# The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce/Part 1/Chapter 9

CHAPTER X
The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand
COLUMBIA RIVER history has had its full share of Indian wars. To narrate these in full would transcend the limits of this chapter. Even during the era of discovery desperate affrays with the natives were a common experience of explorers. Captain Gray of the Columbia lost a boat's crew of seamen at Tillamook. The ship Boston was seized in 1803 by the wily old chief Maquinna at Nootka.
​In 1812 the Tonquin, the first vessel of the Pacific Fur Company, in command of Captain Thorn, was captured at some point to the north of the Columbia River, variously known as Eyuck Whoola on Newcetu Bay, or Newity Bay, or Newcetee. She was, as a result of the capture, blown up by the explosion of her own powder magazine. Gabriel Franchère and Alexander Ross, of the Astoria party, are the original authorities for this dramatic story. Irving has made the event a leading feature of his charming Astoria. H. H. Bancroft has discussed it at length in his history of the Pacific Coast. In recent years Major H. M. Chittenden in his valuable book, History of the American Fur Trade, presents new testimony of much interest. But whatever discrepencies existed in the records, the general truth remains that the ship and all her crew, with the exception of one Indian, disappeared, and great was the loss to the traders at Astoria as a result.
For more than three decades after the destruction of the Tonquin there were no serious Indian conflicts. The Hudson's Bay Company carried out consistently the general policy of harmony with the natives. Most of the employees were of French Canadian origin, and, with their general sociability, they were more popular with the Indians than the Americans usually have been. But with the incoming of American missionaries, trappers, explorers, and immigrants, the situation changed. Conflicts of interests, ambitions, and national aims led both Americans and British to be somewhat more ready to encourage the hostile and suspicious disposition of the natives. Chiefly, however, the cause of the changing attitude of the natives ​must be attributed to the perception by the more intelligent of the fact that the actual occupation of the country by white farmers, home builders, and land owners, meant their own destruction. Though this truth dawned on them only vaguely and gradually, they had begun to be somewhat familiar with it by the decade of the thirties.
The founding of American missions during that decade, as narrated earlier, at Chemeketa, Walla Walla, Lapwai, and Tshimakain, and, during the years following, the obvious intent of the Americans to draw immigration to the country, prepared the way for the first and perhaps the most ferocious, though by no means the greatest, of the four principal wars which we plan to consider. This first one was the war connected with the Whitman massacre.
We have already described the founding of the Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu, six miles from the present site of Walla Walla, and twenty-six miles from the Hudson's Bay fort on the Columbia, known as Fort Walla Walla. We have also told of Whitman's journey across the continent in the mid-winter of 1842–43, of his efforts to secure the attention of Congress and of the Executive to the importance of the Oregon country, and of his return to Walla Walla in 1843, with the first large immigration of American settlers.
After the incoming of this immigration, it became more than ever clear to the more intelligent Indians that this movement of settlers portended a change in their whole condition. Their wild life could not co-exist with farming, houses, and the fixed and narrowed limits of the white man's life. Moreover, since ​they saw the antagonism between the Americans and the Hudson's Bay Company, and since the latter was obviously more favourable to perpetuating the life of the wilderness, the natives were naturally drawn into sympathy with the latter. Still further, since the Americans were Protestants and naturally affiliated with the Whitman Mission and its associated missions, and since the Hudson's Bay people were mainly Catholics and interested in maintaining the missionary methods adapted to the régime of the fur-traders, there became injected into the situation the dangerous element of religious jealousy.
Dr. Whitman perceived that he was standing on the edge of a powder magazine, and, during the summer of 1847, he arranged to acquire the mission property of the Methodists at The Dalles, a hundred and sixty miles down the River, intending to remove thither in the spring. But meanwhile, the explosives being all ready, the spark was prepared for igniting them.
During the summer of 1847 measles became epidemic among the Indians. Their method of treating any disease of which fever was a part was to enter a pit into which hot rocks had been thrown, then casting water on the rocks, to create a dense vapour, in which, stripped of clothing, they would remain until thoroughly steamed. Thence issuing, stark naked and dripping with perspiration, they would plunge into an icy cold stream. Death was the almost inevitable result in case of measles. Whitman, who was, it should be remembered, a physician, not a clergyman, was skilful and devoted in his attentions, yet many died. Now just at that time a renegade ​half-breed known as Jo Lewis seems to have become possessed with the diabolical mania of massacre. He made the Indians think that Whitman was poisoning them. Istickus or Sticcus, a Umatilla Indian and a warm friend of Whitman, had formed some impression of the plot and suggested the danger. Whitman's intrepid spirit laughed at this, but Mrs. Whitman, though equally intrepid, seems to have felt some premonition of the swift coming doom, for the mission children found her in tears for the first time since the death of her beloved little girl eight years before. The Doctor tried to soothe her by declaring that he would arrange to go down the River at once. But on that very day, November 28, 1847, the picturesque little hill rising a hundred feet above the mission ground, now surmounted by the granite shaft of the Whitman monument, was observed to be black with Indians. It was evident from various sinister aspects that something was impending.
