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Title: Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, Volume 1, Part 1

Author: Philip Henry Sheridan

Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5854]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF P. H. SHERIDAN, VOLUME 1, PART 1 ***




Produced by David Widger





PERSONAL MEMOIRES OF P. H. SHERIDAN, VOL. I., PART 1.

By Philip Henry Sheridan



PREFACE

When, yielding to the solicitations of my friends, I finally decided
to write these Memoirs, the greatest difficulty which confronted me
was that of recounting my share in the many notable events of the
last three decades, in which I played a part, without entering too
fully into the history of these years, and at the same time without
giving to my own acts an unmerited prominence.  To what extent I have
overcome this difficulty I must leave the reader to judge.

In offering this record, penned by my own hand, of the events of my
life, and of my participation in our great struggle for national
existence, human liberty, and political equality, I make no
pretension to literary merit; the importance of the subject-matter of
my narrative is my only claim on the reader's attention.

Respectfully dedicating this work to my comrades in arms during the
War of the Rebellion, I leave it as a heritage to my children, and as
a source of information for the future historian.

P. H. SHERIDAN.

Nonguitt, Mass., August 2, 1888




PERSONAL MEMOIRS

P. H. SHERIDAN.




VOLUME I.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

ANCESTRY--BIRTH--EARLY EDUCATION--A CLERK IN A GROCERY
STORE--APPOINTMENT--MONROE SHOES--JOURNEY TO WEST POINT--HAZING
--A FISTICUFF BATTLE--SUSPENDED--RETURNS TO CLERKSHIP--GRADUATION.

My parents, John and Mary Sheridan, came to America in 1830, having
been induced by the representations of my father's uncle, Thomas
Gainor, then living in Albany, N. Y., to try their fortunes in the
New World: They were born and reared in the County Cavan, Ireland,
where from early manhood my father had tilled a leasehold on the
estate of Cherrymoult; and the sale of this leasehold provided him
with means to seek a new home across the sea.  My parents were
blood relations--cousins in the second degree--my mother, whose
maiden name was Minor, having descended from a collateral branch of
my father's family.  Before leaving Ireland they had two children,
and on the 6th of March, 1831, the year after their arrival in this
country, I was born, in Albany, N. Y., the third child in a family
which eventually increased to six--four boys and two girls.

The prospects for gaining a livelihood in Albany did not meet the
expectations which my parents had been led to entertain, so in 1832
they removed to the West, to establish themselves in the village of
Somerset, in Perry County, Ohio, which section, in the earliest days
of the State; had been colonized from Pennsylvania and Maryland.  At
this period the great public works of the Northwest--the canals and
macadamized roads, a result of clamor for internal improvements--were
in course of construction, and my father turned his attention to
them, believing that they offered opportunities for a successful
occupation.  Encouraged by a civil engineer named Bassett, who had
taken a fancy to him, he put in bids for a small contract on the
Cumberland Road, known as the "National Road," which was then being
extended west from the Ohio River.  A little success in this first
enterprise led him to take up contracting as a business, which he
followed on various canals and macadamized roads then building in
different parts of the State of Ohio, with some good fortune for
awhile, but in 1853 what little means he had saved were swallowed up
--in bankruptcy, caused by the failure of the Sciota and Hocking
Valley Railroad Company, for which he was fulfilling a contract at
the time, and this disaster left him finally only a small farm, just
outside the village of Somerset, where he dwelt until his death in
1875.

