-General Wright, Edisto and Otter islands 3623
      Brigadier-General Q.A. Gilmore, Fort Pulaski,
        Tybee, and Cockspur                              2139
      Colonel Robert Williams, Hilton Head               2987
      Fernandina and St. Augustine, Florida              1194
      Fort Seward, South Carolina, 92, and department
        commander and staff, 16                           108
                                                       ------
              Total                                    16,988

An effective force of 10,000 could have been formed from these troops
and thrown upon the Stono. Sherman was a good and resolute soldier; his
troops were in fine condition, and full of pluck and confidence. With
Stevens and Wright to lead them, and the navy at his back, he would
almost certainly have achieved success.[16]

But this promising movement was nipped in the bud by the untimely and
unexpected arrival of Major-General David Hunter to supersede Sherman.
Brigadier-General H.W. Benham accompanied Hunter as a kind of second in
command. In fact, both officers were _enfants terribles_, whom the
administration exiled to South Carolina to get rid of. Hunter had just
been relieved from commanding in Missouri for an act of insubordination
in issuing an emancipation proclamation in defiance of orders; and
Benham, fresh from skirmishes in West Virginia, was in Washington,
claiming everything in the way of credit, and loudly importuning the
government for high command, when they were ordered to South Carolina.

Sherman turned over the command of the department, and sailed north on
the 8th of April. Three days later Pulaski fell after a day and a half's
bombardment, and Benham made haste to claim the credit of the
achievement due to Sherman and Gilmore.

General Hunter divided his department into the Northern and Southern
Districts, and gave Benham the command of the former, comprising South
Carolina, Georgia, and part of Florida, and nearly all the troops. About
the middle of April General Wright returned from Florida with the
greater part of his brigade, and took post on Edisto Island.

Hunter, a sincere, earnest, and patriotic man, was absorbed in the
political and humanitarian aspects of the great struggle. He lost no
time in issuing another emancipation proclamation. "Martial law and
slavery," so ran this unique document, "in a free country are altogether
incompatible; the persons heretofore held as slaves are therefore
declared forever free." The same day he issued the following order to
the commanding officers of the several posts and islands: "Sir, you will
send immediately to these headquarters, under guard, all able-bodied
negroes capable of bearing arms within your lines." The six hundred
forlorn and frightened darkeys, who next day were loaded on a steamer at
Beaufort and shipped to Hilton Head, must have been sadly puzzled over
their new-found forever freedom. But Hunter soon solved all doubts by
throwing them into camp with uniforms on their backs, arms in their
hands, white officers to drill them, black preachers to exhort them, and
a cordon of white soldiers sentineling their camp to make sure they did
not run away. Thus was raised the first negro regiment. Hunter, having
proclaimed them free, felt no scruples in making them fight for freedom.

General Stevens, after obeying the order with a promptness altogether
unexpected by General Hunter, and for which he was totally unprepared,
remonstrated against it in a letter to General Benham, his immediate
commander:--

  "1. There is very little material for soldiers in the able-bodied
  men of color in this department. I have not yet been able to find a
  single man who would venture alone inside the enemy's lines,
  although I have diligently sought to find such a man. Occasionally a
  negro has been used to accompany white men. They have great fear of
  the prowess of their masters, and of white men generally. They have
  the strongest local and domestic attachments, which make them very
  reluctant to leave their homes.

  "2: They can be used to very great advantage in connection with and
  for the menial duties of the military service, and also as adjuncts
  of existing organizations; thus, as quartermasters' employees, doing
  all kinds of labor, from mechanical to the merest drudgery work. As
  boatmen, also, and as laborers on the defensive works, as guides and
  scouts, they can render most effective service, and should be
  employed _as adjuncts of existing organizations_. In fixed batteries
  they could do the heavy work, moving the guns, and carrying the shot
  and shell. In engineering operations they could do the heavy labor,
  even some of the hard lifting and carrying in managing the pontoon
  equipage. Thus I conceive a great use can be made of the blacks in
  our military operations in devolving upon them the menial duties,
  and as strictly subordinate to existing organizations."

These were precisely the views as to raising negro troops expressed not
long afterwards by the distinguished general, W.T. Sherman.

The remonstrance seems to have had some effect, for General Hunter
telegraphed, and afterwards wrote, General Stevens to say to the negroes
that they were sent for to receive their free papers, and would have a
chance to volunteer, if they wished, and that those who did not wish to
remain would be sent back to their homes. In fact, the regiment was
disbanded not long afterwards.

Another cause of anxiety to General Stevens was the delay of the Senate
in confirming his appointment as brigadier-general. The confirmation was
held up by Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, chairman of the Military
Committee, in consequence of numerous anonymous letters to him and other
senators, written from the Department of the South, charging that
General Stevens was unsound on the slavery question. But when General
Sherman reached Washington and indignantly refuted these slanders,
described the able handling of his troops at Port Royal Ferry, and the
fine condition to which he had brought his brigade; and Messrs. Pierce,
French, and Suydam, the treasury agents, abolitionists themselves, bore
willing witness to his patriotic spirit and the ungrudging assistance
he had given them,--Wilson assented to the confirmation. Senators
Fessenden, John P. Hale, Rice, Nesmith, and others strongly stood up for
him, and on April 12 it was made without further delay.

  NOTE.--Admiral Dupont's fleet-captain, Charles Henry Davis, in a
  letter written soon after the naval victory at Port Royal, declares
  that the true way of attacking Charleston is "by lines of water
  communication from St. Helena Sound; and, if you will observe, South
  Edisto, North Edisto, and Stono rivers and inlets afford the means
  of lateral support to an army moving towards Charleston by vessels
  of the navy," etc. _Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Admiral_, p.
  174.

  On the arrival of the new commanders, the admiral, waiving rank in
  order to expedite matters, consented to put himself in official
  communication with General Benham; but he soon had occasion to call
  General Hunter's attention to the tone and character of one of
  Benham's letters, and to withdraw the concession.

  In a subsequent letter to Hunter the admiral remarks: "I have,
  however, to take exception to the attempt of General Benham to
  attribute his inability to meet his own arrangements to any
  shortcomings on my part." _Official Dispatches of Admiral Dupont_,
  pp. 172-183.

  [Illustration: LIEUT. WM. T. LUSK, LIEUT. ABRAHAM COTTRELL,
                 ---- ----, MAJOR GEORGE S. KEMBLE, CAPT. B.F.
                 PORTER, CAPT. HAZARD STEVENS, GENERAL
                 STEVENS, LIEUT. BENJ. R. LYONS
                 GENERAL STEVENS AND STAFF]

FOOTNOTES:

  [16] The author was General Stevens's chief of staff, and was
       confidentially informed and employed by him in all the details
       of this plan of campaign against Charleston, and of the scouts
       by Captain Elliott and others. Since the war he has gone over
       the whole matter with General Thomas W. Sherman, who expressed
       the utmost confidence in the proposed movement, and his lasting
       regret that he was deprived of the opportunity of carrying it
       out.




                              CHAPTER LII

                JAMES ISLAND CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLESTON


General Hunter, busy in proclaiming martial law and freedom, and in
raising a black army by conscription, with which he hoped to strike a
blow into the vitals of the Confederacy in the future, decided for the
present simply to maintain a defensive attitude.

But Benham was greedy to signalize himself. His dense egotism and
self-sufficiency rendered him almost incapable of listening to any
suggestions, or even information, that did not originate with himself.
The movement planned by General Stevens with so much care was rejected
offhand by Benham. Yet he was extremely anxious to employ the troops in
some offensive operation, and gave Hunter no peace on that point.

Early in May Pemberton abandoned his works at the mouth of the Stono,
dismantling them and removing the guns for the purpose of arming an
inner line across James Island, which he was commencing, and which ran
from Fort Johnson in the harbor to Fort Pemberton on the Stono, ten
miles above its mouth, and the naval gunboats entered and took
possession of the lower four miles of the river. Here Benham saw his
chance. Hunter at length yielded to his importunity, and consented to a
demonstration in force upon Charleston by way of James Island. Benham
made the plan. One division of troops, under General Stevens, embarking
on transports, were to go around by sea, enter the Stono, and debark on
James Island. Another division, under General Wright, who was already
on Edisto Island with four thousand troops, was to make a combined land
and water movement over Edisto and John's islands, crossing the
intervening bays and streams, and reach James Island simultaneously with
Stevens. A prompt and successful attack upon the incomplete line of
intrenchments across that island would place Charleston in our power.

The plan was entirely practicable, but marred from the start by Benham's
unfortunate talent for blundering. When he communicated the details of
the movement to General Stevens, that officer pointed out to him that he
was not allowing time enough for Wright to make the movement required of
him, and reach James Island simultaneously with the other division, and
that he would necessarily be a week later in arriving unless his orders
were changed. Benham took this friendly advice in dudgeon. The orders
were not changed, and Wright was just one week behind the appointed
time, as predicted.

As soon as he was informed of the intended movement, General Stevens
earnestly urged Benham to inaugurate it by sending him to break up the
railroad, as he had so long and so well planned, or, if not with the
heavy force and thoroughness approved by General Sherman, at least to
permit him to throw his own brigade upon it. In a personal interview he
presented his views with such clearness and force that he actually
obtained a reluctant consent from Benham to make the attack, but at the
last moment he peremptorily countermanded the movement. Finally, to
General Stevens's last earnest request by telegraph he would only
consent that a demonstration might be made by the single regiment that
was to be left to garrison Beaufort, the 50th Pennsylvania, stipulating,
moreover, that it was to be back the same day it started on the raid.
Accordingly the 50th, under Colonel Christ, supported by a company of
the Highlanders and another of the Michiganders, a detachment of eighty
men of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry under Major Henry L. Higginson, and
a section of Rockwell's battery, advanced on May 29 to Pocotaligo, had a
brisk skirmish with the enemy, driving him from his position, with a
loss of two killed, six wounded, and two captured, and returned. The
Union loss was two killed and nine wounded. How different this mere
demonstration from the bold and crushing onslaught planned by General
Stevens!

General Rufus Saxton arrived at Beaufort to take charge of affairs there
on General Stevens's departure. He was one of the army officers who took
part in the Northern Pacific Railroad exploration under the latter, and
had been warmly recommended by him, as an able and experienced officer,
for appointment as brigadier-general, a recommendation which General
Saxton declares was finally the cause of his obtaining the appointment;
for, taking advanced views in favor of emancipating and elevating the
slaves, he was chiefly supported by the abolitionists, and was
considered a representative of that element. He brought with him a
provost-marshal, who, when the troops were embarking, came on the wharf
with a considerable guard, and summarily took from the hostler two
horses belonging to Captain Stevens, claiming that, having been captured
from the enemy, they were improperly held by that officer. They were, in
fact, captured animals, but had been regularly appraised by a board of
survey, and the value of them paid into the quartermaster's department.
The troops on the vessel witnessed this seizure with no goodwill, for
they all knew the horses, and one of the soldiers made haste to acquaint
the owner with what was taking place. He, finding remonstrance useless
and the captor determined to hold on to his prey, quietly stepped across
the wharf to the steamboat alongside, crowded with troops, all
interested spectators, and directed an officer of the 8th Michigan to
take his company ashore, seize the horses, and put them on board. The
order had scarcely left his lips when a hundred brawny fellows, musket
in hand, leaped over the ship's rail and on the wharf, rescued the
animals with no gentle hand, and drove the astonished and crestfallen
provost-marshal and his myrmidons off the wharf. Of course he rushed to
General Saxton, big with complaint, and the latter at once sought
redress of General Stevens for the forcing of his provost-guard. But the
latter in most emphatic terms rebuked the high-handed act of the
over-zealous provost, and fully upheld his staff officer.

Embarking the other three regiments of his brigade and Rockwell's
battery, reduced to four guns, on June 1 General Stevens proceeded to
Hilton Head, where he was joined by the 28th Massachusetts and 46th New
York in transports, and on the 2d steamed by sea around to, and entered,
the Stono, which was held by several gunboats, to a point above
Grimball's plantation, which was six miles above the mouth. The
transports anchored two miles below this point, and opposite a hamlet on
John's Island known as Legareville. A strong picket was thrown ashore on
James Island for the night, it being too late to land the troops. On the
3d they were put on shore in small boats, which were insufficient in
number, and made the landing slow and laborious. As soon as a few
companies were ashore, General Stevens advanced with them, drove back
the enemy, who were in considerable force, after a sharp action,
captured three guns, which they were moving back to their inner line,
and established his permanent picket line two and a half miles from the
river, running diagonally across the island from Big Folly Creek to the
Stono near Grimball's.

The action perhaps merits a fuller account. A farm road led back from
the river about two and a half miles to the bank of Big Folly Creek,
where it passed along a row of negro quarters. Here, turning to the left
or westward, it crossed a wide cotton-field, then traversed a strip of
woods, then crossed a marsh and slough by a causeway and continued on
across the island in a generally westward direction. Driving back the
enemy, General Stevens occupied the negro quarters with six companies,
two of the 28th Massachusetts on the right, then two of the Roundheads
and two of the Highlanders on the left. Two more companies of the
latter, as they came up, were posted farther to the left and front. The
enemy held the woods in front, and both sides opened a brisk musketry
fire across the broad intervening cotton-field. Some of their
skirmishers got across the field far to the right of our position, and,
under cover of the bushes which fringed the bank of the creek there,
threatened the flank. To meet this danger, Captain Stevens stationed a
platoon of the Roundheads a short distance to the right of the quarters,
where they, too, had the cover of the bushes.

Soon afterwards a column of the enemy, apparently a regiment, and which
was in fact the Charleston battalion, the crack corps of the city,
emerged from the woods, and advanced by the flank in column of fours,
headed by a mounted officer. In this order they charged down the road
across the field at the double-quick, and, notwithstanding the fire of
the companies stationed at the negro quarters, which proved singularly
ineffective, actually penetrated to the buildings; the 28th companies
gave way, and for a moment they had the position. But the Roundheads
held their ground, while the Highlanders charged them with the bayonet
and drove them in confusion to the right, whence they escaped across the
field to the woods. In the rush, however, they swept off and captured
Captain Cline and part of his platoon, which was posted to protect the
right flank. The Highlanders wounded and captured Lieutenant Henry
Walker, adjutant of the battalion, in the mêlée. General Stevens
immediately followed up this repulse by advancing his troops upon and
through the woods, and to the other side of the marsh and causeway,
forcing the enemy to abandon three pieces of artillery in his hasty
retreat. The guns were hauled to camp in triumph. The enemy acknowledged
a loss of seventeen wounded, one mortally, and one captured. His force
consisted of the Marion Rifles, Pee Dee Rifles, Evans Guard, Sumter
Guard, Beauregard Light Infantry, Charleston Riflemen, Irish Volunteers,
Calhoun Guard, and Union Light Infantry, in all apparently nine
companies. Yet all this array of chivalry did not save the guns they
were sent to bring in.

The picket line was posted along the front side of the woods, and on the
edge of the marsh. The enemy's pickets held the other side of the marsh.
There were several picket skirmishes during the next few days. The
troops were kept well employed in landing stores, making camps, and on
picket duty, awaiting the arrival of Wright's division.

Benham was eager for General Stevens to make a dash upon the enemy's
lines without waiting for the balance of his army, but hesitated to give
the order. The latter, fearing most his commander's blundering
precipitancy, in the following confidential note urged him to come to a
speedy decision, representing that a day's preparation was absolutely
essential:--

                                  JAMES ISLAND, June 6, 1862.

  DEAR GENERAL,--I understand your wish to be to make an armed
  reconnoissance of the enemy's position, and if the result be
  favorable, to follow it up by a dash, in order to seize James Island
  below James River and Newton Cut.

  We shall probably be as well able to make it day after to-morrow
  (daylight) as at any other time.

  Should you decide to make it day after to-morrow, it is of the first
  consequence to make that decision without delay. It will require all
  day to-morrow to prepare for it. I would suggest that not more than
  three companies be left at Legareville; that everything else be
  brought over to-morrow, including the six guns of Hamilton's
  battery; that arrangements be made with the gunboats to open
  cross-fires. The system of signals will require careful arrangement.

  I desire that the dash be successful, and therefore I want to see
  every man thrown in. But I desire particularly to express my
  judgment that, in the present position of our troops, twenty-four
  hours of vigorous work is absolutely essential in the way of
  preparation.

                                  Very truly yours,
                                          ISAAC I. STEVENS.

  BRIGADIER-GENERAL BENHAM.

How completely this judicious caution as to the necessity of due
preparation was thrown away upon the opinionated Benham was proved ten
days later, but for the present he gave up the idea of a dash.

In a letter to his wife, dated June 11, General Stevens gives expression
to his disgust at the incompetents set over him:--

  "I am not in very good spirits to-night, for the reason that I have
  two commanders, Hunter and Benham, who are imbecile, vacillating,
  and utterly unfit to command. Why it has been my fortune to be
  placed in positions where I was of little account, and to be
  subjected to such extreme mortification and annoyance, is beyond my
  imagining. It may not even teach me patience. I shall, however, do
  the best I can. If the authorities would send some man not
  altogether incompetent, I should be better satisfied. Why can't
  Mansfield be sent here, and both Hunter and Benham relieved? As for
  myself, I am tabooed. No proper use is intended to be made of me,
  and as everybody is in the humor to speak highly of my abilities, I
  shall be held in part responsible for the follies of others. Benham
  is an ass,--a dreadful man, of no earthly use except as a nuisance
  and obstruction."

A few days later he writes:--

  "We are now attempting an enterprise for which our force is entirely
  inadequate. The want of a proper commander is fearful. We shall try
  to prevent any disaster occurring. This is all I can say at
  present."

On the 8th Wright's division reached Legareville, and was occupied the
next two days in crossing the river, and taking a position at
Grimball's, a mile and a half above General Stevens's camp. Colonel
Robert Williams went into camp with his 1st Massachusetts cavalry just
below Wright. The 7th Connecticut, which came with the overland column,
joined General Stevens's division.

Wright's delay was caused by the inadequacy of the water transportation,
especially boats, furnished him. It was found an exceedingly slow and
laborious operation to transfer troops, guns, and horses from shore to
ship, and from ship to shore, in a few small boats. There were no
wharves, and the landing-places were narrow and swampy. It was only by
the greatest exertions, working his command night and day, that he was
able to accomplish in a week the movement which Benham expected made in
a day. Yet Benham, blind to the energetic and loyal character of Wright
and the strenuous exertions of his troops on this march, never forgave
that officer for the delay. Utterly unaccustomed to the command and
handling of troops, and swollen with new-found authority, he ever deemed
his loud and peremptory "Those are my orders, sir," an equivalent to
that painstaking attention to details and to means which Napoleon and
Wellington and all great soldiers have found indispensable.

The army now assembled numbered about twelve thousand, and was organized
in two divisions and an independent brigade, as follows:--


  First Division, Brigadier-General H.G. Wright.
  First Brigade, Colonel J.L. Chatfield.
    6th Connecticut, Colonel J.L. Chatfield.
    47th New York, Colonel P.C. Kane.
    97th Pennsylvania, Colonel H.R. Guss.

  Second Brigade, Colonel Thomas Welsh.
    45th Pennsylvania, Colonel Thomas Welsh.
    76th Pennsylvania, Colonel J.M. Power.

  Battery E, 3d U.S. artillery, Captain John Hamilton.

  Second Division, Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens.
  First Brigade, Colonel William M. Fenton.
    8th Michigan, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Graves.
    28th Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel M. Moore.
    7th Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph R. Hawley.

  Second Brigade, Colonel Daniel Leasure.
    79th Highlanders, Lieutenant-Colonel David Morrison.
    100th Pennsylvania, Major David A. Lecky.
    46th New York, Colonel Rudolph Rosa.
    1st Connecticut Battery, Captain A.P. Rockwell.

  Independent Brigade, Colonel Robert Williams.

    1st Massachusetts cavalry, Lieut.-Col. H.B. Sargent.
    3d R.I. heavy artillery (infantry), Major E. Metcalf.
    3d New Hampshire, Colonel J.H. Jackson.
    1st New York engineers, Colonel E.W. Serrell.

All this time the enemy were concentrating and working like beavers on
their new line of works across the island. In advance of the left of the
line, at the narrowest neck of a peninsula formed by two inlets
extending from Big Folly Creek, they had previously erected a strong
work, known as Battery or Fort Lamar. It was a hundred yards long in
front, and completely blocked the neck from shore to shore, so that it
was impossible to turn or flank it. It had a wide and deep ditch, and a
heavy parapet sixteen feet in height above the general level of the
grounds and twenty-four feet above the bottom of the ditch, and
extended back on both flanks along the inlets. It mounted eight heavy
guns, viz., an 8-inch columbiad, two rifled 24-pounders, four
18-pounders, and a 15-inch mortar, and protected the whole left of their
line with a flank fire. The front was well covered by abattis, except at
the left angle, where a cart road ran along the left flank a hundred
yards, then passing inside and to the rear.[17] In front of the fort the
peninsula rapidly widened out. The ground was in old cotton-fields, open
and level, except for the high ridges and deep furrows resulting from
that crop. About five hundred yards in front of the fort a hedge and
ditch extended across the peninsula, separating field from field; and
five hundred yards farther another hedge-row and ditch separated the
second field from the road already mentioned. Both sides of the neck
were skirted with bushes along the banks of the inlets, a light fringe
on the eastward or left, a thicker fringe, affording some cover, on the
west side. The ground rose immediately behind the work, overlooking it,
and was covered with a growth of pine timber, above which uprose a tall,
skeleton signal tower. The peninsula was known as Secessionville Neck,
from the landing-place of that name on its extremity.

Half a mile to the right of Battery Lamar, on the main line, was Battery
Reed, mounting two 24-pounders, and commanding the ground in front of
the former with a searching cross-fire.

There was also a floating battery, mounting two guns, moored in the
inlet to the left rear of the fort.

These works were continually shelling our pickets. The camps were beyond
their range. In order to answer them General Stevens was allowed by
Benham to erect a battery of three 24-pounder siege-guns on the point
nearest the enemy's fort, and half a mile to the right of the negro
quarters already mentioned. The battery was situated some two hundred
yards from the extreme point, and on the bank of Big Folly Creek, and
partially screened by the bushes there. It was well built, with heavy
parapet and traverse, and the detachment of Roundheads who manned the
guns soon felt quite secure. When it opened on the fort, it evidently
caused some perturbation among the enemy. For some time a lively
interchange of missiles was kept up. Our shells set fire to the floating
battery, and the next night it was moved farther down the inlet. The
Union battery could be approached on foot under cover of the bushes
which lined the bank of the creek, but to reach it on horseback it was
necessary to ride down the field in open view of the hostile work, and a
group of horsemen was pretty sure to draw their fire.

A few days after the battery was completed, General Benham, accompanied
by General Stevens and quite a cavalcade of their respective staffs,
rode out to inspect the picket line. As they were returning by the road
towards the negro quarters, Benham expressed a wish to visit the
battery, and turned his horse to ride towards it. General Stevens
suggested that it would be better to approach the battery on foot under
cover of the bushes, as the enemy would probably fire on so large a
party in the open field. Benham repelled the suggestion with a rude
exclamation, and continued to ride towards the battery. General Stevens,
of course, kept his place by his side without further comment, and the
staffs and orderlies followed as in duty bound. As soon as the
cavalcade emerged beyond the shelter of the woods, and came in view of
the fort, a puff of smoke dashed from its side, and one of those
shrieking shells hurtled just overhead and struck with a splash in the
creek. Benham instantly pulled up, stared around bewildered a moment,
and, wheeling his horse short about, hastily rode back behind the
friendly screen and shelter of the woods, followed by his staff. General
Stevens, ignoring this manoeuvre, kept quietly on at a moderate trot,
followed by his staff, and all soon reached the welcome battery
unharmed, although several more shells were fired at them.

On the 8th the 46th New York and one company of the 1st Massachusetts
cavalry, under Colonel J.H. Morrow, of Hunter's staff, made a
reconnoissance to the enemy's right through the woods above Grimball's,
but, meeting a heavy force of skirmishers, retired without seeing the
works. That same afternoon General Stevens sent Captain Stevens of his
staff, accompanied by Lieutenant P.H. O'Rourke of the engineers, with a
company of the 3d New Hampshire, under Captain M.T. Donohoe (afterwards
General Donohoe), to reconnoitre the fort at Secessionville. The enemy's
pickets were driven in, four of them captured; half the company, in
skirmish order, approached the fort to within six or seven hundred
yards, while the other half moved down the road to the left. Though
subjected to a brisk shell-fire, and the fire of the pickets, not a man
was touched. The character of the ground in front of the fort was
ascertained, and the little party withdrew deliberately.

On the 10th the 13th Georgia, under cover of the woods, the pickets not
being sufficiently advanced, got close to Wright's camp, and opened a
sudden and furious attack upon it. They were repulsed in short order,
with severe loss, by Wright's troops, aided by the fire of the
gunboats.

  [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS, JAMES ISLAND]

FOOTNOTES:

  [17] The Confederate major, Pressley, who went over the ground just
       after the assault to be related in the next chapter, thus
       describes Fort Lamar, in _Southern Historical Society Papers_,
       vol. xvi.: "The work across the neck of the Secessionville
       peninsula was about fifty yards in length, and was a very
       well-constructed line of intrenchments. The ramparts were about
       fifteen feet from the level of the ground. There was a ditch in
       front about ten to fifteen feet in width. The exterior slope
       was so nearly perpendicular that it was impossible to get up in
       front without scaling-ladders. The enemy were not provided with
       these."




                              CHAPTER LIII

                         BATTLE OF JAMES ISLAND


Meantime Benham was chafing at the helpless and ignominious position in
which he found himself. At the head of twelve thousand fine troops,
within six miles of Charleston, he was confronted by a formidable line
of works, and had received positive orders from Hunter not to fight a
battle. For several days he contemplated a movement towards the enemy's
right, and issued some preliminary orders to that end. General Stevens
thought an attempt should have been made in that direction as soon as
Wright's division arrived. General Wright agreed that, if any part of
the line was to be attempted, it should be the right. Both judged the
left impracticable, resting as it did on the water, and covered by the
advanced flanking fort at Secessionville.

General Hunter returned to Hilton Head for a short visit. In his
absence, in an evil hour General Benham took it into his head that he
might take the Secessionville fort. Its guns were shelling our pickets,
and even the commanding general himself, when he ventured within range.
They could almost reach Wright's camp. He resolved upon this attempt as
precipitantly, and as regardless of the difficulties, as was his wont.
On the evening of the 15th be summoned his subordinate commanders on
board his headquarters steamer. There assembled Generals Stevens,
Wright, and Williams. Captain Percival Drayton, commanding the naval
force, was also present. To them Benham announced his decision: General
Stevens to assault the fort before daylight with his division, Wright
and Williams to support, the navy to coöperate. This announcement,
coming at nine o'clock at night, for such an attack before daylight the
next morning, without any previous notice or chance for preparation,
must have taken them aback.

General Wright couched an emphatic protest in the diplomatic form of
questions to General Stevens:--

  "Have you impaired the strength of the enemy's works at
  Secessionville by the firing of your battery?"

  "Not in the least," replied General Stevens; "I have driven the
  enemy from his guns by my fire, and I can do it again, but as soon
  as the fire ceases he returns. I have not dismounted a gun, and we
  shall find him in the morning as strong as ever."

  "Do you know of any instance where volunteer troops have
  successfully stormed works as strong as those which defend the
  approach to Secessionville?"

  "I know of no such instance."

  "Have you any reason to believe that the result in the present case
  will be different in its character from what it has invariably been
  heretofore?"

  "I have no reason to expect a different result. It is simply a bare
  possibility to take the work."

  "There, general," said General Wright, turning to Benham, "you have
  my opinion."

In this General Williams concurred.

General Stevens states in a letter to General Hunter, written on July 8,
soon after the battle:--

  "I then proceeded to state with all possible emphasis my objections
  to this morning attack. I urged that it should be deferred to a much
  later period in the day; that we should first shake the _morale_ of
  the garrison, and endeavor to weaken its defenses by a continuous
  fire of the battery and of our gunboats; that in the mean time we
  should carefully survey the ground and prepare our troops, and make
  the attack when the battery and gunboats had had the desired effect.
  I closed by saying that under such circumstances I could do more
  with two thousand men than I could with three thousand men in the
  way he proposed. General Wright, moreover, warned General Benham
  that his orders were in fact orders to fight a battle. In this
  General Williams and myself in express terms concurred. General
  Benham, however, overruled all our objections, and premptorily
  ordered the attack to be made.

  "I assured him, as did the other gentlemen, that he should rely upon
  my promptitude and activity in obeying his orders, but I considered
  myself as obeying orders to which I had expressed the strongest
  possible objections, and I therefore determined there should not be
  the least want of energy or promptitude on my part."

With this the conference broke up, and the officers hastened ashore to
their respective commands to prepare for the arduous task of the morrow.

General Stevens at once ordered his troops to be in readiness at the
advanced camps, two miles from the river, at two A.M., with sixty rounds
of ammunition and twenty-four hours' cooked rations. Captain Strahan's
company, I, 3d Rhode Island, was detailed from Wright's division to
relieve the detachment of Roundheads in the three-gun battery. Over
three hundred of that regiment were out on the widely extended picket
line. Ordered to assemble and join their regiment, only one hundred and
thirty of the number succeeded in reaching it in time to take part in
the action, and then only after it had come under fire, so scanty and
inadequate was the time allowed for preparation. Two companies of the
28th Massachusetts were on fatigue duty and had to be left behind. The
7th Connecticut, moreover, had been on severe fatigue duty the three
previous nights, and were much jaded.

At the hour fixed, the troops were at the appointed place. Before 3.30
A.M. the column was advanced two miles farther to the outer pickets, and
was arranged in the following order:--

Lieutenant Benjamin R. Lyons, aide-de-camp, with a negro guide, led the
storming party, which consisted of two companies of the 8th Michigan,
commanded respectively by Captains Ralph Ely and Richard N. Doyle,
followed by Captain Alfred F. Sears's company, E, Serrell's New York
engineers.

Then followed Fenton's first brigade, comprising the 8th Michigan,
Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Graves; the 7th Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel
Joseph R. Hawley; and the 28th Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel
McClellan Moore.

Then Rockwell's battery of four guns.

Then Colonel Leasure's second brigade, consisting of the Highlanders,
Lieutenant-Colonel David Morrison; the Roundheads, Major David A. Lecky;
and the 46th New York, Colonel Rudolph Rosa.

Captain L.M. Sargent, with his Company H, 1st Massachusetts cavalry,
twenty-eight men, brought up the rear.

The attacking column numbered not exceeding 2900 officers and men, as
shown by the following return:--

                                                Officers.  Men.   Total.
  General and staff                                9        6      15
  First brigade:--
    8th  Michigan                                 25      509     534
    7th Connecticut                               25      573     598
    28th Massachusetts                            20      416     436
  Second brigade:--
    79th Highlanders                              24      460     484
    100th Pennsylvania                            21      230     251
    46th New York                                 22      452     474
  Rockwell's battery, four guns                    4       73      77
  Sears's company, E, 1st New York engineers       2       59      61
  Sargent's company, H, 1st Mass. cavalry          2       28      30
                                                 ---     ----    ----
          Aggregate                              154     2806    2960

  [Illustration: BATTLE OF JAMES ISLAND, JUNE 16, 1862]

General Stevens gave the most explicit orders, reiterated in person to
the several commanders, that the troops were to preserve strict silence,
no stop to be made after passing the enemy's pickets; to form forward
into line on reaching the fields in front of the fort; regiment to
follow regiment and storm the work; not to fire a shot but rely
exclusively on the bayonet, the muskets to be loaded but not capped. The
idea impressed upon all was simply to assault the work in column of
regiments, without an instant's pause after alarming the enemy's
pickets, and take it with the bayonet.

Just before four A.M. the column moved forward on the road already
described, and crossed the marsh by the causeway. Here a section of
Rockwell's guns dropped out, and fell in again behind the second
brigade. No opposition was encountered until the first house beyond our
lines was reached, when the enemy's pickets fired, wounding five men of
the storming party, and fled; but an officer and three men of their
number were captured. The road was found blocked with felled timber, but
the column without any delay advanced through the fields alongside the
road until past the obstruction, and reached the open fields in front of
the fort at 4.15 A.M., just as day was breaking. The storming party and
the 8th Michigan filed into the field through an opening in the hedge
and ditch which bordered the road, formed forward into line without a
pause, and advanced steadily in excellent order over the uneven, deeply
furrowed ground, soon surmounted the second ditch and hedge, and swept
onward across the field next the work. The enemy were seen hastily
forming on the parapet; their commander, Colonel Lamar, rushing to the
gun half dressed, fired the great columbiad, heavily charged with grape,
which tore a great gap through the advancing line, and they immediately
opened with a storm of grape and canister from the guns, and a rapid and
deadly fire of musketry along the whole front. Closing their ranks
without break or pause, the gallant Michiganders pushed on, the
storming party forty yards in advance, strewing the ground at every step
with their dead and wounded. As they reached the ditch, Lieutenant Lyons
dashed forward crying, "Come on, boys!" was the first man across the
ditch, and fell half way up the parapet with a shattered arm. Many of
the brave fellows who survived the murderous fire resolutely pressed on,
gained the parapet, and poured their fire into the defenders behind it,
who visibly gave back. Captain Reed, of the 1st South Carolina
artillery, was killed at the gun he was serving by a Union captain, who
was in turn immediately shot down. But the enemy rallied, the supports
in the grove of pines in rear of the work poured in a deadly fire, and
the brave stormers on the parapet, too few in number, soon melted away.
The few survivors were forced to give back, and, throwing themselves on
the ground, sheltered themselves as best they could behind the cotton
ridges, from which they opened a fire on the fort with their muskets.

Meantime the 7th Connecticut and 28th Massachusetts, following close
upon the 8th Michigan, turned into the field, deployed in like manner,
and moved forward. Unfortunately they inclined a little to the left, and
after crossing the second hedge the heavy grape and canister and
musketry of the fort cut them up severely, and drove them still farther
to the left, where they became disordered, and entangled in the bushes
and broken ground bordering the marsh on that side. Lieutenant-Colonel
Hawley tried to straighten out his regiment, setting up his colors in
the field, and moved it to the rear and to the right, when he was
ordered by Colonel Fenton to move still farther to the right, and
advance again on the fort. The 28th Massachusetts, although considerably
scattered, moved forward under cover of the bushes until they
encountered an inlet of the marsh and the abattis of slashed trees,
when they fell back under cover.

By this time Leasure's brigade was up, and, directed by General Stevens
in person, advanced straight on the fort, regiment after regiment,
deploying as they advanced. The Highlanders moved forward in fine order,
followed by the Roundheads, taking ground a little more to the left.
Crossing the second hedge, they came under the terrible fire of canister
which struck the left of the Highlanders and the centre of the
Roundheads, literally cutting the latter in two. The Highlanders pushed
steadily forward, supported by the right wing of the Roundheads, passing
the 7th Connecticut as Hawley was endeavoring to lead it to the right as
directed by Fenton, struck the work at the angle on its left (our
right), and, led by the gallant Morrison, plunged across the ditch, and
clambered up the steep parapet; many of the defenders ran back, and
again the fort seemed won. But again the musketry from the sharpshooters
on the flanks and rear cut down the brave Scotsmen; a bullet grazed
Morrison's temple, inflicting a serious wound, and he and the half score
survivors of the brave band that so gallantly gained the parapet were
forced to leap down again. But they did not return empty handed.
Morrison brought out a prisoner at the muzzle of his revolver. The
capture of another was even more daring. A rebel soldier sprang upon the
parapet in his eagerness, and aimed his musket at one of the assailants,
scrambling up the steep and lofty bank, but the Highlander, making a
tremendous leap, dashed aside the weapon, seized his antagonist in his
arms, and rolled with him to the bottom of the ditch, where he was
forced to surrender.

While the Highlanders were thus storming the work, the left wing of the
Roundheads, with some of the Highlanders, cut off and driven to the left
by the terrible hail which smote them, yet pushed determinedly on. They
ran over or through the 7th Connecticut as that regiment was moving out
into the field, as already narrated, throwing it into some confusion,
and dashed themselves against the fort. But here the front was well
protected by abattis, and afforded no opening. The Reed battery raked
them terribly. The men fell by scores, the line lost its impetus, and
the survivors threw themselves on the ground behind the cotton-ridges
for shelter.

The 46th New York was double-quicked the last half mile of the road,
conducted across the first field and through the farther hedge, and
ordered forward. Its course, like that of the 7th Connecticut and 28th
Massachusetts, bore too much to the left, and like them it became
entangled in the bushes on that side. Here portions of the 7th
Connecticut and 28th Massachusetts, retreating, broke through the 46th,
carrying back fifty men of that regiment. There they stayed, suffering
considerably from grape, until the advanced regiments moved back, when
they also withdrew to the hedge.

While the attack was making, Rockwell planted three guns of his battery
well forward and to the left in the first field, and maintained as
constant a fire of shells upon the fort as the movement of our troops
admitted. His fourth gun was posted on the road to guard the left rear.
Captain Sears aided Rockwell's guns across the hedge and ditch and high
ridges, and later cleared out the felled trees from the road in rear.

General Stevens, from his position in the first field, had a clear view
of every movement. Lieutenant Lyons and other wounded officers brought
discouraging reports. Seeing plainly that the assailants were all driven
from the parapet, and that the attacking force was completely scattered
and had in a manner disappeared, he was satisfied the attack had failed.
With instant decision he ordered the troops to fall back, and reform
behind the hedges. Captain Stevens was sent with the order. On reaching
the front of the fort not a line, or semblance of one, could be seen,
except about forty men standing in the field within a hundred yards of
the work. Besides the dead and wounded, the ground was covered with
blue-clad men, crouching down between the ridges, many of whom were
firing on the work. A heavy hail of musketry came from it, or from the
pine grove and cover behind it. The guns fired only at intervals.
Captain Stevens did not see a mounted officer, nor a single color,
except perhaps one with the scanty line referred to, nor a single man
running away. Riding to this line, he found Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley
and two officers on the right of it, endeavoring to cheer on the men.
The line had stopped. The men were dropping fast, some stricken down,
others voluntarily for shelter in the deep furrows; two were knocked
over within arm's length as he delivered the order.

Hawley at once about-faced his line and moved back. Then a most
remarkable sight was observed. The men of his regiment, lying between
the ridges, rose to their feet, and hastened to form on either flank of
the line, which rapidly grew and lengthened out as it withdrew. Then
another and another and another line rose out of the ground in like
manner, and in a few minutes the four regiments, which had so gallantly
dashed themselves against the fort, were moving back in four well-formed
lines with colors flying, and men rising from all parts of the field and
running to form on their respective regiments; but, alas, how reduced
and scanty were they as compared with the strong, brave regiments which
so proudly entered that fatal field barely a half hour before, where six
hundred brave men now lay weltering in their blood!

The withdrawn regiments were halted behind the second hedge and
straightened out. As soon as the troops could be seen moving back,
Captain Strahan opened on the fort. Two of his guns were soon disabled,
and he lost a sergeant killed, but with the remaining gun he kept up a
well-directed and regular fire until the close of the battle. The
gunboats Ellen and Hale, moving up Big Folly Creek, now began throwing
shells at the long range of over two miles, some of which fell in the
fields, greatly endangering our own men; but, guided by the signal
officers, Lieutenant Henry S. Tafft on shore and Lieutenant O.H. Howard
on the Ellen, the subsequent fire was more accurately directed upon the
fort. The distance, however, was too great, and the shells too few, to
produce much effect.