On the next day, November 29th, at about one o'clock, while Dr. Whitman sat reading, a number of Indians entered the room. Having gained his attention by the usual request for medicines, one of them, afterwards said by some to have been Tamahas, and by others have been Tamsaky, rushed suddenly upon the Doctor and struck his head with a tomahawk. Another wretch named Telaukait, to whom the Doctor had been the kindest friend, then cut and hacked the noble face of the philanthropist. The work of murder thus inaugurated went on with savage energy. The men about the mission were speedily slain, with the exception of a few who were in remote places and managed by special fortune to ​elude observation. Mrs. Whitman, bravely coming forward to succour her dying husband, was shot in the breast and sank to the floor. She did not die at once, and it is said by some of the survivors, then children, that she lingered some time, being heard to murmur most tender prayers for her parents and children. Mrs. Whitman was the only woman killed. The other women and girls were cruelly outraged and held in captivity for several days.
William McBean was at that time in charge of the fort at Walla Walla, and with a strange disregard of humane feelings, he shut the door of the fort in the face of one of the escaped Americans, and a little later served the Osborne family in the same manner. McBean sent a courier down the River to convey the tidings to Vancouver, but this courier did not even stop at The Dalles to warn the people, though they were not attacked. James Douglas was then chief factor at Vancouver, as successor to Dr. McLoughlin. As soon as he was apprised of the massacre, he sent Peter Skeen Ogden with a force to rescue the survivors. Ogden acted with promptness and efficiency, and by the use of several hundred dollars' worth of commodities ransomed forty-seven women and children. Thirteen persons had been murdered.
One of the most distressing experiences was that of the Osborne family. Of this Mr. Osborne says:
   As the guns fired and the yells commenced I leaned my head upon the bed and committed myself and family to my Maker. My wife removed the loose floor. I dropped under the floor with my sick family in their night clothes, taking only two woollen sheets, a piece of bread, and some cold mush, and pulled the floor over us. In five minutes the room was full of ​Indians, but they did not discover us. The roar of guns, the yells of the savages, and the crash of clubs and knives and the groans of the dying continued till dark. We distinctly heard the dying groans of Mrs. Whitman, Mr. Rogers, and Francis, till they died away one after the other. We heard the last words of Mr. Rogers in a slow voice calling “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” Soon after this I removed the floor and we went out. We saw the white face of Francis by the door. It was warm as we laid our hand upon it, but he was dead. I carried my two youngest children, who were sick, and my wife held on to my clothes in her great weakness. We had all been sick with measles. Two infants had died. She had not left her bed in six weeks till that day, when she stood up a few minutes. The naked, painted Indians were dancing the scalp dance around a large fire at a little distance. There seemed no hope for us and we knew not which way to go, but bent our steps toward Fort Walla Walla. A dense cold fog shut out every star and the darkness was complete. We could see no trail and not even the hand before the face. We had to feel out the trail with our feet. My wife almost fainted but staggered along. Mill Creek, which we had to wade, was high with late rains and came up to the waist. My wife in her great weakness came nigh washing down, but held to my clothes. I braced myself with a stick, holding a child in one arm. I had to cross five times for the children. The water was icy cold and the air freezing some. Staggering along about two miles, Mrs. Osborne fainted and could go no farther, and we hid ourselves in the brush of the Walla Walla River, not far below Tamsukey's (a chief) lodges, who was very active at the commencement of the butchery. We were thoroughly wet, and the cold fog like snow was about us. The cold mud was partially frozen as we crawled, feeling our way, into the dark brush. We could see nothing, the darkness was so extreme. I spread one wet sheet down on the frozen ground; wife and children crouched upon it. I covered the other over them. I thought they must soon perish as they were shaking and their teeth rattling with cold. I kneeled down and commended us to my Maker. The day finally dawned and we could see the Indians riding furiously up and ​down the trail. Sometimes they would come close to the brush and our blood would warm and the shaking would stop from fear for a moment. The day seemed a week. Expected every moment my wife would breathe her last. Tuesday night, felt our way to the trail and staggered along to Sutucksnina (Dog Creek), which we waded as we did the other creek, and kept on about two miles when my wife fainted and could go no farther. Crawled into the brush and frozen mud to shake and suffer on from hunger and cold, and without sleep. The children, too, wet and cold, called incessantly for food, but the shock of groans and yells at first so frightened them that they did not speak loud. Wednesday night my wife was too weak to stand. I took our second child and started for Walla Walla; had to wade the Touchet; stopped frequently in the brush from weakness; had not recovered from measles. Heard a horseman pass and repass as I lay concealed in the willows. Have since learned that it was Mr. Spalding. Reached Fort Walla Walla after daylight; begged Mr. McBean for horses to get my family, for food, for blankets, and clothing to take to them, and to take care of my child till I could bring my family in, should I live to find them alive. Mr. McBean told me I could not bring my family to his fort.