My father's occupation kept him away from home much of the time
during my boyhood, and as a consequence I grew up under the sole
guidance and training of my mother, whose excellent common sense and
clear discernment in every way fitted her for such maternal duties.
When old enough I was sent to the village school, which was taught by
an old-time Irish "master"--one of those itinerant dominies of the
early frontier--who, holding that to spare the rod was to spoil the
child, if unable to detect the real culprit when any offense had been
committed, would consistently apply the switch to the whole school
without discrimination.  It must be conceded that by this means he
never failed to catch the guilty mischief-maker.  The school-year was
divided into terms of three months, the teacher being paid in each
term a certain sum--three dollars, I think, for each pupil-and having
an additional perquisite in the privilege of boarding around at his
option in the different families to which his scholars belonged.
This feature was more than acceptable to the parents at times, for
how else could they so thoroughly learn all the neighborhood gossip?
But the pupils were in almost unanimous opposition, because Mr.
McNanly's unheralded advent at any one's house resulted frequently in
the discovery that some favorite child had been playing "hookey,"
which means (I will say to the uninitiated, if any such there be)
absenting one's self from school without permission, to go on a
fishing or a swimming frolic.  Such at least was my experience more
than once, for Mr. McNanly particularly favored my mother's house,
because of a former acquaintanceship in Ireland, and many a time a
comparison of notes proved that I had been in the woods with two
playfellows, named Binckly and Greiner, when the master thought I was
home, ill, and my mother, that I was at school, deeply immersed in
study.  However, with these and other delinquencies not uncommon
among boys, I learned at McNanly's school, and a little later, under
a pedagogue named Thorn, a smattering of geography and history, and
explored the mysteries of Pike's Arithmetic and Bullions' English
Grammar, about as far as I could be carried up to the age of
fourteen.  This was all the education then bestowed upon me, and
this--with the exception of progressing in some of these branches by
voluntary study, and by practical application in others, supplemented
by a few months of preparation after receiving my appointment as a
cadet--was the extent of my learning on entering the Military
Academy.

When about fourteen years old I began to do something for myself; Mr.
John Talbot, who kept a country store in the village, employing me to
deal out sugar, coffee, and calico to his customers at the munificent
salary of twenty-four dollars a year.  After I had gained a
twelve-months' experience with Mr. Talbot my services began to be
sought by, others, and a Mr. David Whitehead secured them by the offer
of sixty dollars a year--Talbot refusing to increase my pay, but not
objecting to my advancement.  A few months later, before my year was
up, another chance to increase my salary came about; Mr. Henry Dittoe,
the enterprising man of the village, offering me one hundred and
twenty dollars a year to take a position in the dry-goods store of
Fink & Dittoe.  I laid the matter before Mr. Whitehead, and he frankly
advised me to accept, though he cautioned me that I might regret it,
adding that he was afraid Henry (referring to Mr. Dittoe) "had too
many irons in the fire." His warning in regard to the enterprising
merchant proved a prophecy, for "too many irons in the fire" brought
about Mr. Dittoe's bankruptcy, although this misfortune did not befall
him till long after I had left his service.  I am glad to say,
however, that his failure was an exceptionally honest one, and due
more to the fact that he was in advance of his surroundings than to
any other cause.

I remained with Fink & Dittoe until I entered the Military Academy,
principally in charge of the book-keeping, which was no small work
for one of my years, considering that in those days the entire
business of country stores in the West was conducted on the credit
system; the customers, being mostly farmers, never expecting to pay
till the product of their farms could be brought to market; and even
then usually squared the book-accounts by notes of hand, that were
often slow of collection.

From the time I ceased to attend school my employment had
necessitated, to a certain degree, the application of what I had
learned there, and this practical instruction I reinforced somewhat
by doing considerable reading in a general way, until ultimately I
became quite a local authority in history, being frequently chosen as
arbiter in discussions and disputes that arose in the store.  The
Mexican War, then going on, furnished, of course, a never-ending
theme for controversy, and although I was too young to enter the
military service when volunteers were mustering in our section, yet
the stirring events of the times so much impressed and absorbed me
that my sole wish was to become a soldier, and my highest aspiration
to go to West Point as a Cadet from my Congressional district.  My
chances for this seemed very remote, however, till one day an
opportunity was thrown in my way by the boy who then held the place
failing to pass his examination.  When I learned that by this
occurrence a vacancy existed, I wrote to our representative in
Congress, the Hon. Thomas Ritchey, and asked him for the appointment,
reminding him that we had often met in Fink & Dittoe's store, and
that therefore he must know something of my qualifications.  He
responded promptly by enclosing my warrant for the class of 1848; so,
notwithstanding the many romances that have been published about the
matter, to Mr. Ritchey, and to him alone, is due all the credit--if
my career justifies that term--of putting me in the United States
Army.

At once I set about preparing for the examination which precedes
admission to the Military Academy, studying zealously under the
direction of Mr. William Clark; my old teachers, McNanly and Thorn,
having disappeared from Somerset and sought new fields of usefulness.
The intervening months passed rapidly away, and I fear that I did not
make much progress, yet I thought I should be able to pass the
preliminary examination.  That which was to follow worried me more
and gave me many sleepless nights; but these would have been less in
number, I fully believe, had it not been for one specification of my,
outfit which the circular that accompanied my appointment demanded.
This requirement was a pair of "Monroe shoes."  Now, out in Ohio,
what "Monroe shoes" were was a mystery--not a shoemaker in my section
having so much as an inkling of the construction of the perplexing
things, until finally my eldest brother brought an idea of them from
Baltimore, when it was found that they were a familiar pattern under
another name.