According to the plan, while General Stevens's division was assaulting
the fort, Wright and Williams, moving together from Grimball's, were to
act as a support to the former, protecting his left and rear from an
attack by the enemy from his main line. Williams's brigade comprised
five companies of the 3d Rhode Island, the 3d New Hampshire, six
companies of the 97th Pennsylvania, and a section of Battery E, 3d
United States artillery.

Wright had of his own division, of Chatfield's brigade, two companies of
the 6th Connecticut and eight companies of the 47th New York; and of
Walsh's brigade, six companies of the 45th Pennsylvania, three companies
of Serrell's New York engineers, and besides these the other two
sections of Hamilton's battery, E, and two squadrons of the 1st
Massachusetts cavalry. These organizations were mere skeletons, and
numbered about two thousand seven hundred effective. The remaining
troops were left on picket, and to guard the camps.

Wright moved soon after three A.M. to, and formed under cover of, the
woods one mile in front of his camp. Hearing a few shots on his right
front, he rightly judged that Stevens's column was advancing, and at
once moved forward. By this time daylight was upon him. Now he was
joined by General Benham, who assumed command, leaving Wright
responsible for only his own skeleton division. Moving rapidly to the
front, Wright soon placed his troops in position fronting the enemy's
main line, and maintained substantially this position until ordered to
withdraw, throwing the 47th New York to the left, and advancing a
section of Hamilton's battery, which opened a sharp fire.

Before reaching this position General Benham received a message from
General Stevens asking immediate support, and ordered Williams to move
forward and report to him. Reaching the field just as the assaulting
column was falling back and reforming behind the hedges, and ordered by
General Stevens to push in on his left, and do the best in concert with
him that the ground would admit of, Williams threw the 3d New Hampshire
forward beyond, or on our left of the marsh and inlet which covered the
flank of the fort on that side, with the view of taking it in flank, and
supported it with the battalion of the 3d Rhode Island. The 97th
Pennsylvania he posted on the left of General Stevens's reforming
regiments. The two former advanced with great bravery and steadiness, so
far that they actually poured a telling fire into the flank of the fort,
and the garrison was manifestly shaken. For half an hour they maintained
the contest, sustaining unflinchingly a severe fire from the fort and
the 4th Louisiana battalion, which hastened to reinforce it, raked by
the Reed battery on the left and smitten in the rear by Boyce's field
battery. The 3d Rhode Island was thrown to the left against the latter.
It encountered three companies of the 24th South Carolina, drove them
back, and struck the 25th and 1st South Carolina, which supported
Boyce's guns, and were protected by a patch of felled timber, and
maintained an unequal contest with them until ordered to withdraw.

Meantime General Stevens, with the greatest possible rapidity, was
advancing his regiments as fast as reorganized to the farther hedge, the
one nearest the fort, where they found cover in the ditch. The sun had
cleared away the morning clouds, and now shone bright and clear. It was
a beautiful and inspiriting sight to see each regiment move forward
across the wide field in well-dressed line with colors flying, unheeding
the shell and grape which hurtled past or overhead. Rockwell dashed his
guns up to the same line nearly, and in the open field maintained a
rapid and steady fire on the fort, only five hundred yards distant.
Strahan plied his single gun, and the occasional heavy shells from the
gunboats burst over the work with a deeper roar. Sharpshooters, as well
as the advanced men who still clung close up to the fort, kept the
parapet tolerably clear, but the fort was no whit silenced. The grape
fell in frequent showers. Notwithstanding the severe losses the men were
not discouraged, but were as determined and confident as before.
Stimulated by the volleys and cheers of Williams's troops, they were
ready, nay eager, to be led to the assault the second time. General
Stevens sent word to Benham that his whole division was in the advanced
position, reformed and ready, and that he would attack again as soon as
Williams's movement produced its effect.

Just as he was about to give the order to advance, the firing on the
left slackened and ceased, and Williams's troops were seen moving back.
Benham, as hasty and ill judged in abandoning the field as he was
precipitate and obstinate in ordering the assault, had ordered them to
retreat. On the left were heard the rebel cheers. In front the fort
redoubled its fire.

Soon afterwards General Benham ordered General Stevens to withdraw his
column to camp. Wright and Williams had already fallen back. The former
is particular to state in his report that "the withdrawal from the field
of both columns was ordered by General Benham." General Stevens withdrew
his forces without loss and unopposed. Even the advanced men were all
brought off. Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, took them the
order, and, working over singly to the left, they got under cover of the
bushes on that side and thus withdrew. The enemy attempted no pursuit,
and by ten A.M. the entire force was back in camp.

Thus ended the battle of James Island or Secessionville, the culmination
of crass obstinacy and folly. Benham, who, deaf to the orders of his
commander, deaf to the warnings of Wright, deaf to Stevens's earnest
entreaties to be allowed to attack later in the day and after due
preparation, had so rashly and obstinately forced the fight,--this very
Benham shrank from the shock of battle, and ordered the retreat when
victory was within his grasp.

The enemy's forces upon James Island were commanded by General N.G.
Evans, and numbered certainly not less than 9000 effective. Colonel T.G.
Lamar commanded the fort and was severely wounded. He had two companies,
B and I, of his own regiment, the 1st South Carolina artillery, the 1st
South Carolina or Charleston and 9th South Carolina or Pee Dee
battalions, four officers and one hundred picked men of the 22d South
Carolina, and three officers and presumably the crew of the floating
battery, which had been withdrawn from the fire of the three-gun battery
a few days before. All these commands must have numbered at least 800,
although Colonel Lamar reports that his force did not exceed 500 until
reinforced. He was soon reinforced by the 4th Louisiana battalion,
numbering 250, and later by the balance of the 22d South Carolina, so
that he must have had at least 1500 men before the action closed. The
losses in these commands amounted to 172, of which the original garrison
suffered 144, an unusually heavy loss behind strong works, viz.:
Charleston battalion, 42; 1st South Carolina artillery, 55; Pee Dee
battalion, 29; detachment 22d South Carolina, 18; total, 144. The loss
of the 1st South Carolina artillery, 55, would indicate that more than
two companies were in the fort.

Colonel Lamar reports that he was expecting an attack, having a
detachment at each gun, and the alarm was given when the pickets were
driven in; yet the assaulting column advanced so rapidly that it was
within seven hundred yards when he reached the battery, and much nearer
when in person he fired the 8-inch columbiad heavily charged with grape,
which he says broke the leading regiment, cutting it completely in two.

The other Confederate troops engaged were the 1st, 24th, and 25th South
Carolina, Boyce's field battery, and Company H, 1st South Carolina
artillery, which manned the Reed battery. General Evans ordered up the
47th and 51st Georgia to support his right. His force, engaged and on
the field, numbered 4500 effective, besides which were plenty of other
troops available on the main works.

The Confederate loss all told was 204.

The Union loss aggregated 685, of which Stevens's column suffered 529;
Williams's brigade, 152; Wright's division, four.

The 8th Michigan lost 185 out of 534, or thirty per cent.; 13 out of 22
officers who went into the fight, including every officer of the
storming party, were killed or wounded. The Highlanders lost 110 out of
484, notwithstanding which they withdrew in good order, and brought off
60 of their wounded, some of their dead, and their two prisoners. These
losses would have been much greater had it not been for the partial
shelter afforded by the cotton-ridges, and the fire of the men behind
them, which kept down that of the fort. But the loss of the garrison is
unparalleled behind such works, and shows the desperate nature of the
fighting.

The nearest parallel to this assault afforded by the war was that on
Fort Saunders at Knoxville, where the Highlanders had their revenge.
They manned the exposed salient of the fort when Longstreet tried to
carry it by storm, November 29, 1863. This work was not so strong either
in profile or position as Fort Lamar. It was subjected to a severe
shelling and fire of sharpshooters, and then three veteran brigades,
fifteen regiments, rushed upon both faces of the salient angle. The
Highlanders and Benjamin's Battery E, of the 2d artillery, repulsed
every attack. No enemy raised his head above the parapet and lived. And
in the midst of the fight, amid the noise and fury of battle, as the
Highlanders plied their muskets and rolled by hand 20-pounder shells
with fuses cut short and lighted into the ditch, filled with the
struggling mass of men, the Highlanders grimly passed the word along the
line, "Remember James Island! Remember James Island!"

The Highlanders here lost four killed and five wounded. The entire loss
in the fort was inconsiderable. The enemy lost 813 men, three flags, and
600 small-arms. This would seem almost incredible, were it not attested
by the official reports, both Union and Confederate.

Why the assault failed, it is not far to seek. The principal cause was
the strength of the work, manned as it was by a resolute garrison, and
the destructive fire of its heavy guns. Although the alarm was given by
the outposts nearly a mile from the work, the column reached it upon the
heels of the fleeing picket, and was actually within five hundred yards
before the first gun could be fired. But this gun, an 8-inch columbiad
charged with grape, shattered the centre of the leading regiment,
cutting it completely in two. Then the canister from the big howitzer
and other guns doubly decimated them, yet the brave fellows gained the
parapet. Had the next two regiments, the 7th Connecticut and 28th
Massachusetts, following close upon the Michiganders as ordered, joined
them at this instant, the work would undoubtedly have been taken. But
they were green troops, never having been under fire; the 28th, indeed,
was fresh from home, and under the terrible storm of grape and canister
they were beaten to the left, and entangled in the bushes and broken
bank there. Although Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley lost no time in
disentangling his regiment and moving it out into the field and again
forward, it is significant, and well shows the difficulty of handling
green troops under fire, that the Highlanders rushed past the right of
the 7th Connecticut, and the Roundheads broke through or ran over its
centre, and both assaulted the fort and were repulsed--nearly all who
reached the parapet being killed, and the remainder forced to give
back--by the time the Connecticut regiment had advanced to within a
hundred yards of the work, where Hawley received the order to withdraw.

Certainly the rapid advance and onset of the Michiganders, Highlanders,
and Roundheads were all that men could do. Their loss was so great and
the parapet so difficult that not enough men could surmount it to be
able to hold it; but the chief reason for the failure was the deadly
fire from the woods and cover behind the fort. The work was fairly
stormed, but the stormers, too few to hold it, were destroyed by the
deadly fire from its rear.

These three regiments had already smelt powder, and had been well
drilled and disciplined by General Stevens. The others, new and
inexperienced, could not be expected to equal them, yet they evinced no
lack of bravery.

General Stevens says in his report:--

  "I must confess that the coolness and mobility of all the troops
  engaged on the 16th surprised me, and I cannot but believe, had
  proper use been made of the artillery, guns from the navy, and our
  own batteries, fixed and field; had the position been gradually
  approached and carefully examined, and the attack made much later in
  the day, when our batteries had had their full effect, all of which,
  you will recollect, was strongly urged by me upon General Benham the
  evening of the conference,--the result might have been very
  different."[18]

General Stevens commends the gallantry of his troops in strong terms,
and the brave and efficient service of his staff, already mentioned, of
Lieutenant Orrin M. Dearborn, of the 3d New Hampshire, aide in place of
Lieutenant Cottrell, who, having been promoted captain, had command of
his company, and of Lieutenant Jefferson Justice, of the Roundheads,
acting division quartermaster, who served upon the field as his aide.
Lieutenant Lyons, who so bravely led the stormers, died of his wound in
hospital at Hilton Head soon afterwards.

For his wrong-headed and disobedient conduct Benham was placed under
arrest by General Hunter and sent North. His appointment as
brigadier-general was revoked by the President. Later, by unwearied
importunity and the pressure of influence, he managed to get himself
reinstated, but never again was he trusted with the lives of brave men.

FOOTNOTES:

  [18] See _Rebellion Records_, vol. xiv.; _History of the 79th
       Highlanders_, by William Todd; Major Pressley, in _Southern
       Historical Society Papers_, vol. xvi., Major John Johnson's
       _Defense of Charleston Harbor_.




                              CHAPTER LIV

                           RETURN TO VIRGINIA


A few days after their bloody repulse from Fort Lamar the Highlanders
paraded in front of General Stevens's headquarters and presented him
with a beautiful sword, together with a sash, belt, and spurs, in the
following feeling address. The address was inscribed upon a large sheet
of parchment by one of the skillful penmen in the regiment, in
characters as clear and distinct as copperplate engraving, and in the
middle of the sheet was an excellent photograph of the general in
uniform. The sword was the gift of the non-commissioned officers and
privates exclusively, for they had refused to permit the officers to
contribute a cent towards or bear any part in the testimonial, although
the latter were anxious to do their share. It was common talk among the
men that the officers never amounted to anything until General Stevens
took them in hand; that he had saved and redeemed the regiment after
they had well-nigh ruined it; and that they should not have any part in
the sword, which was the tribute of the rank and file. The presentation
was a great surprise to General Stevens, and was the more gratifying as
showing the undiminished regard of the regiment immediately after the
recent severe battle and loss:--

  BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISAAC I. STEVENS.

  _Sir_,--A unanimous feeling of gratitude and respect pervading the
  non-commissioned officers and privates of the Seventy Ninth Regiment
  (Highland Guard) New York State Militia, and wishing to give that
  feeling a humble and appropriate expression, we have determined
  to-day to present for your acceptance this sword, feeling assured
  that by you it will be worthily worn, and never drawn but in defense
  of human rights and their political guaranties. Your recent
  connection with us as our colonel, our friend, and our counselor has
  fitted us in a peculiar manner to judge of and appreciate your
  virtues in each of these capacities. Coming amongst us at a critical
  period in our history as a regiment, when our fair fame was
  eclipsed, and demoralization was fast hurrying us to the vortex of
  anarchy, you listened to the story of our wrongs, tempered your
  decisions against the erring ones with the high attribute of mercy,
  and bade us hope. We did hope, and ere long we found ourselves
  recuperated and in Camp Advance. There our confidence in you was
  perfected, and our esteem became affection. When it was announced
  that your distinguished military services had brought you higher and
  greener laurels, we were glad and proud; but sorrow, deep and
  profound, pervaded our ranks when it was made known that your
  services were demanded in another sphere, and that we must separate.
  The exclamation of "Tak' us wi' ye!" which greeted you upon that
  day's parade was heartfelt and sincere, and your intervention in our
  behalf has enabled us to preserve our connection, if not as close,
  not the less fondly. That your valuable and beneficent life may long
  be spared to the service and to mankind, and that the blessing of
  God may rest upon you and upon your family, is the sincere prayer of
  the non-commissioned officers and privates of the

                              SEVENTY-NINTH, HIGHLAND GUARD.


                      GENERAL STEVENS'S RESPONSE.

  FELLOW-SOLDIERS OF THE HIGHLAND GUARD,--I have no words to express
  my gratitude for this unexpected and unmerited mark of your
  confidence and affection. We came together not only at a critical
  period of your own history as a regiment, but at a critical period
  of our beloved country's history, when its armies had been stricken
  down, and dismay and discouragement spread over the length and
  breadth of the land. It was the time for the true and the strong to
  come to the work, and by a firm stand in our country's cause again
  to cause hope and faith to spring up in the hearts of men. You
  recollect we moved from our camp of "Hope" on the beautiful heights
  in the rear of Washington to the camp of the "Advance" across the
  Potomac. Then I spoke to you words of encouragement, and together,
  in the glorious light of day, we won back our colors. We had soon
  become acquainted. As your colonel, I ever found you brave and true.
  The pathos of your address, its living expressions, touch me. When I
  was ordered South, and rode through your ranks to say farewell, and
  saw the tear glisten in every manly eye, and heard the words, "Tak'
  us wi' ye!" from every lip, I thought we could not part; so, on
  reaching Annapolis, I said to our late able and respected commander,
  General Sherman, "Send for the Highlanders; they want to come, and
  you can depend upon them." Here you have come, and here you are
  to-day. Have you not always done well? Who ever finds the
  Highlanders behind? I know not which feeling of my heart is stronger
  in regard to you,--my pride or my affection. Your firm step, your
  manly countenances, cold steel for your enemies, and the open hand
  and heart for your friend,--such are you, beloved comrades. In the
  late sad, glorious fight where were you? Laggards, or seeking the
  front on the double-quick to succor your friends, the 8th Michigan,
  led on by your gallant lieutenant-colonel there, David Morrison? You
  gained that front and parapet, and some of your noblest and your
  best there found a soldier's grave. It was indeed a sad but glorious
  field. Not a laggard, not a fugitive,--all the regiment in
  line,--all by their colors and in order of battle, but many dead and
  wounded men. I am profoundly affected by the circumstance that you
  have seized such an occasion to show your regard for me. Yes,
  beloved comrades, we are ready to expose and, if need be, to lay
  down our lives for our country. We will keep steadfastly to the work
  till this sad, terrible war is ended, and peace smiles again upon
  the land. My friends, I shall endeavor to be deserving of your
  magnificent testimonial of respect and affection. I accept it, not
  as my right, but as your free gift. I accept it most gratefully. God
  willing, that sword shall ever be borne by me in defense of my
  country's rights, and in the cause of God and humanity. The spurs,
  too, from my friends of the drum corps,--the boys who scour the
  battlefield and bring off the dead and wounded men,--I will wear in
  memory of your mission, and perhaps some day they may urge the fleet
  steed to your relief and assistance. Friends, the thistle of your
  native land has stung our enemies, and been an omen of hope to our
  friends. It has been planted here, and glorious properties has it
  shown in this palmetto soil. In conclusion, permit me again to
  express my deep gratitude for these marks of your affection and
  esteem.

The sword was an exceedingly handsome one. The blade was richly inlaid
with gold, representing a Highlander bearing the American flag, an
ancient Scottish soldier, and many Scottish and patriotic devices and
mottoes. The hilt represented the Goddess of Liberty; the guard was
formed of the thistle, the emblem of Scotland, and was studded with a
large topaz surrounded by thirteen diamonds. The hilt and scabbard were
heavily gilded, and the latter terminated in a tiger's head. There was
also a plain steel scabbard bronzed, a general's yellow sash, and a
red-and-gold belt. The spurs were also richly gilded, the shank and
rowel representing the thistle, and were the gift of the drummer-boys.

                                  JAMES ISLAND, June 26, 1862.

  MY DEAREST WIFE,--General Wright called down at my quarters last
  evening and took a look at my sword. He thought it a very splendid
  thing, and advises me to send it home as soon as possible. I hope
  those beautiful testimonials will reach you speedily and safely. I
  want my friends to see them. The sword is the most beautiful I ever
  saw.

  I have already sent you my reply to the address. It is thought here
  to be very appropriate. It was wholly unstudied, as I had not the
  least idea of what the address would be.

  Hazard has worked very hard of late. Did I write you that his
  conduct on the battlefield was witnessed by the rebels with great
  admiration? So say the rebel officers whom my officers met under a
  recent flag of truce. These officers say a great many shots were
  fired directly at him. Every one in the division knows the officer
  they refer to, from the description of the officer and his horse, to
  be Hazard. The boy did most nobly, and every one speaks in the
  highest terms of his conduct on the field of battle. Was not his
  life wonderfully preserved? My own staff is considered a very
  excellent one. Cottrell was not killed, but was wounded, and a
  prisoner in the hands of the enemy. Lyons is getting on well with
  his wound. Lyman Arnold is dead. I particularly interested his
  brigade commander, Colonel Williams, and the surgeon, in his case,
  and I cannot doubt that every attention was paid to him.

Daniel Lyman Arnold, who has already been mentioned as a member of the
Northern Pacific Railroad exploration, with his brother, General Richard
Arnold, was a cousin of Mrs. Stevens. He was a private in the 3d Rhode
Island, and was mortally wounded in the battle, where he had shown great
bravery. General Stevens, with his son, visited the dying man soon after
the battle, and did all in his power to make him comfortable.

  June 30. I wrote you three days ago that General Hunter had given
  orders to evacuate this place. It is a large operation. The cavalry
  were got on board yesterday and last night, and started this morning
  for Hilton Head. We expect the transports back to-morrow, when
  General Williams's division will be embarked. My own division will
  be embarked last.

  Raymond Rodgers came here to-day from the squadron at Hilton Head.
  He talked considerably about the 16th. He assured me that my conduct
  and management on that day is universally commended. Indeed, I have
  good reason to believe that here in this department, both with the
  army and navy, it has very much increased my military reputation. No
  one but Benham calls in question my perfect fidelity to my orders,
  and that the course I actually pursued alone gave, under his orders,
  the least promise of success. I moved with exceeding rapidity,
  without stopping to fire, and pushed in everything without reserve.
  The statement of the enemy shows how near the work came to falling
  into our hands. I know I could have seized that work with but little
  loss of life, and on that very day, had the entire management been
  mine.

  My own course with him after the battle was stern and determined. I
  _compelled_ him to modify his report so as to do my division full
  justice. I warned him that the entire responsibility of bringing on
  that fight was his, that I had opposed it, and that I should take no
  part of the responsibility. He wilted and quailed under my eye and
  speech. He made a second attempt to falsify the truth with me, and I
  made him quail again, and this was in the presence of witnesses.

  There has been a real comfort and satisfaction in serving under
  Wright, which I have not had for a long time. He has shown very
  sound judgment in all his arrangements since he has been in command.
  Williams, who commands the second division, is a very agreeable and
  sensible man, and is highly esteemed throughout the command.

On Benham's arrest General Wright succeeded to the command as next in
rank, and field-works to protect the camps were commenced, and
considerable work done upon them, when General Hunter wisely decided to
withdraw from James Island. General Stevens brought off the last of the
troops on July 4. He was first ordered to Beaufort with his division,
except the 7th Connecticut and Rockwell's battery, which were detached
and landed at Hilton Head; but scarcely had they reached Beaufort
when--including the 50th Pennsylvania, which rejoined the command--they
were brought back to Hilton Head and debarked July 5, then reëmbarked
July 9, and sent back to Beaufort; then, without leaving the transports,
they were dropped four miles down the Beaufort River, and landed on
Smith's plantation, where the whole division was to be encamped. In the
absence of wharves, all the baggage had to be put ashore in small boats.
By great exertions this was accomplished, and the tents were up before
dark, when orders were received to reëmbark immediately and proceed to
Hilton Head, there to take ocean steamers for Virginia. After a brief
rest the harassed and wornout soldiers toiled the balance of the night,
reëmbarking the camp equipage, baggage, and supplies. The troops were
transferred to ocean steamers at Hilton Head on July 10 and 11, and on
the 12th were borne away northward, rejoiced to leave a command marked
by incompetence and disaster, and to rest after the useless toil to
which they had been subjected.

The point on Beaufort River where General Stevens's division landed is
of especial interest as the site of the first European settlement in the
United States, made by Jean Ribaut and a party of French Huguenots in
1562, just three centuries before; and the walls of a small fort,
constructed by him of coquina, a very hard and durable concrete of
oyster-shells, were visible on the shore of and partly in the river,
which had considerably undermined them.

                                  STEAMER VANDERBILT, July 14, 1862.

  MY DEAR WIFE,--We left Hilton Head at eight o'clock, yesterday
  morning. I was utterly worn out, and was very glad to go to bed. I
  slept twenty hours the first twenty-four I was on board, and to-day
  I have been very well rested.

  It is supposed our destination will be McClellan's army. McClellan
  has unquestionably met with a very serious check. Indeed, it is
  nothing less than a disaster. His loss in men and material of war
  must have been immense. The plan of campaign of the Potomac (army)
  has been a monstrous folly, and disaster is its legitimate fruit.
  The army should never have been divided, and the route should not
  have been by Fortress Monroe. I doubt whether any adequate plan will
  be hit upon to make the most of the present condition of things. I
  am afraid the Confederates will by a rapid countermarch fall upon
  Pope with overwhelming force. I think, so far as I can gather the
  facts, that Pope should be largely reinforced, and that he should
  wage the campaign. It has also occurred to me that the wisest plan
  would be to withdraw McClellan from his present position, send
  him to the Potomac, unite him with Pope, and commence anew. But it
  is useless to speculate. We shall reach Fortress Monroe to-morrow,
  where we will receive additional orders.

  [Illustration: CAMP OF GENERAL STEVENS'S DIVISION AT NEWPORT NEWS]

The transfer to Virginia was the very movement that General Stevens
recommended to the President in a letter dated July 8, in which he
wrote:--

  "In the district formerly commanded by Sherman are some twenty-three
  regiments. Eleven of these regiments are ample for the purpose I
  have mentioned. This will leave a full division of twelve regiments
  to reinforce our columns at points where the enemy is fighting with
  the energy of despair, and where its timely aid may bring to our
  arms the crowning victory of the war.

  "I earnestly desire this war to be prosecuted to a signal and speedy
  success. This department can well afford to wait. It is not the
  proper base for operations. We are, moreover, much too small for an
  advance, and much too large for simply holding the points we now
  occupy. Let us simply hold these points. The crisis of the war is in
  Virginia. There throw your troops. There signally defeat and destroy
  the enemy. You strike Charleston and Savannah by striking Richmond.

  "Send us, therefore, and send twelve of our regiments to Virginia.
  Let us have the satisfaction of sharing there the dangers, the
  privations, and the sacrifices of our companions in arms. Let us
  feel that we are doing good service for our country, that we are
  really helping in the gravest contest of the war."

After a smooth and pleasant voyage the command reached Fortress Monroe
on the 16th, debarked at Newport News, and went into camp on the level
plain overlooking the broad expanse of water where James River enters
Hampton Roads. General Burnside had just arrived here with eight
thousand troops from North Carolina, and the ninth corps was organized
from the two commands, General Stevens's division forming the first and
the North Carolina troops the second and third divisions under Generals
Jesse L. Reno and John G. Parke respectively, General Burnside
commanding the corps.

General Cullum, Halleck's chief of staff, was at Fortress Monroe when
General Stevens arrived there, and had a long and confidential talk with
his former brother officer and old friend in regard to the military
situation. It is noteworthy that the very movements he mentioned as best
in his letter to his wife were precisely the ones adopted immediately
afterwards, viz., the withdrawal of McClellan and reinforcement of Pope.
Halleck, whose voice was then controlling in military councils in
Washington, was undoubtedly led to adopt, or strengthened in his own
ideas by, the views of his former classmate and rival, whose ability and
sound military judgment he fully appreciated.

                                  NEWPORT NEWS, August 2, 1862.

  MY DEAR WIFE,--I send by this mail sketches with brief letters to
  each of the girls. We go on board ship to-morrow. I am now satisfied
  there will be marked improvement in the general management of army
  matters. Probably the moves now being made will take the country
  somewhat by surprise, but they are wise and absolutely necessary.
  Before this reaches you our destination will be known, but I am not
  at liberty to speak of it. Reno sets off about sundown this evening,
  Parke will be off to-morrow, and myself the next day.

  [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS, NEWPORT NEWS]




                               CHAPTER LV

                            POPE'S CAMPAIGN


The military authorities having decided to throw Burnside's troops up
the Rappahannock to reinforce Pope, General Stevens sailed from Newport
News on August 4, debarked at Acquia Creek on the 6th, and reached
Fredericksburg the same day. Here two light batteries were added to the
division, E, of the 2d United States artillery, under Lieutenant S.N.
Benjamin, with four 20-pounder rifled Parrotts and the 8th Massachusetts
battery, a new organization recently from home, enlisted for six months
only. The division was divided into three brigades, the 8th Michigan and
50th Pennsylvania, under Colonel B. C. Christ, constituting the first
brigade; the Roundheads and 46th New York, under Colonel Leasure, the
second; and the Highlanders and 28th Massachusetts, under Colonel
Addison Farnsworth, the third. Colonel Farnsworth was appointed colonel
of the Highlanders by the governor of New York, and joined his regiment
at Beaufort, but was absent on leave during the James Island campaign,
at the close of which he returned to it. Lieutenant H.G. Heffron was
appointed aide in place of Lieutenant Lyons.

Starting from Fredericksburg on the 13th, Generals Stevens's and Reno's
divisions, eight thousand strong, the latter as ranking officer in
command, stripped of all baggage except shelter tents, marched up the
north bank of the Rappahannock, passing Bealton Station on the
Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, crossed the river at
Rappahannock Station, and joined Pope at Culpeper Court House on the
15th. General Stevens bivouacked three miles in front of that point, and
on the following day was thrown forward to guard Raccoon Ford, on the
Rapidan River, which he held with a strong detachment, placing his
division a mile and a half back in support.

Pope's bombastic orders, and his invitation to forage on the enemy,
greatly increased straggling and relaxed discipline among his troops.
General Stevens ordered roll-calls at every halt, and at the end of
every day's march; reports of stragglers made daily, and prompt and
severe punishment inflicted upon such delinquents and upon plunderers,
and sternly stopped the evil in its inception. The 46th New York, a
German regiment, where even the commands at drill were given in German,
loaded some of its supply-wagons with lager beer on leaving
Fredericksburg, leaving behind a good part of their rations, having some
vague notion of living off the country. General Stevens at once had all
the lager thrown into the road, and the wagons sent back for the
abandoned rations. The indignation of Colonel Rosa and his officers rose
to such a pitch over this summary loss of their beloved beverage that
they tendered their resignations in a body, with a grandiloquent letter
from the colonel. But General Stevens emphatically assured them that
they must remain and do their duty as soldiers during the campaign, and
took no further notice of their insubordinate and unsoldierly action.

  [Illustration: VIRGINIA--POTOMAC TO RAPIDAN RIVER]

On the 9th, only a week before the arrival of the two divisions of
the ninth corps, the severe fight of Cedar Mountain occurred between
Banks's corps and Jackson. The latter, although victor on the field by
force of numbers, was so badly crippled that he withdrew behind the
Rapidan the second day after the battle. Pope, on receiving these
reinforcements, advanced to the line of that river, and General Stevens
held his extreme left, a cavalry picket only watching Germanna Ford, the
next below Raccoon. The army, officially known as the Army of Virginia,
consisted of the corps of McDowell, Banks, and Sigel, and numbered forty
thousand effective. The ninth corps troops added eight thousand more,
and heavy reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac were on their way,
so that, if Pope could only hold his ground a few days, both armies
would be united in his advanced Position.

But Lee, safely leaving McClellan, with his great army, on the Peninsula
to his inaction, swiftly gathered his army opposite Pope, and, crossing
the river, advanced one wing under Jackson to strike him on the left and
rear, and the other, under Longstreet, to attack him in front. Pope
gained timely notice of this move by a lucky cavalry reconnoissance, and
withdrew to the Rappahannock just in time to escape it. During the 17th,
18th, and 19th General Stevens kept his officers busily engaged in what
he termed "looking up the country," that is, in tracing out all the
roads and by-roads, and studying the topography, defensive positions,
and approaches. He always attached great importance to a thorough
knowledge of the ground, and seized every opportunity to gain it.
Ordered, on the afternoon of the 19th, to move back his train
immediately, and his troops at two in the morning, by way of Stevensburg
and Barnett's Ford on the Rappahannock, General Stevens started off the
train at once, and at nine in the evening drew out his division three
miles on the designated road, which runs parallel to the river for a
considerable distance, and halted. By this movement he placed his whole
force in position to defend the ford till the last moment, and all
danger of being cut off by the sudden advance of the enemy was
obviated. The column resumed the march in retreat at two A.M., reached
Stevensburg at daylight, where it was detained an hour by General Reno's
train, that officer with his division having already fallen back, and
after a march of twenty-six miles crossed the Rappahannock at Barnett's
Ford, and went into bivouac at four P.M. That day the whole of Pope's
army fell back and took up the line of the Rappahannock, the ninth corps
on the left.

At dusk on the evening of the 21st, leaving four companies of infantry
and four light guns of the 8th Massachusetts battery at the ford, and
two companies at another ford a few miles higher up, General Stevens
marched eight miles up the river to Kelly's Ford, arriving at midnight,
and a day after General Reno.

The next day he recrossed the river with two brigades in support of a
cavalry reconnoissance by General Buford. Deploying the third
brigade,--the Highlanders and 28th Massachusetts,--he drove back a
considerable force of the enemy for more than a mile in a sharp action,
and, after accomplishing all that was expected or desired, withdrew to
the left bank.

On the 2d both divisions continued moving up the river ten miles to
Rappahannock Station, two regiments from each being left to guard
Kelly's Ford. Here were found the troops of McDowell and Banks. Sigel
was farther up the river, and his artillery was heard thundering in the
distance all day. Banks moved after him late in the afternoon. Both
armies were now moving up the Rappahannock, but on opposite sides. Lee,
foiled in his bold onslaught by the timely retreat of his antagonist,
and finding him strongly posted behind the river, was now pushing his
columns up the right bank, seeking to cross it or to outflank and turn
Pope's right, and Pope was carefully following his movement to head him
off.

On the 23d General Stevens continued the march up the river, followed by
Reno's division. Banks's troops and Sigel's train were soon overtaken,
blocking up the road; the march was continually interrupted and delayed
by them, and after struggling forward over the muddy and slippery roads,
pelted by a heavy, drenching rainstorm, until after midnight, having
marched only four miles in eighteen hours, the tired and bedraggled
troops were allowed to rest, or rather halt, by the roadside until
morning. During the day the troops left at the lower fords rejoined the
division, having been relieved by General Reynolds's division, the first
to arrive from the Army of the Potomac. On overtaking Banks's corps,
General Stevens had a talk with that officer, who was quite lame from a
recent fall, and looked thin and careworn. His troops had been sadly cut
up at Cedar Mountain, and his regiments, with their scanty numbers,
seemed reduced almost to the size of companies. All day Sigel's guns
were thundering up the river as though a pitched battle were raging,
but, as afterwards appeared, he was wasting ammunition on skirmishers
and single horsemen beyond the stream, while his enormous and
ill-regulated wagon-train was keeping back the rest of the army.

The march was resumed on the 24th, and Sulphur Springs reached late in
the afternoon. General Stevens, riding at the head of his column, was
here met by General Sigel, who requested him to take one of his (General
Stevens's) brigades and a battery, and destroy the bridge across the
river at this point, which the enemy's sharpshooters were making very
hot. Astonished at such a request, a virtual acknowledgment of his own
and his troops' inefficiency, General Stevens nevertheless promptly set
to work to comply with it, when the bridge was found to be in flames,
having been fired by some of Sigel's men.

On this day's march, as the division was halting for a noon rest, and
the soldiers were reclining on the ground in groups, or making their
cups of coffee over little fires of fence rails, a party of rebel
cavalry with a section of artillery appeared on a cross-road a mile
distant and near the river, and a lively shower of shells suddenly fell
over and among the resting troops. At this Lieutenant Benjamin very
coolly and deliberately unlimbered and sighted one of his 20-pounders;
the shell flew straight to the mark, fairly striking the annoying piece,
and the enemy beat a hasty retreat at this single shot.

The following morning, the 25th, General Stevens continued marching up
the river, and, on reaching Waterloo Bridge, was ordered to countermarch
and proceed to Warrenton. Arrived here, passing McDowell's corps
bivouacked along the road, the division rested some hours, then marched
for Warrenton Junction, and halted at midnight at a place known as
Eastern View, several miles from the Junction, to which it moved the
next day, the 26th.

Meantime the reinforcements were arriving from the Army of the Potomac.
Reynolds's division, 6000 strong, coming by way of Acquia Creek and the
Rappahannock, joined on the 23d and was attached to McDowell's corps. By
the same route two divisions of the fifth corps, under General Fitz John
Porter, reached Bealton on the 26th and the Junction the next day. They
numbered 9000 effective, and were commanded by Generals George W. Morell
and George Sykes respectively. On the 25th Generals Kearny's and
Hooker's divisions of the third corps, under General Samuel P.
Heintzelman, numbering 10,000 effective, were brought out on the
railroad from Alexandria to the same place, Warrenton Junction. With
these reinforcements, deducting losses and straggling, Pope's strength
was raised to 60,000. Lee's army numbered,--Longstreet, 30,000;
Jackson, 22,000; Stuart's cavalry, 3000; total, 55,000.[19]

On the 22d Lee attempted a crossing near Sulphur Springs, and threw a
heavy force of Jackson's troops across the river; but the storm, and the
sudden rise of the stream making the fords impassable, induced him to
withdraw. Thus baffled in his design of crossing at Sulphur Springs, and
finding that point and Waterloo Bridge, four miles above, held in force
by the Union troops, and well knowing that Pope's strength was
increasing daily by reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, Lee now
determined to push Jackson completely around the right of the Union
army, turning it by a circuitous but rapid march, and throw him on the
railroad in its rear, its sole line of supply, and to follow up the
movement with the other wing under Longstreet. Accordingly, on the 24th
Jackson moved back from the river to Jefferson, his troops being
relieved by Longstreet's; on the 25th marched by Amissville and Orleans
to Salem; and on the 26th continued his march through Thoroughfare Gap
and Gainesville to Bristoe Station, on the ill-fated line of
communications, which he struck at dark, capturing some prisoners and
two trains loaded with supplies. Bristoe is only eight miles north of
Warrenton Junction, about which so many Union troops were grouped; and
Jackson, by his bold move, had thrown himself fairly upon the back of
Pope's army. Without delay he dispatched a small force that night to
Manassas Junction, five miles down the railroad, and eight guns, three
hundred prisoners, and an immense quantity of stores fell into his
hands. Next morning, leaving Ewell to hold back the Union forces, he
moved the other divisions to Manassas, where they spent the day
outfitting themselves from the captured stores.

  [Illustration: Positions, nine P.M., August 26, 1862.]

When this blow fell, Pope had his troops well in hand: McDowell and
Sigel's corps grouped about Warrenton; the four divisions of Stevens,
Reno, Kearny and Hooker near Warrenton Junction; while Porter at Bealton
and Banks at Fayetteville were within an easy march of the Junction.
Pope, having made up his mind that the enemy would fall upon his right,
was loath to believe that he had gotten into his rear in heavy force,
but he embarked a regiment on a train of cars and sent it down the road
towards Bristoe that night to find out. This reconnoissance reported the
enemy in force; but even yet Pope was not convinced, still clinging to
his opinion that his right, the line from Warrenton to Gainesville, was
most exposed to Lee's attack. Therefore, instead of throwing upon
Bristoe, at daylight the next morning, the overwhelming force he had at
hand near the Junction, he sent only Hooker's division down the railroad
to brush away the supposed raiding party, moved the other three
(Stevens, Reno, and Kearny) to Greenwich, and ordered McDowell and Sigel
to Gainesville; the former to take command of both corps, for he was not
satisfied with Sigel's dilatoriness in marching and obeying orders.

  [Illustration: Positions of Troops, Sunset, August 27, 1862.]

Hooker encountered Ewell in front of Bristoe, and, in a sharp action in
the afternoon, pushed him across Broad Run, from which, after destroying
the bridge, he retreated unmolested to Manassas. As the result of
Hooker's fight, Pope now knew that Jackson with his whole corps was at
Bristoe that very morning, and had just marched--his rear division was
even then marching--down the railroad to Manassas. He supposed that
Longstreet was far to the westward, beyond supporting distance to
Jackson. Confident that the great flanker was at last within his power,
he issued vigorous orders for the morrow's movements, designed to throw
his whole army upon him at Manassas and crush him. To this end he
ordered Hooker to push down the railroad towards Manassas; Porter to
hasten from Warrenton Junction to support Hooker, starting at one in the
morning; Kearny to Bristoe; and Stevens and Reno directly on
Manassas,--the three to move at daylight; McDowell to advance his whole
force from Gainesville also on Manassas, with Sigel resting his right on
the Manassas Gap Railroad, and McDowell's divisions following in echelon
extended on his left, so that this great force would sweep a wide scope
of country,--practically the whole region between the Manassas Gap
Railroad and the Warrenton pike,--and would intercept Jackson's retreat
by that thoroughfare. This plan was well plotted to overwhelm the wolf
at Manassas, if the wolf would only wait there until the toils closed
around him. A day, or even half a day, would suffice. But Jackson was
not the man to wait anywhere long enough to give his adversary the
initiative. That night and early the next morning he moved to the field
of Bull Run, and took up a position admirable for defense, and from
which with equal facility he could attack any force moving along the
pike, or fall back westward by good roads to meet Longstreet, now
rapidly approaching.