   Mr. Hall came in on Monday night, but he could not have an American in his fort, and he had put him over the Columbia River; that he could not let me have horses or anything for my wife and children, and I must go to Umatilla. I insisted on bringing my family to the fort, but he refused; said he would not let us in. I next begged the priests to show pity, as my wife and children must perish and the Indians undoubtedly would kill me, with no success. I then begged to leave my child who was not safe in the fort, but they refused.
   There were many priests in the fort. Mr. McBean gave me breakfast, but I saved most of it for my family. Providentially Mr. Stanley, an artist, came in from Colville, narrowly escaped the Cayuse Indians by telling them he was "Alain" H. B. He let me have his two horses, some food he had left from Rev. Eells and Walker's mission; also a cap, a pair of socks, a shirt, and handkerchief, and Mr. McBean ​furnished an Indian who proved most faithful, and Thursday night we started back, taking my child, but with a sad heart that I could not find mercy at the hands of the priests of God. The Indian guided me in the thick darkness to where I supposed I had left my dear wife and children. We could see nothing and dared not call aloud. Daylight came and I was exposed to Indians, but we continued to search till I was about to give up in despair when the Indian discovered one of the twigs I had broken as a guide in coming out to the trail. Following these he soon found my wife and children still alive. I distributed what little food and clothing I had, and we started for the Umatilla, the guide leading the way to a ford.
   Mr. McBean came and asked who was there. I replied. He said he could not let us in; we must go to Umatilla or he would put us over the river, as he had Mr. Hall. My wife replied she would die at the gate but she would not leave. He finally opened and took us into a secret room and sent an allowance of food for us every day. Next day I asked him for blankets for my sick wife to lie on. He had nothing. Next day I urged again. He had nothing to give, but would sell a blanket out of the store. I told him I had lost everything, and had nothing to pay; but if I should live to get to the Willamette I would pay. He consented. But the hip-bones of my dear wife wore through the skin on the hard floor. Stickus, the chief, came in one day and took the cap from his head and gave it to me, and a handkerchief to my child.
The way was now clear to Waiilatpu, which the command reached on March 4th. The mangled remains of the victims of the massacre had been hastily interred by the Ogden party, but coyotes had partially exhumed them. The remains were brought together by the volunteers and reverently, though rudely, buried at a point near the mission, a place where a marble crypt now encloses the commingled bones of the martyrs. A lock of long, fair hair was found near the ruined mission ground which was thought surely to be from the head of Mrs. Whitman. It was preserved ​by one of the volunteers and is now one of the precious relics in the historical museum of Whitman College.
The Cayuse War dragged along in a desultory fashion for nearly three years. The refusal of the Nez Percés and Spokanes and the indifference of the Yakimas to join the Cayuses made their cause hopeless, though there were several fierce fights with them and much severe campaigning. In 1850 a band of friendly Umatilla Indians undertook to capture the chief band of the Cayuses under Tamsaky, which had taken a strong position about the head waters of the John Day River. After a savage battle Tamsaky was killed and most of the warriors captured. Of these, five, charged with the leading part in the Whitman massacre, were hanged at Oregon City on June 3, 1850. It remains a question to this day, however, whether the victims of the gallows were really the guilty ones. The Cayuse Indians were quite firm in their assertion that Tamahas, who, by one version, struck Dr. Whitman the first blow, was the only one of the five concerned in the murder.
Thus ended the first principal war in the Columbia Basin. It was quickly followed by another, which was so extensive that it may be well called universal. This was the War of 1855–56. This was the greatest Indian war in the entire history of the Columbia River.
