The Shasta courier., 1864-09-24
Letter from MiIlviIle.
E. GARTER,
District Judge.


MItLtILLE, Sept IA, 1864.
EDITOR COURIER / noticed in the Copper
City Pioneer of the 10th inst, an editorial
rejecting severely on the inhabitants eff Cow
Greek and vicinity. The following is copy:
Mr.. Worley, who has just returned from
our Volunteer Company. reports that n mar.
ty of semi-ciyilized men, numbering some
sixty odd, organized on Cow Creek since the
murder of the Allen family by the rowing
band of Antelope Indians, and are killing the
domesticated Diggers indiscriminately. If
we are rightly informed, instead of Joining
our boys to follow up the savages who muir
dered Mrs. Jones and the Allen family, the
cowardly hounds have confined their attacks
to tame and friendly Indians, killing squaws
and even staying the messenger sent out by
our Copper City Company. The proceedings
of the Cow Creekers is liable to embroil an
unprepared population into n war with the
unoffending Pitt Rivers and it would be a
good thing for the safety of this section if
Captain Mellen would drop down from Fort
Crook and hang few of them. 1t wouldn't
pay to waste Government ammunition on
such materiaial as the old squaw slayers are
composed of.
Now it is well known that ever since the
first settlement of this section, the Indians
have frequently committed depredations.
burnt and destroyed buildings and other
property, and attempted the lives of the set
tiers. tits also we'll known in this section
that these same q domesticated Indians
whom the editor of the Pioneer has so much
feeling and sympathy for, have always been
in communication with the mountain Indians,
and have known beforehand when any act
was to be perpetrated, and often assisted in
the same. Even this last massacre is ac-
knowledged to have been known by these
same q domesticated Indians"
The fact is, whenever a crime has been
committed by the mountain Indians. every
move made by the whites to punish the per-
petrators has been Immediately communica-
ted TO them by runners from the Valley,
making it next to an impossibility to catch
and punish the offenders. Companies from
this vicinity have several times gone out in
pursuit, but have returned unsuccessful, and
why? Because they were notified of the
of the whites, and eluded them
Up to the present time it has been the endea7-
or of the whites to punish the actually guilty
ones, but they have now come to the conclu-
sion that the only way to secure to themselves
and families peace and safety is to extermin-
ate the whole-punish the accessory as well
as the actually guilty ones, and they will do
it too. regardless of the epithets applied to
them by that scurrilous sheet called the Pic.
neer. Suppose its publisher had family,
land any man low enough to write and pub
lish such an article oughtnever to have one,)
and on his return home, find his wife, the
partner of his bosom, whom he had solemnly
promised to protect, lying upon the floor,
foully murdered, and his four children in
sensible, lying in her blood Would he then
call his neighbors and friends who had turn.
ed out to punish the fends who had done the
deed or those accessory, semi-civilized,
cowardly hounds" and wish a few of them
hung? Then again, he is afraid it will en-
broil an unprepared population into a war
with the unobsnding Pitt Rivers. Unofendiag
Pitt Rirers! | wonder how long be has lived
in this section. or even in California, and
not heard that the Pitt River Indians were
the worst of any tribe in this section of the
have murdered more men, and done
more mischief generally, than any other
tribe i nat lact every man VINO mas resiueo
many wears in this upper country can testify
to. SO much for the Indians.
1 will now say for the information of the
editor of the Pioneer, that, in the opinion of
every man of the Cow Greek Company. the
article referred to shows plainly that he is
leyoid of all sense or reason, and that it
would take more than one good act of his to
raise him in their estimation to par with
he ''old squaws' be has so much sympathy
or. Yours,
COW CREEK.