It is a high, undulating country west of Bull Run upon which on June 21,
1861, and August 28, 29, and 30, 1862, were fought the battles of Bull
Run, Gainesville, and second Bull Run, or, as known to the Confederates,
Bull Run, Groveton, and Manassas. Long, broad ridges stretch across the
country, sloping down in successive rolls of ground to wide hollows.
Open fields cover two thirds of the surface of hill and dale,
alternating with tracts of woods, which clothe the remaining third.
These are of oak and other deciduous trees, and are tolerably open and
free from underbrush.

The Alexandria and Warrenton pike, running nearly west (west 15° south),
bisects the field, and was the most important line of communication upon
it. Crossing Bull Run by a stone bridge, the pike follows up the valley
of a tributary, Young's Branch, gently and gradually ascending for two
miles, and then passes over several ridges and high ground on to
Gainesville, five miles farther. Young's Branch has worn a deep and
narrow valley through the first ridge, a mile from the stone bridge, and
to the traveler passing up the pike the abutting ends of the ridge
present the appearance of quite steep and high hills. The first hill on
the left, separated from the next by a hollow down which a dirt road
descends, is the Henry Hill, the scene of the fiercest fighting of the
first battle, where Bee and Bartow, the Southern generals, fell, and
where Ricketts and his gallant battery were all but destroyed and were
captured. The next hill is the Chinn House, termed in some of the
reports the Bald Hill. Opposite these, and on the right or north side of
the road, are Buck Hill and Rosefield or Dogan House. The tops of these
hills are not peaked but flat, being simply the general level of the
plateau or ridge.

Another road scarcely less important crosses the field at right angles
to the pike, nearly on the line of this first ridge, passing between the
Henry and Chinn Hills, and Buck Hill and Rosefield. This is the Manassas
and Sudley road. From Manassas Junction, six miles to the south on the
Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, it runs in a northerly
direction to and over the plateau on the south part of the field,
descends by the lateral hollow to Young's Branch, where it crosses the
pike, and, climbing up the end of the ridge on the north, continues in
the same general direction over two miles to Sudley Ford across Bull
Run.

Another road from the south crosses the pike at a point two and a half
miles beyond the stone bridge, known as Groveton, and marked by two
houses and some outbuildings. This road, running north, descends down a
hollow from the plateau on the south, crosses the pike at Groveton,
passes across low or flat ground for half a mile, enters a tract of
woods, and extends through them to Sudley Ford.

One of the most important features of the second battle was a section of
railroad grade about two miles in length, which extended from the Run
near Sudley Church nearly parallel to the Groveton road for a mile and a
half, traversing thickly wooded but level ground with shallow cuts and
low embankments; then, curving westward away from the road and emerging
from the woods into the open, it crossed a hollow on an embankment,
which at one place was ten feet high, and bore away on its course to
Gainesville.

Standing at Rosefield, the eye of the observer sweeps westward or
frontward over a broad expanse of open country, descending to the lower
ground crossed by the Groveton road, and beyond it, over the rising
slopes and summit of a bare, high ridge two miles and a half distant, a
ridge much higher than the one on which he stands, and the dominating
feature of the landscape. To the right, or northward, open fields extend
nearly a mile, but to the right front is seen the extensive tract of
woods in which is concealed the railroad grade, and which covers the
broad flat between the two ridges. To the left or southward, across the
narrow valley of Young's Branch, appear the steep Henry and Bald hills,
really the verge of the plateau. They are bare of trees. But farther to
the west, the left front, a tract of woods, from two to three hundred
yards back from the pike, clothes the plateau. On the south side the
ground slopes up sharply from the Branch and extends southward in a
broad, high plateau, while on the north side of the pike the ground is
much lower, extending, as already described, to the Groveton road.

Bull Run bounds the field on the east and northeast, and can be readily
crossed by several fords as well as by the stone bridge. Among them are
Sudley Ford, over three miles above the bridge; Lock's or Red House
Ford, half way between these points; Blackburn's Ford, four miles below;
one a short distance above, and another alongside the bridge.

It was Thursday, August 28, 1862, that the first rays of the rising sun,
falling athwart the cloudless skies and warm but balmy air of a Southern
summer morning, revealed an animated scene,--throngs of gray-coated,
slouch-hatted men, yet with many a blue-coated one intermingled,
clustering thickly along the Sudley road near the pike, some of them
resting outspread upon the grass, others boiling tin cups of coffee and
roasting ears of field-corn over tiny fires of fence rails; long lines
of stacked muskets with bayonets glittering in the sun; guns and wagons
blocking the roads, while their teams of horses and mules were drinking
from the little rivulet, or munching their feed from the wagon-boxes.
Travel-stained, gaunt, and unkempt were these men, but their alert
bearing, and ready joke and laugh, told of unbroken strength and
confidence. They were Jackson's old division, now commanded by General
William B. Taliaferro. Among them was the brigade that a twelvemonth
before won on yonder hill the proud sobriquet of "Stonewall." In high
glee and spirits, they recounted and gloated over the incidents of the
previous day, how, marching swiftly clear around the flank of the Union
army, they struck the railroad in rear and almost in midst of its
extended columns, capturing guns, men, and immense stores of military
supplies at Manassas Junction; how, after loading themselves with all
they could carry and burning the rest, they left the Junction at
midnight, and after a short march were now regaling themselves with
captured Yankee rations upon the scene of the first Yankee defeat.

Soon the command, "Fall in," is passed along, and, resuming the arms and
packs, the dusty column continues its march. One brigade, under Colonel
Bradley T. Johnson, moves up the pike to Groveton, where it takes post
with pickets well out towards Gainesville and the road leading
southward; while the remainder of the division streams along the Sudley
road nearly to Sudley Church, where, turning to the left and crossing
the railroad grade, it again comes to a halt in the woods beyond it.
Scarcely had these troops cleared the road when another motley column
came crossing Bull Run by the pike and swinging up it at a rapid gait,
and they, too, followed the others down the Sudley road and into the
woods across the railroad. These were General Richard S. Ewell's
division of Jackson's corps, which left the Junction at daylight,
crossed Bull Run by Blackburn's Ford, marched up the left or east bank
across the fields, and recrossed by the stone bridge. And still another
column, General A.P. Hill's light division of the same corps, came
marching up from Centreville an hour later, following Ewell up the pike
and along the Sudley road, and also disappeared in the woods beyond the
railroad. Thus, soon after noon, Jackson had his whole corps of 20,000
effective men united, and hidden in the woods behind the railroad with
his train parked at Sudley, one brigade advanced to Groveton watching
the roads west and south, and General J. E.B. Stuart with his cavalry
guarding Bull Run bridge and fords and the Sudley road half way to
Manassas.

Now, leaving Jackson's "foot-cavalry," as his men delighted to call
themselves, resting under the oaks, the narration of the movements of
the Union army is continued, in order clearly to understand the bloody
and fruitless battles then impending.

Pope's right wing, as it may be termed, moved on the 28th as ordered;
reached Manassas about noon, only to find the smoking ruins of Jackson's
destructive visit; continued towards Centreville, and bivouacked for the
night,--Kearny at that point, Stevens, Reno, and Hooker near Blackburn's
Ford. Porter came up to Bristoe. Truly a sluggish advance, but Pope was
placing his chief reliance upon his left wing, under McDowell, which he
expected to sweep up from Gainesville and head off Jackson on the west
and north, while he assailed him on the south with his right.

The complete and ignominious fiasco which McDowell and Sigel contrived
to make of this movement is one of the strangest and most discreditable
episodes of this unhappy campaign. The previous day (27th) Sigel had not
moved his whole corps to Gainesville as ordered, but only the head of
his column, the main body of which was stretched back along the pike
towards Warrenton. The divisions of Reynolds, King, and Ricketts, of
McDowell's corps, in the order named, extended the column in rear of
Sigel still farther. Moreover, the road was incumbered by Sigel's train
of two hundred wagons, which he kept with the troops, although ordered
to send them to Catlett's Station, on the Alexandria and Orange Court
House Railroad, where all the trains were to assemble under guard of
Banks. Although ordered to move at daylight on Manassas, resting his
right on the Manassas Gap Railroad, and to be supported by McDowell's
corps in echelon on his left, Sigel made a late start, and at 7.30 was
halting at Gainesville, his troops building fires to cook breakfast and
blocking up the road, and finally, claiming that his orders were to rest
his right flank on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad,
sheered off to the right after passing Gainesville, keeping on the right
of the Manassas Gap Railroad, upon the left of which his orders
explicitly directed him to advance, and in the afternoon reached the
vicinity of the Junction. From this point, after a start for Centreville
and countermarch, he moved down the Sudley road to the pike, which the
head of his column reached at dark. But he still held on to his train.

Reynolds, although greatly impeded by Sigel's troops and wagons, forced
his way past them, passed Gainesville, and moved down the pike towards
Groveton, in order to gain his required position upon Sigel's left.
Approaching Groveton about ten A.M., he flushed Jackson's advanced
brigade,--Bradley Johnson's,--and deployed and pushed forward his
leading brigade, under General George G. Meade. But Johnson drew back
into the woods on the west, concealing his troops; and Reynolds supposed
that the enemy was a mere scouting party, and sheered off in turn from
the pike to the right in order to follow Sigel as ordered. After a
laborious march across country on the left of the Manassas Gap Railroad,
he came out in sight of Manassas, and thence, moving by the Sudley Road,
he reached the vicinity of the pike and bivouacked near the Chinn House,
still on the left of Sigel. Thus these commands spent the whole day in
laboriously marching clear around the circle from a point just west of
Groveton to a point on the same pike a mile east of it, marching fifteen
miles to gain two!

General Buford, with his cavalry, by a bold reconnoissance developed
Longstreet's column at Salem on the 27th. McDowell, therefore, wisely
modified the order to move his whole force on Manassas by directing his
rear division under Ricketts, starting at one A.M., to move across from
New Baltimore to Haymarket, thence to Thoroughfare Gap, and hold
Longstreet in check. Ricketts was greatly delayed by the wagons and
troops blocking the road ahead of him, but reached the vicinity of the
Gap at three P.M. to find the enemy already in possession of it. But
deploying in position, and opening with artillery, he maintained a
resolute stand, holding him in check until dark, when he retreated to
Gainesville.

King, next to Reynolds in the column, was so long delayed that he was
five hours later in reaching the point near Groveton, where the former
caught a glimpse of Bradley Johnson's brigade. He was ordered to march
down the pike to Centreville. The leading brigade under Hatch had passed
this point, and the next brigade under Gibbon had just reached it, when
his column was subjected to artillery fire from batteries which suddenly
appeared north of the road. Deploying and advancing to drive them off,
Gibbon came face to face with extended lines of infantry advancing upon
him in battle order, and one of the most stubborn fights of the war took
place.

It was Jackson who, after lurking in his wooded lair all the afternoon,
watching the heavy masses of Union troops passing down the pike, and
successively sheering off near Groveton and marching away in the
direction of Manassas, now pushed forward the divisions of Ewell and
Taliaferro and attacked King's column. The field was a high, level, open
plain, without any cover except a small patch of woods and an orchard
and some farm buildings. Reports Taliaferro:--

  "Here one of the most terrific conflicts that can be conceived of
  occurred. Our troops held the farmhouse and one edge of the orchard,
  while the enemy held the orchard and inclosure next the turnpike.
  For two hours and a half, without an instant's cessation of the most
  deadly discharges of musketry, roundshot, and shell, both lines
  stood unmoved, neither advancing and neither broken or yielding,
  until at last, about nine o'clock at night, the enemy slowly and
  sullenly fell back, and yielded the field to our victorious troops."

This fierce conflict was sustained by Gibbon's brigade of four
regiments, two regiments of Doubleday's brigade, and Campbell's battery,
alone and without help from the remainder of King's division. General
Gibbon, after an hour and a half of this terrible struggle, finding
himself far outnumbered and outflanked on the left, ordered his line to
fall back, which was done in good order. His pickets occupied the ground
and collected the wounded. The enemy seems to have also drawn back to
care for the wounded and reorganize, for Jackson's report contains this
significant statement: "The next morning (29th) I found he had abandoned
the ground occupied as the battlefield the evening before."

It is incontestable that Gibbon's small force--six regiments and one
battery--thus gloriously sustained the attack of five brigades of
infantry and three batteries of artillery under Jackson's own direction.
The loss was about eight hundred on each side. Ewell and Taliaferro were
both severely wounded, the former losing a leg. During the battle
General Reynolds rode to the field from his bivouac, and aided Gibbon in
calling for support.

General Ricketts reached Gainesville with his division just as the fight
was over, having retreated from holding Longstreet in check. Thus at
nine o'clock that night, Thursday, August 28, Ricketts and King held the
pike from Gainesville to Groveton. Reynolds was in touch with King,
being a short distance east of Groveton, Sigel next to him; while Pope's
right wing was in the positions already stated, the ninth and
Heintzelman's corps between Blackburn's Ford and Centreville, Porter
east of, Banks at Bristoe.

Thus Pope's army was well positioned for a determined attack upon
Jackson the first thing the next morning by McDowell and Sigel, with the
right coming up early to support. Such an attack should have beaten
Jackson, if he accepted battle, but he could readily decline an unequal
struggle by drawing back to Haymarket and uniting with Longstreet's
columns. And it is clear that Pope's only chance of "bagging" or beating
Jackson was lost on the 28th by the dilatory, disconnected, and
purposeless marches of McDowell's wing.

  [Illustration: Conclusion of Gibbon's Fight.

Positions, nine P.M., August 28, 1862; excepting Jackson's, which is
that occupied by him during the 28th, 29th, and 30th.]

But whatever advantage might have been gained from Gibbon's stanch fight
was speedily thrown away by King's decision to abandon the ground, and
that, too, after assuring General Ricketts, as that officer states, that
he would hold on. At midnight he retreated to Manassas, and General
Ricketts retreated to Bristoe. Both marched away from the enemy, and by
daylight their troops, exhausted and discouraged by being marched day
and night and made to shun the enemy, were strung out along the dusty
roads ten miles from where they were needed, while Lee's right wing was
swiftly marching to join Jackson, which nothing could now prevent.
Something may be said in palliation of this retreat. The enemy held the
ground in front of King, and might be expected to renew the battle in
the morning. The advance of Longstreet was through the Gap and in
contact with Ricketts, and only five miles distant, the afternoon
before. It was to be expected that the Confederate leader would lose no
time in pushing on to join Jackson, and he might move up during the
night, and fall upon the two Union divisions with his whole
force--thirty thousand men--at daylight. "No superior general officer
was in the vicinity with the requisite knowledge and authority to order
up troops," etc., says Gibbon.

But why they did not retreat down the pike, where were Reynolds and
Sigel close at hand, and by which King was ordered to move, is indeed
incomprehensible.

The chief responsibility for the series of blunders which rendered
abortive the movements of the left wing clearly rests upon McDowell, its
commander. His was the nerveless command that failed to make Sigel march
when and whither ordered; his the sluggish movements that left his
troops strung along the pike nearly to Warrenton, instead of
concentrating them about Gainesville on the 27th; his the mistaken
judgment that kept him from hastening in person that night to
Gainesville, the key-point to his whole movement, and, worse yet, that
led him to gallop off to consult with Pope the next day instead of
remaining with his command, keeping his divisions in hand, and pushing
them vigorously eastward along the railroad and the pike until he
developed Jackson's position. But McDowell was constantly conferred
with and depended upon by Pope, and had too much upon his mind the task
of manoeuvring the whole army.

During the day (28th) Pope was in a state of great uncertainty as to
Jackson's movements, but late at night, learning of Gibbon's battle, he
concluded that Jackson, while retreating up the pike, had been headed
off and stopped by McDowell's troops, and his hopes revived. He issued
his orders accordingly,--Kearny to move at one o'clock at night, even if
he carries no more than two thousand men, and to advance up the
turnpike; Hooker to march at three A.M., even if he shall have to do so
with only half his men; the ninth corps, also, all up the pike; Sigel
and Reynolds are to attack at earliest dawn; Porter to hasten forward to
Centreville.

FOOTNOTES:

  [19] John C. Ropes, _Army under Pope_, pp. 193-199, gives Pope
       71,000; Lee, 54,268. General Longstreet, _Manassas to
       Appomattox_, gives Pope 54,500; Lee, 53,000. Colonel William
       Allen, _Army of Northern Virginia_, puts "Lee's strength at
       47,000 to 55,000; say over 50,000."




                              CHAPTER LVI

                     THE SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN


Early in the morning of Friday, the 28th, Jackson moved back behind the
railroad grade, extended his lines, and took up his defensive position,
extending from near Sudley Church along and in rear of the railroad to
the high ground north of the pike, opposite to, or just north of, the
battle-ground of the previous evening, curving his right to present a
somewhat convex front towards the pike. Ewell's division, now under
General A.R. Lawton, held the right, Hill's the left, and Jackson's,
under General William E. Starke, the centre; Hill and Starke were in the
woods. A battery was placed on the high ground in front of the right,
and between it and the pike, and two regiments of infantry, 13th and
35th Virginia, were thrown across the pike into the woods on the south
side of it. Other batteries were planted on the high "stony ridge" in
rear of the main line. Secure in this position he calmly awaits events,
knowing that a few hours will bring Longstreet on his right.

  [Illustration: SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, AUGUST 29, 1862, AT NOON
                 Except attacks on right, 4 to 5.30 P.M., as indicated]

Sigel's troops are now pushing forward from the vicinity of Henry and
Chinn hills. Schurz's division, with Milroy's independent brigade on its
left, advances to the right across the pike, and, wheeling to the left,
crosses the Sudley road and enters the woods which cover and screen
Jackson's left and centre, with sharp fighting pushes back his
skirmishers, seizes part of the railroad, and develops the enemy's
position there. On the left of the pike Schenck's division advances,
with its right on the pike and Reynolds's division on its left.
Schenck's batteries take position on the ridges on each side of the pike
near Groveton, and keep up a long-range cannonade with the enemy's guns
on the high ridge in front; while the infantry slowly works forward,
unopposed except by artillery fire, to that point. Reynolds also moves
forward, swinging to the right, and driving back the two Virginia
regiments, until he reaches the pike half a mile or more beyond
Groveton, where Gibbon's battle began, and there finds the Union dead
and wounded abandoned when King fell back the previous night. His line
is formed along the road, facing north, and a short advance over the
high ground will throw him on Jackson's extreme right. One of Schenck's
brigades, Stahel's, is on his right; the other, McLean's, is in rear, or
south of Stahel, and in the woods. It is now about ten A.M. It has taken
four hours for Schurz to develop the enemy's left and centre, and for
Schenck and Reynolds to advance a mile and a half over an easy country
and push back a handful of skirmishers; and they have not yet located
Jackson's right, although they have gained a good position from which to
attack it. Their movement diverged from that of Schurz, and opened an
interval in the line between Milroy and Stahel. The ground between them,
indeed, was the open country on the right of the pike, commanded by
their batteries, and the forward movement northward of the troops of
Reynolds would soon have closed the gap. But Milroy was calling on Sigel
for support, and for troops to fill the gap on his left. Schurz was also
asking aid, and to meet their calls Stahel was hastily moved by the
right flank across the fields towards Milroy.

Reynolds was not informed of this movement, but, discovering that the
troops on his right had disappeared, and supposing that the whole of
Schenck's division had moved away, and observing a force of the enemy
approaching his left, which was entirely in air, he immediately swung
his division back, recrossed the Groveton road, and, finding McLean's
brigade in the woods, took position on its left with his line refused
somewhat. It was Longstreet's leading division under Hood just reaching
the field that Reynolds observed, and it was probably well for him that
he moved back so promptly.

Now the troops of the right wing are reaching the field. First Kearny,
who moves across country north of the pike with Poe's brigade pushing
back the enemy's cavalry and skirmishers along Bull Run, and comes up
against Jackson's extreme left, and on the right of Schurz. Then
Stevens's division marches up the pike to the crossing of the Sudley
road, where Sigel is receiving Schurz's and Milroy's cries for aid, and
listening to the thunder of his guns shelling the batteries of the
enemy, with the fervid imagination of a war correspondent. Sigel, with
the consent of Reno, as he claims, immediately scatters this fine
division, sending one brigade to Schurz, another to Milroy, and the
third, with Benjamin's battery, E, of the 2d artillery, up the pike to
Schenck. Reno's division, which next arrived, was dissipated in like
manner, Nagle's brigade being sent to support Schurz, while the other
with the artillery was placed in reserve on the ridge in rear of the
Sudley road. Hooker's division on its arrival was also divided, Grover's
brigade being sent to support Schurz; and afterwards Carr's brigade was
put on the front line, relieving part of Schurz's force, and was in turn
relieved by Hooker's remaining brigade, under General Nelson Taylor.

It was not an uncommon thing during the war, as many an officer knows
from dear-bought experience, for commanders of troops in action to
beseech support, usually claiming that they were out of ammunition, or
their flanks were being turned, and, when the reinforcements reached
them, to put the new-comers into the front line and withdraw their own
troops to the rear. This was what Sigel did with the divisions of the
right wing as they reached the field. Thus these fine troops, second to
none in condition, discipline, and _morale_, which, led by their own
generals and thrown in mass upon the enemy, would have struck a mighty
blow, were frittered away over the field, simply relieving other troops,
and adding but little to the extent or strength of the battle line.
Schurz, ever mightier with the pen than the sword, evinced a marvelous
capacity to absorb reinforcements. And Sigel, having demonstrated his
talents as a strategist and a marcher the previous day, now proved his
ability on the battlefield by so scattering the seventeen thousand
troops of the right wing as to deprive them of their own able and tried
commanders, and reduce them to the least possible weight upon the
fighting line.

His division being thus scattered, General Stevens led up the pike the
brigade which was to reinforce Schenck. This consisted of only a
regiment and a half,--the 100th Pennsylvania and five companies of the
46th New York, the other five companies being detached to guard
trains,--and Benjamin's battery of four 20-pounder rifled Parrotts.
Approaching Groveton, two batteries on the right of the road, on the low
ridge overlooking the hamlet, were exchanging shell-fire at long range
with the enemy's batteries on the high ridge a mile in front. Save this,
no enemy was visible in that vicinity. The little column was moving
without skirmishers in front, for it was said that our troops held the
ground beyond Groveton, the battery first, followed by the infantry in
marching column of fours. The general and staff had reached the
cross-road, the battery was descending the slope in the road, which here
ran in quite a cut gullied out by rains and wear, when an extended line
of gray-coated skirmishers emerged over the crest of the opposite
ridge, two hundred yards distant, and, catching sight of the group of
horsemen and the battery, quickly began firing upon them. It was
impossible to turn the guns either to right or left out of the sunken
road in which they were imprisoned; but Benjamin coolly led his battery
thirty yards forward to where the banks were lower, the skirmishers
coming nearer and their fire sharper every minute, then turned the
leading team short to the left; the drivers plied the whip, the horses
leaped up the steep bank, and with a sudden pull jerked the gun out of
the cut. And piece after piece followed to the same point, and was
extricated in like manner, and then, remounting the ridge, whirled into
battery on the left of the road and opened fire. While Benjamin was thus
extricating his guns, five companies of the 100th Pennsylvania dashed
forward at double-quick, deploying as skirmishers across the cross-road,
drove the enemy's skirmishers back behind their ridge, and held their
ground until withdrawn four hours later. The two half regiments were
placed in line on the reverse slope of the ridge in rear and to the left
of the guns. A short distance on the left were the woods, and in the
edge rested the right of McLean's brigade.

It was the skirmishers of Hood's division that so nearly caught
Benjamin's guns. They were pushed out to feel and locate the Union
position promptly after Reynolds drew back. Longstreet's wing was fast
arriving, and by noon four of his divisions were in position,--Hood
across the pike, Kemper on his right, Jones still farther on their
right, extending to the Manassas Gap Railroad, Evans's independent
brigade in support of Hood, and Wilcox's division also supporting him on
his left and rear. Two batteries of the Washington artillery took post
on the high ridge with Jackson's guns and added their fire.

With these additional batteries the artillery firing waxed heavier, and
soon twenty hostile guns were hurling a storm of missiles upon the Union
artillery at Groveton. After an hour's firing Schenck's batteries on the
right of the road, Dilger and Wiedrich, went to the rear, out of
ammunition, and for three long hours Benjamin was left to sustain
unaided this storm of shot and shell. But Benjamin could plant his
heavy, long-range shells with wonderful accuracy. He concentrated his
fire on one battery, and ere long a caisson was seen to blow up on the
distant ridge, and it ceased firing. Again and again he would
concentrate on a battery and silence it, but only to have the others
redouble their fire, and when he turned on them the first would reopen.
At length two of his guns were disabled, and nearly half his men were
killed or wounded.

Now, at two P.M., Schenck concluded that he "was too far out," because
Reynolds had refused his line on the left, and he could get no fresh
artillery to continue the duel on the pike. Sigel says that he sent him
an order to retire, but that Schenck anticipated it, so the discredit of
the move belongs to both of them. By order of General Schenck, General
Stevens drew in his skirmishers and moved back down the pike, placing
Benjamin's two guns on an eminence of the Chinn Hill, and his two
regiments on the right of the road in advance of the Rosefield House.
Schenck and Reynolds moved back abreast to the western slope of the
Chinn Hill.

Thus, in this sequence of withdrawals, it will be seen that after
Schenck and Reynolds had gotten in position to strike Jackson's right,
although too late to do so without danger of Longstreet's advance
falling upon their flank, Schenck sent off Stahel's brigade at Milroy's
calls. Reynolds then moved back, because Schenck had retired and left
him unsupported, as he supposed, and also because his left was
threatened by Longstreet's advance; and Schenck in turn moved back
because Reynolds had withdrawn, although the latter had only refused his
line, which, situated in open ground with the enemy in force in his
front, was the right thing for him to do.

Our guns at Groveton could see along and flank the front of the Union
line on the right as far as the railroad, and their thunder encouraged
the troops on that wing, and deterred the enemy from aggressive
movements which would subject them to an enfilade fire of artillery. The
position was in truth a key-point, not only commanding the lower ground
to the right, but also affording good ground upon which to receive an
attack, or from which to advance, and, moreover, it covered the roads
southward, by which Porter's troops, as will be seen presently, were
expected to join the army.

The drawing back of our guns and troops from Groveton was the signal for
Jackson's lines to push forward more aggressively. Milroy was roughly
handled and forced back. It was General Stevens's third brigade, under
Colonel Addison Farnsworth, that was sent to support Schurz, and was
posted on the front line along the railroad, next to Schimmelfennig's
brigade. Part of this brigade, on Farnsworth's left, broke at the
advance of the enemy, and fell back through the woods, but the
Highlanders and Faugh-a-ballaghs stood firm and repulsed the attack.
Soon afterwards the fugitives, having reformed, moved up in line from
the rear, and began firing into the backs of the troops who had stood
their ground, mistaking them for the enemy; but this was speedily
stopped, and they were again placed on the line.

The experience of the first brigade was equally unsatisfactory. Placed
in the first line, they were left to bear the brunt of the fighting on
Milroy's front, and were finally obliged to fall back by the giving way
of troops on their flanks.

General Pope arrived on the field about noon, and made his headquarters
in rear of the Sudley road, near Buck Hill. Although he declares in his
report that he refused Sigel's demands for reinforcements, it is clear
beyond doubt that he neither put a stop to the wasteful scattering of
his best troops, nor attempted to unite and bring them together as a
disposable force of weight for offensive movements. All the afternoon he
was expecting Porter's and McDowell's column to fall upon Jackson's
right and rear, for he had worked himself up to the belief that
Longstreet would not be up for another day, and nothing short of
disastrous defeat could shake his dogged belief.

On receiving news of King's and Ricketts's retreat from Gainesville and
Groveton, which he did about daylight, General Pope ordered Porter to
march upon Gainesville with his own corps and King's division. "I am
following the enemy down the Warrenton turnpike," he adds. "Be
expeditious, or we will lose much." And later he dispatched a joint
order to McDowell and Porter to the same effect:--

  "You will please move forward with your joint commands toward
  Gainesville.... Heintzelman, Sigel, and Reno are moving on the
  Warrenton turnpike, and must now be not far from Gainesville. I
  desire that as soon as communication is established between this
  force and your own, the whole command shall halt.... One thing must
  be had in view, that the troops must occupy a position from which
  they can reach Bull Run to-night or by daylight."

Porter had already passed Manassas on his way to Centreville when he
received the first order, but immediately countermarched to the Junction
and towards Gainesville as ordered, with Morell's division leading,
Sykes's next, then Piatt's brigade, and King following in rear. About
eleven o'clock the head of the column reached Dawkins Branch, an
insignificant brook four and a half miles from Gainesville, and two and
a half miles south of Groveton. Here the enemy was perceived, and
skirmishers were thrown across the creek, supported by Butterfield's
brigade; and Porter was forming to advance on the enemy, when General
McDowell joined him, and showed a dispatch from Buford as follows:--

  "Headquarters Cavalry Brigade, 9.30 A.M. Seventeen regiments, one
  battery, and five hundred cavalry passed through Gainesville three
  quarters of an hour ago on the Centreville road."

The presence of the enemy in front, and clouds of dust rising along the
roads in his rear, corroborated this dispatch. So, too, did the noise of
the artillery combat at Groveton. The two generals rode together through
the woods to the right as far as the Manassas Gap Railroad, but decided
that it was "impracticable" to move northward a mile and a half across
country to effect a junction with the right wing. McDowell then left
Porter, telling him that he would take King's division around by the
Sudley road and put it in between Porter and the right wing. Except for
some slight changes in position of the head of his column, Porter
remained inactive the rest of the day, with his rear stretching back two
and a half miles along the road. What befell King's division, under
McDowell's guidance, will be seen later. Unquestionably, Longstreet was
up and in position in time to resist the attack of McDowell and Porter,
had they made one. And a board of three officers of great reputation and
experience,--Generals Schofield, Terry, and Getty,--after a thorough
examination, has declared that such an attack would have been ill
advised, has applauded Porter's conduct, and pronounced the opinion that
his presence there that day saved the army from disaster.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that this great column of over twenty
thousand troops was kept out of the ring completely. The orders given
and objects to be gained were perfectly plain and simple. They were,
first, to fall upon the enemy, supposed to be Jackson, and, second, to
effect a junction with the right wing. McDowell and Porter did neither.

Granting that an attack was ill judged, why was not a brigade brought up
and deployed athwart the railroad, and a regiment pushed through the
woods northward to locate and connect with the force on the pike, whose
artillery was distinctly heard? Traversing only three quarters of a mile
of intervening woods, such a column would have reached open fields, and
come in sight of Reynolds's troops. But, more surprising still, why was
no one sent up the roads which fork both from the road and railroad only
half a mile back of the head of Porter's column, traverse the woods in a
northerly direction, and lead to Groveton? A staff officer sent up this
road would have come in sight of Reynolds's skirmishers in a ride of
only a mile.

Unable longer to control his impatience, General Pope began about four
P.M. sending peremptory orders to attack, first to one command, then to
another, as he could get hold of them, accompanying the orders with
assurances that the enemy was being driven by some other command, and
that Porter was about to fall, or was falling, on his flank and rear,
and using him up.

The first victim of this plan of beating a corps in strong position by
attacking it with a brigade at a time was General Cuvier Grover's
brigade, first of Hooker's division, comprising five regiments,--1st,
11th, and 16th Massachusetts, 2d New Hampshire, and 26th
Pennsylvania,--which was already supporting Schurz. With muskets loaded
and bayonets fixed, ordered to close on the enemy, fire one volley, and
charge with the bayonet, they struck him where the railroad emerged from
the woods and crossed the hollow on an embankment, broke the first line,
carried the embankment, swept eighty yards beyond it and broke a second
line, only to be forced back by overpowering numbers, with a loss of
four hundred and eighty-six, for this gallant charge was entirely
unsupported. Reports General Grover:--

  "We rapidly and firmly pressed upon the embankment, and here
  occurred a short, sharp, and obstinate hand-to-hand conflict with
  bayonets and clubbed muskets. Many of the enemy were bayoneted in
  their tracks, others struck down with the butts of pieces, and
  onward pressed our line. In a few yards more it met a terrible fire
  from a second line, which in its turn broke. The enemy's third line
  now bore down upon our thinned ranks in close order, and swept back
  the right centre and a portion of the left. With the gallant 16th
  Massachusetts on our left I tried to turn his flank, but the
  breaking of our right and centre and the weight of the enemy's lines
  caused the necessity of falling back, first to the embankment and
  then to our first position, behind which we rallied to our colors."

One is not surprised to find the following in the report of Colonel
William Blaisdell, 11th Massachusetts:--

  "I was greatly amazed to find that the regiment had been sent to
  engage a force of more than five times its numbers, strongly posted
  in thick woods and behind heavy embankments, and not a soldier to
  support it in case of disaster."

Hooker's third brigade, under Colonel Joseph B. Carr, earlier in the day
had relieved part of Schurz's troops, and after, as he reports, fighting
two hours and expending most of his ammunition, was in turn relieved by
the second brigade, under General Nelson Taylor. When Grover was driven
back, Taylor's left regiment was broken by the rush of fugitives; the
enemy poured through the gap, giving an enfilade and reverse fire, and
taking many prisoners, among them General Taylor's aides, Lieutenants
Tremain and Dwight.

  "Finding my line," says Taylor, "completely flanked and turned, and
  in danger of being entirely cut off, I gave the order to fall back,
  which was done in as good order as could be, situated as we were.
  The loss on this occasion was not as large as I had reason to
  apprehend, yet it was considerable."

Scarce had these broken troops emerged from the woods and reformed in
the open ground in rear, when General Reno led up his first brigade,
under Colonel James Nagle, to a second attack on the same position from
which Grover had been repulsed. This consisted of only three
regiments,--48th Pennsylvania, 6th New Hampshire, and 2d Maryland. This
also was a gallant and determined assault. Again the enemy was forced
back from the railroad, but again his rear lines rushed forward, flanked
Nagle on the left, and drove him back with a loss of five hundred and
thirty-one.

Kearny was holding the right with Robinson's brigade, while Poe's
brigade was guarding his right flank, with his skirmishers extending to
and across Bull Run, and Birney's brigade was supporting both. Now,
after the crash of musketry of Reno's attack had all died away, and his
troops were all out of the woods, Kearny makes his attack. Reinforcing
Robinson with one of Poe's and four of Birney's regiments, and throwing
forward his right, wheeling to the left until his lines are nearly
athwart the railroad, he charges along it to the left, driving the enemy
in great disorder. But his attacking force lacks weight; the charge
comes to a stand. They are assailed by two brigades from Ewell, those of
Lawton and Early, outflanked, overpowered, and are forced back to the
position from which they started; many of them, however, in broken and
disordered crowds, run out of the woods farther to the left, near the
same place where appeared Hooker's and Reno's fugitives so recently.
Eight regiments only out of Kearny's fifteen make this attack. His loss
was about six hundred. Nothing but the timely counter-charge of Lawton
and Early saved Hill.

The rattle of musketry is still echoing in the forest, and Kearny's
fugitives are pouring out upon the open, when an officer in hot haste
conveys Pope's order to General Stevens to advance into the woods and
attack. The only troops left him are the regiment and a half withdrawn
from Groveton, only seven hundred strong. Without an instant's delay,
the troops take their muskets from the stacks, double-quick across the
open ground, and form line at the edge of the woods. Kearny himself
rides over to the little force just forming, and, at his request,
Captain Stevens stops a moment to write an order or message for him, for
he has but one arm. The scanty line enters and sweeps through the woods,
encounters the enemy now holding the railroad, delivers and receives for
fifteen minutes, which seem hours, a heavy musketry fire, and then, with
the enemy swarming past both flanks, is forced back through the woods to
the open ground, where the men at once halt and reform. Both the
regimental commanders and Colonel Leasure, commanding the brigade, were
severely wounded, and the loss was about two hundred. General Stevens's
horse was shot under him, and also that of his orderly. It was remarked
that when his troops emerged out of the woods, almost the last one was a
short man in a general's uniform, followed by a tall orderly bearing a
saddle on his shoulder.

With this attack the fighting on the right came to an end for the day.
The possession of the woods along the railroad was relinquished to the
enemy. A strong skirmish line held the edge of, and to the right a good
part of, the timber. The troops were posted in rear in good positions
for the night, the scattered commands being collected. General Stevens's
brigades were gotten together after some search, and the division was
posted in the woods a quarter of a mile to the right and a little to the
rear of the place where Leasure's brigade formed for the attack. The
following incident, which illustrates the evil effects of scattering
commands, is related in the history of the 79th Highlanders by Captain
William T. Lusk, one of the general's aides:--

  "I was directed to find Farnsworth; was sent by Sigel to Schurz, and
  by Schurz to Schimmelfennig. The gallant German, when at last found,
  exclaimed, 'Mein Gott! de troops, dey all runned avay, and I guess
  your men runned avay, too!' General Stevens was indignant, and used
  some pretty strong language, when I carried back this report, and
  ordered me to find the missing regiments, and not to return until I
  brought them with me. I started, therefore, for the old railroad
  embankment. Luckily, I found Farnsworth just on the edge of the
  woods. He said he was waiting for orders, but had none since I left
  him in the morning."

But the day was not to close without one more useless slaughter of brave
troops. McDowell brought King's division along the Sudley road nearly to
the pike, by half past four, passing without notice, at Newmarket, the
old Warrenton turnpike, which here forked from the Sudley road and led
to the unoccupied gap between Porter and Reynolds, to the very position
where he told Porter he would put King. Pope first directed the division
over to the right, where his attacks by detachments were being so
disastrously repulsed, and finally, just as it reached the pike, ordered
McDowell to push it up the road in pursuit of the enemy, declaring that
he was in full retreat. McDowell gave the order and the encouragement.
Gibbon's brigade, which had suffered so severely in the fight the
previous night, was placed in support of batteries on the Rosefield
ridge. The other three brigades, under Hatch (King being sick), fired by
the lying promises of success, which were strengthened by the tremendous
outbursts of musketry and roar of guns on the right wing, where they
were told Jackson was being driven, hastened up the road with high
hopes. Near Groveton, about dusk, they deployed,--Hatch's brigade on the
right of the road, Doubleday on the left, Patrick in reserve,--and
pushed on with great confidence. But Longstreet, who all the afternoon
had held his hand, notwithstanding Lee's wish to attack, was at that
very moment advancing Hood's division, supported by Evans's brigade and
Wilcox's division, with Hunton's brigade of Kemper's division on Hood's
right. The opposing forces encountered a short distance in front of
Groveton, but the disparity in numbers was too great for the Union
troops. The fight was furious but brief. Their left was outflanked and
broken, and both brigades were driven back with heavy loss, including
one gun. Patrick in some degree checked the enemy, who pursued
considerably to the rear of Groveton. Night put a stop to the unequal
struggle.

This ended the fighting of the 29th. The Union arms were outnumbered and
repulsed in every encounter, and lost ground on both wings. Sigel's
dilatory and timid advance consumed the morning hours until, with
Longstreet's arrival, the chance of attacking Jackson's right was lost.
Sigel, too, may be censured for his importunate and unsoldierly demands
for aid which so frittered away the weight of the right wing. But Pope
on his arrival could have rectified this. Pope, and Pope alone, ordered
the hasty and disconnected attacks of the afternoon, wasting the blood
and impairing the _morale_ of his best troops. The four divisions of
Stevens, Reno, Kearny, and Hooker numbered forty-three regiments, 17,000
effective, as fine troops as ever marched under the stars and stripes,
and as well commanded. Had Pope, disregarding the clamors of Sigel and
Schurz, arrayed these splendid troops in battle order on his right, and
hurled them in one combined attack upon the enemy, pushing into the
fight also Schurz and Milroy and twenty of the guns that were idling in
the centre upon the ridge, Jackson would surely have been driven back
upon Longstreet. The battle would then have raged on the heights beyond
Groveton, the scene of Gibbon's fight; and here Longstreet, with the
advantages of position and greatly superior numbers, might have
retrieved the day, or at least stayed farther Union advance, even though
Schenck and Reynolds attacked his right with their utmost vigor. In such
a battle Porter might possibly have turned the scale; but his troops,
only partly deployed and stretching back along the road for three miles,
were not in hand for prompt aggressive movement.