In 1855 the great war broke out almost simultaneously at different points. There were six widely scattered regions especially concerned. Four of these, the Cascades, the Yakima Valley, the Walla Walla, and the Grande Ronde, were on or adjacent to the River. The others were the Rogue River region and Puget Sound. So wide was the area of this war that intelligent co-operation among the Indians proved impracticable. This, in fact, was the thing that saved the whites. For there were probably not less than four thousand Indians on the war-path, and if they had co-operated, the smaller settlements, possibly all in the country except those in the Willamette Valley, might have been annihilated.
The first efforts of Governor Stevens were to secure treaties with the Indians. Having negotiated several treaties in 1854 with the Puget Sound Indians, the governor passed over the Cascade Mountains to Walla Walla in May, 1855. There during the latter part of May and first part of June, he held a great council with representatives of seventeen ​tribes. Lieutenant Kip, U. S. A., has preserved a vivid account of this great gathering, one of the most important ever held in the annals of Indian history. According to Lieutenant Kip, there were but about fifty men in the escort of the daring governor, and if he had been a man sensible to fear he might well have been startled when there came an army of twenty-five hundred Nez Percés under Halhaltlossot, known as Lawyer by the whites. Two days later three hundred Cayuses, those worst of the Columbia River Indians, surly and scowling, led by Five Crows and Young Chief, made their appearance. Two days later a force of two thousand Yakimas, Umatillas, and Walla Wallas came in sight under Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox. The council was soon organised. Governor Stevens and General Palmer, the latter the Indian Agent for Oregon, set forth their plan of reservations, all their speeches being translated and retranslated until they had filtered down among the general mass of the Indians. Then there must be a great "wawa," or discussion by the Indians. It soon became apparent that there were two bitterly contesting parties. One was a large faction of Nez Percés led by Lawyer, who favoured the whites. The other faction of the Nez Percés, with all the remaining tribes, were set against any treaty. With remarkable skill and patience, Governor Stevens, with the powerful assistance of Lawyer, had brought the Indians to a point of general agreement to the creation of a system of reservations. But suddenly there was a commotion. Into the midst of the council there burst the old chief Looking Glass (Apashwahayikt), second only to Lawyer in influence among ​the Nez Percés. He had made a desperate ride of three hundred miles in seven days, following a buffalo hunt and a raid against the Blackfeet, and as he now burst into the midst, there dangled from his belt the scalps of several slaughtered Blackfeet. As quoted in Hazard Stevens's Life of Governor Stevens, he began his harangue thus: "My people, what have you done? While I was gone you 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 with you." Lieutenant Kip declares that though he could understand nothing of the speech of Looking Glass to his own tribe, which followed, the effect was tremendous. All the evidence showed that Looking Glass was a veritable Demosthenes. The work of Governor Stevens was all undone.
But later the Governor and Lawyer succeeded in rallying their forces and gaining the acquiescence of the Indians to the setting aside of three great reservations, one on the Umatilla, one on the Yakima, and the third on the Clearwater and the Snake. These reservations still exist, imperial domains in themselves, though now divided into individual allotments. The acquiescence of the Indians in this treaty, as the sequel proved, was feigned by a number of them, but for the time it seemed a great triumph for Governor Stevens. From Walla Walla the Governor departed to the Cœur d'Alene, the Pend Oreille, and the Missoula regions to continue his arduous task of negotiating treaties.
This great Walla Walla Council cannot be dismissed without brief reference to an event, not fully known at the time, but which subsequent ​investigation made clear, and stamped as one of the most dramatic in the entire history of Indian warfare. This event was the conspiracy of the Cayuses and Yakimas to kill Governor Stevens and his entire band, and then exterminate the whites throughout the country. While the acceptance of the treaty was still pending, Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox were framing the details of this wide-reaching plot, which was indeed but the culmination of their great scheme of years. Kamiahkin was the soul of the conspiracy. He was a remarkable Indian. He was of superb stature, and proportions, over six feet high, sinewy and active. 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." He was withal a typical Indian in treachery and secretiveness. Peupeumoxmox was similar in nature, but was older and less capable.
Exactly opposite to these was Halhaltlossot, or Lawyer, the Solon of the Nez Percés. Lawyer became convinced of the existence of this conspiracy and went by night to the camp of Governor Stevens and revealed it. He concluded his revelation by saying: "I will come with my family and pitch my lodge in the midst of your camp, that those Cayuses may see that you and your party are under the protection of the head chief of the Nez Percés." When it became clear to the conspiring Cayuses and ​Yakimas that Lawyer's powerful division of the Nez Percés was sustaining the little band of whites, they did not execute their design. Lawyer and his Nez Percés saved the day for the whites.