At length the time for my departure came, and I set out for West
Point, going by way of Cleveland and across Lake Erie to Buffalo.  On
the steamer I fell in with another appointee en route to the academy,
David S. Stanley, also from Ohio; and when our acquaintanceship had
ripened somewhat, and we had begun to repose confidence in each
other, I found out that he had no "Monroe shoes," so I deemed myself
just that much ahead of my companion, although my shoes might not
conform exactly to the regulations in Eastern style and finish.  At
Buffalo, Stanley and I separated, he going by the Erie Canal and I by
the railroad, since I wanted to gain time on account of commands to
stop in Albany to see my father's uncle.  Here I spent a few days,
till Stanley reached Albany, when we journeyed together down the
river to West Point.  The examination began a few days after our
arrival, and I soon found myself admitted to the Corps of Cadets, to
date from July 1, 1848, in a class composed of sixty-three members,
many of whom--for example, Stanley, Slocum, Woods, Kautz, and Crook
--became prominent generals in later years, and commanded divisions,
corps, and armies in the war of the rebellion.

Quickly following my admission I was broken in by a course of hazing,
with many of the approved methods that the Cadets had handed down
from year to year since the Academy was founded; still, I escaped
excessive persecution, although there were in my day many occurrences
so extreme as to call forth condemnation and an endeavor to suppress
the senseless custom, which an improved civilization has now about
eradicated, not only at West Point, but at other colleges.

Although I had met the Academic board and come off with fair success,
yet I knew so little of Algebra or any of the higher branches of
mathematics that during my first six months at the Academy I was
discouraged by many misgivings as to the future, for I speedily
learned that at the January examination the class would have to stand
a test much severer than that which had been applied to it on
entering.  I resolved to try hard, however, and, besides, good
fortune gave me for a room-mate a Cadet whose education was more
advanced than mine, and whose studious habits and willingness to aid
others benefited me immensely.  This room-mate was Henry W. Slocum,
since so signally distinguished in both military and civil capacities
as to win for his name a proud place in the annals of his country.
After taps--that is, when by the regulations of the Academy all the
lights were supposed to be extinguished, and everybody in bed--Slocum
and I would hang a blanket over the one window of our room and
continue our studies--he guiding me around scores of stumbling-blocks
in Algebra and elucidating many knotty points in other branches of
the course with which I was unfamiliar.  On account of this
association I went up before the Board in January with less
uneasiness than otherwise would have been the case, and passed the
examination fairly well.  When it was over, a self-confidence in my
capacity was established that had not existed hitherto, and at each
succeeding examination I gained a little in order of merit till my
furlough summer came round--that is, when I was half through the
four-year course.

My furlough in July and August, 1850, was spent at my home in Ohio,
with the exception of a visit or two to other Cadets on furlough in
the State, and at the close of my leave I returned to the Academy in
the full expectation of graduating with my class in 1852.

A quarrel of a belligerent character in September, 1851, with Cadet
William R. Terrill, put an end to this anticipation, however, and
threw me back into the class which graduated in 1853.  Terrill was a
Cadet Sergeant, and, while my company was forming for parade, having,
given me an order, in what I considered an improper tone, to "dress"
in a certain direction, when I believed I was accurately dressed, I
fancied I had a grievance, and made toward him with a lowered
bayonet, but my better judgment recalled me before actual contact
could take place.  Of course Terrill reported me for this, and my ire
was so inflamed by his action that when we next met I attacked him,
and a fisticuff engagement in front of barracks followed, which was
stopped by an officer appearing on the scene.  Each of us handed in
an explanation, but mine was unsatisfactory to the authorities, for I
had to admit that I was the assaulting party, and the result was that
I was suspended by the Secretary of War, Mr. Conrad, till August 28,
1852--the Superintendent of the Academy, Captain Brewerton, being
induced to recommend this milder course, he said, by my previous good
conduct.  At the time I thought, of course, my suspension a very
unfair punishment, that my conduct was justifiable and the
authorities of the Academy all wrong, but riper experience has led me
to a different conclusion, and as I look back, though the
mortification I then endured was deep and trying, I am convinced that
it was hardly as much as I deserved for such an outrageous breach of
discipline.