All that afternoon Lee was master of the situation. His army was united.
Pope's was divided; over twenty thousand of his troops out of reach and
beyond his control. If Lee had struck with his right wing, Schenck and
Reynolds, who alone confronted it, could not long have resisted the
overpowering numbers, and Pope would have been driven across Bull Run.
Porter could never have prevented the disaster. He could not have thrown
his troops into the fight in time, unready as they were, and especially
if the ground on his right was broken, difficult, and impenetrable, as
he claimed, but mistakenly. It was Longstreet's slow-paced caution that
saved Pope that afternoon.

On McDowell's arrival on the field Pope learned of Porter's inaction,
and immediately sent him a positive order to attack, which reached him
at too late an hour to be executed. Pope thereupon sent him an order to
march to the battlefield.

Early in the morning of the next day, the 30th, General Stevens went
over to Pope's headquarters, which were a short distance in the rear,
and there found assembled Pope, McDowell, Heintzelman, Reno, and other
general officers. Pope was confident that the enemy had retreated during
the night, and, greatly to General Stevens's astonishment, some of the
others coincided in that opinion. He, however, strongly expressed the
contrary view, whereupon Pope directed him to push a strong skirmish
line into the woods in his front and try the enemy. Accordingly Captain
John More, of the 79th Highlanders, one of the best and bravest officers
in the division, with one hundred men of his regiment, skirmished into
the woods and attacked the enemy with great spirit; but after half an
hour's sharp firing Captain More was brought out shot through the body,
and a third of his men were killed or wounded. No impression was made on
the enemy. General Early, who commanded a brigade in Ewell's division,
says in his report: "During the course of the morning the skirmishers
from my brigade repulsed a column of the enemy which commenced to
advance." The Highlanders were withdrawn, and the result of their effort
immediately reported to General Pope, but it had no effect upon his
opinionated mind. By his positive assertions of driving the enemy and of
his having retreated, he had imbued McDowell and Heintzelman largely
with his own views. Thus filled with Pope's ideas, and having little
personal observation of the previous day's battle, they hastily rode
along the right wing, and came back and corroborated the mistaken views
of the infatuated commander. One circumstance there was which lent color
to them, and that was that during the night both Jackson and Longstreet
drew back to their main line those troops that, in the eagerness of
combat, had pushed beyond it. Yet there was scarcely a man in all the
Union army, except the army and two corps commanders, who did not
bitterly realize that they had been worsted the day before, and who did
not feel sure that the enemy was still in front, stronger and readier
than ever to renew the battle.

Ricketts's division reached the field the previous evening. In the
morning two brigades were placed on the extreme right, relieving some of
Kearny's troops, and the other two brigades were left in reserve near
the centre. Apparently no opportunity of dividing and scattering
commands was to be lost. About nine A.M. Porter arrived with his troops,
except Griffin's brigade of Morell's division and Martin's battery,
which by some error had retired to Centreville. The forenoon wore away
without demonstration beyond considerable artillery firing. No
reconnoissance in force was attempted.

At length at noon Pope issued an order, the most astonishing in its
fatuity ever given on a battlefield:--

              HEADQUARTERS NEAR GROVETON, August 30, 1862, 12 M.

  SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. --. The following forces will be immediately
  thrown forward and in pursuit of the enemy, and press him vigorously
  during the whole day. Major-General McDowell is assigned to the
  command of the pursuit.

  Major-General Porter's corps will push forward on the Warrenton
  turnpike, followed by the divisions of Brigadier-Generals King and
  Reynolds. The division of Brigadier-General Ricketts will pursue the
  Haymarket road, followed by the corps of Major General Heintzelman.
  The necessary cavalry will be assigned to these columns by
  Major-General McDowell, to whom regular and frequent reports will be
  made. The general headquarters will be somewhere on the Warrenton
  turnpike.

          By command of MAJOR-GENERAL POPE,

                                       GEORGE D. RUGGLES,
                                     _Colonel and Chief of Staff_.

The enemy he thus ordered pursued were at that moment, as they had been
since noon the previous day, all up, posted in strong position, flushed
with success, confident in themselves, well rested, and not inferior in
numbers. And their skillful leader was only waiting the opportune moment
to launch the mighty thunderbolt of war he so ably wielded. Such was the
situation. But nothing had any effect upon the mind of the infatuated
commander; the bloody repulses of the previous day, the loss of ground
on both wings, the information thrust upon him by McDowell, Porter,
Ricketts, and Reynolds that Longstreet's advance had passed Gainesville
before nine o'clock the previous morning, over twenty-four hours before,
and that his forces had confronted Porter and Reynolds all the afternoon
before,--all, all was disregarded, and Pope, impervious alike to reason
and to facts, without a reconnoissance save the spirited push of the
hundred Highlanders, gave the fatal order fraught with disaster to his
army, and the acme of his own fatuity and incompetence.

But the officers charged with the execution of the order never attempted
to carry it out according to its terms. With the exception perhaps of
McDowell, they knew too well that it was an order impossible to execute.
Ricketts, already in contact with the hostile line, reported that the
enemy had no intention of retreating, and was ordered to hold his
position. Porter made no effort to "push up the Warrenton turnpike,
followed by the divisions of King and Reynolds." The pursuit feature of
the order was ignored by all, and instead of it a strong column of
attack was organized against Jackson's centre. This was composed of
Porter's troops and King's division, under Porter's command, and was
slowly formed behind the screen of woods in advance of the right centre
of the Union lines. Stevens's division, two brigades of Ricketts's
division, and Kearny held the lines on the right. In rear of Porter and
King, and in rear of the centre, were placed Hooker's, Reno's, and two
brigades of Ricketts's division, and all of Sigel's corps except
McLean's brigade, which held the left, south of the pike, in front of
the Chinn Hill. Reynolds with his small division extended the line on
McLean's left. Extending from Rosefield for a long distance toward the
right, on the crest of the ridge, was planted a long row of
artillery,--forty guns at least,--as near together as they could be
handled, while other batteries were in rear, unable to find a place in
the line. A few batteries occupied positions in advance of this ridge,
and exchanged incessant fire with the enemy's guns across the wide, open
ground. Thus Pope bunched nearly his whole army in the centre, leaving
his right weak, and his left wing a mere handful.

  [Illustration: SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, SECOND DAY, AUGUST 30, 1862
                 Positions at 4 P.M., and successive positions
                 on left]

While Porter was slowly forming his column, his skirmishers pushed
forward over the open ground nearly to Groveton. Reynolds, too, advanced
his skirmishers on the left through the skirt of woods near Groveton,
south of the pike, and discovered the enemy's skirmishers extending far
to his left and rear, "evidently masking a column of the enemy formed
for attack on my left flank, when our line should be sufficiently
advanced." So important was this discovery deemed by Reynolds that he
galloped instantly to Pope and reported it. How the information was
received is graphically told by General Ruggles, Pope's chief of staff,
in a letter to General Porter, which the author is permitted to use:--

  "At two P.M. or thereabouts, Reynolds came dashing up, his horse
  covered with foam, threw himself out of the saddle, and said,
  'General Pope, the enemy is turning our left.' General Pope replied,
  'Oh, I guess not!' Reynolds rejoined, 'I have considered this
  information of sufficient importance to run the gauntlet of three
  rebel battalions to bring it to you in person. I had thought you
  would believe _me_.' Thereupon General Pope turned to General John
  Buford and said, 'General Buford, take your brigade of cavalry and
  go out and see if the enemy _is_ turning our left flank.' Reynolds
  then said, 'I go back to my command.'"

How clearly this incident reveals the infatuated, dogged state of mind
that possessed Pope!

It is after four P.M. when Porter gives the order to advance. The first
and third brigades of Morell's division in columns, under Butterfield,
are in front, Sykes's regulars are in support. King's division, under
Hatch, advances on the right of Butterfield in a column seven lines
deep, with intervals of fifty yards between the lines. Sweeping through
the woods, they come in sight of the railroad embankment and the wooded
hill beyond it. Instantly the whole side of the hill and edges of the
woods swarm with men before unseen. Says General Warren in his report:
"The effect was not unlike flushing a covey of quails." A terrific
musketry is poured upon the advancing column, while a storm of shell and
shrapnel smite its flank with most deadly fire from the batteries on the
ridge to the left front. With hearty cheers, the advancing troops
desperately charge the embankment and railroad cut on the right of it,
and when repulsed, charge again, and then cling to their ground and open
steady musketry. All in vain. Longstreet throws two more batteries
forward on the ridge, and fatally enfilades the struggling troops.
"Butterfield's troops are torn to pieces," says Sykes. In half an hour
all is over, the repulse is complete, and the shattered troops move
sullenly back, bearing out many wounded. In that short time they have
lost 700 men.

General Stevens, having formed his divisions in three lines, each a
brigade, moves forward through the woods on the right of Porter's
column, and, without waiting for orders, attacks simultaneously with
him, at once becomes furiously engaged, and suffers heavy loss,
including Colonel Farnsworth, who is severely wounded. General Stevens
maintains this contest until Porter's column is repulsed, when he
withdraws his command to the first ridge in rear of the woods, posting
his lines just behind the crest, with skirmishers holding the edge of
the woods.

Porter's attack, made nearly at the same point as Grover's, did not
penetrate the enemy's position so deeply. With only 2500 men, the latter
broke two lines and swept eighty yards beyond the embankment, while
Porter with 12,000 men did not carry the embankment. But how different
the conditions under which he attacked,--the enemy in stronger force,
better prepared, and Longstreet's terrible artillery tearing to pieces
the flank of the columns! And is not something due the _morale_ of his
troops, which was almost systematically broken by the blunders and
disasters of this unhappy campaign? With what confidence could King's
division be expected to charge, which, after marching all day Thursday,
sustained the fierce and stubborn fight near Groveton with Jackson's two
divisions, then moved away at midnight, abandoning their wounded and the
field they had so bravely won; then marching all the next day, with
occasional halts, until at dusk they were brought upon the field, and,
deceived with false hopes of success, were dashed against overpowering
masses of the enemy almost on the scene of their recent battle, and only
twelve hours after it, and were broken and driven back with disaster;
and the third day--Saturday--were exposed to shell fire for several
hours, while slowly taking place in the attacking column, knowing full
well that they were about to be hurled against the very centre and
strongest part of the enemy's position, from which every attack of the
previous day had been met with bloody repulse,--"Where even privates
realized," says Colonel Charles W. Roberts, commanding Morell's first
brigade, "that they were going into the jaws of death itself"? Clearly,
this was not such an attack as these troops would have made if in their
normal condition, and with any hopes of success. And their able
commander did not drive it home with the full weight and vigor of one
who, confident of success, puts in the last man and the last effort.
Sykes's division was not brought up to renew the charge upon the
railroad, for Porter, seeing that success was hopeless, wisely used it
to cover the falling back of Butterfield and Hatch.

The enemy's reports bear abundant witness to the gallantry and severity
of Porter's charge, which shook Jackson so that even he called aloud for
assistance. In his report he says:--

  "The Federal infantry, about four o'clock in the evening, moved from
  under cover in the woods and advanced in several lines, first
  engaging the right, but soon extending its attack to the centre and
  left. In a few minutes our entire line was engaged in a fierce and
  sanguinary struggle. As one line was repulsed, another took its
  place and pressed forward, as if determined, by force of numbers and
  fury of assault, to drive us from our positions. So impetuous and
  well sustained were these onsets as to induce me to send to the
  commanding general for reinforcements."

Says Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, who commanded the second brigade of
Ewell's division:--

  "Before the railroad cut, the fight was most obstinate. I saw a
  Federal flag hold its position for half an hour within ten yards of
  the flag of one of the regiments in the cut, and go down six or
  eight times; and after the fight one hundred dead were lying within
  twenty yards from the cut, some of them within two feet of it. The
  men fought until their ammunition was exhausted, and then threw
  stones. Lieutenant Lewis Randolph killed one with a stone, and I saw
  him after the fight with his skull fractured."

With Porter's repulse comes Lee's opportunity, the opening for which he
has so coolly waited the better part of two days. Longstreet,
anticipating the order to advance, throws forward his whole wing in one
of those overwhelming attacks for which he became famous. At first there
seems to be almost nothing to oppose the avalanche. Pope has just
ordered Reynolds's division to the right of the pike to aid in
protecting Porter's withdrawal, although more than half the army was
bunched together there in the centre, and Meade's and Seymour's brigades
and Ransom's battery have taken the new position. Colonel G.K. Warren,
of Sykes's division, without waiting for orders, seeing Hazlett's
battery, which was well advanced on the pike, uncovered by Reynolds's
movement, has just hurried his little brigade of two regiments, 5th and
10th New York, over to the left of the road to support the battery, when
the storm bursts upon him. Furiously assailed in front, masses of the
enemy come swarming through the woods on his left and rear, and it is
only by breaking to the rear that any escape capture. His loss is four
hundred and thirty-one, but the few minutes he holds back the enemy
saves the guns. Reynolds's remaining brigade, under Anderson, with three
batteries, in the act of moving to the right as ordered, is suddenly
assailed with fury and forced to turn and fight where it stands, and now
bears the brunt of the onslaught. Under cover of the woods, the enemy
has completely turned the flank of all the Union positions, as Reynolds
had told Pope only an hour before, and now strikes them with heavy
masses of infantry on both front and left. After a gallant resistance
Anderson is forced back, with the loss of four guns of Kerns's battery
and the caissons of Cooper's. McLean, who sees with amazement Reynolds's
division move away, leaving him to hold the hill alone, at once deploys
his brigade, facing westward, and receives the attack. He now changes
front to the left, and in a magnificent charge drives back the flanking
forces of the enemy, but has to offer his right in the movement to the
deadly enfilade fire from his former front, and he, too, bravely
struggling, is borne back over the Chinn Hill. Meantime the generals in
the centre are making frantic efforts to hurry troops over to the left.
General Zealous B. Tower, distinguished for his gallantry in the Mexican
war, one of the ablest officers of the army, leads the two reserve
brigades of Ricketts across the pike and up the Chinn Hill, where McLean
is being overborne; but, before he can reach a good position, his men
are falling by scores, he is stricken down with a severe
wound,--disabled for life and his career in the field closed,--and ere
long his brigades are driven back. Colonel Koltes, of Sigel's corps,
leading his brigade to the same position, is killed, and his troops,
too, are forced back. General Schenck, leading reinforcements to McLean,
is wounded. The enemy have driven the last defenders from the Chinn Hill
and plateau, and their exultant lines go sweeping on to complete the
victory. But Reynolds, with Meade's and Seymour's brigades, and Milroy
with his brigade, are now formed in line upon the slope of the Henry
Hill, along or near the Sudley road, and throw back the charging
Confederates with deadly fire, and soon Sykes's regulars, Buchanan's and
Chapman's brigades, and Weed's battery reinforce the hard-pressed and
struggling line, extending it farther to the left and rear. The enemy
cannot break it, but his fire fast thins its ranks, and his flanking
movement and deadly enfilade still continue. At last night is at hand,
and the fury of his attack abates. The defenders, spent with heavy loss
and the hard struggle, now fall back; but General Reno has just led his
second brigade and Graham's battery up the hill, and forms his three
regiments, 21st Massachusetts, 51st Pennsylvania, and 51st New York,
around its crest in a thin line facing both the Chinn Hill and the
woods on the left, with the guns in the intervals between the regiments.
In this position he repulses after dark two attacks of Wilcox's troops,
the last efforts of Longstreet's mighty onslaught. After nine o'clock,
after the fighting had ceased, he quietly retires from the hill and
marches to Centreville.

In the centre Jackson's right followed up Porter's retreating troops
sharply; but the fire of the numerous guns searching all the open ground
there, and the firm attitude of our troops, kept them at bay. But when
the Chinn Hill was lost, and the enemy's fire from there smote the
troops of Sigel holding the centre near the pike, they were forced to
fall back to the ridge, where they took up a new position behind the
Sudley road.

As soon as Longstreet's attack was well in progress, all the rebel guns
upon the high ridge were turned upon our right, for they dared not
continue firing upon the left and centre for fear of injuring their own
troops now swarming onward against the Union positions, and the
concentric fire of forty guns now pounded with a perfect hail of shot
and shell the Union troops and batteries on that wing. The men there lay
hugging the ground in rear of the guns, partially sheltered by the low
ridges, while the artillery fired with its utmost rapidity upon the
rebel lines of battle emerging over the distant ridge and advancing down
the slope until lost to view in the woods, or beneath the smoke which
now hung over the lower ground. They swept onward in splendid order, not
in one or two long lines, but regiment after regiment, separately, with
blood-red colors proudly borne aloft and pointed forward, like wave
after wave of ocean after a storm, rolling onward with resistless
majesty and power. From the great battery in our centre belched a mighty
and continuous roar and volume of thunder, and dense clouds of dusky,
sulphurous smoke rolled over the landscape in front; while beyond it,
on the left, but apparently beneath its folds, rose the incessant
clatter and crackle of musketry, with now and again the heavier, sharper
noise of great volleys, telling of the dreadful struggle raging there.
Surely there are no sights and sounds more terrible than those of a
great battle.

When this scene of pandemonium was at its height, General Stevens
quietly remarked to General Ricketts, as they stood near one of our
batteries watching the fight on the left front: "If we can hold the
right here, the enemy must be repulsed, for General Pope has nearly all
his troops over there, and can certainly repel any attack on his left."

Soon after this General Reno was standing with General Stevens near the
same point. The battery had ceased firing, for the enemy's infantry were
no longer visible. Suddenly a tall young fellow, in a Union sergeant's
uniform, came running up the slope from the woods two hundred yards in
front, and cried out, "Don't fire on that regiment; it is the 26th New
York. It has been in the woods, and is just coming out. Don't fire!
Don't fire!" All looked, and there, at the edge of the woods, was a line
of troops in blue uniforms just forming. General Reno turned to General
Stevens, as if in doubt; but Captain Stevens, knowing that the enemy's
skirmishers held the edge of the woods ever since ours were drawn in,
impulsively called out to the battery, "Fire! They are rebels! Fire!"
The guns instantly fired upon them, and as quickly they disappeared,
melted, into the woods. The sergeant, too, had disappeared, when we
turned to find him, having made good use of his long legs to rejoin his
companions when his bold ruse failed.

A little later, when the great struggle on the left was still raging, a
mounted officer came galloping at high speed down to the line and
delivered an order from General Pope to retreat. "General Pope orders
the right wing to fall back at once. The enemy has turned the left, and
if it remains half an hour longer, it will be cut off and captured."
With this, back he raced, faster, if possible, than he came. Very
deliberately and quietly General Stevens gave the necessary orders,
cautioning his colonels against haste or flurry. One by one the guns
ceased firing, and were limbered up and taken to the rear. When the last
one had gone, the infantry rose to their feet, and marched back in usual
marching column. Out of the woods in front the enemy were swarming like
angry bees in clouds of skirmishers, and beginning to push up the slope.
By the time our troops had moved two hundred yards back from the little
ridge or roll of ground they had just left, the enemy came pouring over
it in considerable numbers. But General Stevens had thrown his two rear
regiments in line, and they opened with a well-aimed volley, which
instantly cleared the ridge of the pursuers. The regiments promptly
resumed the retreat, and four hundred yards farther back filed past two
more of General Stevens's regiments, which in like manner stood in line
ready to repel too hot a pursuit. At this moment General Kearny came
from the right at the head of a small force, apparently a regiment,
passing along the rear side of a point of woods which extended to near
where General Stevens's line stood. Just then the enemy began firing out
of this cover. Instantly Kearny fronted his scanty force into line and
dashed it into the woods; but quickly a sharp volley resounded in the
timber, and his men came running out, and continued to the rear, pursued
by the enemy's skirmishers in equal disorder. Upon these the waiting
line poured a deliberate volley, and back they went running into the
woods. The troops, after administering this sharp rebuff, filed off to
the rear unmolested, and moved over a prominent ridge a thousand yards
back, along the crest of which was drawn up in line a part of Ricketts's
division, apparently a brigade. It was now fast growing dark. General
Stevens, knowing that the pike would be crowded with retreating troops,
wished to cross Bull Run somewhere above the bridge, and sent for Major
Elliott, of the Highlanders, who was at the first battle of Bull Run,
and might know of some practicable ford. This proved to be the case; and
after some little delay the division, guided by Major Elliott, crossed
at Locke's or Red House Ford, and moved by a cross-road to the pike,
where, finding the main road jammed full of troops and artillery flowing
past in a dense column, General Stevens bivouacked till morning, when he
moved to Centreville.

While the division was waiting on the ridge behind Ricketts's troops,
they opened with a sudden volley, as startling as unexpected, in the
darkness. The enemy, pursuing, were advancing up the hill when this
volley stopped them, and, falling back to the foot of the ridge, they
lay there all night. Ricketts's brigade immediately moved off to the
left by a farm road to a ford a short distance above the bridge, where
they crossed. Soon after these troops had filed away in the darkness,
General Stevens sent Lieutenant Heffron, one of his aides, to the crest
which they had just left, telling him to observe, try if he could see or
hear the enemy, and come back and report. After sufficient time had
elapsed for Heffron to have performed the duty, he sent Captain Stevens
on a similar errand, for his column was not quite ready to move; owing
to delay in finding out about the ford, and there was nothing between it
and the enemy. He, too, rode back to the crest, gazed into the darkness,
listened intently, without catching sight or sound, and started to ride
down the front of the ridge to make sure of the enemy's position, when
the reflection that Heffron had probably done that very thing and had
not returned caused him to turn back and rejoin his command, the rear of
which was just moving off. Heffron had ridden down the slope and into
the enemy's line at its foot, and was captured.

At this time two brigades of Kearny's division, which, being more in
rear than Ricketts's, had moved back before him, were on or in front of
the ridge, only a musket-shot to the left of the enemy lying at its
foot, each force ignorant of the other's presence, and remained there
until ten P.M., when they retreated by the same route as Ricketts. Poe's
brigade, on the extreme right, fell back, and recrossed the run by the
same ford as General Stevens's division, and before it. Thus the troops
of the right wing made good their retreat in perfect order and without
loss, except that of some guns of Ricketts.[20]

General Pope in his report, after claiming that he repulsed the enemy at
all points, states that he gave the order to withdraw to Centreville
after eight o'clock at night. No doubt he did give such an order at that
time, but he suppresses all mention of the orders he gave to retreat and
fall back long before that time, when he saw his left being turned and
overpowered, and, his presumptuous confidence knocked out of him,
thought more of saving part of his army than of repelling the enemy. And
then it was, about six P.M., that so many troops were hurried off the
field in retreat to Centreville, among them Nagle's brigade, of Reno's
division, two brigades of Hooker's, King's division, and some of Sigel's
troops in the centre, and the whole of the right wing; and then, too, it
was that he dispatched the order to General Banks at Bristoe Station to
destroy the public property and retreat to Centreville. At that time
the head of Franklin's corps of the Army of the Potomac was up to the
stone bridge on its march to reinforce Pope, and might have been used to
maintain his battle. But that commander already had more men on the
field than he was capable of using. Under the leadership of a Sheridan,
a Grant, a Meade, or a Thomas, his gallant army would never have
retreated from the field, and might have inflicted a deadly blow upon
its antagonist. How bravely and even desperately the Union troops fought
is best attested by the Confederate reports, and the nine thousand
Confederate losses in killed and wounded. The Union loss, including that
of the 28th, amounted to fourteen thousand. That at the end of the
battle there was disorder and demoralization among some commands it were
idle to deny, but it has been grossly exaggerated.

  NOTE.--General Pope's reports are very erroneous and misleading; the
  histories of the battle, following his statements, scarce less so.
  He and they habitually speak of corps when only brigades were
  engaged, and give all his dispositions and movements an aspect of
  forethought and order the reverse of the fact. It is only by careful
  study of the reports of division, brigade, and regimental
  commanders, and of the dispatches on the field, that the shifting
  struggle can be traced out. _War Records_, vol. xii., Report and
  Testimony in Review of Fitz-John Porter Case.

FOOTNOTES:

  [20] The reports of Jackson and his subordinates indulge in much
       exaggeration as to driving the Union forces in their front, but
       Longstreet, with more truth, states in his book, p. 189, that
       "Jackson failed to pull up even on the left."




                              CHAPTER LVII

                        THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY


Having safely withdrawn his division from the disastrous field, crossing
Bull Run by Red House Ford, General Stevens conducted it to the main
turnpike, now brimful with retreating troops. It was night, too, and
quite dark. Unwilling to plunge his command into the crowded throng, he
halted and allowed them to sleep on their arms by the roadside, while
the dense, dark tide of troops, trains, and artillery flowed past all
night. After daylight he resumed the march by the pike, now clear, and
halted for breakfast in the fields a mile from Centreville. The men were
ravenously hungry, having long since emptied their haversacks; the
supply trains were in the rear, no one knew where, so that a drink of
water and a tightened belt seemed destined to be the only breakfast. But
General Stevens, having observed a small herd of cattle near by
belonging to some commissary, had them driven up and slaughtered; some
wagons loaded with hard bread were also seized, and soon the entire
command were cooking and enjoying a hearty repast of beefsteak and hard
tack.

General Stevens now received orders from General Pope to act as
rear-guard. Reno's division (that officer being ill and off duty), a
brigade of cavalry, and two batteries were added to his command for that
duty, the most important and responsible in the army at this juncture.
He moved out and took position on Cub Run, two and a half miles in front
of Centreville, throwing out a strong skirmish line beyond the creek,
and disposing his batteries and troops to resist an attack. Contrary to
expectation, the enemy did not press on after his victory, although he
appeared in force, advanced his skirmish line in plain view, and opened
briskly with his artillery, to which ours as briskly replied. The day
was wet, drizzling, and dreary, but at last wore away with nothing more
serious.

At night General Reynolds and his division relieved General Stevens. He
criticised some of the latter's dispositions, which called out a sharp
rejoinder. He declared that the enemy's skirmishers were too close, and
deployed a regiment to drive them back, but his men, to his intense
chagrin, hung back. Then he said the enemy might attack at any moment.
But General Stevens did not share his apprehensions, and remarked to
him, "I think it most probable that the enemy will move around and
strike us under the ribs."

After being relieved, the division moved to Centreville, and bivouacked
on the heights half a mile south of the hamlet. The following morning,
Monday, September 1, the officers straightened out their commands and
took account of their losses; rations and ammunition were brought up and
issued; and all hoped for at least one day of much needed rest. Captain
Stevens, by direction of the general, counted the stacks of muskets, and
found the latter to number 2012. Half of the division had fallen in
battle, or on the march, since leaving Fredericksburg a fortnight
before.

Lieutenant S.N. Benjamin, a very brave and intelligent young officer,
whom General Stevens treated with great kindness and consideration
during the campaign, relates that about noon the general came to his
battery,--

  "and came where I was sitting. (My crutches had been broken, and I
  could not rise without help.) I soon saw that he felt very
  blue,--that he felt the defeat very keenly, and feared its effect on
  the men. I tried to assure him that his own command felt more
  devoted to him than ever, and if possible more faith in his skill
  than before. And this was God's truth,--_they did_, and he had
  earned it.

  "Still he felt very blue. I asked him if he would write to his wife.
  'Yes; but there is no way to send a letter in. I am anxious to send
  word.' 'Well, general, you write, and I will send it by some
  Christian or Sanitary man. We have just sent letters, and I will
  have a man watch the turnpike until some one will take it.'

  "He seemed much pleased with this. I brought him the envelope, etc.,
  and he wrote on a book, sitting on the ground. Before he had
  finished, the order came to move. He closed it hastily, after giving
  some orders, gave it to me, and went to his headquarters. The letter
  was given to a gentleman going to Washington with a wounded man."

It was General Stevens's last letter.

While the beaten and distracted Union commander was trying to straighten
out his forces huddled about Centreville, uncertain whether to risk
further conflict or to fall back to the defenses of Washington, Lee was
moving his whole army in one column, to fall upon his enemy's line of
retreat and rear. The very day after the battle he advanced Jackson's
wing across Bull Run by Sudley Ford to the Little River turnpike, which
runs straight to Fairfax Court House, and there intersects the
Alexandria and Warrenton pike, eight miles behind Centreville. On this
Monday morning Jackson was marching down the turnpike with Longstreet
and his whole wing following closely in support, thus turning the Union
army at Centreville, and moving to fall upon its only line of retreat;
"to strike it under the ribs," as General Stevens so clearly foresaw.
Pope had taken no steps to anticipate or guard against this fatal flank
movement. He was groping in the dark, utterly at a loss what course to
pursue, and consequently he did nothing until noon, when startling news
forced him to decision and to action.

  [Illustration: Jackson's Flank March to turn Centreville.]

Such was the situation,--the bulk of the Union forces grouped about
Centreville with their distraught commander, the victorious rebel army,
in one strong column, Jackson at its head, turning their flank and
striking far in their rear,--when, at one P.M., two cavalrymen dashed up
to General Stevens's headquarters. They bore orders to him from General
Pope to march immediately across country, guided by the two troopers, to
the Little River pike, and there take position and hold in check a
column of the enemy reported advancing down that road.

General Stevens soon had his division under arms, moved across the
fields, and entered the Alexandria pike a short distance east of
Centreville. Here Ferrero's brigade of Reno's division, the other
brigade after its heavy loss on the 29th not being again called upon,
fell in behind and followed. The scanty column moved down the road a
mile and a half, then turned off to the left, and followed a farm road
in a northeasterly direction between the two pikes. As General Stevens
and staff were riding at the head of the column the cavalrymen told how
they had been out foraging that morning to the Little River pike, and
had run into a heavy column of the enemy advancing down it, and had made
all haste to gallop to Pope's headquarters with the news. Thence they
were at once dispatched to General Stevens with the orders already
related, and directed to guide his column to the endangered road.

This startling news brought him about noon by these cavalrymen was
unquestionably the first intelligence that Pope received of Lee's
thrust. His own orders prove this, for he not only immediately
dispatched General Stevens to seize and hold the Little River pike, but
detached Hooker from his division and sent him to Germantown, a point
just in front of Fairfax Court House, where the two pikes meet, to take
charge of some troops there and post them to resist the threatening
movement, ordered McDowell--

  "immediately to march rapidly back to Fairfax Court House with your
  whole division (corps) and assume command of the two brigades there,
  and occupy Germantown with your whole force, so as to cover the
  turnpike from this place to Alexandria. Jackson is reported
  advancing on Fairfax with 20,000 men,"--

and soon afterwards hurried Heintzelman's two divisions down the pike
toward Fairfax. And it was while thus moving that General Kearny
received General Stevens's urgent summons, and opportunely hastened to
the stricken field, as will soon be related.

After proceeding across country several miles in rather a winding or
crooked course, the column was marching over an elevated tract of open
country, which sloped down in front to a marshy hollow clothed with
small growth, and partially timbered. Beyond the hollow, open fields
appeared again, and beyond them dense pine woods. To the rear the high
ground extended to the main turnpike, half a mile distant, down which
were seen the white covers of the crowded wagons moving in retreat.

At this moment the little cavalcade at the head of the column was
suddenly surprised by the sight of a rebel skirmish line deployed across
the fields in front and cautiously advancing toward it, and the more
because the Little River pike, as the cavalrymen said, was still some
distance away. The skirmishers were already across the hollow and close
at hand when first seen.

At the first glance General Stevens realized what that rebel skirmish
line portended. It portended an attack in force upon the turnpike, the
only line of retreat. Full well he knew that the movement must be
arrested, or the line of retreat would be broken, the army cut in two
while widely extended along the road, and a great disaster inflicted.
Instantly he threw forward two companies of the Highlanders, under
Captains W.T. Lusk and Robert Ives, to drive back the enemy's advance
and uncover his movement. Deploying in skirmish order, they ran forward,
exchanging a sharp fire with the opposing line and driving it back,
crossed the hollow, surmounted a graded railroad embankment which
traversed it, and pushed on after the rebel skirmishers into the farther
fields. The embankment was the grade of the same Manassas Gap Railroad
over which, beyond Bull Run, Jackson made his fierce fight.

  [Illustration: BATTLE OF CHANTILLY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1862]

Captain Stevens, directing the skirmishers, had just ridden on top of
the embankment, when a rebel soldier half way across the field in front,
who was helping off a wounded comrade, withdrew his arm from his
comrade's support, deliberately aimed at the mounted officer, and
fired, and the bullet passed through his hat, inflicting a sharp rap
upon his head. Twenty muskets were instantly fired at the bold rebel in
return, but without effect, and coolly and deliberately he shifted his
piece to his left hand, replaced his right arm around his comrade's
waist, and helped him slowly off in safety.

While the Highlanders were thus pushing back the enemy, General Stevens,
without halting or retarding the march of his troops an instant, was
forming them as fast as they came up in a column of brigades on the
hither side of the fields beyond the hollow. While thus forming, a
regiment of the enemy advanced in line of battle from the woods more
than half way across the fields, and the Union skirmishers fell back
before it. But Benjamin's guns, having just taken position on the right
of the forming column, opened upon the regiment, and it immediately fell
back and disappeared in the woods. Lusk's company now rejoined its
regiment, but Ives's fell back to the railroad grade, and remained there
during the battle.

The column was formed in the edge of quite a large open tract, the
farther side of which was closed by the woods. Woods also extended on
the right side all along the open ground. Near the centre of the open
tract, and to the left and front of the column, was a farmhouse, with
outbuildings and orchard, and just beyond it a large field of tall,
waving corn extended to the woods in front, and to woods on the left.
The estate was known as Fruitvale, and belonged to the family of Reid,
but was occupied at this time by a family named Heath.

A road coming from the main turnpike in rear ran in a northerly course
past the right of the forming column, extended along the right edge of
the open ground, traversed the farther woods, and crossed the Little
River pike at right angles. This has been known since colonial days as
the Ox Road, and the eminence over which it runs, just north of the
crossing, is Ox Hill, from which the Confederates have named the coming
engagement the battle of Ox Hill. In Union reports and histories it is
known as the battle of Chantilly, from the hamlet of that name six miles
westward on the Little River pike.

The column was soon formed in the following order:--

      28th Mass., 79th Highlanders, Col. David Morrison.
      50th Penn., 8th Michigan, Col. Benjamin C. Christ.
     100th Penn., 46th New York, Lieut.-Col. David A. Lecky.

The formation was nearly completed when General Reno appeared. He had
been sick and off duty the day before. The conference between him and
General Stevens was brief. The latter pointed out the supposed position
of the enemy, in a few strong words showed the necessity of hurling back
his threatened advance, and declared his intention of attack as soon as
his column was formed. General Reno seemed undecided and hesitating. He
seemed not to approve the movement, but he certainly did not disapprove
it in words, nor did he give any orders, nor take command in any way,
and soon turned and rode back.

General Stevens now dismounted, and directed his staff to dismount, and
sent one of them to each of the leading regiments, with orders to go
forward with it and make every exertion to force the charge home. He
sent Captain Stevens to the Highlanders, and Lieutenant Dearborn, his
aide, to the 28th Massachusetts.

The column now advanced, Benjamin's guns firing shells into the woods in
front. It descended a long, gentle slope, crossed a slight hollow, and
swept steadily up the easy ascent in three firm, regular lines with the
fixed bayonets glistening above them. Not a sight nor sound betrayed the
presence of the enemy. There was nothing to be seen but the open field,
extending two hundred yards in front and closed by the wall of woods,
with an old zigzag rail fence at its edge. "There is no enemy there,"
exclaimed Captain Lusk to Captain Stevens, as they were marching side by
side; "they have fallen back; we shall find nothing there."

Even as he spoke, the enemy poured a terrific volley from behind the
rail fence. Captain Stevens struck the ground with great force and
suddenness, shot in the arm and hip, and as he struggled to his feet saw
the even battle line of the Highlanders pressing firmly and steadily on.
A few minutes later General Stevens came up on foot, stopped a moment to
ask his son if he was badly hurt, and to order a soldier to help him off
the field, and, unheeding his remonstrances, moved on after the first
line.

The enemy was smiting the column with a terrible and deadly musketry.
The men were falling fast. General Stevens now ordered Captain Lusk to
hasten to the 50th Pennsylvania, which was hesitating at entering the
cornfield, and to push them forward, for, as the column advanced, the
left struck and extended into this cornfield.

The troops, under the withering hail of bullets, were now wavering and
almost at a standstill. Five color-bearers of the Highlanders had fallen
in succession, and the colors again fell to the ground. At this crisis
General Stevens pushed to the front, seized the falling colors from the
hands of the wounded bearer, unheeding his cry, "For God's sake, don't
take the colors, general; they'll shoot you if you do!" and calling
aloud upon his old regiment, "Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your
general!" rushed forward with the uplifted flag. The regiment responded
nobly. They rushed forward, reached the edge of the woods, hurled
themselves with fury upon the fence and the rebel line behind it, and
the enemy broke and fled in disorder. The 28th Massachusetts joined
gallantly in the charge, and the other brigades as gallantly supported
the first. At this moment a sudden and severe thunderstorm, with a
furious gale, burst over the field and the rain fell in torrents, while
the flash of lightning and peals of thunder seemed to rebuke man's
bloody, fratricidal strife.

General Stevens fell dead in the moment of victory. A bullet entered at
the temple and pierced his brain. He still firmly grasped the flagstaff,
and the colors lay fallen upon his head and shoulders. His noble, brave,
and ardent spirit, freed at last from the petty jealousies of earth, had
flown to its Creator.




                             CHAPTER LVIII

                        THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY


The enemy's troops thus struck and hurled back were Ewell's division of
Jackson's corps. Hays's and Trimble's brigades were behind the fence,
and were supported by Early's and Lawton's brigades in the woods in
their rear. This was the centre division in Jackson's column. The
leading one, under Starke, had already crossed the Ox Road, and the rear
division, under A.P. Hill, was closed up on Ewell's.

Jackson, judging from the fury of the attack and the numbers of his men
running in disorder out of the woods that he was assailed by a heavy
force, and fearing for his artillery, which had taken position on Ox
Hill, on the north side of the pike, when Ewell's division advanced into
the woods on the south side, at once moved his batteries half a mile
back up the pike to a long ridge, and planted them in position to rally
his troops upon in case of need, while at the same time he hurried
Hill's infantry division forward to maintain the battle. That officer
advanced the brigades of Branch and Brockenbrough (Field's), and
successively threw into the fight those of Gregg, Pander, Thomas, and
Archer, all of which, except the last, became heavily engaged and
suffered severely. General Stevens's division withstood the attack of
these fresh troops stoutly. It had driven back everything in its
immediate front, but the contest now raged over the cornfield on the
left. It was impossible for its scanty numbers long to resist the
pressure of Hill's brigades, successively rushing into the conflict.

But aid was at hand.

At the moment of ordering the fatal charge, General Stevens sent
Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, back to the main turnpike
with instructions to ask support, and to go from commander to commander
until he secured it. Belcher applied to several generals, who declined
to go without orders, until finally he met General Kearny. Scarcely had
he made known his mission to him, and its urgency was startlingly
emphasized by the rapid and fierce musketry of the battle, when Kearny
exclaimed, "By God, I will support Stevens anywhere!" and at once broke
the head of his column off the pike, and struck across the fields to the
sound of the battle.