And yet the sequel is one of the most lamentable examples of the miscarriage of justice in Indian affairs that we have any record of. The friendly Nez Percés saved the whites. The unfriendly faction of the Nez Percés, led by Joseph and Looking Glass, finally yielded and accepted the treaty. But they did this with certain expectations in regard to their reservation. This was set forth to the author by William McBean, a half-breed Indian, son of the McBean who was the commandant of the Hudson's Bay post at Wallula. McBean the younger was a boy at the time of the council at Walla Walla. He was familiar with all the Indian languages spoken at the council and in appearance was so much of an Indian that he could pass unquestioned anywhere. Governor Stevens asked him to spy out the situation and learn what the Nez Percés were going to decide. The result of his investigations was to show that the whole decision hinged on the understanding by Joseph's faction that, if they acquiesced in the treaty and turned their support to the whites, they might retain perpetual possession of the Wallowa country in Northeastern Oregon as their special allotment. Becoming finally satisfied that this would be granted them, they yielded to the Lawyer faction and thus the entire Nez Percé tribe made common cause with the whites, rendering the execution of the great plot of Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox a foredoomed failure. But now for the sequel. Though it was thus clear in the minds of ​Joseph and his division of the Nez Percés that the loved Wallowa (one of the fairest regions that ever the sun shone on and a perfect land for Indians) was to be their permanent home, yet the stipulation, if indeed it were intended by Governor Stevens, never became definitely set down in the "Great Father's" records at Washington. The result was that when, twenty years later, the manifold attractions of the Wallowa country began to draw white immigration, the Indians, now under Young Joseph, son of the former chief, stood by their supposed rights and the great Nez Percé War of 1877 ensued.
And now, to resume the thread of our discourse, we may note that Governor Stevens proceeded on his laborious mission to the Flatheads in the region of the Cœur d'Alene and Pend Oreille lakes in what is now Northern Idaho. After protracted and at times excited discussion, a treaty was accepted by which an immense tract of a million and a quarter acres was set apart for a reservation. From Pend Oreille, Governor Stevens with his little force, now reduced to twenty-two, crossed the Rockies to Fort Benton.
But what was happening on the Walla Walla? No sooner was the governor fairly out of sight across the flower-bespangled plains which extended two hundred miles north-east from Walla Walla, than the wily Kamiakin began to resume his plots. So successful was he, with the valuable assistance of Peupeumoxmox, Young Chief, and Five Crows, that the treaties, just ratified, were torn to shreds, and the flame of savage warfare burst forth across the entire Columbia Valley.
Hazard Stevens, in his invaluable history of his ​father, gives a vivid picture of how the news reached them in their camp thirty-five miles up the Missouri from Fort Benton. Summer had now passed into autumn. A favourable treaty had been made with the Blackfeet. On October 29th, the little party were gathered around their campfire in the frosty air of fall in that high latitude, when they discerned a solitary rider making his way slowly toward them. As he drew near they soon saw that it was Pearson, the express rider. Pearson was one of the best examples of those scouts whose lives were spent in conveying messages from forts to parties in the field. He usually travelled alone, and his life was always in his hand. He seemed to be made of steel springs, and it had been thought that he could endure anything. "He could ride anything that wore hair." He rode seventeen hundred and fifty miles in twenty-eight days at one time, one stage of two hundred and sixty miles having been made in three days. But as he slowly drew up to the party in the cold evening light, it was seen that even Pearson was "done." His horse staggered and fell, and he himself could not stand or speak for some time. After he had been revived he told his story, and a story of disaster and foreboding it was, sure enough.
All the great tribes of the Columbia plains west of the Nez Percés had broken out, the Cayuses, Yakimas, Palouses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and Klickitats. They had swept the country clean of whites. The ride of Pearson from The Dalles to the point where he reached Governor Stevens is one of the most thrilling in the annals of the River. By riding all day and night, he reached a horse ranch on the Umatilla belonging ​to a noted half-breed Indian, William McKay, but he found the place deserted. Seeing a splendid horse in the bunch near by, he lassoed and saddled him. Though the horse was as wild as air, Pearson managed to mount and start on. Just then there swept into view a force of Indians who, instantly divining what Pearson was trying to do, gave chase. Up and down hill, through vale, and across the rim-rock, they followed, sending frequent bullets after him, and yelling like demons, "Whupsiah si-ah-poo, Whup-si-ah!" ("Kill the white man!") But the wild horse which the intrepid rider bestrode proved his salvation, for he gradually outran all his pursuers. Travelling through the Walla Walla at night Pearson reached the camp of friendly Nez Percé Red Wolf on the Alpowa the next day, having ridden two hundred miles from The Dalles without stopping except the brief time changing horses. Snow and hunger now impeded his course. Part of the way he had to go on snowshoes without a horse. But with unflinching resolution he passed on, and so now here he was with his dismal tidings.
