The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1860-03-05
THE DAY BOOK.
Horrible Massacre of Indians
The Rangers.

uC Ndh6CES.
The Mary sville California; Democrat of
the 4th ult., has an account of the butchery
of camp of friendly Indians near there, by
a company of "pitt River Rangers" TWEEN ty
in number. The Indians were engaged at
the time in cutting hay on contract with
the United States. 1t says:
The attacking parry rushed upon them,
blowing out their brains, and splitting open
their skulls with tomahawks. Little child
rem in baskts, and even babes, had their
heads smashed to pieces OF cut open. Moth
ers and infants shared the common fate. The
screams and cries of the victims were fright
full to hear, but no duplication could avail
to avert the work of devlish butchery. 1t
will scacerly be credited that this horrible
scene occurred in Christian California, with
in few days travel of the State capital.
Humanity sickens at the thought. Many of
the fugitives were chased and shot as they
ran. Where whole families had been butch
cred was indicated by heaps of bodies COM
posed of the neither and her little ones.-
The children, scarcely able to run, toddled
towards the squaws for protection, crying
with fright, but were overtaken, slaughtered
like wild animals, and thrown into piles
From under the haycocks, where some of
them had taken refuge, they were dragged
out and slain. One woman got into pond
hole, where she hid herself under the grass,
with her head above water, and concealed
her pappoose ON the bank in basket. She
was discovered and her head blown to
pieces, the muzzle of the gun being placed
against her skull, and the child was covered
with blood, land brushwood ranches,ot which
there were fifty or sixty, We're filled with
the dead bodies. Old, decrepid squaws,
young girls and infants, none were spared.
Guns, knives, and hatchets were used, but
the favorite method appears to have been
staving in the head with tOmahawks. The
blush Of dawn shone upon this fearful spec
tacle, and still the massacre went on
Some of these wretched creatures had
lived with the very men who now struck
them down. Thus they had become, in a
measure, intimate with them, and had other
claims than the common humanitN which
ought to actuate every breast. But even
this relationship did not suffice to save them.
One OF the butchers, named Lee, had been
attended to while sick almost to death by
the Indian women, who had shown him all
the simple kindness inculated by their rade
ideas OF cha rity and hospitality.
The wretched beings looked around in
their terror some of them recognizing the
man whose life they had saved, cried out,
Lee! Leep raising their hands towards him
with gestures OF supplication, but in vaiu.-
Lee was among the most infuriate of the par
ty, and afterwards boosted of the number of
skulls he had split open, and exhibited his
tomahawk, hacked and broken in the dread
tul work. This is no sensation story, but
a sober record OF facts, as detailed by our
intormant-lacts so fearful in their nature
that one shudders in the act of recording
them. Yet this inqiuitous deed goes unpun-
ished. Unpublished did we say7 A bill of
nearly seventy thousand dollars is now be.
fore the Legislature awaiting payment to be
distributed, in part, among the crmsoned
murderers? Many of the women were found
butchered with their children in their arms,
the mothers head blown or cut to pieces,
and that of the child split in twain by tom
ahawks. La their blind and insatiate fury
they killed one of their own party, (McEl-
roy,) while firing into bevy of squaws who
had huddled together for protection.
When the slaughter was over the shambles
were examined, and more than sixty sauaws
and children, and ten Indian men were
found dead on the field. The murderers
then returned to Rolls house, and remained
there week, within few hundred yards
of the CLEARINGHOUSE, upon which the corp
SEES were allowed to tester and rot in the blaze
of the day.
AIter Cne laSI squaW anu cntd nau Deen
killed, the brushwood ranches or huts were
set on fire and the bodies burnt. The smell
of burning flesh, the cracking of the flames,
and the black smoke soaring up,was the clo-
sing scene of this tragedy, which cannot re-
call any parallel in our country's annals
The Indians crept down at night and carried
away few of the remnants Of the bodies,
and continued to do so until they became so
offensive and decomposed that they could
not be removed.
The rest were left prey to the buzzards,
and the bones lie bleaching there yet unbu.
ried, and most of this band were with the
group which passed through this city few
weeks since, en- route for their final home
in the North, whittier they were taken, as
our readers will remember.