It was Birney's brigade that Kearny so promptly brought to the rescue.
They arrived just in time. The 4th Maine, Colonel Elijah Walker, formed
line in rear of the cornfield, considerably to the left of the
farmhouse, and opened on the enemy swarming in the farther edge of the
field. The remaining regiments as they came up, the 101st New York, 3d
Maine, 4th New York, and 1st New York, extended the line to the right as
far as the house, or the right border of the cornfield, and, as General
Birney reports, "held the enemy and sustained unflinchingly the most
murderous fire from a superior force." From this position they made a
gallant advance well into the cornfield, driving back the enemy to the
woods, and then withdrew to their former ground. Captain George E.
Randolph planted his battery of four guns immediately in rear of the
line, and fired over it into the farther side of the cornfield and into
the woods. The 18th New York and 57th Pennsylvania were put in later,
and helped sustain the contest.

General Stevens's troops maintained their unequal battle until after
Birney's line opened. Jackson reports, "So severe was the fire in front
and flank of Branch's brigade as to produce in it some disorder and
falling back," and other Confederate officers mention the severe flank
fire, showing conclusively that both Stevens's and Birney's smote this
brigade, one in flank, the other in front, under which double fire it
was broken and driven back. "This engagement is regarded by this brigade
as one of our severest," says its commander in his report. After holding
their ground for an hour in the unequal contest, and expending all their
ammunition, General Stevens's troops fell back to the Reid house from
the position they had so gallantly won. The enemy did not advance into
the open ground on the right of the cornfield, and Birney's fight was
continued over it until night ended the contest.

Ferrero's brigade, of only three regiments, reached the field
immediately after Stevens's division, and was ordered by General Reno to
cover his right. The 51st New York, the leading regiment, moved forward
into the woods some distance on the right of Stevens's column until it
encountered the line of Starke's division, became somewhat engaged, and
retired with a loss of thirteen. The next regiment, the 21st
Massachusetts, was not to escape so easily. Thrown forward on the left
of the 51st New York, and disconnected from it, it advanced for a long
distance in the woods, somewhat disordered by fallen trees, struck the
enemy's line, and unexpectedly received a deadly volley, and nearly one
hundred brave fellows, dead and wounded, lay prostrate at the blow. The
gallant regiment returned the fire as well as it could, but in the
drenching rain many guns became unserviceable, and it fell back from the
woods, the enemy not pursuing. The third regiment, the 51st
Pennsylvania, entered the woods on the right of the 51st New York, but
were not engaged.

Meantime Starke withdrew his whole division from the woods back to the
Little River pike, and moved to the rear. Whether his line, struck by an
unaccountable panic, fell into disorder, or whether Jackson drew back
the troops for the support of Hill, all of whose brigades were then
going into the fight, is uncertain, but probably the latter. Early moved
to the left and covered the front vacated by Starke, but with a
contracted line, while Trimble's and Lawton's brigades were content to
hold their ground in the woods considerably to the rear of the fence
from which Hays and Trimble had been so roughly driven.

Longstreet deployed Toombs's and Anderson's brigades of his leading
division (Jones's), and advanced them into the woods in support of
Jackson's troops, but they were not called upon, as night soon closed
the contest.

  "As I rode up and met General Jackson," says Longstreet in his
  "Manassas to Appomattox," "I remarked upon the number of his men
  going to the rear.

  "'General, your men don't appear to work well to-day?'

  "'No,' he replied, 'but I hope it will prove a victory in the
  morning.'"

As the stricken 21st Massachusetts emerged from the woods, near where
General Stevens formed his column, it was met by General Kearny, who was
searching for troops to cover the right flank of Birney's line.

  "In fierce haste," says General C.F. Walcott, the historian of the
  regiment, in a paper on this battle before the Massachusetts
  Military Historical Society, "he ordered the regiment to move on the
  run to take post on Birney's right, the position of whose line was
  indicated only by the flashes of their muskets. Luckily two of our
  companies, which had been detached in the woods to cover our flanks,
  had escaped the ambuscade into which the others had fallen, and now
  joined us with serviceable guns, and the regiment, about two hundred
  strong, moved across the open ground towards the cornfield and the
  front of Birney's right, deploying a thin skirmish line to cover
  our right and front as we advanced.

  "As our skirmishers came up to the rail fence of the cornfield they
  were fired on by Thomas's skirmishers, whose brigade, with two of
  Pender's regiments, was in the cornfield, and coming from the woods
  well on Birney's right. Crossing the line of the fence we soon
  halted in the corn, under a dropping fire from the enemy. General
  Kearny was following us up closely, and as we came to a halt
  fiercely tried to force us forward, saying that we were firing on
  our own men, and that there were no rebels near us. We had the proof
  in two prisoners--an officer and private of a Georgia
  regiment--brought in by our skirmishers, besides the warning cries
  of 'Surrender,' coming both from our right and front; but,
  unfortunately, Kearny's judgment seemed unable to appreciate the
  existence of the peril which his military instinct had caused him to
  guard against. Lieutenant Walcott, of the brigade staff, took our
  prisoners to him, saying, 'General, if you don't believe there are
  rebels in the corn, here are two prisoners from the 49th Georgia,
  just taken in our front.' Crying out fiercely, '---- ---- you and
  your prisoners!' the general, entirely alone, apparently in
  ungovernable rage at our disregard of his peremptory orders to
  advance, forced his horse through the deep, sticky mud of the
  cornfield past the left of the regiment, passing within a few feet
  of where I was standing. I watched him moving in the murky twilight
  through the corn, and, when less than twenty yards away, saw his
  horse suddenly rear and turn, and half a dozen muskets flash around
  him: so died the intrepid soldier, General Philip Kearny!

  "Diverted by our movement from their design upon Birney's brigade,
  the enemy surged up against our front and right flank, took what
  fire we could give them at a few paces distance (which they returned
  with interest), and in the dark, ignorant of our weakness, allowed
  us to withdraw from their front without pursuit, and in a few
  minutes also drew back themselves from the cornfield to the woods
  behind it. Except a few scattering shots on Birney's front, which
  soon ceased, the battle of Chantilly was now over."

Supposing from the non-return of General Kearny that he had fallen or
been captured, General Birney assumed command of his division, and after
the battle was over relieved his hard-fought troops with General Poe's
brigade. Robinson's brigade was posted during the battle on the high
ground near the main turnpike, and was not engaged. The Union troops
held the ground upon which they fought until half past two in the
morning, brought off their wounded, and then retreated to Fairfax Court
House after the last of the troops from Centreville had passed.

Only sixteen Union regiments, viz., six of Stevens's division, three of
Ferrero's brigade, and seven of Birney's brigade, with six guns,
Benjamin's two 20-pounder rifles, and Randolph's four 12-pounders,
fought this battle against Jackson's whole corps of seventy regiments,
of which at least forty-eight were in the fight. The Union force
numbered 5500 effective, the Confederate at least twice as many.

In this brief and fierce battle the losses on each side were from 800 to
1000. The following statement is made up from Confederate official
reports and, on the Union side, from regimental histories, for there are
no official reports of Union losses, except four in Poe's brigade, and
from estimates based on all available data, but undoubtedly falls short
of the actual losses.

How exactly General Stevens grasped the military situation when he
caught sight of the rebel skirmish line, and instantly decided to stay
Jackson's impending advance by an attack that would throw even him on
the defensive, is clearly shown by the Confederate leader's objective,
and the dispositions he had made of his troops to accomplish it.

Jackson had moved down the pike from Chantilly slowly and carefully, to
give time for Longstreet to close up in support. His troops were well
in hand, the infantry of one division, and probably of all three,
marching in two columns, one on each side of the road, and the artillery
on the road between them. Already he had thrown this solid column,
prepared for battle rather than for the march, athwart the Ox Road,
which led straight across to the coveted line of retreat. Already his
skirmishers, supported by a regiment, had pushed southward half a mile,
and were advancing across country to the other pike, and in another half
mile--in ten minutes more--would come in plain sight of the wagons
moving back upon it. His whole corps was in position,--Ewell's division
(under Lawton) in the centre, Starke on the left, Hill on the right. It
lay wholly in Jackson's will and power, advancing but little over a
mile, to hurl this mighty mass, seventy regiments strong, upon Pope's
only road and his retreating troops and trains. Who that knows Jackson's
career can doubt his will and power to seize the golden opportunity?

At the very instant of launching the thunderbolt, Jackson learns that
the enemy is advancing upon him, his skirmishers are driven in, his
centre division is hurled headlong from its position, the fugitives pour
out of the woods, he hurries his artillery to the rear, is forced to
throw the whole of his right division into the fight, brigade after
brigade, and to withdraw his left division for his last reserve. The
possibility of striking his enemy is gone. He can only say, "I hope it
will prove a victory to-morrow."

And the troops that General Stevens led to this desperate and victorious
charge were the same who, but ten weeks since, suffered the slaughter on
James Island, and had just lost half of their number in the bloody
encounters on the plains of Bull Run. Can more be said for the gallantry
and devotion of the soldiers, or the hold upon them of their heroic
leader?

Had General Stevens remained on the defensive and given time--and time
counted by minutes--for Jackson to advance, disaster were inevitable.
How long could his scanty force of nine regiments, outflanked and
overborne, have resisted the avalanche? True, Kearny was on the pike,
and perhaps others would have joined in the defense, but where was the
army or corps commander to put them in, and order and control battle
against Jackson's onslaught, backed by Longstreet? Pope was at
Centreville; Sumner, with his second corps, north of it; Sigel's,
McDowell's, Franklin's troops scattered from Fairfax to Alexandria and
Washington; Banks retreating down Braddock road,--all scattered and out
of reach. The closest study of the situation strengthens the conviction
that General Stevens that day saved the army and the country from an
appalling disaster.

General McDowell, hurrying to Fairfax Court House as directed by General
Pope, met Patrick's brigade near that point and posted it behind
Difficult Run, just in front of Germantown,[21] where it was supported
by Ricketts's division. General Stuart, who with his cavalry preceded
Jackson's column down the pike, after passing the Ox Road some two miles
found his advance arrested by these troops, and, after some skirmishing,
moved off northward toward Flint Hill in a fruitless effort to flank the
Union line. Patrick's brigade lost twenty wounded. Neither force took
any part in the battle of Chantilly.

UNION LOSSES.

  Stevens's division:           Staff                               2
    First brigade:             {100th Pennsylvania                 36
      Colonel Daniel Leasure   {46th New York                      50[A]
    Second brigade:            {79th Highlanders                   40
      Colonel David Morrison   {28th Massachusetts                 99
    Third brigade:             {8th Michigan (7 killed)            50[A]
      Colonel B.C. Christ     {50th Pennsylvania (7 killed)        50[A]
                                                                  ---
                                                                  327

  Reno's division:
    Ferrero's brigade          21st Massachusetts                 130
                               51st New York                       13
                               51st Pennsylvania (none)
                                                                  ---
                                                                  143

  Kearny's division:           Staff                                1
    Birney's brigade           3d Maine                            50
                               4th Maine                           64
                               40th New York                      163
                               1st New York                        40[A]
                               38th New York                       25[A]
                               101st New York                      40[A]
                               57th Pennsylvania                   25[A]
    Poe's brigade:             Pickets                              4
                                                                  ---
                        Total: 16 regiments                       412
                                                                  ---
                                                                  882

[A] Estimated. No report in war records or histories.

CONFEDERATE LOSSES.

  Jackson's corps:
    Stark's division             20 regiments                      71[B]
    Ewell's division:
      Lawton's brigade            6 regiments                      12
      Early's brigade             7 regiments                      32
      Trimble's brigade           5 regiments                      21
      Hays's brigade              5 regiments                     135
                                 --                               ---
                                 43                               200

  Hill's division:
    Branch's brigade              5 regiments                     108
    Pender's brigade              4 regiments                      58
    Gregg's brigade               5 regiments                     104
    Archer's brigade              5 regiments (not engaged)
    Field's (or Brockenbrough's)  4 regiments (no report)          75[B]
    Thomas's brigade              4 regiments (loss not reported)  75[B]
                                 --                               ---
                                 27                               420

  Longstreet's corps:
    Jones's division                                                1

                         Total:  70 regiments--48 in action       692

[B] Estimated. General Hill reports his loss as 306. It is impossible to
reconcile these small losses with the Confederate reports of the
severity of the fighting.

  NOTE.--The Confederate reports of the battle of Chantilly, or Ox
  Hill, show with tolerable clearness their troops engaged, and the
  positions and parts taken by them. Early's report definitely locates
  Hays's and Trimble's brigades "in line of battle on the right of
  Jackson's division, and occupying positions in the edge of a field
  beyond a piece of woods through which the Ox Road here runs." This
  is unmistakably the very position from which General Stevens's
  charge drove the enemy. The loss in Hays's brigade (135) was greater
  than that of any other. Early acknowledges that Hays's brigade "fell
  back in confusion, passing through these regiments (second line),
  followed by the enemy;" that the commander of Trimble's brigade was
  killed, and one or two regiments of it were thrown into some
  confusion. There are no reports from any officer of Jackson's
  (Starke's) division, except the bare mention by one brigade
  commander that they met the enemy at Ox Hill, September 1, and
  repulsed him; none from Hays's, Trimble's, or Lawton's brigades of
  Ewell's division; and none from Field's (Brockenbrough's) brigade of
  Hill's division. General Longstreet, in his book _Manassas to
  Appomattox_, pp. 193-195, says of this battle: "Two of Hill's
  brigades were thrown out to find the enemy, and were soon met by his
  advance in search of Jackson, which made a furious attack, driving
  back the Confederate brigades in some disorder. Stevens,
  appreciating the crisis as momentous, thought it necessary to follow
  the opportunity by aggressive battle in order to hold Jackson away
  from the Warrenton turnpike. Kearny, always ready to second any
  courageous move, joined in the daring battle. At the critical moment
  the rain and thunder storm burst with great violence upon the
  combatants, the high wind beating the storm in the faces of the
  Confederates. So firm was the unexpected battle that part of
  Jackson's line yielded to the onslaught. At one moment his artillery
  seemed in danger.... As I rode up and met General Jackson, I
  remarked upon the number of his men going to the rear:--

  "'General, your men don't appear to work well to-day.'

  "'No,' he replied, 'but I hope it will prove a victory in the
  morning.'

  "As both Federal division commanders fell, the accounts fail to do
  justice to their fight. Stevens, in his short career, gave evidence
  of courage, judgment, skill, and genius not far below his
  illustrious antagonist."

  Immediately after the close of the Civil War, in June, 1865, the
  author visited the battlefield of Chantilly. The ground and its
  incidents agreed precisely with his recollections. The remains of
  the fence at the edge of the woods from which General Stevens hurled
  the enemy were plainly visible, many of the rails as well as the
  trees showing marks of bullets. From a point near the corner of the
  cornfield, extending nearly perpendicularly into the woods for fifty
  yards, and facing to the left, were the vestiges of a hastily thrown
  up breastwork, or cover, of earth, rails, logs, and branches, which
  the Union troops had scraped together after driving back the enemy
  in order to meet the attack of Hill's troops on their left.

  In May, 1883, the author, accompanied by the late General Charles F.
  Walcott, again visited the field, and by the hospitality of
  Lieutenant John N. Ballard, the present owner of the estate, himself
  a Confederate soldier, spent the night at the Reid house. Mr.
  Ballard exhibited a plan of the estate, made in 1858, accompanying a
  former deed, which comprised almost exactly the battlefield, and
  kindly permitted a tracing of it to be made. The distance between
  the fence where General Stevens fell and the Little River pike was
  found by pacing to be about four hundred yards. By this data a
  fairly accurate map of the battlefield was obtained. Mr. Charles
  Stewart, a very intelligent gentleman, whose house is on the Little
  River pike half a mile west of the field, who was at home at the
  time of the battle and an eye-witness of the movements of the
  Confederate troops, and who went over the field the third day after
  the engagement, pointed out to the visitors the localities of
  interest in connection with the fight near his house, and
  graphically narrated how Jackson hurried his artillery to the rear
  at the opening of the battle, and threw it into position half a mile
  back on a bare, commanding ridge near the Stewart house. This
  account was fully corroborated by Mr. Ballard. A full and
  interesting account of this visit, and also an account of the
  battle, by General Walcott, is given in volume ii., Military
  Historical Society of Massachusetts.

  The author has been aided in preparing his account of the battle by
  written statements from Colonel David Morrison, Captain William T.
  Lusk, and Captain Robert Armour, of the 79th Highlanders; Lieutenant
  Samuel N. Benjamin and Captain George E. Randolph, who commanded the
  two batteries engaged; Colonel Elijah Walker, of the 4th Maine, and
  Colonel Moses B. Lakeman, of the 3d Maine; and by personal
  interviews with these officers and many others, including Lieutenant
  H.G. Belcher, who participated in the engagement.

  _War Records_, series 1, vol. xii., "History of 79th Highlanders,"
  by William Todd; _The One Hundredth Regiment Pennsylvania
  Volunteers, Roundheads_; James C. Stevenson, _Michigan in the War_,
  _Maine in the War_; Bates's _History of Pennsylvania Volunteers_.

  The only reports of the battle of Chantilly by Union officers who
  took part in it are those of General Birney and Captain Randolph,
  and they are very brief. There are actually no reports from any
  officers of General Stevens's or General Reno's division, owing to
  the death of the commanders--Reno fell at South Mountain a few days
  later--and the rapid changes in, and movements of, the troops in the
  Maryland campaign, which immediately followed.

FOOTNOTES:

  [21] Statement of Colonel Charles McClure, of Patrick's staff.




                              CHAPTER LIX

                              FINAL SCENE


After the successful charge Colonel Morrison sent an officer to report
that General Stevens had fallen, and that the enemy had been driven
back. General Reno, to whom the report was made, returned orders to bury
General Stevens on the field, and to fall back. The Highlanders
reverently and tenderly bore away the body of their beloved commander
and placed it in an ambulance, from which one of their number, although
wounded, willingly alighted to give room. The remains were taken to
Washington to the house of his dear friend, John L. Hayes, and thence to
Newport, R.I.

General Reno's apparently unfeeling order excited great indignation
among the Highlanders.

At the very moment of his heroic death General Stevens was being
considered by the President and his advisers as commander of the armies
in Virginia. Mr. Hayes was assured of the fact by a member of the
cabinet, and it was currently stated in the press. Certain it is that
ignoble personal rivalries and jealousies could not have kept him down
much longer.

He was appointed and confirmed a major-general, to rank from July 4,
1862.

He was only forty-four years, five months, and seven days of age when he
fell.

The stern old Puritan Abolitionist, his aged father, died August 22,
only ten days previous. He frequently declared that he should never see
Isaac again, that he knew his spirit too well, that he would surely be
killed in battle, and it was thought that brooding over this idea
hastened his own death.

General Stevens was buried in the Island Cemetery in Newport. The
obsequies were attended by Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, and
Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, Professor Bache and officers of the
Coast Survey, the mayor and council of Newport and other dignitaries,
and a large military escort. The city of Newport erected beside his
grave a massive granite obelisk, bearing the following simple and
appropriate inscription, composed by his brother-in-law, the Rev.
Charles T. Brooks:

                             IN MEMORY OF
                 MAJOR-GENERAL ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS,
                       BORN IN ANDOVER, MASS.,
                           MARCH 25, 1818,
                WHO GAVE TO THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY
                   A QUICK AND COMPREHENSIVE MIND,
                      A WARM AND GENEROUS HEART,
                    A FIRM WILL AND A STRONG ARM,
               AND WHO FELL WHILE RALLYING HIS COMMAND
          WITH THE FLAG OF THE REPUBLIC IN HIS DYING GRASP,
                   AT THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY, VA.,
                          SEPTEMBER 1, 1862.

                            THIS MONUMENT
                       IS ERECTED AS A TOKEN OF
                          ADMIRING GRATITUDE
                                BY THE
                           CITY OF NEWPORT.

When the Highlanders were mustered out of service, the flag under whose
folds General Stevens fell was sent to his widow, with the following
letter from the brave Colonel Morrison:--

                                     NEW YORK, September 22, 1864.

  Mrs. ISAAC I. STEVENS.

  _Dear Madam_,--I have the honor to transmit to you the colors of the
  79th Highlanders, the same that were in the hand of your late
  lamented husband when he received his wound. Since I knew that you
  wished to have them in your possession I have watched them with a
  jealous eye through many stormy fields. Although but a rag, many a
  brave man would have sacrificed his life rather than anything
  dishonorable should happen them. From Chantilly to Blue Springs,
  wherever they were unfurled, victory has perched upon them, and
  when, torn and tattered, we exchanged them for a new set, I have
  carried them about with me, and I assure you it gives me great
  pleasure in sending them to you, so that you may preserve them as an
  heirloom in your family. Serving immediately under General Stevens,
  no one had a better opportunity of knowing him than myself. Well may
  you feel proud of him! His nobleness of heart, his firm devotion to
  his country, his untiring energy, his unflinching bravery, have
  endeared him to all those who have served under him. His memory is
  engraven on the hearts of every one of his Highlanders, and the few
  of us that are left often speak of the many acts of kindness
  bestowed on us by "Our General."

          I am, madam, your obedient servant,

                                       D. MORRISON,
                          _Late Colonel 79th Highlanders_.

The legislature of Rhode Island passed resolutions upon the death of
General Stevens, and offered to provide a fit resting-place for his
ashes. The city of Newport, the officers of the Coast Survey, and many
other public bodies paid fitting tribute by resolutions. "When the
intelligence of his death reached Washington Territory, the grief of all
classes was sincere and profound. Nothing could any one recall that was
base or dishonorable, but much that was lofty and manly in the dead
hero. The legislature passed resolutions in his honor, and ordered crape
to be worn."[22] For many years the successive governors and
legislatures regularly paid tribute to his memory.

          He fell--that glowing eye
            In sudden night was quenched;
          But still the flag he lifted high,
          And onward bore to victory,
            In his dead hand was clenched.

          He sank--but o'er his head
            The drooping ensign fell,
          As if its folds it fondly spread
          Above the forehead, pale and dead,
            Of him who loved it well.

          He sleeps--unlock that clasp!
            The hero's work is done!
          Another hand that staff shall grasp,
          And, if need be, till life's last gasp,
            Like him shall bear it on.

          He rests--the true and brave!
            And where his relics lie,
          In holier beauty long shall wave,
          Fit canopy for freeman's grave,
            God's starry flag on high.

          He lives--his deeds inspire
            New strength for duty's strife:
          Now myriads burn with nobler fire
          Onward to press--to mount up higher
            And win the eternal life.[23]

FOOTNOTES:

  [22] H.H. Bancroft's _History of Washington_.

  [23] Anonymous, from _Boston Commonwealth_.




GENERAL STEVENS'S DESCENDANTS.


1. HAZARD, born in Newport, R.I., June 9, 1842.

2. JULIA VIRGINIA, born in Newport, June 27, 1844, died in Bucksport,
Me., December 7, 1845.

3. SUSAN, born in Bucksport, November 20, 1846; married Richard
Isaac Eskridge, United States Army, in Portland, Oregon,
October 27, 1870.

4. GERTRUDE MAUDE, born in Bucksport, April 29, 1850.

5. KATE, born in Washington, D.C., November 17, 1852; married
Edward Wingard Bingham, in Boston, Mass., February 18, 1886.

GRANDCHILDREN, CHILDREN OF RICHARD ISAAC ESKRIDGE AND
SUSAN STEVENS ESKRIDGE.

1. MAUD, born at Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, August
21, 1871; married Edward Pennington Pearson, United States
Army, at Fort Reno, Oklahoma Territory, April 16, 1898.

2. RICHARD STEVENS, born at Yuma Depot, Arizona Territory,
October 24, 1872.

3. HAZARD STEVENS, born at Yuma Depot, February 24, 1874;
died at Fort D.A. Russell, Wyoming Territory, October 12,
1874.

4. VIRGINIA, born at Fort D.A. Russell, March 2, 1875.

5. OLIVER STEVENS, born in Boston, Mass., October 12, 1876.

6. MARY PEYTON, born at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, March 28,
1878; married Charles McKinley Saltzman, United States Army,
in Boston, May 9, 1899.

  [Illustration: THE MONUMENT]




APPENDIX


Following are the marginal notes on the

                                  MAP

of the Indian Nations and Tribes of the Territory of Washington, and of
the Territory of Nebraska west of the mouth of the Yellowstone. Sent to
the Hon. George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with
letter of this date.

                                    ISAAC I. STEVENS,
                              _Governor and Supt. Indian Affairs_.

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, April 30, 1857.


_Tabular Statement of the Indians East of the Cascade Mountains, etc._

 ------------------+-----------+-------+-----------------+-----------------
 NAME AND DATE OF  |NAMES OF   |POPULA-|RESERVATIONS.   |TEMPORARY
 TREATIES.         |TRIBES.    |TION.  |                |ENCAMPMENTS.
 ------------------+-----------+-------+----------------+------------------
 Treaty with the   |Pisquouse. |   600 |Simcoe and the  |About 1500
  Yakima Nation    |Yakimas.   |   700 |adjoining       | of these
  concluded at     |Pshawm     |       |country and     | tribes are
  Walla Walla,     |  wappam.  |   500 |forks of the    | encamped in
  June, 1855.      |           |       |We-nat-scha-pan,| the vicinity
                   |           |       |or Pisquouse    | of Simcoe
                   |           |       |River.          | River.
                   |Bands on   |       |                |Opposite the
                   |  Columbia.|  1000 |                | Dalles, Oregon.
                   |Klikitats. |   500 |                |White Salmon
                   |           |       |                | River.
                   |Palouses.  |   600 |                |
                   |           |-------|                |
                   |           |  3900 |                |
                   |           |-------|                |
                   |           |       |                |
 Walla Walla       |Nez Perces.|  3300 |On the Snake    |
  treaty,          |           |       | and Clearwater |
  concluded June,  |           |       |  Rivers.       |
  1855.            |           |       |                |
                   |           |       |                |
 Treaty with the   |Flatheads. |   500 |Flathead River. |
  Flathead Nation  |Upper Pend |       |                |
  concluded        |  Oreilles.|   700 |                |
  June, 1855.      |Kootenays. |   500 |                |
                   |           |-------|                |
                   |           |  1700 |                |
                   |           |-------|                |
                   |           |       |                |
 Tribes with whom  |Coeur      |   450 |                |
  no treaties      |  d'Alenes.|       |                |
  have been        |Lower Pend |       |                |
  made.            |  Oreilles.|   450 |                |
                   |Colvilles. |   500 |                |
                   |Okinakanes.|   600 |                |
                   |Spokanes.  |  1100 |                |
                   |           |-------|                |
                   |           |  3100 |                |
 ------------------+-----------+-------+----------------+----------------

  Total number of Indians east of the Cascade Mountains       12,000
  Treaties have been made with                                 8,900
  Number with whom treaties have not been made                 3,100
  Largest number held on temporary reservations                3,000

  Written on upper central margin in Governor Stevens's handwriting:--

  Total number of Indians west of the Cascade Mountains        9,712
  Total number of Indians east of the Cascade Mountains       12,000
  Total number of Indians, Territory of Washington            21,712
  Treaties have been made with                                17,497
  Treaties remain to be made with                              4,215


  _Tabular Statement of the Indians West of the Cascade Mountains,
  showing Tribes, Population, Parties to the several Treaties,
  Reservations provided for in the Treaties, and Temporary
  Encampments._

 ------------------+---------------+-------+------------------+----------------
 NAME AND DATE OF  |NAMES OF       |POPULA-|RESERVATIONS.     |TEMPORARY
 TREATIES.         |TRIBES.        |TION.  |                  |ENCAMPMENTS.
 ------------------+---------------+-------+------------------+----------------
                   |               |       |                  |
 Treaty of Medicine|Quaks-na-mish, | }     |Klah-che-min      |Klah-che-min
  Creek, December  |Nisqually,     | }1200 | Island,          | Island.
  26, 1854.        |Puy-all-up.    | }     |Near mouth of     | }
                   |               |       | Nisqually River. | } Fox Island.
                   |               |       |Near mouth of     | }
                   |               |       | Puy-all-up River.| }
                   |               |       |                  |
 Treaty of         |Duwamish,      | }     |Noo-soh-te-um,    |Dunginess Point.
  Point Elliott,   |Suquamish,     | }     | near Port        | Fort Kitsap.
  January 22, 1855.|and allied     | } 942 | Madison, and     |
                   | tribes.       | }     | at Muckleshoot.  |
                   |               |       |                  |
                   |Sno-qual-moo,  | }     |Te-wilt-sch-da,   |Skagit Head, on
                   |Sno-ho-mish,   | }     | north side       | Whitby Island.
                   |and allied     | }1700 | Sno-ho-mish      |
                   | tribes.       | }     | River.           |
                   |               |       |                  |
                   |Skagits and    | }     |S.E. end Perry    |
                   | allied        | }1300 | (or Fidalgo)     |
                   | tribes.       | }     | Island.          |
                   |               |       |                  |
                   |Lummi,         | }     |Chah-choo-sa      |Penn's Cove, on
                   |Nook-Sahk,     | }1050 | Island, at mouth | Whitby Island.
                   |Sa-mish.       | }     | of Lummi River.  |
                   |               |-------|                  |
                   |               |  4992 |                  |
                   |               |-------|                  |
                   |               |       |                  |
 Treaty of         |Clallams,      |   926 | } Head of Hood's |
  Point-No-Point,  |Skokomish,     |   290 | }  Canal.        |
  January 25, 1855.|Chem-a-kum.    |   100 | }                |
                   |               |-------|                  |
                   |               |  1316 |                  |
                   |               |-------|                  |
                   |               |       |                  |
 Treaty of         |Ma-kahs.       |   596 |Cape Flattery.    |
  Neah Bay,        |               |       |                  |
  January 31, 1855.|               |       |                  |
                   |               |       |                  |
                   |               |       |Reservation to be |
 Treaty of Olympia.|Quinaiult,     | }     | selected by the  |
                   |Kwilleyute.    | } 493 | President.       |
                   |               |       |Quinaiult River   |
                   |               |       | and land set     |
                   |               |       | apart.           |
                   |               |       |                  |
 Tribes with whom  |Lower          |       |                  |
  treaties have not| Chehalis.     |   217 |                  |
  been made.       |Upper          |       |                  |S.S. Ford's on
                   | Chehalis.     |   216 |                  | the Chehalis
                   |               |       |                  | River.
                   |               |       |                  |
                   |Cowlitz and    |       |                  |Near Cowlitz
                   | Tia-tin-a-pan.|   240 |                  | Landing.
                   |Lower          |       |                  |Removed to
                   | Chinooks.     |   112 |                  |  White Salmon.
                   |Upper          |       |                  |Vancouver and
                   | Chinooks.     |   330 |                  | Cascades.
                   |               |-------|                  |
                   |               |  1115 |                  |
 ------------------+---------------+-------+------------------+---------------

  Total number of Indians west of Cascade Mountains             9712
  Number with whom treaties have been made                      8597
  Number with whom treaties have yet to be made                 1115
  Largest number held on temporary reservations                 5686

  All have been assisted during the war. The parties to the treaties
  of Neah Bay and Olympia, the Lower Chehalis and Lower Chinooks, have
  required but little assistance at the hands of the Department.


  NOTES OF THE INDIANS OF THE TERRITORY OF NEBRASKA BETWEEN THE ROCKY
                MOUNTAINS AND MOUTH OF THE YELLOWSTONE.

The Blackfoot Nation are in four tribes, viz., Piegans, Bloods,
Blackfeet, Gros Ventres, and number 11,500 souls.

The map shows the hunting-grounds, secured exclusively to the Blackfeet
in the treaty, at the mouth of the Judith, concluded October 17, 1855;
the hunting-ground common to the Blackfeet and Western Indians, the
Blackfeet and Assiniboines; the western and southern boundaries of the
Assiniboine country; and the western boundary of the Crow country.

The Western Indians, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, and a portion of the
Kootenays, generally make two hunts a year east of the Rocky Mountains,
and they depend for their lodges, parfleches, apechinos, and much of
their meat upon these hunts. They get some of their supplies by trade
with the Blackfeet. The Indians of the western tribes, as the Spokanes
and Coeur d'Alenes, "go to buffalo," but not in as large numbers or
with as much regularity as the preceding.

The Nez Perces generally have a large camp--over one hundred
lodges--either on the common hunting-grounds or in the Crow country.
Their hunters always pass one winter, and sometimes two winters, in
succession, east of the mountains before they return to their own
country.


                    CENSUS OF THE BLACKFOOT NATION.

          Tribes.        Number of Lodges.     Population.
          Piegans.             340               3,150
          Bloods.              290               2,690
          Blackfeet.           290               2,690
          Gros Ventres.        360               2,970
                              ----              ------
                              1280              11,500




                                 INDEX


  A Company, dismissed for disobedience, ii. 250-253, 263.

  Abaco Island, Bahamas, i. 101, 102.

  Abernethy, Alexander S., ii. 265, 317.

  Academic Board, West Point, awards first place to Cadet Stevens, i. 59.

  Acajete, i. 140.

  Acapulco, i. 436.

  Achilles, Captain, ii. 169-171, 187.

  Acquia Creek, ii. 425, 430.

  Active, Coast Survey steamer, ii. 185.

  Adams, Fort, at Newport, i. 60, 61.

  Adams, John Quincy, i. 44, 73.

  Adams, Lieutenant, i. 113.

  Adams, Mount, i. 394.

  Adams, Thomas, i. 306; ii. 75, 92, 107, 108, 114.

  Agnew, i. 444.

  Ah-tah-nam, branch of Yakima River, ii. 22, 160.

  Alabama volunteers, i. 114.

  Albany, Me., i. 35, 86.

  Alden, Fort, ii. 184, 234.

  Alden, James, Captain, ii. 185.

  Alexander, Barton S., General, i. 28.

  Alexander, head chief of Pend Oreilles, ii. 77;
    at Flathead council, 82-89, 113, 114.

  Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, ii. 425.

  Alexandria and Warrenton turnpike, ii. 433, 435.

  Allen, Robert, General, i. 28.

  Allen, William, Colonel, ii. 481.

  Almonte, Mexican general, i. 203.

  Al-pa-wha Creek, ii. 70, 147.

  Alvarado, Mexico, i. 119.

  Alvarez, Mexican general, i. 168, 203.

  Alvord, Benjamin, General, ii. 25, 26, 207.

  Amasoque, i. 141, 153.

  Ambrose, Flathead chief, ii. 85-87.

  Amelia, Lake, i. 304.

  American Fur Co., i. 287, 298, 302, 347; ii. 96, 97.

  American Geographical and Statistical Society of New York, address
   before, by Governor Stevens, ii. 284.

  Amissville, Va., ii. 431.

  Amman, Daniel, Captain, ii. 364.

  Ampudia, Mexican general, i. 126.

  Anderson, George T., Colonel, ii. 490.

  Anderson, J. Patten, i. 414; ii. 15.

  Anderson, Peter, i. 462.

  Anderson, Robert, Colonel, ii. 469.

  Andover, Mass., i. 1, 2, 19, 35, 86, 227, 274; ii. 270.

  Andover, Me., i. 5, 6.

  Andrew, John A., Governor, offers regiment to Governor Stevens,
        ii. 319, 320, 499.

  Andrews, Colonel, i. 220.

  Annapolis, ii. 340-342.

  Anti-Slavery Society, Isaac Stevens bequeaths it $500, i. 10.

  Appleton, D., & Co., i. 300.

  Archer, J.J. General, ii. 487.

  Armour, Robert, Captain, ii. 497.

  Armstrong, C.H., Captain, ii. 168, 197.

  Armstrong, Captain, killed at Molino del Rey, i. 206.

  Army, reorganization of, efforts to promote, i. 240, 259-263.

  Army of Virginia, ii. 427.

  Arnold, Daniel Lyman, i. 307, 370;
    death of, ii. 420.

  Arnold, Lewis G., Lieutenant, i. 60, 77.

  Arnold, Richard, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 307, 370,
        379, 380, 382;
    takes charge of wagon-road, 409, 422; ii. 27, 28.

  Ashepoo River ii. 374, 379-381.

  Ashley River, ii. 380.

  Aspinwall, description of, i. 433, 434; ii. 270.

  Assiniboine Indians, meeting and talk with, i. 342-345, 347; ii. 115.

  Atchison, Camp, on Milk River, i. 354.

  Athsio, Mexican village, i. 148.

  Augusta, Ga., ii. 381.

  Ayotla, village in valley of Mexico, i. 164, 166, 168, 224.

  Ayres, Captain, killed, i. 206.

  Azotea, parapeted roof, i. 181.


  Bache, Alexander Dallas; Professor, i. 241, 242, 245-247, 250, 253, 254,
        276-279, 281;
    remarks on Major Stevens, 284, 367; ii. 273, 319;
    letter to, giving
    views on military operation, 375, 499.

  Bacon, John D., room-mate, i. 40, 58.

  Bad Lands, i. 350.

  Bahama Banks, i. 102.

  Bahama Islands, i. 101, 102.

  Bailey, P., i. 468.

  Bainbridge, Captain, i. 137.

  Baird, Spencer F., Professor, i. 276, 295, 299; ii. 273.

  Baker, Lieutenant, i. 221.

  Balch, Lafayette, i. 412, 468.

  Bald Hillock Creek, i. 330.

  Bald Hill, ii. 435.

  Baldwin, A.J., ii. 248.

  Ball-in-the-Nose, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Ballard, John N., Lieutenant, ii. 496, 497.

  Baltimore, i. 250.

  Baltimore Democratic Convention, ii. 304, 305.

  Bangor, Me., i. 95.

  Banks, Nathaniel P., ii. 299, 426-429, 432, 475, 494.

  Barker, Stephen, i. 35.

  Barnes, Dr., i. 219.

  Barnes, Ellis, i. 468.

  Barnes, George A., i. 415; ii. 15, 224.

  Barnett's Ford, ii. 427, 428.

  Barnwell Island, ii. 357.

  Barry, William F., General, i. 28.

  Bartlett, W.H.C., Professor, gives characteristics of General Stevens,
        i. 41.

  Bartow, General, ii. 435.

  Battery Island, ii. 381, 382.

  Bay Point, ii. 345, 347.

  Bayly, George, i. 260.

  Baynes, Admiral, ii. 291, 292.

  Bealton, Va., ii. 426, 432.

  Beam, George W., Captain, ii. 169, 170.

  Bear Tracks, Flathead chief, ii. 86.

  Bear's Coat, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Bear's Paw Mountains, i. 359-361.

  Beaufort, S.C., ii. 353;
    occupied by General Stevens, 355.

  Beaufort River, ii. 355, 358.

  Beauregard, P.G.T., i. 28, 60, 111, 114, 122, 130, 165, 166, 169, 171;
    sketch of, 216.

  Beauregard, Fort, ii. 345.

  Beauregard Light Infantry, ii. 392.

  Beaver Creek, i. 376.

  Beaver Lodge Creek, i. 330.

  Bee, General, ii. 435.

  Belcher, H.G., Lieutenant, ii. 370, 411, 488, 497.

  Belen, gate to Mexico, i. 207, 210.

  Belfast, Me., i. 68.

  Belland, i. 306, 312.

  Bell, John, ii. 305.

  Bell's Lake, i. 322.

  Bellingham Bay, i. 412; ii. 184, 267.

  Belt Mountains, i. 361.

  Benham, Henry W., Captain, i. 28, 283, 284;
    General, ii. 383, 384, 386, 387, 392;
    General Stevens's opinion of, 393, 394, 397, 399, 400, 409-411;
    sent North in arrest, i. 415, 420, 421.