The despatches warned Governor Stevens that Kamiakin with a thousand warriors was in the Walla Walla Valley and that it would be impossible for him to get through by that route, and that he must therefore return to the East by the Missouri and come back to his Territory by the steamer route of Panama. That meant six months' delay. With characteristic boldness, Governor Stevens at once rejected the more cautious course and went right back to Spokane by the Cœur d'Alene Pass, deep already with the winter snows, suffering intensely with cold and ​hunger, but avoiding by that route the Indians sent out to intercept him. With extraordinary address, he succeeded in turning the Spokane Indians to his side. The Nez Percés, thanks to Lawyer's fidelity, were still friendly, and with these two powerful tribes arrayed against the Yakimas, there was still hope of holding the Columbia Valley.
After many adventures, Governor Stevens reached Olympia in safety. Governor Curry of Oregon had already called a force of volunteers into the field. The Oregon volunteers were divided into two divisions, one under Colonel J. W. Nesmith, which went into the Yakima country, and the other under Lieutenant-Colonel J. K. Kelley, which went to Walla Walla. The latter force fought the decisive battle of the campaign on the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of December, 1855. It was a series of engagements occurring in the heart of the Walla Walla Valley, a "running fight" culminating at what is now called Frenchtown, ten miles west of the present city of Walla Walla. The most important feature of it all was the death of the great Walla Walla chieftain, Peupeumoxmox. But though defeated and losing so important a chief, the Indians scattered across the rivers and were still unsubdued.
In March, 1856, the sublime section of the Columbia lying between The Dalles and the Cascades became the scene of a series of atrocities the most distressing in the entire war. The Klickitats swooped down upon the defenceless settlers and massacred them with revolting cruelty. They vanished like a whirlwind, but men whom the writer has known have related to him how the volunteers, returning to the ​scenes of desolation, found all houses destroyed and the carcasses of cattle thrown into the springs and wells. They found the naked bodies of the girls and women with stakes driven through, and those of men horribly mutilated. In savage humour, the Indians had killed the hogs and left parts of human bodies in their mouths. One interesting fact connected with the campaign at the Cascades is that General Phil Sheridan fought his first battle there. The old Block House on the north side of the River, nearly opposite the present Cascade Locks, existed until a few years ago, and there was Sheridan's first battle.
Meanwhile Governor Stevens had organised a force of Washington volunteers. As the year 1856 progressed, it seemed more plain that the discord which developed between the regulars under command of General John E. Wool and the volunteers would result in fatal weakness. Nevertheless Governor Stevens and Governor Curry kept pressing the movements of their backwoods soldiers with unflagging energy. They were at last rewarded with a measure of success. For Colonel B. F. Shaw, commanding the Washington volunteers, learning that the hostiles were camped in force in the Grande Ronde Valley, made a rapid march from Walla Walla across the western spur of the Blue Mountains and struck the collected force of Indians a deadly blow, scattering them in all directions and ending the war in that quarter.
And now came on the second great Walla Walla council. The tribes were gathered as before, and were aligned as before. The division of Nez Percés under Lawyer stood firmly by Stevens and the treaty. The others did not. The most unfortunate feature of the entire matter was that Colonel Steptoe, acting under General Wool's instructions, thus far kept secret, refused to grant Stevens adequate support and subjected him to humiliations which galled the fiery Governor to the limit. In fact, had it not been for the vigilance of the faithful Nez Percés of Lawyer's band, Stevens and his force would surely have met the doom prepared for them at the first council. The debt of gratitude due Lawyer is incalculable. Spotted Eagle ought to be recorded, too, as of similar devotion and watchfulness. Governor Stevens afterward declared that a speech by him in favour of the whites was equal in feeling, truth, and courage to any speech that he ever heard from any orator whatever.
But in spite of oratory, zeal, and argument, nothing could overcome the influence of Kamiakin, Owhi, Quelchen, Five Crows, and others of the Yakimas and Cayuses. Nothing was gained. They stood just where they were a year before. The fatal results of divided counsels between regulars and volunteers were apparent.
The baffled Governor now started on his way down the River, but not without another battle. For, as ​he was marching a short distance south of what is now Walla Walla city, the Indians burst upon his small force with the evident intention of ending all scores then and there. But Colonel Steptoe came to the rescue, and with united forces the Indians were repulsed.