  Benjamin, Lieutenant, wounded, i. 211.

  Benjamin, Samuel N., Lieutenant, ii. 413, 425, 430, 449, 451, 478, 479,
        483, 484, 492, 497.

  Benny Haven's restaurant, adjacent to West Point, i. 50.

  Benton, Fort, i. 348;
    description of, 362, 375; ii. 94, 95, 120.

  Berry Islands, Bahamas, i. 102.

  Bevard, Professor, French teacher at West Point, i. 34, 39.

  Biddle, Henry J., rival classmate, i. 25, 31, 32, 35-37, 46.

  Big Blackfoot River, i. 385; ii. 93.

  Big Canoe, Pend Oreille chief, ii. 83, 84.

  Big Chestnut, Camp of the, ii. 336-338.

  Big Folly Creek, ii. 390, 391.

  Big Horn River, ii. 108.

  Big Muddy River, i. 352.

  Big Star, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138, 139.

  Big Top, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Bigelow, D.R., i. 415; ii. 168.

  Biles, James, i. 415.

  Bird, James, ii. 101, 114.

  Bird Island, ii. 382.

  Bird Tail Rock, i. 376; ii. 124.

  Birney, David B., General, ii. 457, 488, 492, 497.

  Bishop, David H., marries Susan B. Stevens, i. 68;
    announces her death, 77.

  Bissel, Lieutenant, i. 113.

  Bissel, of Illinois, i. 260.

  Bitter Root Mountains, i. 380-382; ii. 75, 127.

  Bitter Root River, i. 379, 382, 386; ii. 75, 127.

  Bitter Root valley, i. 352, 364-382, 385.

  Blackburn's Ford, ii. 437, 439.

  Blackfeet, description of, i. 348, 351, 352, 368, 370;
    talk with, 373, 374; ii. 99;
    Governor Stevens's opinion of, 105, 106;
    council and treaty, 112-119, 275.

  Blackfoot council, i. 431; ii. 27, 58, 89, 112-119.

  Blackfoot River, i. 377, 379.

  Blackfoot trail, i. 376.

  Black River, ii. 188.

  Blaisdell, William, Colonel, ii. 456.

  Blanchet, Father, i. 412, 443.


  Blankenship, George, Major, ii. 168, 170, 197.

  Blue Mountains, i. 402, 403; ii. 31.

  Blood Indians, i. 348, 351, 352; ii. 114, 505.

  Blunt, Simon F., Captain, i. 269.

  Bois de Sioux River, i. 322-325.

  Bolon, A.J., i. 416; ii. 26, 61, 67;
    murdered by Indians, 121, 157.

  Bonneville, Colonel, i. 405.

  Borup, Dr., i. 313.

  Boston, i. 1, 78, 82, 94-96.

  Boston, steamship, ii. 359, 362.

  Boston Post, i. 271-273.

  Boulieau, Henry, i. 306, 312, 325, 329, 330, 341.

  Boulieau, Paul, i. 306, 314, 325, 329, 330.

  Boutineau, Pierre, i. 306, 310, 325, 329, 341.

  Bowman, wagonmaster, i. 122-124.

  Bow River, ii. 100.

  Box Elder Creek, i. 360.

  Boyce's field battery, ii. 409.

  Braddock Road, ii. 494.

  Bradford, Edward, i. 28.

  Bragg, Braxton, i. 28.

  Branch, L.O.B., General, ii. 487-489, 495, 496.

  Brannon, John M., General, i. 28.

  Bratton, William, Captain, ii. 170.

  Breckinridge, John C. ii. 304.

  Breckinridge, town, i. 320.

  Brickyard Creek, ii. 358.

  Brent, Captain, i. 438.

  Bridges, i. 7.

  Bristoe Station, ii. 431, 433, 439.

  Broad River, ii. 356, 374, 378.

  Broad Run, ii. 438.

  Broadwell, i. 382.

  Brockenbrough, J.M., Colonel, ii. 487, 495, 496.

  Broderick, John, ii. 270.

  Brooke, Lloyd, i. 403; ii. 32.

  Brooklyn, visits navy yard, i. 36.

  Brooks, Charles M., i. 94.

  Brooks, Charles T., Rev., i. 67;
    solemnizes marriage, i. 77;
    poem on death of Julia, 92; ii. 499.

  Brooks, Lieutenant, i. 112.

  Brooks, Quincy A., i. 415; ii. 248.

  Brown, i. 398.

  Brown, B.F., i. 415.

  Browne, J. Ross, ii. 25, 28.

  Buchanan, James, President, ii. 272, 300, 305, 312.

  Buchanan, Robert C., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 470.

  Buck Hill, ii. 435.

  Bucksport, Me., i. 84, 87-100;
    returns to, 233, 249, 265.

  Budd, Captain, ii. 364.

  Buena Vista, village of, valley of Mexico, i. 164.

  Buffalo, countless herds of, i. 328, 329; ii. 105.

  Buffalo chips, i. 331.

  Buford, John, General, ii. 428, 440, 454, 465.

  Bull Bay, ii. 379.

  Bull Run, ii. 434, 437.

  Bull's Head, Blackfoot chief, ii. 101.

  Bumford, i. 403; ii. 32.

  Bunker Hill, battle, i. 4, 5.

  Bunting, Joseph, ii. 241.

  Burke, Captain, killed, i. 184.

  Burns, M.P., Dr., ii. 168.

  Burnside, Ambrose E., General, ii. 320, 423, 424.

  Burr, F.H., i. 306, 339, 340, 345.

  Burntrager, David E., Captain, ii. 169, 170.

  Burt, Representative, i. 257, 261.

  Burwell, Lieutenant, killed, i. 206.

  Bush prairie, i. 412.

  Bush, W.O., i. 412.

  Butler, Benjamin F., ii. 303.

  Butler, Colonel, killed, i. 182.

  Butler, General, i. 107.

  Butler, J.H., classmate, i. 31, 36.

  Butte de Morale, i. 337.

  Butte Micheau, i. 327.

  Butterfield, Daniel, General, ii. 454, 466, 468.

  Byzantium, i. 139.


  Cadotte's Pass, i. 365, 378; ii. 93, 124.

  Cadwallader, General, i. 150, 172, 173, 179, 205.

  Cain, J., Captain, i. 445; ii. 27, 208, 248, 257.

  Calhoun Guard, ii. 392.

  California, i. 233, 248, 252.

  Callender, Franklin D., i. 40, 41, 58, 116, 171, 172;
    wounded, 176, 209.

  Cambridge, Mass., i. 98.

  Cameron, James, Colonel, killed at Bull Run, ii. 321.

  Cameron, Simon, Secretary of War, Governor Stevens tenders sword and
        services to, ii. 316, 322.

  Camospelo, Cuyuse chief, ii. 46, 214.

  Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico, i. 255, 256, 267, 268.

  Campbell, Archibald, ii. 277.

  Campbell, Colonel, i. 125.

  Campbell, Fort, i. 348, 363.

  Campbell, L.M., marries Elizabeth B. Stevens, i. 82, 87;
    announces death of wife, 97.

  Campbell's battery, ii. 442.

  Canby, E.R.S., General, classmate, i. 27, 132.

  Cañete, actress, i. 224.

  Canning, John, ii. 70.

  Cape Fear River, i. 277.

  Capron, Captain, killed, i. 184.

  Carcowan, Chehalis chief, ii. 7.

  Caribbean Sea, i. 433.

  Carpenter, Stephen D., i. 40, 41, 58.

  Carigan, Sapper, burial of, remarks, i. 136.

  Carr, Joseph B., Colonel, ii. 448, 456.

  Carusi, Jamaica negro innkeeper, i. 434, 435.

  Casa Mata, fort at Molino del Rey, i. 205.

  Cascade Range, i. 288, 394-396;
    snow, 408, 409; ii. 159.

  Cascades of the Columbia, 405;
    massacre, ii. 190.

  Casey, Silas, Lieutenant-Colonel, i. 208; ii. 172, 176, 185, 186, 188;
    Governor Stevens proposes joint movement across Cascades, declined,
        195;
    seeks to protect Indian murderers, correspondence with Governor
        Stevens, 236-240, 243, 244, 292.

  Cass, Lewis, i. 236;
    Secretary of State, Governor Stevens submits memoir to, against
        British exactions, ii. 281-283.

  Castine, Me., visits, i. 85.

  Castoff, Miss, boards with, in Newport, i. 60.

  Cathlamet, i. 411.

  Catholic missionaries, not disturbed by hostiles, ii. 132, 255;
    Governor Stevens's opinion of, as neutrals, 228, 229.

  Catlett's Station, ii. 439.

  Catlin, Robert, ii. 301.

  Catlin, Seth, i. 411; ii. 317.

  Causten, Camp, ii. 325.

  Caverly, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 371, 374.

  Caversham, England, whence came John Stevens in 1638, i. 2.

  Cavilaer, i. 325.

  Cedar Mountain, battle of, ii. 426.

  Cedar River, ii. 187.

  Celeste, danced as usual, i. 36.

  Centralia, i. 412.

  Centreville, ii. 439, 445, 474, 477-480.

  Cerro Gordo, i. 122, 123;
    battle of, 124-128.

  Cha-chu-sa Island, i. 466, 468.

  Chagres River, i. 335.

  Chain Bridge, ii. 327.

  Chalco, Lake, i. 163, 165;
    village, 167.

  Chambers, Andrew J., i. 412.

  Chambers, David J., i. 412.

  Chambers prairie, i. 412.

  Chambers, Thomas M., ii. 246.

  Champagne, Baptiste, i. 369, 375.

  Chancellorsville, battle of, i. 83.

  Chantilly, battle of, ii. 482-497.

  Chapman, William, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 470.

  Chapultepec, i. 163, 204, 205;
    battle of, 207-210.

  Charles, Pierre, ii. 169, 187, 257.

  Charleston, campaign planned against, ii. 378-382;
    James Island campaign against, 387-394;
    battalion, 381, 411, 412;
    riflemen, 392.

  Charleston, Democratic Convention at, ii. 304.

  Charlie, Governor Stevens's gray charger, i. 440; ii. 269.

  Chase, Henry M., ii. 169, 200.

  Chasseurs, or 65th New York, ii. 329.

  Chatfield, J.A., Colonel, ii. 395.

  Chehalis Indians, i. 334; ii. 1-9, 187, 257;
    council, ii. 1-9;
    river, i. 412; ii. 1, 2, 10, 257;
    town, i. 441.

  Chemakane Mission, valley, i. 398, 399.

  Chenoweth, F.A., Judge, ii. 244, 249, 289.

  Chicago, i. 302.

  Childs, Colonel, i. 214, 219, 221, 226.

  Chim-a-kum Indians, i. 469-473.

  Chimalpa, i. 168.

  Chinn Hill and House, ii. 435, 470.

  Chinn, Major, ii. 147, 150.

  Chinook Indians, ii. 1-9, 23, 257.

  Chinook jargon, i. 453; ii. 5.

  Chippewa Indians, i. 334;
    river, 321.

  Chirouse, Father, i. 403; ii. 37, 148.

  Chisholm's Island, ii. 356.

  Chow-its-hoots, Indian chief, i. 463, 466-468.

  Christian Mirror, newspaper, i. 84.

  Christ, B.C., Colonel, ii. 341, 343, 364, 388, 425, 484.

  Christy's Minstrels, i. 433, 435.

  Church, A.E., Professor, describes traits of General Stevens, i. 41.

  Church Flats, ii. 379-381.

  Churubusco, battle of, i. 180-186, 196-199;
    brought on by Lieutenant Stevens, 187, 188.

  Cincinnati, i. 162.

  Citadel Hill or Rock, i. 361; ii. 98.

  Clallam or Sklallam Indians, i. 469.

  Clark County Rangers, ii. 169, 190.

  Clark, Frank, stirs up trouble leading to martial law, i. 242-245.

  Clark, George T., Major, i. 16, 430.

  Clark, in charge of Fort Benton, i. 361.

  Clark, Owen, servant, i. 100, 101;
    deserts, 108.

  Clark, sergeant of sappers, i. 136.

  Clarke, Colonel, i. 157, 182, 205, 206.

  Clarke, Nathan G., Colonel, relieves General Wool, ii. 266;
    recommends treaties, 285.

  Clark's Fork, ii. 79.

  Clay, Henry, i. 75, 248;
    view of, 252.

  Clay-Pipe-Stem-Carrier, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Clendenin, J.V., i. 414.

  Cline, Captain, ii. 391.

  Cloudy Robe, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Coast Survey, accepts charge of office, i. 241;
    views of, 243, 244;
    reforms, 245-248, 250, 254;
    officers present silver service, 284.

  Cobb, Howell, ii. 306.

  Cochichewick, stream in Andover, i. 1;
    meadows, 5, 8;
    woolen mills, 16, 47.

  Cock, Henry D., i. 455-461.

  Cock, William, Colonel, i. 415; ii. 262-264.

  Cockspur Island, ii. 382.

  Coe, ii. 153.

  Coeur d'Alene Indians, i. 386-388, 390; ii. 16-23;
    present conditions, 64-72;
    wrestling match, 73, 74, 121, 127, 129, 130, 230, 231.

  Coeur d'Alene Lake, i. 391.

  Coeur d'Alene Mission, i. 389-391; ii. 72, 73, 129.

  Coeur d'Alene Mountains, i. 387.

  Coeur d'Alene Pass, i. 382, 387; ii. 127.

  Coeur d'Alene prairie, i. 391.

  Coeur d'Alene River, i. 391, 392; ii. 72, 75, 131.

  Cogswell, William S., Lieutenant, ii. 343, 363, 366.

  Cold Springs, i. 315.

  Cole Island, ii. 381.

  Cole, Lieutenant, ii. 170.

  Collins, S.M., i. 468.

  Colquitt, P.H., Colonel, ii. 380.

  Columbia River, i. 394, 405, 411, 438; ii. 153, 157, 269.

  Columbus, tomb of, visited, i. 433.

  Colville, i. 297, 393, 394, 396, 397.

  Colville Indians, ii. 22.

  Colville valley settlements, i. 399.

  Combahee River, ii. 376, 378, 379.

  Commencement Bay, i. 459, 462.

  Conception, Fort, at Vera Cruz, i. 110.

  Confidence, ship of John Stevens, i. 2.

  Connecticut volunteers, 6th, i. 395.
    See 7th Connecticut, Rockwell's battery.

  Connell's prairie, ii. 155;
    battle of, 186.

  Conrad, Charles M., Secretary of War, rebukes political action,
        answered, i. 274, 275.

  Constitution, Fort, at Portsmouth, N.H., i. 83.

  Contreras, i. 169, 170;
    battle of, 171-179, 181, 192-195.

  Cooper, J.G., Dr., i. 296, 307; ii. 3.

  Cooper's battery, ii. 469.

  Coosaw River, ii. 355, 360, 361.

  Coosawhatchie River, ii. 376, 379.

  Corinth, ii. 380.

  Corliss, George W., ii. 247.

  Cortez, i. 161.

  Cortez, steamship, ii. 317.

  Coster, Corporal, i. 312.

  Coteau de Missouri, i. 338-340, 345.

  Cottrell, Abraham, Lieutenant, ii. 367, 372, 420.

  Coues, Samuel Elliott, i. 83, 257.

  Cowlitz Indians, ii. 1-9, 187, 257, 269.

  Cowlitz Landing, i. 411, 439; ii. 28.

  Cowlitz River, i. 405, 411, 412;
    canoeing up, 438; 439; ii. 28, 154, 187, 257.

  Coxie, Patrick, ii. 33.

  Coyoacan, i. 180, 181, 202.

  Cram, A.J., Captain, ii. 276, 277.

  Crane, Colonel, i. 83.

  Craig, Captain, i. 173.

  Craig, William, ii. 18, 33, 62, 67, 91, 92, 108, 109, 115, 117, 129,
        130, 145-150, 168, 201, 203, 209, 220, 223, 230.

  Crees, ii. 215.

  Crockett, ii. 154.

  Cromwell, Oliver, lecture on, i. 76;
    view of, 230-232; ii. 333.

  Crook, George, General, ii. 148.

  Crosby, Clanrick, i. 415.

  Crosby, R.H., ii. 27, 32, 67, 72, 168.

  Crow Wing River, i. 316.

  Crown Butte, i. 376; ii. 124.

  Crows, i. 347, 361, 362; ii. 108, 109, 115.

  Cuapa, hacienda of, i. 169.

  Cub Run, ii. 477.

  Culbertson, Alexander, i, 302, 307, 347, 348, 359, 368, 370; ii. 114,
        275, 276.

  Cullum, G.W., General, i. 61, 260, 274, 275; ii. 424.

  Culpeper Court House, ii. 426.

  Cumming, Alfred, ii. 66, 94-96;
    arrogates authority, rebuked, 102, 103;
    stigmatizes country and Indians, 103, 104, 114, 117-119, 149.

  Cummings, Asa, uncle, i. 12, 84, 85.

  Cummings genealogy, Isaac^1, John^2, Abraham^3, Joseph^4, Thomas^5,
        Asa^6, Hannah (mother)^7, i. 12.

  Cummings, Hannah, wife of Isaac, Stevens (mother), i. 7-9;
    death, 15.

  Cummings, John, uncle, warm welcome to, i. 86.

  Cunningham, Michael, servant, i. 160.

  Curry, Governor, ii. 284.

  Cushman, Joseph, i. 415.

  Cushman, Orrington, i. 415, 445, 455; ii. 3-5.

  Cuyuses, ii. 16, 20, 21;
    at Walla Walla council, 36-64, 121, 144, 148, 150;
    take war path, 157, 158, 212;
    attack Governor Stevens, 221-223;
    turbulent warriors hanged by Colonel Wright, 231.

  Cypress Mountain, i. 359, 368.


  Dale, Eben, i. 99.

  Dalles, i. 400, 405; ii. 28, 30, 151, 153, 197, 199, 206, 208, 257.

  Dana, N.T.J., General, i. 28.

  Danpher, Matthew, ii. 32.

  Daufuskie Island, ii. 382.

  Davidson, Lieutenant, ii. 222.

  Davies, Professor, i. 44.

  Davis, Camp, i. 308, 310.

  Davis, Jefferson, i. 261, 281, 285;
    reports to, 287, 288, 422;
    order from, to stop survey, 423;
    disparages northern route, 427-430;
    answer to, 431;
    fault-finding, apologizes, 430;
    Governor Stevens reports to, ii. 209, 221-223, 227, 277, 287.

  Davis, Jefferson, revenue cutter, ii. 185.

  Davis, Robert, i. 468.

  Dawkins Branch, ii. 454.

  Dead Colt Hillock line, i. 321.

  Dearborn, Orrin M., Lieutenant, ii. 415, 484.

  Dearborn River, i. 376; ii. 94, 124.

  Decatur, U.S. man of war, ii. 107, 185.

  Deficiency in funds, i. 366, 367, 423.

  De Hart, Lieutenant, i. 112.

  Delacour, Father, i. 325.

  De Lacy, W.W., ii. 168.

  Delaware Jim, ii. 69, 70, 108, 115, 117, 124.

  De Lein, Dr., i. 218.

  Democratic party, i. 260, 280;
    nominates Governor Stevens for delegate in Congress, ii. 265;
    unanimously renominates him, 289;
    doctrines, 302.

  Democratic convention at Vancouver, Governor Stevens withdraws, his
        speech, i. 314-316.

  Denig, Mr., i. 345.

  Denny, i. 412.

  Denny, A.A., ii. 251-253, 265.

  De Parris, William S., ii. 70.

  Derby, George H., Lieutenant, ii. 200.

  Des Chutes River, ii. 30, 152.

  Detroit, i. 302.

  Dialectic Society, i. 38, 48, 49, 55, 57.

  Dickinson, Daniel L., ii. 303.

  Difficult Run, ii. 494.

  Dilger, Hubert, Captain, ii. 451.

  Dimick, i. 179.

  Discover, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Dix, John A., ii. 303, 312.

  Dobbins, W., i. 415.

  Dogan house, ii. 435.

  Dominguez, chief of robbers, i. 149.

  Donaldson, J.L., General, i. 27.

  Donation Act, i. 413; ii. 26, 162.

  Donelson, A.J., Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 291, 297, 302,
        307, 345, 350, 351, 364, 368, 370, 371, 378, 379, 382, 384, 400,
        404, 406, 431.

  Donelson, General, ii. 366.

  Donelson, Miss., ii. 284, 371, 373, 374.

  Donohoe, Michael T., Captain, ii. 398.

  Doty, James, i. 306, 308, 331, 371, 375, 422, 452, 458; ii. 26, 31, 47,
        68, 70, 93, 95;
    recovers stolen horses, 100, 101, 114, 124, 126, 132, 151, 168, 248;
    death of, 268.

  Doubleday, Abner W., General, i. 27.

  Douglass, James, Sir, i. 418, 477; ii. 13, 14, 277, 290-293.

  Douglass, Stephen A., i. 260; ii. 302.

  Downey, William R., ii. 246.

  Doyle, Richard N., ii. 402.

  Drayton, Percival, Captain, ii. 346, 399.

  Drayton, Thomas F., General, ii. 346, 349.

  Drum, i. 210;
    killed, 211.

  Dry Creek, ii. 70.

  Dry Tortugas, ii. 325.

  Du Berry, Beekman, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 291, 298, 306,
        308, 314;
    leaves exploration, 217.

  Duncan, Colonel, i. 106, 120, 140, 141, 167, 181, 206, 212, 223.

  Duncan, Johnson K., Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 296,
        307, 394.

  Duncan, of Haverhill, i. 243.

  Dunn, John, ii. 262.

  Dunnells, i. 77.

  Dupont, Samuel F., Commodore, ii. 343;
    capture of Port Royal, 346-348, 358, 379, 382.

  Duwhamish Indians, i. 463-469; ii. 161-192, 256.

  Duwhamish River. See White River.

  Dwight, Lieutenant, ii. 457.

  Dyer, Alexander B., i. 27.


  Eagle-from-the-Light, Nez Perce chief, speech at Walla Walla council,
         ii. 48-50;
    presents his medicine bear-skin to Governor Stevens, 58;
    signs treaty, 63, 92, 107, 202, 214.

  Eagle, Gros Ventre chief, i. 355, 356.

  Earl, Lieutenant-Colonel, i. 114.

  Early, Jubal A., i. 27; ii. 457, 458, 462, 487, 490, 495, 496.

  Eastern View, ii. 430.

  Eaton, Charles H., ii. 170.

  Eaton, Nathan, i. 412.

  Ebey, Isaac N., ii. 170;
    murdered by northern Indians, 259.

  Edisto Island, ii. 382, 383.

  Eggers, Albert, ii. 168.

  Eighth infantry, i. 172.

  Eighth Massachusetts battery, ii. 425.

  Eighth Michigan volunteers, ii. 341-343, 359-366, 372, 374, 389;
    battle of James Island, 402-415, 425;
    battle of Chantilly, 484, 495.

  Elbow Lake, i. 322.

  Eldredge, Edward, i. 412.

  Eells, C., missionary among Spokanes, i. 398; ii. 22.

  Eleventh infantry, i. 170.

  Elk River, ii. 100.

  Ellen, gunboat, ii. 364, 408.

  Ellen, nurse, i. 433.

  Elliott, Point, treaty of, i. 462-469.

  Elliott, Samuel M., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 322, 324.

  Elliott, William St. George, Major, ii. 359, 364, 377, 474.

  El Pinal, i. 138, 140, 153.

  El Soldado, Mexican village, i. 137.

  Ely, Ralph, Captain, ii. 377, 378.

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, lectures, i. 81.

  Emigrants, circular letter to, ii. 274.

  Encerro, Santa Anna's hacienda, i. 126, 129.

  En-cha-rae-nae Creek, i. 401.

  En-chush-chesh-she-luxum, Lake, i. 401.

  Endicott, William, i. 16.

  Engineer company, advocates, i. 93;
    enlists first man, private Lothrop, 94, 118, 119, 139, 140, 164, 167,
        171.

  English cemetery, City of Mexico, i. 210.

  Ensign, Lewis, ii. 248.

  Ensign, Shirley, i. 415.

  Ernst, Lieutenant, i. 112.

  Eskridge, Richard I., Colonel, U.S.A., married Susan Stevens; their
        children, Maud, Richard Stevens, Hazard Stevens, Virginia, Oliver,
        Mary Peyton, ii. 502.

  Esquimault Harbor, ii. 291.

  Ethan Allen, Fort, ii. 328.

  Eustis, Henry L., General, i. 27.

  Evans Guards, ii. 392.

  Evans, Elwood, i. 306, 328, 375; ii. 245, 246, 248, 261, 266.

  Evans, John, Dr., i. 287, 296, 302, 307, 351, 364.

  Evans, N.G., General, ii. 381, 411, 412, 450, 460.

  Evelyn, Mr., i. 306.

  Everett, Edward, ii. 302.

  Everett, T.S., i. 106, 308, 311.

  Ewell, Richard S., General, i. 27, 183; ii. 431, 433, 438, 441, 442,
        446, 457, 487.

  Ewen, Camp, ii. 322.


  Fairhaven, Mass., takes charge of battery, i. 76, 80.

  Falls Church, ii. 330.

  Farnsworth, Addison, Colonel, ii. 425, 452, 459, 466.

  Faugh-a-ballagh, "Clear the way," designation of 28th Massachusetts,
        ii. 452.

  Fay, R.C., ii. 256.

  Fayetteville, Va., ii. 432.

  Fenton, William, Colonel, ii. 341, 361, 395, 402, 403.

  Fernandina, Fla., ii. 357, 382.

  Ferrero, Edward, General, ii. 489.

  Fessenden, W.P., Senator, ii. 386.

  Field, Charles W., General, brigade, ii. 487, 495, 496.

  Field, H., ii. 208.

  Fifteenth infantry, i. 173.

  Fiftieth Pennsylvania volunteers, ii. 341, 359-366, 388, 389, 421, 425;
    battle of Chantilly, 484, 485, 495.

  First artillery, i. 114, 156, 180, 181, 184, 210, 211.

  Fitzhugh, E.C., ii. 158, 205, 253.

  Fitzwater, killed, i. 169.

  Five Crows, Cuyuse chief, ii. 51, 52, 61, 121.

  Flathead Indians, i. 348;
    talk with, 381, 382, 384; ii. 16, 22, 23;
    manner of ferrying across rivers, 77, 79, 80;
    council and treaty, 80-91;
    present condition, 91, 92, 99, 107, 114, 115, 125.

  Flathead Lake, i. 382.

  Flathead River, ii. 80, 90.

  Flathead trail, i. 376.

  Flattery, Cape, i. 473, 474, 477.

  Flette, John, ii. 33.

  Flint Hill, Va., ii. 494.

  Floyd, John B., Secretary of War, ii. 287.

  Folsom, Captain, i. 425, 437.

  Forbes, John M., ii. 371.

  Forbes, William H., ii 371.

  Ford, Sidney S., Judge, i. 412, 441-443; ii. 168, 257.

  Ford, Sidney S., Jr., ii. 1, 3, 68, 70, 73, 132, 151, 169, 185, 187, 200,
         255, 256.

  Forts, stockades, and blockhouses built: thirty-five by volunteers,
        ii. 234;
    twenty-three by settlers, 235;
    seven by regulars, 235.

  Forty-sixth New York, ii. 390;
    battle of James Island, 402-415, 425, 426, 449, 450, 484, 495.

  Foster, John G., General, i. 112, 119, 131, 172, 178;
    wounded, 205, 224;
    letter from, 227, 250;
    on Coast Survey, 275, 277, 409.

  Foster, Susan, i. 15.

  Fourcier, Louis, ii. 70.

  Fourteen Years' Bill, carried, i. 257-259.

  Fourth infantry, i. 114, 164.

  Fowler, E.S., i. 454, 468.

  Fowler, Professor, phrenologist, i. 60, 265.

  Fowler, William H., Lieutenant, i. 83.

  Fox Island, council at, ii. 192;
    reservation, 256.

  Franklin Academy, i. 15.

  Franklin, William B., General, corps, ii. 476, 494.

  Fraser River, ii. 293.

  Fraser, James L., Colonel, ii. 359.

  Fredericksburg, ii. 425.

  Fremont, John C., ii. 270.

  French, Mr., ii. 385.

  French, William H., General, i. 27;
    remarks on General Stevens's reconnoissance of the Peñon, i. 186.

  Frontera, Mexican general, killed, i. 173.

  Fruitvale farm, battlefield of Chantilly, ii. 483.

  Fry, Dorothy, wife of Captain James, i. 3.

  Fuca, Strait of, i. 473, 477.

  Fuller, Charles A., Captain, ii. 366, 372.

  Fuller, of Maine, i. 260.

  Fuller, W.J.A., ii. 371, 375, 376.


  Gaines, Major, i. 165.

  Gainesville, Va., ii. 431, 433, 439-441.

  Galena, i. 303.

  Gallicer, first mate bark Prompt, i. 99.

  Gansevoort, G., Captain, ii. 167;
    punishes northern Indians, 258, 259.

  Garden's Corners, ii. 357, 365.

  Gardiner, J.W.T., Captain, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 298, 306.

  Gardner, Major, i. 164.

  Gardner, Port, i. 468.

  Garfielde, Selucious, ii. 265, 280, 314, 316.

  Garland, Colonel, i. 139, 140, 142, 169, 205, 206, 211.

  Garnett, Major, ii. 195, 225, 230.

  Garnett, M.R.H., ii. 280.

  Garrison, Mayor of San Francisco, i. 425.

  Garry. See Spokane Garry.

  Gazzoli, Père, i. 388.

  Genette, Frank, ii. 70.

  George's Island, Boston Harbor, i. 57.

  Georgia, Gulf of, ii. 13.

  Georgia volunteers, 13th, ii. 372, 374, 398;
    47th and 51st, i. 412.

  Germanna Ford, ii. 427.

  Germantown, ii. 481.

  Getty, George W., General, i. 28; ii. 454.

  Gholson, R.D., Governor, ii. 293, 294.

  Gibbon, John, General, ii. 63, 441, 442, 459.

  Gibbs, George, i. 307, 394, 416, 445, 453-457; ii. 3, 5, 245, 246.

  Gibson, A.A., Lieutenant, i. 277.

  Gibson, Edward, ii. 158.

  Giddings, Edward, i. 456.

  Gideonites, ii. 369, 370.

  Giles, Henry, lecturer, i. 93.

  Gilfillan, Charles D., ii. 299.

  Gilmer, Jeremy F., classmate, i. 27, 58, 77, 226, 235.

  Gilmore, Q.A., General, ii. 350, 357, 382.

  Goff, Francis M.P., ii. 169, 171, 187, 197, 200, 201, 210, 214, 222.

  Golden Age, steamship, i. 436; ii. 269.

  Golden Gate, steamship, ii. 269.

  Goldsborough, H.A., i. 415, 445, 453; ii. 245, 246.

  Goliah, chief, i. 463, 466.

  Goodell, J.W., ii. 249.

  Goodell, W.B., i. 412.

  Goose's Neck, i. 376.

  Gosnell, Wesley, ii. 169, 187, 255, 257.

  Goudy, George B., ii. 170.

  Gove, Warren, ii. 168.

  Governor, the, steamship, ii. 345.

  Gracie, Archibald, Lieutenant, ii. 29, 33, 66.

  Grafton, i. 37.

  Graham, Lieutenant, wounded, i. 183.

  Graham, Major, i. 112, 170.

  Graham, William M., i. 302, 307.

  Graham, William M., Captain, ii. 470.

  Grainger, Robert S., General, i. 28.

  Grand Mound prairie, i. 412.

  Grande Ronde, battle at, ii. 201, 202.

  Grant, U.S., General, ii. 303.

  Graves, Frank, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 395, 402.

  Gray, i. 341.

  Gray's Harbor, ii. 1.

  Great Britain, ii. 12, 13.

  Great Northern Railroad, i. 320, 380, 395.

  Great Pond, North Andover, i. 5, 8;
    ducking in, 47.

  Great Republic, ship, ii. 344, 345.

  Great Salt Lake, i. 422.

  Green River, ii. 184, 187.

  Greene, Charles G., i. 273.

  Greene, William B., i. 37, 58.

  Greenwich, ii. 433.

  Gregg, Maxcy, General, ii. 487, 495, 496.

  Griffin, Charles, Captain, ii. 329-331, 463.

  Grimball's plantation, ii. 390.

  Grinnell, Joseph & Co., i. 420.

  Gros Ventres, i. 347, 348, 355;
    council with, 356-358, 362; ii. 99, 109, 114.

  Grover, Cuvier, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 298, 306,
        308, 312, 314, 319-321, 345, 351, 355, 359, 364, 370, 372;
    winter trip, Fort Benton to Olympia, 422; ii. 448, 455, 456.

  Grover, Lafayette, ii. 296.

  Groveton, ii. 436, 438, 440, 441, 449, 450, 452.

  Guadalupe, Fort, in Puebla, i. 144.

  Guadalupe, Mexico, i. 163, 214.

  Gulf Stream, i. 100.

  Guthrie, Camp, i. 327, 328.

  Guy, i. 329, 338.

  Gwin, William, Senator, i. 269, 437; ii. 298.


  Hahd-skus, treaty of, on Point-no-Point, i. 469-473.

  Halbert, i. 38.

  Hale, C.H., i. 415.

  Hale, Frank, ii. 70.

  Hale, gunboat, ii. 408.

  Hale, John P., Senator, ii. 320, 386.

  Hal-hal-tlos-sot. See Lawyer.

  Hall, Fort, i. 422.

  Hall, Joseph, ii. 367.

  Hall, J.H., i. 468.

  Halleck, Henry W., General, classmate, rival, i. 26, 27, 31, 35-37,
        58, 71, 72, 75, 80;
    letter to, 420;
    letter from, 420, 425; ii. 303, 424.

  Haller, Granville O., Major, ii. 28, 29, 121, 157, 158, 207, 294.

  Hamilton, John, Captain, ii. 395, 409.

  Hamilton, Schuyler, General, i. 28.

  Hamlin, i. 243.

  Hammell, Augustus, i. 368, 369.

  Hammond, Dr., i. 436.

  Hampshire, England, i. 1.

  Hampton Roads, ii. 423.

  Hancock, United States warship, ii. 258.

  Hancock, W.S., General, ii. 333.

  Hardcastle, Lieutenant, i. 113.

  Hardee, William J., i. 28, 260.

  Harned, Benjamin, ii. 261.

  Harney, William S., Colonel, i. 125, 126, 153, 167;
    General Harney placed in command in Oregon and Washington, ii. 283,
        284, 288;
    orders Captain Pickett to San Juan, 290;
    reinforces him, 291-295.

  Haro, Canal de, ii. 13.

  Harris, Major, i. 83.

  Haskin, Joseph P., Lieutenant, i. 114, 116, 132, 173.

  Hassard, Nicholas, i. 63.

  Hastings, L.B., i. 412.

  Hatch, Rufus, General, ii. 441, 460, 466, 468.

  Hathaway, M.R., ii. 168, 200.

  Hatteras, Cape, storm off, ii. 270.

  Havana, i. 433.

  Haverhill, Mass., i. 1, 35.

  Hawk, Isaac, i. 415.

  Hawley, Joseph R., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 395, 402, 405, 407, 414.

  Hayes, John L., i. 83, 257; ii. 273, 282, 498.

  Hayes, William, General, i. 28.

  Hays, Fort, i. 185, 234.

  Hays, Gilmore, i. 414; ii. 158, 168-171, 186;
    resigns, 189.

  Hays, Harry T., General, ii. 487, 490, 495, 496.

  Hays, Isaac, ii. 170.

  Haymarket, Va., ii. 440.

  Hazard, Benjamin, i. 63-65, 70, 71;
    death, 77.

  Hazard, Daniel L., i. 303; ii. 288, 289.

  Hazard, Emily L., i. 65, 94.

  Hazard, Harriet (_née_ Lyman), i. 65, 91.

  Hazard, Harriet L., i. 67.

  Hazard, Margaret L., i. 63, 64, 67, 79, 81, 87, 96.

  Hazard, Mary W., i. 65, 94, 95, 276.

  Hazard, Mrs., i. 232.

  Hazard, Nancy, i. 87, 91, 95, 96, 268, 269.

  Hazard, Thomas G., i. 91, 266, 267.

  Hazen, Nathan W., i. 19, 20, 22, 48, 71.

  Hazlett, Charles E., Captain, ii. 469.

  Head, J.C., i. 415.

  Heath family, ii. 483.

  Hebert, Paul O., i. 58.

  Heffron, H.G., Lieutenant, ii. 425, 474, 475.

  Heintzelman, Samuel P., General, ii. 430, 462, 463, 481.

  Hell Gate, i. 379; ii. 93, 125.

  Hell Gate River, ii. 93.

  Hell Gate Ronde, i. 379; ii. 92.

  Henness, B.L., Captain, ii. 169, 170, 186, 197.

  Henry Hill, ii. 435, 470.

  Henry, Joseph, Professor, i. 276; ii. 273.

  Henry, Lake, i. 315.

  Herrera, Mexican peace commissioner, i. 203.

  Hewett, C.C., Captain, ii. 170, 245.

  Hicks, Urban E., i. 412.

  Higgins, C.P., i. 306, 422, 444; ii. 31, 48, 68, 70, 77, 108, 109,
        131, 132, 169.

  Higginson, Henry L., Major, ii. 389.

  Hilgard, H.E., Professor, i. 277.

  Hill, A.P., General, ii. 438, 446, 458, 487, 493, 495, 496.

  Hill, D.H., i. 27.

  Hill, Humphrey, ii. 168.

  Hillsborough, N.C., i. 274.

  Hilton Head, ii. 345, 350-352, 382.

  Hitchcock, C.M., Dr., i. 436, 463.

  Hitchcock, E.A., Colonel, i. 150, 257.

  Hodges, Henry C., Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 307.

  Hodgdon, Stephen, i. 412.

  Hoecken, Father, ii. 85, 90.

  Hoffman, Lieutenant, killed, i. 184.

  Holbrook, Andrew J., Lieutenant, ii. 366.

  Holt, Abiel, i. 13.

  Holt, Joseph, ii. 303, 312, 318.

  Hood, John B., General, ii. 448, 450, 460.

  Hood River, ii. 153.

  Hooker, Joseph, General, i. 27, 83; ii. 430, 432-434, 439, 445, 448,
        460, 464, 481.

  Hope, Camp, ii. 325.

  Horn, Cape, i. 300; ii. 153.

  Horse Butte, i. 327.

  Horse Plains, ii. 79.

  Horton, W.H., ii. 266.

  Hough, F.O., i. 462.

  Howard, O.H., Lieutenant, ii. 408.

  Howard, O.O., General, ii. 63.

  Howe, A.W., General, i. 28.

  Howe, Samuel D., Captain, ii. 169, 171, 188.

  How-lish-wam-poo, Cuyuse chief, ii. 148.

  Hoyt, O.S., i. 307.

  Huger, Eustis, ii. 168.

  Hughes, C., ii. 70.

  Hudson Bay Company, i. 281, 285, 297;
    Governor Stevens reports on claims, 297; ii. 13;
    people not molested by hostile Indians, 132, 225;
    Governor Stevens's opinion of, as neutrals, 229;
    ex-employees ordered to settlements, imprisoned, tried, 242-249;
    claim San Juan, 289;
    exactions of, 281, 282.

  Huet, Charles, i. 389.

  Humber, i. 37.

  Humphreys, A.A., Captain, i. 241, 244, 246; ii. 277, 309.

  Hunt, E.B., Lieutenant, i. 277.