That was the last battle on the Walla Walla. Colonel Steptoe established a rude stockade fort on Mill Creek in what is now the heart of the present Walla Walla city, and went into winter quarters there in 1856–57. Governor Stevens returned to Olympia and launched forth a bitter arraignment against Wool. The latter, however, was in a position of vantage and issued a proclamation commanding all whites in the upper country to go down the River and leave the Cascade Mountains as the eastern limit of the white settlement. Thus ended for a time this unsatisfactory and distressing war. To all appearances Kamiakin and his adherents had accomplished all they wanted.
Three campaigns marked this third war. The first was conducted by Colonel Steptoe against the Spokanes and Cœur d'Alenes, and ended in his humiliating and disastrous defeat. The second was directed by Major Garnett against the Yakimas, resulting in their permanent overthrow. The third was conducted by Colonel Wright against the Spokanes and other northern tribes who had defeated Steptoe. This was the Waterloo of the Indians, and it ushered in the occupation and settlement of the upper Columbia country.
The Steptoe expedition was the most ill-starred event in the whole history of the North-west, unless we except that of the destruction of the Tonquin. Colonel Wright was then in command of the new Fort Walla Walla, located in 1857 on the present ground. Perceiving his former error in giving the turbulent and treacherous natives undisputed sway, he ordered Colonel Steptoe to go with two hundred dragoons to the Spokane region and subject the restless tribes centring there. Steptoe's force was well equipped in every way except one. The pack train was heavily laden, and an inebriated quartermaster conceived the brilliant idea of lessening the burden by leaving out the larger part of the ammunition. Even aside from this fatal blunder, Colonel Steptoe seems ​to have had no adequate conception of the vigour and resources of the Indians.
As before, the Nez Percés were the faithful friends of the whites. Timothy, a Nez Percé chief living on Snake River at the mouth of the Alpowa, put them across the wicked stream, then running high with the May freshet, and went on with them as guide.
On May 16, 1858, the force reached a point near four lakes, probably the group of which Silver Lake and Medical Lake are the chief ones, a few miles west of Spokane. Here was gathered a formidable array, Spokanes, Pend Oreilles, Cœur d'Alenes, Okanogans, and Colvilles, the hosts of the upper country. Steptoe was soldier enough to perceive that it was time for caution, and he halted for a parley. Saltese, a brawny chief of the Cœur d'Alenes, declared to him that the Indians were ready to dispute his farther progress, but that if the white men would retire the Indians would not molest them. A friendly Nez Percé, seeing the duplicity of Saltese, struck his mouth, exclaiming, "You speak with a double tongue."
The force turned back and that night all seemed well. But at nine o'clock the next morning, while the soldiers were descending a cañon to Pine Creek, near the present site of Rosalia, a large force of Indians burst upon them like a cyclone. As the battle began to wax hot, the terrible consequences of the error of lack of ammunition began to become manifest. Man after man had to cease firing. Captain O. H. P. Taylor and Lieutenant Gaston commanded the rear-guard. With extraordinary skill and devotion they held the line intact and foiled the efforts ​of the savages to burst through. Meanwhile the whole force was moving as rapidly as consistent with formation on their way southward. Taylor and Gaston sent a messenger forward, begging Steptoe to halt the line and give them a chance to load. But the commander felt that the safety of the whole force depended on pressing on. Soon a fierce rush of Indians followed, and, when the surge had passed, the gallant rear-guard was buried under it. One notable figure in the death-grapple was De May, a Frenchman, trained in the Crimea and Algeria, and an expert fencer. For some time he used his gun barrel as a sword and swept the Indians down by dozens with his terrific sweeps. But at last he fell before numbers, and one of his surviving comrades relates that he heard him shouting his last words, "O, my God, my God, for a sabre!"
But the lost rear-guard saved the rest. For they managed to hold back the swarm of foes until nightfall, when they reached a somewhat defensible position a few miles from the towering cone of what is now known as Steptoe Butte. There they spent part of a dark, rainy, and dismal night, anticipating a savage attack. But the Indians, sure of their prey, waited till morning. Surely the first light would have revealed a massacre equal to the Custer massacre of later date, had not the unexpected happened. And the unexpected was that old Timothy, the Nez Percé guide, knew a trail through a rough cañon, the only possible exit without discovery. In the darkness of midnight the shattered command mounted and followed at a gallop the faithful Timothy on whose keen eyes and mind their salvation rested. The ​wounded and a few footmen were dropped at intervals along the trail. After an eighty-mile gallop during the day and night following, the yellow flood of Snake River suddenly broke before them between its desolate banks. Saved! The unwearied Timothy threw out his own warriors as a screen against the pursuing foe, and set his women to ferrying the soldiers across the turbulent stream.
Thus the larger part of the command reached Fort Walla Walla alive.
With the defeat of Steptoe, the Indians may well have felt that they were invincible. But their exultation was short-lived. As already noted, Garnett crushed the Yakimas at one blow, and Wright a little later repeated Steptoe's march to Spokane, but did not repeat his retreat. For in the battle of Four Lakes on September 1st, and that of Spokane Plains on September 5th, Wright broke for ever the power and spirits of the northern Indians.
The treaties were thus established at last by war. The reservations, embracing the finest parts of the Umatilla, Yakima, Clearwater, and Cœur d'Alene regions, were set apart, and to them after considerable delay and difficulty the tribes were gathered.
With the end of this third great Indian war and the public announcement by General Clarke that the country might now be considered open to settlement, immigration began to pour in, and on ranch and river, in mine and forest, the well-known labours of the American state-builders and home-builders became displayed. The ever-new West was repeating itself.
The Valley of the Columbia now rested from serious strife for a number of years. But in 1877, an echo of the war of 1855 suddenly startled the country, and provided an event to which lovers of the tragic and romantic in history have ever since turned with deep interest. This was the "Joseph War" in the Wallowa. Our readers will recall that the so-called Joseph band of Nez Percés opposed the Walla Walla Treaty at first, but finally acquiesced, with what they understood was the stipulation that ​they should possess the Wallowa country as their permanent home. The Joseph of that time was succeeded by his son, whose Indian name was Hallakallakeen, "Eagle Wing." He was the finest specimen of the native red man ever produced in the Columbia Valley. Of magnificent stature and proportions, with a rare dignity and nobility, which wider opportunities would have made remarkable, and with a career of mingled light and shade, pathos and tragedy, Hallakallakeen will go down into history with a record of passionate devotion from his followers and unstinted encomiums from most of his opponents.
Joseph loved the Wallowa with a passionate affection, and made at first every effort to maintain amity with his white neighbours. But when the Government violated what he had regarded its sacred pledge and permitted entrance upon the lands which he claimed, he refused to abide by the decision and led out his warriors to battle. The Nez Percés, though few in number, could fight face to face with white men, and could use white men's weapons and white men's tactics. At a desperate battle at White Bird Cañon they routed the detachment in command of Colonel Perry. The result was to put arms, ammunition, and provisions in abundance into the hands of the Indians and hope into their hearts.
Howard's tireless pursuit in the rear and the active and intelligent co-operation of Gibbon and Miles, who ascended the Missouri to meet the fleeing Nez Percés, resulted at last in their capture at Bear Paw Mountain on the Milk River in Montana.
General Howard says that the campaign from the beginning of the Indian pursuit across the Lolo trail until the embarkation on the Missouri for the homeward journey, including all stoppages and halts, extended from July 27th to October 10th, during which time his command marched one thousand three hundred and twenty-one miles. He says that Joseph, encumbered with women, children, and possessions, traversed even greater distances, "for he had to make many a loop in his skein, many a deviation into a tangled thicket, to avoid or deceive his enemy." Howard pays the highest tribute to his Indian foe and ​declares that some of his operations are not often equalled in warfare.
Joseph's subsequent career was a melancholy one. Transported with his band to Oklahoma, the wild eagle of the Wallowa so pined away on the flat prairie and begged so piteously to be allowed to return to the waters of the Columbia, that his request was granted. But so intense was the feeling among the people who had suffered from their dangerous enemy that this poor fragment of the Nez Percés was placed on the Colville Reservation in Northern Washington. There the restless heart of the Nez Percé Bonaparte was eaten out by bitter yearnings for his loved Wallowa.
He had an occasional proud and interesting hour. At the time of General Grant's obsequies at New York, Joseph was in Washington to see the “Great Father” about his reservation. General Miles, who greatly admired the hero of the Lolo trail, asked him to ride with himself at the head of the funeral procession. Mounted on a magnificent charger, Joseph rode solemnly through the streets of the metropolis by the side of the conqueror of Bear Paw Mountain, and there were not wanting those who said that the Indian was the finer horseman and the finer-looking man.
But Joseph died at his camp on the Nespilem without ever seeing Wallowa. His last request was that he be buried there. He remained an Indian to the last, not ordinarily living in a house or wearing civilised costume or even speaking English, though perfectly able to do so. His life might have been happier had he never been known to fame.
With the close of the Bannock War it may be said that Indian warfare practically ended. The warwhoop ceased to be heard and the tomahawk was brandished no more along the Columbia.