  Hunt, H.J., General, classmate, i. 27, 60, 77, 106;
    General Stevens's sense of justice, 188, 210, 212;
    army reforms, 240, 259;
    letter to, 260;
    Jefferson Davis and Governor Stevens, 427, 428.

  Hunter, David, General, ii. 383-386, 393, 399, 420, 421.

  Huntington family, i. 412.

  Hunton, Eppa, General, ii. 460.

  Hurd, James K., ii. 168.

  Hurd, Jared S., i. 415; ii. 168.

  Hurd, M., i. 415.

  Hydah Indians, i. 452.

  Hyde, Breed N., Colonel, ii. 329.


  Indian Affairs, Commissioner of, reports to, ii. 91, 227-230, 271-273.

  Indian councils and treaties:
    She-nah-nam, i. 456-462;
    Point Elliott, 463-468;
    Point-no-Point, 469-473;
    Neah Bay, 473-477;
    Chehalis, Quinaiult, ii. 1-9;
    Walla Walla, 34-65;
    Flathead, 81-91;
    Blackfoot, 107-119;
    Spokane, 133-140;
    Nez Perce, 143, 144;
    Fox Island, 192;
    Klikitat, 208;
    second Walla Walla, 210-220;
    treaties confirmed, 285.

  Indian policy, Governor Stevens's, i. 448-450, 454, 455.

  Indian tribes. See map, ii. 16;
    Appendix, 503-505, and following:--
      East of Rocky Mountains, Assiniboines, in four bands of Blackfeet,
          Bloods, Piegans, and Gros Ventres; Chippewas, Crees, Crows,
          Sioux, Winnebagoes.
      Tribes of Rocky Mountains, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, Kootenays.
      Tribes of Upper Columbia, Nez Perces, Cuyuses, Umatillas, Walla
          Wallas, Coeur d'Alenes, Spokanes, Yakimas, Palouses,
          Klikitats, Snakes.
      Tribes of Puget Sound, Nisquallies, Puyallups, Duwhamish, Snohomish,
          Clallams, Chimakums, Skokomish, Makahs.
      Tribes of Coast, Quinaiults, Quillehutes, Chehalis, Chinooks,
          Cowlitz.
      Northern Indians, Hydahs.

  Indian war, causes of, ii. 25, 26, 163.

  Indian war debt, ii. 296;
    paid by Congress, 306-308.

  Indiana, 19th regiment volunteers, ii. 329, 330.

  Ingalls, Mary, wife of Joseph, i. 3.

  Ingalls, Rufus, Captain, ii. 296.

  Ingraham, Sampson, i. 269.

  Ip-se-male-e-con or Spotted Eagle, Nez Perce chief, i. 58.
    See Spotted Eagle.

  Ireland, David, Captain, ii. 335.

  Irish volunteers, ii. 392.

  Irons, Lieutenant, killed, i. 184.

  Irvin, Colonel, i. 224.

  Irwin, Lieutenant, ii. 362.

  Istacalco, i. 207.

  Ives, Robert, Captain, ii. 482, 483.

  Iztaccihuatl, mountain in Mexico, i. 159.


  Jack, i. 393.

  Jackson Club, i. 269.

  Jackson, Fort, near Savannah, i. 230.

  Jackson, J.H., Colonel, ii. 395.

  Jackson, John R., i. 411, 440; ii. 170.

  Jackson, Thomas J., General, ii. 426, 427, 431, 434, 438, 441, 446, 452,
        462, 468, 471, 475, 479, 480;
    battle of Chantilly, 487-496.

  Jacksonville, Fla., ii. 357.

  Jacques River, i. 330.

  Jalapa, i. 123, 126, 129, 130;
    description of, 132, 133.

  James Island, ii. 380-388;
    campaign, 390-399;
    battle of, 399-415.

  James, Nez Perce chief, ii. 63, 217.

  James or Jacques River, i. 277, 320, 330, 331.

  James River, Va., ii. 423.

  Jameson, Mr., i. 201.

  Jamestown, i. 320.

  Janney, Mrs., i. 226, 264, 265.

  Jefferson, Va., ii. 431.

  Jekelfaluzy, A., i. 306, 317.

  Jennings, i. 38, 48.

  Jessie, Lake, i. 328, 329.

  Jesuit missionaries, ii. 21, 22.

  Juan el Diablo, Don, i. 225.

  Judith River, ii. 98;
    Blackfoot council at mouth of, 110-116.

  Julia, steamer, ii. 292.

  Justice, Jefferson, Lieutenant, ii. 415.

  Jocko River, i. 381, 384, 385; ii. 79.

  John, Captain, Nez Perce chief, ii. 129, 152, 201.

  John Day's River, ii. 30.

  John Taylor, Snohomish chief, ii. 169.

  Johnson Bradley, T., General, ii. 438, 440, 468.

  Johnson, Bushrod, i. 27.

  Johnson, Edward, i. 27.

  Johnson, Fort, ii. 387.

  Johnson, John, ii. 70.

  Johnson, Mr., i. 36.

  Johnson, T. Preston, Lieutenant, killed, i. 172, 184.

  Johnson, Walter W., ii. 284.

  Johnson, W.R., Mrs., ii. 284, 371, 373, 374.

  Jones, camp at West Point, i. 36.

  Jones, David R., General, ii. 450, 490.

  Jones, Gabriel, i. 412.

  Jones Island, ii. 382.

  Jones, James, Colonel, ii. 365.

  Jordan, Captain, ii. 206.

  Jordan, Lieutenant, i. 112.

  Joseph, Coeur d'Alene guide, ii. 67.

  Joseph, Nez Perce chief, ii. 58, 63, 202, 217


  Kalorama Hill, near Georgetown, D.C., ii. 325.

  Kam-i-ah-kan, head chief of Yakimas, ii. 27, 38;
    at Walla Walla council, 40;
    speech, 48, 51-53;
    signs treaty, 55-57;
    chief instigator to war, 61, 64, 121, 157, 211, 218, 223.

  Kane, P.C., Colonel, ii. 395.

  Kearny, Philip, General, i. 155, 170, 183; ii. 430, 434, 439, 445, 448,
        457, 458, 462, 464, 473, 475;
    at battle of Chantilly, 488;
    death, 490, 491.

  Kelley, Mrs., i. 257.

  Kelly, James K., Colonel, ii. 144, 160.

  Kelly, William, Captain, ii. 169, 190.

  Kemble, George S., Dr., ii. 343.

  Kemper, James L., General, ii. 450, 460.

  Kendall, B.F., i. 306, 311, 312, 317, 325, 332; 375; ii. 245, 246, 248.

  Kendrick, Captain, i. 113, 259.

  Kendrick, David, i. 412.

  Kennedy, H., ii. 95.

  Kerns's battery, ii. 469.

  Kincaid, William M., ii. 246.

  King, Rufus, General, ii. 439, 441-443, 453, 454, 459, 460, 463, 464.

  Kip, Lawrence, ii. 29, 33, 60, 61.

  Kirby, Major, i. 224.

  Kirkham, Ralph W., General, i. 28.

  Kiser, Benjamin, ii. 92, 115, 117.

  Kitchelus, Lake, i. 408.

  Kittson, i. 325.

  Klady, Samuel, i. 462.

  Klah-she-min or Squaxon Island, i. 458.

  Klikitat Prairie, ii. 187.

  Klikitat River, i. 208.

  Klikitats, i. 452; ii. 22, 190, 208, 257.

  Knox, Fort, opposite Bucksport, Me., buys land for, i. 84;
    constructs, 85-100, 265;
    resumes charge of, 283;
    relinquishes, 283; ii. 309.

  Knox, Mr., buys house, i. 272.

  Knoxville, Tenn., i. 35; ii. 413.

  Koh-lat-toose, Palouse chief, ii. 72.

  Koltes, John A., Colonel, ii. 470.

  Koos-koos-kin, or Clearwater River, ii. 18, 141, 145.

  Kootenay Indians, ii. 17, 22, 77, 79, 80.

  Kossuth, Louis, i. 269.


  La Frambois, i. 306, 329, 338.

  La Hoya, Mexico, i. 137, 156.

  La Vega, Mexican general, i. 129.

  Las Vegas, Mexican village, i. 137, 138, 207.

  Lakeman, Moses B., Colonel, ii. 497.

  Lamar, Fort or Battery, ii. 396;
    assault on, 400-416.

  Lamar, T.G., Colonel, ii. 403, 411, 412.

  Ladies' Island, ii. 354.

  Ladd, Alexander, i. 83.

  Ladd, W.S., ii. 266.

  Lambert, John, i. 306.

  Lambert River, i. 318.

  Lancaster, Columbia, i. 411;
    elected delegate in Congress, 418, 432; ii. 15.

  Lander, Edward, Judge, i. 414; ii. 169, 171, 188;
    arrested and taken off bench, 244;
    holds court in Olympia, issues writs, again arrested, held prisoner
        to end of war, 247, 248;
    fines Governor Stevens $50, 249, 251-253.

  Lander, Frederick W., i. 295, 298, 299, 306, 308, 314, 319, 321, 325,
        326, 330-332, 338, 345, 350, 355, 359, 365, 368-370, 372, 380,
        381, 383, 384;
    ordered to examine Nahchess Pass;
    fails, 405, 406.

  Lander's Fork, ii. 125.

  Lake George, N.Y., i. 3, 4.

  Lame Bull, Blackfoot chief, ii. 100.

  Lane, Joseph, General, i. 221, 300, 432; ii. 273, 298;
    nominated for vice-president, 304;
    his chances, 306, 313.

  Lansdale, R.H., Dr., i. 385; ii. 26, 33, 68, 70, 92, 125, 127, 209.

  Lansing, Arthur B., Lieutenant, i. 60.

  Lapwai, ii. 18, 142, 145.

  Lathrop, i. 100, 264.

  Lawrence, Mass., i. 1.

  Lawton, A.R., General, ii. 446, 457, 458, 487, 495, 496.

  Lawton, Robert R., Colonel, i. 106.

  Lawyer, Hal-hal-tlos-sot, head chief of Nez Perces, ii. 18;
    at Walla Walla council, 35-64;
    moves lodge in Governor Stevens's camp, 47;
    speech, 51, 54;
    advises Governor Stevens, 56-58, 71, 146, 202, 210, 217, 218.

  Le Bombard, Alexis, guide, i. 337, 338.

  Le Favre, Captain, ii. 343.

  Leake's Virginia battery, ii. 365.

  Lear, Mr., ii. 208.

  Leasure, Daniel, Colonel, ii. 340-342, 359, 364, 395, 402, 406, 425, 458.

  Lecky, David A., Major, ii. 395, 402, 484.

  Lee, John E., i. 233, 269.

  Lee, Robert E., General, i. 109, 111, 114, 117, 121, 122, 130, 139, 141,
        142, 144, 149;
    reconnoitres the Peñon, 164-166, 169, 170;
    at Contreras, 171, 172, 174, 175, 179, 180;
    important services, 185;
    sketch of, 194 216, 250, 255; ii. 376, 377, 380, 427, 431, 460, 479.

  Legareville, ii. 390, 393, 394.

  Lemere, Joseph, ii. 70.

  Leschi, i. 461; ii. 184, 208, 225, 236, 238;
    hanged, 240.

  Lewinsville, Va., reconnoissance, ii. 329-332.

  Lewis and Clark, i. 348, 378, 379.

  Lewis and Clark's Pass, ii. 93.

  Lewis, Mr., i. 307.

  Lewis, Père, i. 397.

  Lewis River, i. 411.

  Lighthouse Board, i. 271.

  Lightning Lake, i. 316, 318.

  Lilly, William, Captain, ii. 343, 372.

  Lincoln, Abraham, President, nominated, ii. 305;
    elected, 306;
    Governor Stevens calls upon, 319, 332, 334, 340.

  Lincoln, Lieutenant, i. 114.

  Lindner, Sergeant, i. 322, 330.

  Lispenard, George, ii. 367.

  Little Dog, Blackfoot chief, i. 368; ii. 100, 114.

  Little Muddy River, i. 351.

  Little River turnpike, ii. 479, 481, 497.

  Little Soldier, Gros Ventre chief, i. 355.

  Little White Calf, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Lobos Island, Mexico, i. 105, 106.

  Lock's Ford, ii. 437, 475.

  Logan, John A., General, ii. 304.

  Logan, Private, remarks on death of, i. 276.

  Long Island Sound, i. 78.

  Longstreet, James, i. 27; ii. 413, 427, 431, 434, 440, 448, 450-452,
        454, 460, 462, 466;
    his attack, ii. 469-471, 475, 479, 490, 496.

  Looking Glass, war chief of Nez Perces, ii. 54-58, 92, 129, 130;
    treachery discovered, 133, 143, 144, 202.

  Loring, George B., i. 16.

  L'Orme, De, Governor, Red River hunters, i. 340, 341.

  Louisburg, i. 3.

  Louisiana volunteers, 4th, ii. 409, 411.

  Lovell, Mansfield, i. 28.

  Low, J.M., i. 412.

  Lowell, Mass., i. 68.

  Low Horn, Piegan chief, i. 374; ii. 99.

  Lugenbeel, Major, ii. 206.

  Lummi Indians, ii. 256.

  Lummi River, i. 468.

  Lupton, Major, ii. 200, 201.

  Lusk, William T., ii. 343, 368, 459, 482, 483, 485, 497.

  Lyman, Daniel, Colonel, i. 65.

  Lyman, Harriet, i. 65.

  Lymans, i. 77.

  Lyon, Nathaniel, General, i. 28.

  Lyons, Benjamin R., Lieutenant, ii. 366, 372, 402, 405, 406;
    death of, 415.


  Maryland volunteers, 2d, ii. 457.

  Macfeely, Robert, Lieutenant, i. 307, 370, 393.

  Madison, Port, i. 468; ii. 256.

  Maginn, i. 389.

  Magruder, John B., Captain, i. 114, 171, 172, 176, 211.

  Maine, i. 3, 5.

  Maine volunteers, i. 209;
    6th regiment, ii. 332;
    3d and 4th, 488, 495.

  Maison du Chien, i. 338.

  Makah Indians, treaty with, i. 473-477.

  Major Tompkins's steamer, i. 413, 462.

  Malinche, mountain in Mexico, i. 159.

  Maloney, Maurice, Captain, ii. 158, 207.

  Manassas Gap Railroad, ii. 434.

  Manassas Junction, ii. 431, 434, 435, 439.

  Mansfield Joseph, K.F., Colonel, i. 230, 237, 255; ii. 285.

  Man-who-goes-on-Horseback, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Maple River, i. 326.

  Marble Ridge Farm, stratagem against Indians, i. 7.

  Marcy, Camp, i. 319.

  Marcy, William L., Secretary of State, i. 285; ii. 250.

  Marias Pass, i. 380, 381, 384.

  Marias River, i. 361, 362, 369, 370.

  Marion Rifles, ii. 392.

  Marsh, Edwin, i. 415.

  Martial law, ii. 240-250, 263.

  Martin, Augustus P., Captain ii. 463.

  Mason, Charles H., i, 414, 456, 461, 462, 464; ii. 123, 158, 159,
        165, 257, 258;
    death of, 289.

  Mason, James L., i. 60-64, 66, 67, 77, 81, 105, 106, 108, 111, 113,
        114, 117, 119, 122, 130, 138, 144;
    reconnoitres the Peñon, 164-167, 169-171, 182, 201;
    wounded, 205, 216;
    sketch of, 217, 232, 255, 274, 425.

  Mason, Jeremiah, i. 71.

  Massachusetts, U.S. war-ship, ii. 185, 252, 258.

  Massachusetts volunteers, 1st cavalry, ii. 367, 389;
    28th regiment, 390;
    1st, 11th, and 16th, 455, 456;
    21st, 470, 489-491, 495.

  Matthews, Joseph, ii. 367.

  Matthias, Frank, ii. 168.

  Maxon, H.J.G., Major, ii. 168, 171, 186, 187, 197, 242.

  Maynard, D.S., Dr., i. 412, 465, 466; ii. 256.

  Maynard, Mr., i. 45.

  McAlister, James, i. 412, 462.

  McAlister, John W., i. 462.

  McBane, i. 403.

  McCafferty, Green, ii. 3, 151.

  McCaw, S., ii. 246.

  McClary, Fort, at Portland, Me., i. 83.

  McClellan, George B., General, i. 111, 130, 141, 142, 166, 171, 172,
        180;
    asks aid, 238, 260, 263, 264;
    Governor Stevens applies for, 288;
    letter to, 289, 293, 295-297, 299, 307, 394;
    his exploration of Cascade passes, 394-400, 404, 406;
    ordered to run line to Snoqualmie Pass, 406;
    his failure, 407-409;
    disparages settlers, 410;
    commended by Secretary Jefferson Davis, 429; ii. 325, 328, 332;
    keeps back General Stevens's appointment as brigadier-general, 334,
        336;
    General Stevens condemns McClellan's management, and foretells
        disaster, 339, 340, 427.

  McClelland, Camp, i. 326.

  McClelland, Robert, Secretary of the Interior, i. 286.

  McClure, Charles, Colonel, ii. 494.

  McCorkle, W.A.L., Captain, ii. 170.

  McCown, John P., i. 28.

  McDonald, in charge of Fort Colville, i. 393, 394, 397, 398; ii. 133.

  McDonough or Caamano Island, i. 409.

  McDowell, Irvin C., General, i. 28; ii. 319, 427, 430, 432-434, 439,
        440, 444, 453-455, 459, 462-464, 481, 494.

  McFarland, Aunt, i. 68.

  McField, John, ii. 243.

  McKay, William C., ii. 32, 170.

  McKensie, Captain, i. 113, 208, 213.

  McKensie, Patrick, ii. 33.

  McKenzie, Fort, i. 370.

  McKinstry, Justus, General, i. 28.

  McLaws, Lafayette, i. 28.

  McLean, Nathaniel C., General, ii. 447, 448, 465, 469, 470.

  McLean, William, Lieutenant, ii. 329, 331.

  McLeod, John, ii. 243, 247, 249.

  McMullin, Fayette, Governor, ii. 268.

  McWillie Senator, i. 257.

  Meade, George G., General, ii. 440, 469, 470.

  Meeker, E.M., ii. 246.

  Meiggs, Montgomery C., General, i. 27, 258.

  Menetrey, Father, ii. 89.

  Menoc, i. 306, 311, 312, 329.

  Meredith, Solomon, Colonel, ii. 329.

  Merrill, Captain, killed, i. 206.

  Merrimac River, Mass. i. 1.

  Merton, W.B., lectures in Bucksport, i. 93.

  Metcalf, E., Major, ii. 395.

  Metsic, Indian hunter, i. 98.

  Mexicalcingo, town in valley of Mexico, i. 165, 166.

  Mexican Congress, i. 151.

  Mexican Gulf, i. 102;
    norther in, 104.

  Mexican war justified, i. 232, 273;
    work on 250, 255, 256;
    Ripley's History, 254.

  Mexico, i. 91.

  Mexico, City of, defenses of, i. 154, 163;
    capture, 213-215;
    condition of, 222.

  Micheau, Butte, i. 327.

  Michelle, head chief of Koo-te-nays, ii. 77;
    at Flathead council, 84, 88.

  Michigan. See 8th regiment volunteers.

  Miles, General, ii. 63.

  Milk Creek, scene of Walla Walla council, ii. 31, 218.

  Milk River, i. 353-355, 361, 362.

  Millard, Justin, ii. 168.

  Millard, M.B., ii. 168.

  Miller, Bluford, Captain, ii. 169, 171, 187, 197;
    arrests Judge Lander, 248.

  Miller, General, i. 45.

  Miller, W.W., General, ii. 168, 193;
    appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 307, 313.

  Milroy, Robert H., General, ii. 446, 447, 451, 452, 470.

  Minot, i. 320.

  Minter, J.F., i. 307, 398-400, 406.

  Minton, John R., i. 116.

  Missionaries, Catholic, not disturbed by hostiles, ii. 132, 225;
    Governor Stevens's opinion of, as neutrals, 228, 229.

  Mississippi River, i. 288, 302, 303, 308-310, 353.

  Missoula, town, river, valley, i. 379; ii. 93.

  Missouri, Coteau du, i. 338-340, 345.

  Missouri River, i. 297, 302, 345, 362.

  Mitchell, Joseph L., ii. 248.

  Mix, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, ii. 271-275.

  Mixcoac, i. 201, 202.

  Moffett, Joseph F., i. 306, 322.

  Molinard, Professor at West Point, i. 32.

  Molino del Rey, battle of, i. 204-207.

  Monroe, Fortress, i. 60; ii. 343, 423, 424.

  Monroe, guide, i. 385.

  Monroe, Victor, i. 414.

  Monterey, Mexico, i. 107.

  Montezumas, i. 207, 222.

  Montgomery, Camp, ii. 185, 197, 234.

  Monticello, i. 438.

  Montour, Indian agent, ii. 210.

  Mooar, George, cousin, i. 11.

  Moore, McClellan, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 395, 402.

  Moore, R.S., ii. 246.

  Mora, i. 203.

  Morale, Butte de, i. 337.

  More, John, Captain, ii. 361, 462.

  Morell, George W. General, ii. 430, 453, 466.

  Morgan, Colonel, i. 173, 220.

  Morrison, David, Colonel, ii. 338, 395, 402, 406, 484, 497, 498;
    transmits colors to Mrs. Stevens, 499, 500.

  Morrow, J.H., Colonel, ii. 398.

  Moses, Flathead chief, ii. 88, 89.

  Moses, Simpson P., i. 414.

  Mott, G., ii. 285.

  Mouse River, i. 320, 338, 339, 341, 345, 351.

  Mowry, Sylvester, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 307.

  Muckleshoot Prairie, ii. 186, 192.

  Mukilteo, i. 462.

  Mullan, John, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 297, 302, 364,
        380-382, 384;
    remarkable trips, 422; ii. 275, 296.

  Mullan Pass, i. 380.

  Mullan road, Fort Benton to Walla Walla, i. 431; ii. 276, 285, 296, 307,
        308.

  Murden, E.O., ii. 245.

  Murphy, Daniel, i. 84, 88, 96, 98.

  Muscle Shell River, i. 364, 381; ii. 99.


  Nagle, James, Colonel, ii. 448, 457.

  Nahchess Pass, i. 395, 446; ii. 158, 187, 195, 197.

  Nahchess River, i. 395, 405, 406.

  Narkarty, Chinook chief, ii. 6.

  National Bridge, Mexico, i. 120, 121.

  National Democratic Party, Governor Stevens chairman of executive
        committee, ii. 305, 306.

  National Palace, occupied by General Scott, i. 213.

  Naylor, Captain, i. 222.

  Neah Bay, i. 473, 477.

  Neely, D.A., Lieutenant, ii. 188, 252.

  Nelson, Duwhamish chief, ii. 208, 225.

  Nesmith, James W., Colonel, ii. 140, 160, 256, 267, 271, 272, 279, 288;
    elected senator, 313, 317-320, 386.

  Newarkum, ii. 28, 187.

  New Baltimore, ii. 440.

  New Bedford, Mass., i. 76, 79, 82, 83, 98.

  Newell, Robert, ii. 160, 170.

  New Hampshire volunteers, 3d regiment, ii. 395-409;
    2d regiment, 455;
    6th regiment, 457.

  Newmarket, ii. 459.

  New Mexico, i. 233, 252.

  New Orleans, i. 104.

  Newport, R.I., stay at, i. 60, 79, 82, 83, 87, 226, 232, 250, 265, 274;
    arrives at, 427; ii. 320;
    monument erected to General Stevens by, 499, 502.

  Newport News, Va., i. 423, 425.

  Newton Cut, ii. 392.

  Newton, John, General, i. 27.

  New York city, i. 36, 78, 427; ii. 270, 319.

  New York volunteers, i. 112, 156, 209.
    See 79th Highlanders, 65th, ii. 329, 330;
    33d and 49th, 333, 336;
    47th and 48th at action, Port Royal Ferry, 358-366;
    Serrell's engineers, 367, 395;
    46th, 390, 393;
    47th, 393-409;
    5th and 10th, 469;
    1st, 4th, 18th, 101st, 488, 495;
    51st, 470, 489, 495.

  Ninth infantry, i. 173, 176-179.

  Nez Perce Indians, i. 385, 390; ii. 16-21;
    at Walla Walla council, 34-64;
    sign treaty, 62, 63;
    present condition, 65, 99-107, 109, 114, 115, 121, 125, 141;
    council with, 143, 144;
    furnish escort, 145, 147, 150;
    at peace council, 210-220;
    aid in fighting hostiles, 221-223;
    save Steptoe's defeated force, 230.

  Nez Perce reservation, ii. 62.

  Ninth corps, ii. 423, 424, 427, 445.

  Nisqually, Fort, Hudson Bay Company's, i. 412.

  Nisqually Indians, i. 456-462; ii. 12, 161;
    new reservation given, 192, 256.

  Nisqually plains, i. 412.

  Nisqually River, i. 412, 456; ii. 186, 187.

  Noble, Mr., ii. 32.

  Nobles, William H., ii. 341, 343.

  Nooksahk, ii. 256.

  Nopalucan, i. 140, 153.

  North Andover, i. 1, 2, 47, 53, 60, 81.

  North Yarmouth, Me., i. 85.

  North Edisto River, ii. 378.

  Northern Indians, i. 452; ii. 12, 154, 161, 188, 257-259, 289, 294.

  Northern Light, steamship, ii. 313.

  Northern Pacific Railroad, i. 381, 395;
    Governor Stevens's speeches on, ii. 279;
    letter to Vancouver Railroad convention, 297-299;
    company incorporated, 265.

  Northern Pacific Railroad Route Exploration, i. 285-380;
    preparing reports in Olympia, 421, 422;
    address on, in San Francisco, 426, 427;
    makes first report, 427, 428;
    final report, 431; ii. 286-309.

  Northerner, steamship, ii. 288.

  Noyes, A.M., sapper, i. 130, 136.


  Oak Point, i. 411.

  Ocean Queen, steamship, ii. 343, 355.

  Offut, Levi and James, i. 415.

  Ogden, Michael, i. 401.

  Ohio regiment, i. 224.

  Oho de Agua, i. 139, 153, 156.

  Oketie, ii. 380.

  Okinakane or Okanogan River, i. 394.

  Old Horse, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Olney, Nathan, ii. 33.

  Olympia, i. 400, 405-412, 414, 415;
    appearance of, 441, 442; ii. 154, 259, 261, 313.

  Ord, E.O.C., classmate, i. 26.

  Oregon volunteers, ii. 140;
    defeat hostiles in Walla Walla, 144, 147, 160;
    operations, 194.

  Orizaba, peak of, i. 132.

  Orleans, Va., ii. 431.

  O'Rourke, P.H., Lieutenant, ii. 398.

  Osgood, Gayton P., appoints to West Point, i. 22, 273.

  Osgood, Isaac, i. 88, 295, 306, 311, 318, 328, 332, 341, 365, 375, 384,
        385, 392, 427.

  Oson, Louis, ii. 70.

  Osoyoos, Lake, i. 394.

  Ostrander, N., Dr., i. 411.

  Ottawa, gunboat, ii. 358, 361.

  Otter Island, ii. 382.

  Owen, Fort, i. 370, 379, 380; ii. 80, 124, 125.

  Owen, John, ii. 127.

  Ow-hi, Yakima chief, ii. 40, 51, 52;
    signs treaty, 64, 204;
    death of, 205, 218, 231.

  Ox Hill, Va., ii. 484, 487.

  Ox Road, ii. 483, 487.


  Packwood, William, i. 412; ii. 169, 170.

  Palmer, H., ii. 70;
    death of, 126.

  Palmer, Joel, ii. 12, 27, 29, 66.

  Palmetto regiment, i. 182, 209, 211.

  Palouse Indians, ii. 22, 39, 121.

  Palouse River, i. 401, 402; ii. 71, 141.

  Pambrun, A.D., i. 402; ii. 33.

  Panama, city, i. 435, 436.

  Panama fever, i. 436.

  Panama, Isthmus of, i. 427, 431, 433-436; ii. 270.

  Pandosy, Father, ii. 37.

  Panther Hill, i. 354.

  Paredes, Mexican general, i. 203.

  Parke, John G., General, ii. 277, 424.

  Parker, John G., i. 415.

  Paso de Obejas, i. 120.

  Pataha Creek, ii. 70.

  Patterson, General, i. 126, 221.

  Pat-kanim, Snohomish chief, i. 462-465; ii. 156, 169, 184, 187, 254.

  Patrick, Marsena R., General, ii. 460, 494.

  Pay, brevet, i. 237.

  Peabody, A.P., i. 93.

  Peabody, R.V., Captain, ii. 169, 171, 188.

  Peabody, Sarah, wife of Lieutenant James Stevens, i. 3.

  Pearson, Edward Pennington, Colonel U.S.A., ii. 502.

  Pearson, W.H., express rider, ii. 66, 69, 70, 92, 101, 102;
    runs gauntlet of hostile tribes with news of outbreak, 120-123, 129,
        132, 152, 209.

  Pease, William C., Captain, ii. 185, 245.

  Pedregal, lava rock, i. 170, 192.

  Pee Dee battalion, ii. 411-412.

  Pee Dee Rifles, ii. 392.

  Peeps, Cuyuse chief, ii. 214.

  Peerless, steamer, ii. 345.

  Peers, Henry A., Captain, ii. 170.

  Pemberton, John C., i. 28; ii. 365, 376, 380-382, 387.

  Pembina, i. 298, 335.

  Pembina carts, train, i. 313, 314.

  Pembina, gunboat, ii. 358.

  Peña y Peña, Mexican statesman, i. 219.

  Pend Oreille Indians, i. 386, 390; ii. 22-77, 79, 80, 92, 99, 109, 114.

  Pend Oreille, Lake, i. 370, 401; ii. 17.

  Pender, W.D., General, ii. 487, 495, 496.

  Penn's Cove, ii. 256.

  Pennsylvania volunteers, i. 112, 209;
    47th, ii. 333.
    See 50th, 100th or

  Roundheads;
    45th, 50th, 76th, 97th, 100th, 395-409;
    26th, 455;
    48th, 457;
    51st, 470, 489, 495;
    57th, 488, 495.

  Penobscot River, Me., i. 84, 88.

  Peñon, i. 163-165;
    Lieutenant Stevens's close reconnoissance of, 166, 167, 190.

  Percival, S.W., i. 415; ii. 169.

  Perote, Mexico, i. 138, 153.

  Perry, James H., Colonel, ii. 358, 361, 364.

  Perry, Matthew C., Commodore, i. 257.

  Perry, Oliver Hazard, Commodore, i. 62.

  Peter, Captain Lee's man, murdered, i. 222.

  Peter, John Colville, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138.

  Peters, John A., lectures in Bucksport, i. 93.

  Pettygrove, F.W., i. 412.

  Phelps, John W., General i. 28.

  Philadelphia, trip to, i. 53.

  Phillips Academy, enters, i. 19.

  Phillips, Wendell, lectures in North Andover, i. 10.

  Piatt, A. Sanders, General, ii. 453.

  Pickett, George E. Captain, occupies San Juan Island, ii. 290-295.

  Piedad, church, village, causeway, Mexico, i. 164, 207.

  Piegan Indians, i. 348, 351;
    talk with, 373, 374; ii. 99, 109, 114.

  Piegan's Tear, i. 376.

  Pierce, Edward L., ii. 370, 385.

  Pierce, Franklin, General, i. 156;
    arrives at Puebla, 162, 172, 174;
    at Churubusco, 181, 182, 202;
    advocates election of, 272-274;
    elected President, 280, 281;
    invites correspondence, 432.

  Pierre's Hole, fight at, ii. 18.

  Pike, Fort, ii. 185, 234.

  Pike Lake, i. 314.

  Pilkington, James, ii. 2.

  Pillow, Gideon, General, i. 125, 150, 153, 157, 164, 167;
    battle of Contreras, 171, 174, 175, 178, 179, 201, 202;
    of Chapultepec, 207-210, 224.

  Pioneer Company, ii. 169.

  Pisquouse or Wenatche River, i. 395.

  Pitman, Captain, i. 161, 201, 268.

  Plano del Rio, Mexico, i. 121.

  Plante Antoine, i. 385, 392, 393; ii. 131, 210.

  Planter, rebel dispatch boat, ii. 374.

  Plebe, member of youngest class, West Point, i. 48.

  Plumb, W.W., i. 412.

  Plummer, Alfred A., Captain, ii. 170.

  Pocotaligo, ii. 365, 376, 379, 389.

  Pocotaligo River, ii. 376, 378.

  Poe, Orlando M., Lieutenant, ii. 329;
    General, 448, 457, 475, 492.

  Poinsett, Camp, at West Point, i. 46.

  Point-no-Point, treaty of, i. 469-473.

  Pond, Judge, i. 88.

  Poor, Ann, second wife to Isaac Stevens, i. 9, 15.

  Pope, John, General, i. 28; ii. 427, 428, 431-433, 439, 445, 453, 455,
        459-465, 469, 473, 475, 476, 479-481, 494.

  Poplar River, i. 352.

  Popocatepetl, mountain in Mexico, i. 159.

  Porcupine River, i. 353.

  Porter, Benjamin F., ii. 356.

  Porter, Fitz John, General, ii. 430, 432, 434, 439, 445, 453-455, 461,
        462-468.

  Port Labadie, Mo. i. 53.

  Portland, Me., takes charge of works at, i. 83, 84, 95.

  Portland, Ore., i. 438; ii. 153, 269.

  Port Royal, ii. 345.

  Port Royal Ferry, ii. 355, 357;
    action of, 358-366.

  Port Royal Island, ii. 353.

  Portsmouth, frigate, launch, i. 84.

  Portsmouth, N.H., takes charge of works, i. 83, 86;
    speaks for General Pierce, 274.

  Port Townsend, i. 412.

  Posey, Fort, ii. 185, 234.

  Potter, R.B., schooner, i. 454.

  Powell, Jephtha S., Captain, ii. 169, 170, 197.

  Power, J.M., Colonel, ii. 395.

  Prairie of the Knobs, or Blackfoot prairie, i. 378.

  Pratt, Lieutenant, ii. 374.

  Preble, Fort, at Portland, Me., builds barracks at, i. 84, 87.

  Prescott, General, capture of, i. 62.

  Pressley, Major, ii. 396.

  Prompt, bark, sailing to Mexico, i. 99.

  Providence, R.I., i. 65, 81.

  Prudhomme, William, ii. 70.

  Puebla, occupied, i. 143-162, 214, 224.

  Puget Sound, i. 280, 288;
    tour of, i. 416, 417;
    description of country, ii. 159, 160.

  Puget Sound Agricultural Company, i. 411.

  Puget Sound Rifles, Governor Stevens commissioned captain of, ii. 313.

  Pulaski, Fort, i. 230; ii. 357, 379, 380, 383.

  Pullen, W.H., i. 462.

  Pu-pu-mox-mox, head chief of Walla Wallas, i. 403, 404; ii. 21, 36, 37;
    sarcastic speech at council, 45, 46;
    signs treaty, 53, 55-63, 121, 130;
    threats to take Governor Stevens's scalp, 132;
    treachery of, 144;
    death of, 148, 158.

  Putnam, at Bunker Hill, i. 5.


  Putnam, Simon, schoolmaster, Franklin Academy, i. 16.

  Puyallup Indians, i. 456-462; ii. 161, 187, 192.

  Puyallup River, i. 456; ii. 185, 256.


  Quaitso Indians, ii. 1-9.

  Quaks-na-mish Indians, ii. 256.

  Qualchen, Yakima chief, murders Agent Bolon, ii. 157, 218, 223;
    hanged by Colonel Wright, 231.

  Queretaro, i. 214.

  Qui-e-muth, i. 461; ii. 186, 208, 225;
    killing of, 240, 241.

  Quijano, Mexican commissioner, i. 202.

  Quillehute Indians, ii. 8.

  Quil-to-mee, Yakima chief, ii. 222.

  Quinaiult Indians, ii. 1-9.

  Quin-quim-moe-so, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 139.

  Quitman, John A., General, i. 119, 136, 137, 141, 153, 157;
    advances from Puebla, 164, 167, 168, 202;
    Chapultepec, 207-213, 220.


  Rabbeson, A.B., i. 412; ii. 169, 171, 187.

  Rabbit River, i. 322.

  Raccoon Ford, ii. 426.

  Rainier, i. 438.

  Rains, G.J., Major, i. 405; ii. 28, 29, 140, 158;
    expedition to Yakima valley, 160, 207.

  Ramsay, Senator, ii. 266, 298.

  Randolph, George E., Captain, ii. 488, 492, 497.

  Randolph, Julia, i. 67.

  Randolph, Kidder, i. 88.

  Randolph, Lewis, Lieutenant, ii. 468.

  Randolph, Lucy, i. 83.

  Ransom, Dunbar R., Lieutenant, ii. 355, 359, 469.

  Ransom, Trueman B., Colonel, i. 173, 176.

  Rapidan River, ii. 426, 427.

  Rappahannock River, ii. 425, 427, 428, 430.

  Rappahannock station, ii. 427.

  Rattlers, i. 376; ii. 124.

  Ravalli, Père, i. 389; ii. 22, 72, 210.

  Raymond, N., ii. 33.

  Red House Ford, ii. 437, 474.

  Red River, i. 320.

  Red River hunters from Pembina, i. 333-337.

  Red River hunters from Selkirk settlements, i. 339-341.

  Red River traders, i. 325, 326.

  Red Wolf, Nez Perce chief, ii. 58, 63, 70, 144, 202, 216, 217.

  Red Wolf's ground, ii. 70.

  Red Wolf, Flathead chief, ii. 82, 86.

  Reed, Captain, ii. 404.

  Reed, Battery, ii. 396, 406, 409.

  Regan, a sapper, i. 136.

  Reid family, ii. 483.

  Remenyi, A. i. 306, 317.

  Reno, Jesse L., General, i. 172; ii. 424, 425, 427, 428, 433, 434, 439,
        448, 457, 462, 464, 470, 472, 477, 484, 489, 497, 498.

  Republic, The, newspaper, i. 272.

  Republican party, doctrine, ii. 302.

  Revolution, i. 62.

  Reynolds, Captain, i. 209.

  Reynolds, John F., General, ii. 430, 439, 440, 442, 445, 447, 448, 451,
      452, 455, 463, 465, 466, 469, 470, 478.

  Reynolds, William H., ii. 367.

  Rhode Island, battle of, i. 62;
    legislature, ii. 319;
    resolutions on death of General Stevens, 500.

  Rhode Island volunteers, 3d H.A., ii. 395, 409.

  Rhoeder, Henry, i. 413.

  Ribaut, Jean, ii. 422.

  Ricard, Father, i. 412, 443;
    his warning, ii. 29.

  Rice, Alexander H., ii. 320.

  Rice, Henry M., Senator, ii. 298, 321, 386.

  Richards, Captain, ii. 169, 170, 187, 197, 200.

  Richmond, ii. 380.

  Ricketts, James B., General, classmate, i. 26; ii. 435, 439, 442, 443,
      463, 464, 472, 474.

  Rifles, i. 210.

  Riley, Colonel, i. 125, 137, 157;
    battle of Contreras, 172-174, 179, 181.

  Riley, C.W., Captain, ii. 169, 171.

  Rio del Plano, Mexico, i. 123, 124.

  Rio Frio, Mexico, i. 138, 155, 164, 224.

  Ripley, Roswell S., Major, History of Mexican war, i. 254, 255;
    General, ii. 381.

  Risden, Joel, ii. 265.

  River of the Lakes, i. 341, 345.

  Roberts, Charles W., ii. 467.

  Robertson, William, ii. 372.

  Robie, A.H., ii. 68, 70, 98, 124, 132, 152, 168, 200, 202, 210, 257.

  Robinson, Captain, ii. 329.

  Robinson, John C., General, ii. 457, 492.

  Robinson, R.S., ii. 168.

  Rochambeau, i. 62.

  Roche, M., ii. 114.

  Rockwell, Alfred P., Captain, ii. 367, 389, 395, 406, 410, 421.

  Rocky Mountains, i. 364;
    proclamation on crossing the summit, 377, 378;
    a broad plateau, ii. 93.

  Rodgers, C.P.R., Captain, ii. 358, 360, 420.

  Ropes, John C., ii. 437.


  Rosa, Rudolph, Colonel, ii. 395, 402, 426.

  Rosario Strait, ii. 13.

  Rose Island, recommends fortifying, i. 69.

  Rosecrans, William S., General, i. 27.

  Rosefield, ii. 435.

  Rotten Belly, Crow chief, i. 368, 369.

  Rotten Belly Rocks, i. 369.

  Roulet, i. 325.

  Roundheads, or 100th Penn. volunteers, ii. 341, 343, 359-366, 391;
    battle of James Island, 402-415, 425, 449, 450;
    battle of Chantilly, 484, 495.

  Ruddell, Stephen D., i. 412.

  Ruggles, George D., Colonel, ii. 463, 465.

  Ruff, Charles F., General, i. 27.

  Rum River, i. 309.

  Rummell, Corporal, i. 329, 338, 345.

  Running Fisher, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356, 359, 361.

  Rush, Richard C., i. 277.

  Rusk of Texas, i. 260.

  Russell, David A., Captain, ii. 210.

  Ruth, B.F., ii. 168.

  Rutledge, William, i. 412.


  Sacrificio, island, Mexico, i. 109.

  Sahaptin. See Nez Perce Indians.

  Salem, Mass., i. 35.

  Salem, Va., ii. 431, 440.

  Salisbury, i. 1.

  Salish or Selish, race of Indians, ii. 23, 79.

  Saltillo, Mexico, i. 107.

  Saltzman, Charles McKinley, U.S.A., ii. 502.

  St. Anthony, i. 308.

  St. Augustine, Florida, ii. 382.

  St. Helena Island, ii. 354.

  St. Louis, i. 297, 302.

  St. Mary, village, ii. 80.

  St. Paul, i. 298, 303, 304, 346.

  St. Regis de Borgia River, ii. 75.

  Samish Indians, ii. 256.

  San Angel, i. 169, 179-181, 202.

  San Antonio, i. 138, 169, 170, 174, 180, 182.

  San Augustin, i. 168-171, 174, 185, 202.

  San Cosme, causeway, garita (gate), i. 164, 210, 211;
    Lieutenant Stevens wounded, 218, 219.

  San Francisco, i. 422;
    visits, 425, 436; ii. 269.

  San Geronimo, i. 173, 174.

  San Juan de Ulloa, castle at Vera Cruz, i. 110.

  San Juan Island controversy begins, ii. 12, 277, 285;
    threatens war, 290-295.

  San Juan River, i. 120.

  San Luis Potosi, i. 108.

  San Miguel, hacienda, i. 141.

  San Martin, i. 162, 224.

  Sanders, Captain, i. 106, 112.

  Santa Anna, i. 108, 126;
    renounces authority, his career, 145, 146, 173, 179, 202, 203,
        214, 219.

  Santa Annaced, hacienda, i. 139.

  Sante Fé, i. 119.

  Santiago, Fort at Vera Cruz, i. 110.

  Sargent, Horace Binney, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 367, 395.

  Sargent, L.M., Captain, ii. 402.

  Saskatchewan River, ii. 100.

  Satsop, ii. 1-9.

  Saugus, Mass., i. 82.

  Sauk or Osakis River, i. 308-310, 315.

  Sauk Rapids, i. 309.

  Saunders bottom, i. 441.

  Saunders, Daniel, i. 16.

  Saunders, Fort, at Knoxville, ii. 413.

  Saunders, S.S., i. 412.

  Savage, New England Genealogies, i. 1.

  Savannah, Ga., ordered to, i. 229, 230, 233; ii. 379, 381, 382.

  Savannah River, ii. 357.

  Saviour, drawing of, i. 44.

  Saxton, Rufus, Lieutenant, detailed on survey, i. 293, 296, 297, 307,
      369-371; ii. 389, 390.

  Scalp dance, view and description, i. 59, 60.

  Scammell, Fort, at Portsmouth, N.H., i. 83.

  Scammon, S. Parker, General, i. 28.

  Scattering Creek, i. 380.

  Schenck, Robert C., General, ii. 446, 447, 451, 452, 470.

  Schimmelfennig, General, ii. 452, 459.

  Schlat-lal, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138.

  Schofield, John M., General, ii. 454.

  Schrotter, E., ii. 246.

  Schurz, Carl, General, ii. 446-449, 452.

  Schuyler, Fort, i. 238, 239.

  Scott, Martin, Colonel, i. 111;
    killed, 206.

  Scott, Winfield, General, i. 105, 108, 109, 118, 127, 128;
    arrives at Puebla, 144, 156;
    estimate of, 162;
    advances from Puebla, 164, 168, 170;
    battle of Contreras, 174;
    able, confident bearing, 175, 179, 180, 194;
    addresses troops, 184, 202-204;
    Chapultepec, 207, 213, 214, 219, 221, 250;
    takes offense, 255, 256, 272-275;
    compromises San Juan trouble, 194, 295, 319.

  Scotum, Nez Perce chief, ii. 144.

  Scranton, John H., Captain, i. 413, 468; ii. 292.

  Scull Creek, ii. 347.

  Seabrook, ii. 357-359, 364.

  Sea Islands of South Carolina, ii. 353.

  Sears, Alfred F., Captain, ii. 367, 402, 406.

  Seattle, i. 412;
    proper railroad terminus, 417;
    Indians attack, ii. 166, 167.

  Seattle, Chief, ii. 463-468.

  Sebastian, Senator, ii. 272.

  Secessionville, ii. 396.

  Second artillery, i. 112, 113, 182.

  Second infantry, ii. 173, 181.

  Second Vermont, ii. 329.

  Se-cule-eel-qua Creek, i. 400.

  Sedgewick, John, General, i. 28.

  Seely, F.W., i. 444.

  Seneca, gunboat, ii. 364.

  Serrell, E.W., Colonel, ii. 395.

  Serrell's engineer regiment, ii. 367, 395.

  Settlers, American pioneers, character of, i. 410, 413, 414;
    murdered by Indians, ii. 158.

  Seventh Connecticut, ii. 394;
    battle of James Island, 403-415, 421.

  Seventy-Ninth Highlanders, New York volunteers, ii. 320;
    character of the men, 321;
    heavy losses at Bull Run, mutiny, 322-327, 329, 330;
    colors returned 332, 335, 336;
    scene when General Stevens bade farewell, 338, 340, 342, 343, 348;
    action at Port Royal Ferry, 358-366, 388, 389, 391;
    battle of James Island, 402-415;
    present sword to General Stevens 416-419, 425, 428, 452, 459;
    battle of Chantilly, 482, 485, 495.

  Seward, Fort, ii. 382.

  Seymour, Truman, General, ii 469, 470.

  Shackleford, Lieutenant, i. 112.

  Shaler, Alexander, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 329.

  Shaw, B.F., Colonel, i. 415, 453; ii. 1, 3, 5, 148, 151, 168, 171;
    marches across Cascades to Walla Walla, i. 197;
    battle of Grande Ronde 201-203, 211, 212, 221;
    arrests Judge Lander, 244.

  Shazer, George i. 462.

  Shead, Oliver, Captain, ii. 169, 171.

  She-nah-nam or Medicine Creek, i. 456.

  Shepard, George, lectures in Bucksport, i. 93.

  Sherburne, Miss, marriage to Lieutenant Whipple, i. 84.

  Sheridan, P.H., General, ii. 190, 303.

  Sherman, Thomas W., General, i. 28; ii. 338, 340, 341, 346, 349,
        350, 357, 358, 368, 369, 376, 383.

  Sherman, William T., General, i. 28; ii. 303, 385.

  Sheyenne River, i. 315, 327, 332.

  Shields, James, General, i. 125, 129, 154, 166, 181, 182, 220, 221;
    senator, 248, 258;
    gratifying letter from, 268, 271; ii. 266.

  Shoalwater Bay, i. 411.

  Shoshone or Snake Indians, i. 346.

  Shroder, Mrs., i. 67.

  Sibley, i. 166, 178, 176.

  Sigel, Franz, General, ii. 427-429, 432-434, 439, 440, 442, 445-449,
        465, 494.

  Simcoe River, branch of Yakima, ii. 63.

  Simmons, M.T., Colonel, i. 415, 445, 453, 464; ii. 1, 3, 4, 123,
        159, 184, 204, 256.

  Simpson, George, Sir, Governor Hudson Bay Company, i. 291, 296.

  Simpson, William, i. 306, 308, 384; ii. 70.

  Sioux Indians, i. 333.

  Sitting Squaw, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356, 359.

  Sixth infantry, i. 182.

  Skagit Head, ii. 256.

  Skloom, Yakima chief, ii. 40, 55, 64.

  Sko-ko-mish Indians, i. 469-473.

  Sko-ko-mish River, i. 473.

  Skookumchuck Creek, i. 412, 441; ii. 10, 11, 28.

  Slah-yot-see, Palouse chief, ii. 72.

  Slaughter, W.A., Lieutenant, i. 456, 462; ii. 154, 158;
    killed by Indians, 159, 207.

  Slaughter, Fort, i. 185, 235.

  Slawntehus or Chimakane Creek and valley, i. 399.

  Small, Robert, ii. 374.

  Smalley, Daniel, Captain, ii. 169-171, 187.

  Smalley, E.V., ii. 284, 297.

  Smith, Alexander (Sandy), ii. 243.

  Smith, Andrew J., General, i. 28; ii. 296.

  Smith, C.F., Lieutenant-Colonel, i. 120, 169.

  Smith, E.W., Captain, i. 113.

  Smith, Frederick A., Captain, i. 235.

  Smith, General, i. 156;
    battle of Contreras, 172-175, 179, 202;
    Chapultepec, 208-210.

  Smith, Gustavus W., i. 28, 94, 112, 130, 144;
    sketch of, 217, 260, 262, 264.

  Smith, Henry, ii. 243.

  Smith, Henry L., i. 58, 64, 71, 72, 264.

  Smith, J.A., lectures in Bucksport, i. 93.

  Smith, John L., Major, i. 117, 119, 121-123, 149, 150, 155, 166,
        169-171, 185, 220, 221, 283.

  Smith, J.S., ii. 263.

  Smith, Larkin, i. 181.

  Smith, William F., General, ii. 328, 329, 332, 335.

  Smith's plantation, ii. 421.

  Snake Indians, ii. 29, 99, 107, 115, 148.

  Snake River, i. 402; ii. 71.

  Snelling, Fort, i. 304.

  Snohomish, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138.

  Snohomish Indians, i. 463-468; ii. 156, 169, 256.

  Snohomish River, i. 407, 409; ii. 171, 172, 184, 187.

  Snoqualmie Pass, i. 394, 396, 406; ii. 187.

  Snoqualmie River, ii. 172.

  Snow, in mountains, i. 408;
    question solved, 422.

  Sohon Gustave, ii. 68, 70, 93, 95, 115.

  Southampton, England, i. 2.

  South Carolina volunteers, i. 209;
    12th and 14th regiments, ii. 365;
    1st, 24th, and 25th regiments, 409;
    1st artillery, 1st, 9th, and 22d regiments, 411.

  Spalding, H.H., ii. 17-19.

  Speaking Owl, ii. 218, 217.

  Spokane, Garry, i. 391-393, 399, 400, 422; ii. 39, 133, 135;
    speeches, 136, 139, 140.

  Spokane House, i. 391, 392, 399.

  Spokane Indians, i. 390-392, 399; ii. 16-22;
    present condition, 64, 121, 131;
    council with, 133-140;
    defeat Steptoe, 230;
    defeated by Wright, 231.

  Spokane Invincibles, ii. 132, 141, 151, 169.

  Spokane River, i. 399; ii. 141.

  Spotted Eagle, Nez Perce chief, ii. 40, 41, 58, 68, 92, 129, 130,
        150, 151, 169, 201, 219, 220.

  Sprague, William, Governor, offers regiment to Governor Stevens,
        ii. 319, 320, 499.

  Springfield, Mass., i. 78.

  Springfield Republican, ii. 320.

  Square Hill, i. 361.

  Squaxon Indians, i. 456; ii. 187, 257.

  Squaxon Island or Klah-she-min, i. 456; ii. 257.

  Stacy, John A.C., i. 61.

  Stahel, General, ii. 447.

  Stahi, Nisqually chief, ii. 208, 225.

  Stanberry, Captain, i. 83.

  Stanley, J.M., i. 296, 306, 308, 359, 368, 370, 373, 375, 378, 385,
        392, 397, 403, 405.

  Stanley, Lake, i. 318.

  Stannard, George J., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 329.

  Stanton, Edwin M., ii. 303, 312.

  Stanton, of Tennessee, i. 260.

  Starke, William E., General, ii. 446, 487, 489, 490, 495, 496.

  Steachus, Cuyuse chief, ii. 50, 53, 57, 148, 150.

  Stebbins, second mate bark Prompt, i. 99.

  Steele, Richard, Lieutenant, i. 123, 124.

  Steilacoom, Fort, i. 296, 297, 412; ii. 156, 159, 267.

  Stellam, head chief Coeur d'Alenes, ii. 129;
    speech, 137, 138.

  Stephens, Alexander H., ii. 306.

  Steptoe, E.J., battery, i. 141.

  Steptoe, E.J. Colonel, defeat by Spokanes, ii. 185, 206;
    at peace council, 210-221;
    Indians attack his camp, 222;
    marches back to Dalles, 223, 225, 226;
    defeated by Spokanes, 230, 283.

  Stevensburg, ii. 427, 428.

  Stevens Cantonment, ii. 80.

  Stevens Guards, ii. 132, 151, 169.

  Stevens hat, ii. 268.

  Stevens, Abiel, captured by Indians, i. 3.

  Stevens, Asa, Captain, died in Lake George campaign, i. 3.

  Stevens, Benjamin, Jr., i. 2.

  Stevens, Charles A., cousin, i. 33, 98, 99.

  Stevens, Dolly, i. 4.

  Stevens, Eliza, aunt, death of, i. 45.

  Stevens, Eliza, cousin, i. 91.

  Stevens, Elizabeth Barker, sister, i. 11;
    letters to, 35, 45;
    visits Belfast, 51, 67, 68;
    goes to Nashville, 73;
    marries L.M. Campbell, 82-87;
    death, 97.

  Stevens, Ephraim, recompensed for loss by Indians, i. 3.

  Stevens, Fort, ii. 185, 235.

  Stevens, George Watson, i. 265, 266, 269, 295;
    breaking mules, 304-306, 319;
    scenes at Fort Benton, 365, 366, 441;
    death of, ii. 10, 11.

  Stevens, Gertrude Maude, i. 249;
    lost on Isthmus, 436;
    Panama fever, 437; ii. 502.

  Stevens, Hannah, i. 4.

  Stevens, Hannah Peabody, sister, i. 11, 22, 29, 30, 35, 51, 56, 66, 67;
    death, 73.

  Stevens, Hazard, i. 81, 82, 456-462; ii. 27, 56, 70, 98, 99, 110, 152,
        153, 193, 260, 262, 266, 300, 313;
    calls on President Lincoln, 334;
    appointed adjutant, 79th Highlanders, 335, 337;
    appointed captain and assistant adjutant-general, 338, 352, 366,
        383, 389-391, 398;
    at battle of James Island, 407, 419, 420, 458, 472, 474, 478, 482-485,
        502.

  Stevens, Henry H., cousin, i. 47, 77, 98.

  Stevens, Isaac, father, i. 4;
    settles in Maine, crippled by falling tree, 6;
    marries Hannah Cummings, i. 7;
    settles in Andover, 8;
    characteristics, 9, 10;
    children, 11;
    wife's ancestry, 12;
    letters to, 31, 39, 40, 44, 46, 52-56;
    visits West Point at son's graduation, 59;
    letters, 69, 74, 78-81, 85, 89, 92, 117, 228, 249; ii. 270;
    death of, 498, 499.

  Stevens, Isaac Ingalls. See Table of Contents;
    descendants, ii. 502.

  Stevens, James, captain in Louisburg expedition, i. 3.

  Stevens, James, Lieutenant, died in Lake George campaign, i. 3.

  Stevens, James, Revolutionary soldier, diary of siege of Boston,
        i. 5, 6.

  Stevens, James, settles in Maine, i. 5, 6.

  Stevens, Jeremy, i. 4.

  Stevens, John, died in Louisburg expedition, i. 5.

  Stevens, John, founder of Andover, i. 1, 2.

  Stevens, Jonathan, grandfather, fights at Bunker Hill, i. 4;
    characteristics, 5, 8, 15.

  Stevens, Jonathan, settles in Maine, i. 5, 6.

  Stevens, Joseph, deacon, i. 3.

  Stevens, Julia Virginia, daughter, born, i. 87;
    died, Mr. Brooks's tribute, 92; ii. 502.

  Stevens, Kate, daughter, born, i. 277;
    lost on Isthmus, 436; ii. 371, 502.

  Stevens, Margaret L. (_née_ Hazard), wife, i. 63, 64, 67, 79, 81, 87;
    letters to, 97-99;
    voyage to Mexico, 109-115;
    Vera Cruz, 115-117;
    battle of Cerro Gordo, i. 127, 128;
    Jalapa, description of, 132-135;
    Puebla, description of, 158-162;
    account of campaign in valley, including Churubusco, 189-202;
    arrives at New Orleans, 225;
    Washington, 226;
    views and ideals, 251-254, 265-267;
    canoeing up Cowlitz, 439, 440;
    impressions of Olympia, 442-444;
    visits Whitby Island, ii. 154, 155, 187, 248, 249, 260, 313, 371;
    letters to, 373, 374, 479, 500.

  Stevens, Mary Jane, sister, i. 11, 35, 51, 67, 68, 81, 82, 85-87;
    death, 162.

  Stevens, Moses, uncle, i. 4, 51.

  Stevens, Nathan, councillor, first male child born in Andover, i. 2.

  Stevens, Nathaniel, uncle, i. 4, 16, 81, 92.

  Stevens, Oliver, brother, i. 11, 46, 47, 51, 54-56, 67, 73, 74, 77, 81,
        82, 85, 87, 92, 97, 229, 230, 236, 242, 243.

  Stevens, Oliver, uncle, i. 4.

  Stevens, Primus, faithful servant to Benjamin, Jr., i. 2.

  Stevens, Sarah, i. 4.

  Stevens, Sarah Ann, sister, i. 11, 22, 35, 51, 67, 81, 85;
    death, 86.

  Stevens, Susan, daughter, i. 95, 257; ii. 502.

  Stevens, Susan Bragg, sister, i. 11;
    letters to, 34, 35, 45;
    attending school, Andover, 51;
    goes to Missouri, 52, 67;
    marries David H. Bishop, 68;
    death, 77.

  Stevens, Susanna (_née_ Bragg), wife of Jonathan, grandmother, i. 4, 13;
    death, 68.

  Stevens, William, uncle, i. 4;
    suggests West Point, 22;
    letter to, emotions on entering West Point, 24, 29, 33, 35-39, 58,
        66, 69, 81.

  Stevens, William O., cousin, i. 91.

  Stevensville, ii. 80.

  Stewart, Charles, ii. 497.

  Stock, Whitley, Des Chutes chief, ii. 212.

  Stone, C.P., General, ii. 312, 319.

  Stono River, ii. 378, 387, 390.

  Strahan, Captain, ii. 401, 408, 410.

  Strobel, Max, i. 306, 326.

  Strong, William, Judge, i. 411; ii. 160, 170.

  Stuart, A.B., ii. 10.

  Stuart, J.E.B., General, ii. 331, 431, 438, 494.

  Suckley, George, Dr., i. 296, 306, 308, 312, 314, 315, 317-319, 345,
        375, 382, 422.

  Sudley Church, ii. 438.

  Sudley Ford, ii. 435.

  Sullivan, Bridget, nurse, i. 269.

  Sulphur Springs, ii. 429, 431.

  Sumner, Edwin V., General, i. 122; ii. 494.

  Sumter Guards, ii. 392.

  Sun River, i. 375, 376; ii. 94, 124.

  Suydam, Mr., ii. 385.

  Swan, James G., account of Chehalis council, ii. 1-9, 25;
    Governor Stevens's secretary, 275, 284, 294.

  Swan, John M., i. 415.

  Swan, Mr., i. 458.

  Swartwout, Captain, i. 113, 206.

  Swartwout, Samuel, Captain, ii. 185, 187.

  Sweet Grass Hill, i. 360.

  Swindal, C.W., Captain, ii. 169, 171, 186.

  Sykes, George, General, i. 27; ii. 430, 453, 466, 468, 470.

  Sylvester, Edmund, i. 414.


  Tacoma, i. 459.

  Tacubaya, village near City of Mexico, i. 164;
    occupied, 200, 202, 210, 219.

  Tafft, Henry S., Lieutenant, ii. 343, 363, 366, 408.

  Talcott, General, i. 257.

  Taliaferro, William B., General, ii. 437, 441, 442.

  Talisman, paper, edits, i. 57, 58.

  Talome River, Mexico, i. 120.

  Tampico, Mexico, i. 105, 106, 108.

  Taplin, Charles, i. 302.

  Tappan, William H., i. 416; ii. 1, 3, 67, 91, 92, 107-109, 132.

  Tatnall, Commodore, ii. 346.

  Taylor, Battery, i. 164, 180, 181.

  Taylor claim, ii. 262.

  Taylor, Colonel, ii. 338.

  Taylor, Nelson, General, ii. 448, 456, 457.

  Taylor, William, ii. 14, 15.

  Taylor, Zachary, General, i. 91, 107, 108;
    view of, 236, 244.

  Tepe Ahualco, Mexico, i. 139.

  Terry, Alfred H., General, ii. 454.

  Teton River, i. 362, 368, 375; ii. 94, 120.

  Texas, i. 91;
    bill, 252.

  Texcuco, lake in valley of Mexico, i. 164.

  Texmaluca, village in valley of Mexico, i. 169.

  Thayer, Colonel, i. 57, 237.

  Third artillery, Battery E., ii. 395.

  Third infantry, i. 156, 176, 181.

  Third Vermont, ii. 329, 330.

  Thom, George, General, classmate, i. 27.

  Thomas, Edward L., General, ii. 487, 495, 496.

  Thomas, George H., General, i. 28.

  Thompson, Jacob, Secretary of Interior, ii. 272, 274, 306.

  Thompson, R.R., ii. 32, 33.

  Thompson River, ii. 293.

  Thornton, Captain, i. 164;
    killed, 169.

  Thoroughfare Gap, ii. 431, 440.

  Three Bears, Blackfoot chief, i. 368.

  Three Buttes or Sweet Grass Hills, i. 360.

  Three Feathers, Nez Perce chief, ii. 129, 130, 144.

  Til-coos-tay, Flathead chief, ii. 86.

  Tilden, Bryant P., i. 58, 72, 132.

  Tilton, Fort, i. 184.

  Tilton, James, Major, i. 445; ii. 123, 159, 168, 176, 193, 248.

  Timothy, Nez Perce chief, ii. 39, 57, 63, 70, 217.

  Tinkham, Abiel W., assistant at Fort Knox, i. 88, 233, 268, 295, 298,
        306, 308, 314, 319, 321, 322, 326, 330-334, 341, 342, 370, 381,
        383-385;
    ordered to examine Snoqualmie Pass, 406;
    his successful trip, 408, 422, 427.

  Tin-tin-meet-see, ii. 148.

  Tlascala, i. 144.

  Tleyuk, Chehalis chief, ii. 7, 8.

  Tlinkits, northern Indians, i. 452.

  Todd, John B.S., General, i. 28.

  Tolmie, William Frazer, Dr., i. 412.

  Toombs, R., General, ii. 494.

  Totten, Joseph G., General, i. 60-62, 89-91, 94, 98, 105, 109, 114,
       119, 226, 227, 235, 237, 239, 256;
    letter to, resigning, 282;
    reply, 283; ii. 273, 317, 318.

  Touchet River, i. 402; ii. 218.

  Tower, Zealous B., General, i. 28;
    draws character of General Stevens, 43, 58, 105, 108, 111, 119, 121,
        122, 130, 139, 142, 144, 166, 167, 169, 170, 179, 185;
    sketch of, 217, 237; ii. 470.

  Townsend, A., ii. 257.

  Townsend, E.D., General, his advice, i. 26, 28.

  Townsend, Port, i. 473, 477.

  Train, Charles R., ii. 320.

  Train guard, ii. 169.

  Trapier, Lieutenant, i. 105.

  Traveler, steam tug, ii. 266.

  Traveler's Rest Creek, i. 379.

  Tremain, Lieutenant, ii. 457.

  Trimble, Isaac R., General, ii. 487, 495, 496.

  Tripler, Dr. i. 124.

  Trist, Nicholas, i. 200, 208.

  Tulalip Reservation, i. 468.

  Tulancingo, i. 168.

  Tulifiny River, ii. 376.

  Tumwater, i. 441.

  Twelfth infantry, i. 173, 179.

  Twenty-eighth Massachusetts, ii. 390, 391;
    battle of James Island, 402-415, 425, 428, 452, 484, 485, 495.

  Twiggs, General, i. 12;
    battle of Cerro Gordo, 125, 126;
    reaches Puebla, 144, 155;
    advances, 162, 164;
    battle of Contreras, 170-172, 175-182, 202;
    Chapultepec, 208-210.

  Twiggs, Major, i. 209.

  Tybee Island, ii. 382.

  Tyerall, E.R., i. 462.


  Umatilla Indians, ii. 16, 21;
    at Walla Walla council, 36-64, 121, 158, 212.

  Umatilla River, ii. 30.

  Umatilla treaty, ii. 63.

  Ume-how-lish, war chief of Cuyuses, captured, ii. 147, 152, 262.

  Union, Fort, i. 295, 297, 320, 345, 346;
    description of, 347, 351.

  Union, preservation of, ii. 301, 302.

  Union, steamship, ii. 345.

  Union Light Infantry, ii. 392.

  Updyke, Isabella, i. 88.

  Upshur, J.H., Lieutenant, ii. 365.

  Utah Bill, i. 252.


  Valencia, Mexican general, i. 179, 203.

  Van Bokkelen, J.J.H., ii. 168-171, 187.

  Vancouver, fort and town on Columbia River, i. 297, 394, 400, 405, 406,
        411; ii. 12, 153, 156, 159, 206, 208, 288.

  Vancouver Island, i. 417, 418; ii. 13.

  Vanderbilt, Cornelius, ii. 343.

  Vanderbilt, steamship, ii. 342, 344, 345.

  Van Dorn, Earl, i. 27.

  Van Ogle, William, ii. 265.

  Van Vliet, Stewart, General, i. 27.

  Vaughan, A.J., ii. 114.

  Venta Nueva, i. 224.

  Vera Cruz, Mexico, i. 106-108, 110;
    siege of, 111-115;
    leaves, 119-221.

  Vermont, 2d and 3d volunteers, ii. 329-331.

  Vernon, i. 63.

  Victor, Flathead chief, i. 383-385; ii. 77-80;
    at Flathead council, i. 80-92.

  Victoria, B.C., i. 417, 418, 477; ii. 292.

  Viele, Egbert L., General, ii. 341, 357, 382.

  Vienna, ii. 330.

  Vigara, Mexico, i. 119.

  Villamil, Mexican commissioner, i. 202.

  Vireyes, i. 139.

  Virginia, Army of, ii. 427.

  Virginia, 13th regiment, ii. 331;
    1st cavalry, 332;
    13th and 35th, 446, 447.

  Vogdes, Israel, General, i. 25, 27.

  Voltigeurs, i. 208.


  Wabash, Commodore Dupont's flagship, ii. 344.

  Wadmalaw River, ii. 378.

  Walcott, Charles F., General, ii. 490, 496, 497.

  Walcott, Lieutenant, ii. 491.

  Walker, Elijah, Colonel, ii. 488, 497.

  Walker, E., missionary among Spokanes, i. 398; ii. 22.

  Walker, Fort, ii. 345.

  Walker, Henry, ii. 392.

  Walker, R.M., i. 315; ii. 168, 248.

  Walker Donation Claim purchased, i. 421; ii. 265.

  Walla Walla, old fort, i. 296, 297, 402, 403;
    plundered by Indians, ii. 158.

  Walla Walla River and valley, i. 393, 400, 403; ii. 31, 147, 149, 209.

  Walla Walla Indians, ii. 16, 21;
    at Walla Walla council, 35-64, 121, 157, 158.

  Walla Walla council, ii. 27, 31-65.

  Wallace, William H., ii. 170, 245, 266, 289.

  Wallamet Indians, ii. 23.

  Wanton, Gideon, Governor, i. 65.

  Wanton, John G., i. 65.

  Wanton, Mary, "Charming Polly," i. 65.

  Warbass, Edward D., ii. 169, 187.

  Warbass, N.G., Dr., i. 439; ii. 168.

  Ward, Ira, i. 415.

  Warfield, L.A., Captain, ii. 343.

  Warren, Dr., treats rupture, i. 18.

  Warren, G.K., Colonel, ii. 466, 469.

  Warrenton, ii. 430, 432.

  Warrenton Junction, ii. 430-432.

  Washington, Camp, near Vera Cruz, i. 115.

  Washington, Camp, south of Spokane River, 399, 400.

  Washington, George, General, i. 62.

  Washington, George, i. 412.

  Washington, Territory of, formed, i. 280;
    appointed governor of, 282;
    sparse settlements in, 411-414;
    Governor Stevens's messages to legislature, 418, 419, 445, 447;
        ii. 162-164, 262;
    resolution that governor visit Washington, i. 424;
    of censure, ii. 263-264.

  Washington Artillery, ii. 450.

  Washington City, visits, i. 75, 89, 226, 237;
    life in, 242-292, 302;
    spends summer of 1854 at, 427-434; ii. 271, 295, 319.

  Washington Lake, ii. 188.

  Washington Mounted Rifles, ii. 169, 197.

  Washington territorial library, purchased, i. 300.

  Washington volunteers, called out by Governor Mason, disbanded by Wool,
        ii. 149, 158, 160, 168-171, 189;
    mustered out on Sound, 192;
    all disbanded, character and services, 232-235.

  Waterloo Bridge, ii. 430.

  Watson, Colonel, i. 221.

  Watson, Major, ii. 366.

  Webster, Daniel, i. 75, 248, 249.

  Weed, Stephen H., Captain, ii. 470.

  Weed, Charles E., ii. 168, 248.

  Wee-lap-to-leek, chief of Tigh Indians, ii. 214.

  Wellman, Captain, bark Prompt, i. 99, 108.

  Welsh, Thomas, Colonel, ii. 395.

  Wenass River, ii. 197.

  Wenatche River, i. 395; ii. 64.

  West, Mr., ii. 329.

  West Point, i. 22, 83;
    course at, 24-59;
    revisits, 78.

  Whig party, i. 260.

  Whipple, A.W., General, i. 27, 83, 84.

  Whitby Island, ii. 154, 184, 258.

  White, sapper, death of, i. 346.

  White, William, Captain, ii. 169, 171, 187.

  White Antelope, Gros Ventre squaw, ii. 355.

  White Bear, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  White Bear Lake, i. 312, 318.

  White Eagle, Gros Ventre chief, i. 355.

  White Earth River, i. 345.

  White Man's Horse, Blackfoot chief, i. 352.

  White River or Duwhamish, ii. 159, 187, 188.

  White Salmon River, ii. 257.

  White Tail Deer, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  White Wood Lakes, i. 338.

  Whitman, Marcus, missionary among Cuyuses, i. 403; ii. 21.

  Whitney, L., Major, i. 114.

  Whitworth, George F., Rev., i. 415; ii. 260.

  Wiedrich, Captain, ii. 451.

  Wilbur, agent of Yakimas, ii. 64.

  Wilcox, C.M., General, ii. 450, 460, 471.

  Wild Rice River, i. 324.

  Wilkie, Governor, Red River hunters, i. 334, 335.

  Wilkinson, Morton S., Senator, ii. 299.

  Willard, G.K., Dr., i. 415; ii. 168.

  William I., Emperor of Germany, awards San Juan Archipelago to United
        States, ii. 294.

  Williams, Hezekiah, i. 229.

  Williams, James, Captain, ii. 169, 170, 200.

  Williams, Robert, General, ii. 382, 394, 395, 399, 400;
    at battle of James Island, 408-411.

  Williams, Seth, General, i. 27.

  Wilmington Island, ii. 372.

  Wilmington, N.C., i. 272, 277.

  Wilson, Henry, Senator, ii. 319, 385.

  Wilson, James H., Lieutenant, ii. 372.

  Wilson Point, ii. 184.

  Winders, Captain, i. 211.

  Winfield Scott, steamship, ii. 313.

  Winnebago Indians, i. 309.

  Winthrop, Theodore, ii. 64.

  Wi-ti-my-hoy-she, Palouse Indian chief, i. 402.

  Wolf's Lodge prairie, i. 390; ii. 131.

  Wolf Talker, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356.

  Wolf that Climbs, Blackfoot chief, i. 368.

  Woodbury, Charles Levi, i. 274.

  Woodbury, D.P., General, i. 27, 226.

  Woodward, H.R., i. 415.

  Wool, John E., General, rebuked, i. 437; ii. 33, 148, 149, 153, 156,
        160, 161;
    memoir sent to, 173, 174;
    reply, 175, 176;
    demand to disband volunteers, 177;
    Governor Stevens's caustic reply, 177-184, 196, 207, 224;
    orders settlers kept out of upper country, 225, 226;
    relieved by General Clark, 266, 276.

  Worth, William S., General, i. 105-107, 115, 119, 120, 126, 129, 130,
        138, 139, 141;
    occupies Puebla, 143;
    advance from Puebla, 164, 167-169, 171, 174, 175, 180;
    at Churubusco, 181, 202;
    battle of Molino del Rey, 205, 206;
    battle of Chapultepec, 208, 213.

  Wren Charles, ii. 243, 247, 249.

  Wright, George, Major, i. 205;
    Colonel, ii. 64, 147, 173, 190, 191;
    abortive campaign against Yakima, 194-199;
    Governor Stevens's letter to, 199, 202, 203;
    quasi-peace with Yakimas, 204;
    puts Ow-hi and Quelchen to death, 205-208;
    gives order to give up Indian murderers, its evasion, 224, 225;
    punishes the Yakimas and Spokanes, 230, 231, 274, 283;
    recommends treaties, 285.

  Wright, H.G., General, i. 27; ii. 341, 357, 380, 382, 383, 387, 388,
        394, 395, 399, 400, 408-411, 421.

  Wyncoop, Colonel, i. 156.


  Xochimilco, lake in valley of Mexico, i. 163, 165.

  Xochimilco, village, i. 168, 171.


  Yale College, solves problem from, i. 20.

  Yantis, Benjamin F., Judge, ii. 132, 169, 249.

  Yellowstone, i. 337, 345, 347; ii. 107, 108.

  Yelm prairie, ii. 185.

  Yakima Indians, ii. 16, 22;
    at Walla Walla council, 40-64;
    present condition, 64, 121, 140;
    begin war, 157;
    defeat Major Haller, 158, 160, 186;
    massacre at Cascades, 190, 197, 221-223, 257, 273, 274.

  Yakima River, ii. 63, 197.

  Yakima treaty, ii. 63, 64.

  Yakima valley, i. 394.

  Yesler, H.L., i. 412; ii. 251, 256.

  Young's Branch, ii. 435.

  Young Chief, head chief of Cuyuses at Walla Walla council, ii. 38, 42,
        44, 51;
    assents to treaty, 53, 61, 121.


  Zacatecas, Mexico, i. 151.


                          The Riverside Press
           _Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co._
                       _Cambridge, Mass, U.S.A._




       *       *       *       *       *




Transcriber's note:

Some compound words (e.g., 'wagon-master') appeared both with and
without a hyphen. They are given as printed. Where a word is hyphenated
on a line break, the hyphen is retained if the preponderance of other
appearances indicate it was intended. Index entries tend not to
hyphenate words that are unhyphenated in the text. All variants
were retained.

Illlustrations cannot be reproduced here, but the approximate position
of each is indicated as: [Illustration: <caption>].

Footnotes are repositioned at the end of each chapter. They have been
re-numbered consecutively.

The word 'coöperate' is consistently printed with the diaeresis on the
second syllable's opening 'o'. On p. 181, the word fell on a line break,
and was hyphenated without the diaeresis. The 'ö' has been restored for
consistency.

The total for the second table on p. 381 appears incorrectly as 16,988.
The figures, as printed, add to 17,009.

On p. 401, the word 'premptorily', apparently an error for
'peremptorily' appears in a quoted passage, and is merely noted here.

Neither of the versions of 'Quinault' in the table on p. 504 agrees
with the modern spelling. To be consistent, the second instance was
changed to agree with the first, 'Quinaiult'.

Index

There were several errors discovered in the index, which refers to
both volumes. On occasion, the volume numbers 'i' or 'ii' are missing
or incorrect. These errata are included in the table below.

While these errors are corrected, no systematic attempt
was made to check all entries.

The entry for 'Daufuskie Island' was misprinted as 'Danfuskie', and
attributed to the wrong page (p. 282 rather than p. 382). It should
have followed the entry for 'Danpher', just below it.

Minor punctuation lapses were silently corrected.

The following minor issues, most likely printer's errors, are noted, and
were corrected.

 p. 85  Governor Stevens[;/:]                             Corrected.

 p. 94  vicin[i]ty                                        Added.

 p. 95  luxur[i]ant                                       Added.

 p. 181 co[-o]/ö]perate                                   Corrected.

 p. 268 meeting[s]                                        Added.

 p. 318 well known in Congress.["]                        Removed.

 p. 349 stren[u]ously                                     Removed.

 p. 368 Serr[i/e]ll's                                     Corrected.

 p. 371 discipl[in]ing                                    Added.

 p. 381 Brigad[i]er-General Ripley                        Added.

 p. 401 premptorily                                       _sic._

 p. 432 Junct[i]on                                        Added.

 p. 450 b[r]ack                                           Removed.

 p. 504 Quin[ia/ai]ult                                    Transposed.

 p. 507 Anderson, George T., Colonel, i[i]. 490.          Added.

 p. 510 river, [i.] 412;                                  Added.

 p. 512 Da[n/u]fuskie                                     Corrected and
                                                            repositioned.

 p. 513 Flattery, Cape, [i.]  473, 474, 477.              Added.

 p. 514 Gosnell, Wesley, ii. 169, 187, 255, 2[2/5]7       Corrected.

 p. 516 James River, Va., [ii.] 423.                      Added.

 p. 525 Seventy-Ninth Highlanders, New York volunteers,
          [i]i. 320,                                      Added.

        action at Port Royal Ferry, 3[6/5]8-366           Corrected.

 p. 526 Stevens, Eliza, cousin, [i]. 91.                  Added.
        Stevens, George Watson, [i.] 265, 266, 269, 295;  Added.

 p. 528 Townsend, E.D., General, his advice, [i.] 26, 28. Added.

 p. 529 Virginia, 13th regiment, ii. 3[2/3]1;             Corrected.
          1st cavalry, [3]32;                             Added.
        Washington, Camp, south of Spokane River,
          [i.] 399, 400.                                  Added.
        Wellman, Captain, bark Prompt, [i.] 99, 108.      Added.

 p. 530 Xochimilco, village, [i.] 168, 171.               Added.