There was no question as to Terrill's irritating tone, but in giving
me the order he was prompted by the duty of his position as a file
closer, and I was not the one to remedy the wrong which I conceived
had been done me, and clearly not justifiable in assuming to correct
him with my own hands.  In 1862, when General Buell's army was
assembling at Louisville, Terrill was with it as a brigadier-general
(for, although a Virginian, he had remained loyal), and I then took
the initiative toward a renewal of our acquaintance.  Our renewed
friendship was not destined to be of long duration, I am sorry to
say, for a few days later, in the battle of Perryville, while
gallantly fighting for his country, poor Terrill was killed.

My suspension necessitated my leaving the Academy, and I returned
home in the fall of 1851, much crestfallen.  Fortunately, my good
friend Henry Dittoe again gave me employment in keeping the books of
his establishment, and this occupation of my time made the nine
months which were to elapse before I could go back to West Point pass
much more agreeably than they would have done had I been idle.  In
August, 1852, I joined the first class at the Academy in accordance
with the order of the War Department, taking my place at the foot of
the class and graduating with it the succeeding June, number
thirty-four in a membership of fifty-two.  At the head of this class
graduated James B. McPherson, who was killed in the Atlanta campaign
while commanding the Army of the Tennessee.  It also contained such
men as John M. Schofield, who commanded the Army of the Ohio; Joshua
W. Sill, killed as a brigadier in the battle of Stone River; and many
others who, in the war of the rebellion, on one side or the other,
rose to prominence, General John B. Hood being the most distinguished
member of the class among the Confederates.

At the close of the final examination I made no formal application
for assignment to any particular arm of the service, for I knew that
my standing would not entitle me to one of the existing vacancies,
and that I should be obliged to take a place among the brevet second
lieutenants.  When the appointments were made I therefore found
myself attached to the First Infantry, well pleased that I had
surmounted all the difficulties that confront the student at our
national school, and looking forward with pleasant anticipation to
the life before me.




CHAPTER II.

ORDERED TO FORT DUNCAN, TEXAS--"NORTHERS"--SCOUTING
DUTY--HUNTING--NEARLY CAUGHT BY THE INDIANS--A PRIMITIVE HABITATION
--A BRAVE DRUMMERBOY'S DEATH--A MEXICAN BALL.

On the 1st day of July, 1853, I was commissioned a brevet second
lieutenant in the First Regiment of United States Infantry, then
stationed in Texas.  The company to which I was attached was
quartered at Fort Duncan, a military post on the Rio Grande opposite
the little town of Piedras Negras, on the boundary line between the
United States and the Republic of Mexico.

After the usual leave of three months following graduation from the
Military Academy I was assigned to temporary duty at Newport
Barracks, a recruiting station and rendezvous for the assignment of
young officers preparatory to joining their regiments.  Here I
remained from September, 1853, to March, 1854, when I was ordered to
join my company at Fort Duncan.  To comply with this order I
proceeded by steamboat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New
Orleans, thence by steamer across the Gulf of Mexico to Indianola,
Tex., and after landing at that place, continued in a small schooner
through what is called the inside channel on the Gulf coast to Corpus
Christi, the headquarters of Brigadier-General Persifer F. Smith, who
was commanding the Department of Texas.  Here I met some of my old
friends from the Military Academy, among them Lieutenant Alfred
Gibbs, who in the last year of the rebellion commanded under me a
brigade of cavalry, and Lieutenant Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, of the
Mounted Rifles, who resigned in 1854 to accept service in the French
Imperial army, but to most of those about headquarters I was an
entire stranger.  Among the latter was Captain Stewart Van Vliet, of
the Quartermaster's Department, now on the retired list.  With him I
soon came in frequent contact, and, by reason of his connection with
the Quartermaster's Department, the kindly interest he took in
forwarding my business inaugurated between us--a lasting friendship.

A day or two after my arrival at Corpus Christi a train of Government
wagons, loaded with subsistence stores and quartermaster's supplies,
started for Laredo, a small town on the Rio Grande below Fort Duncan.
There being no other means of reaching my station I put my small
personal possessions, consisting of a trunk, mattress, two blankets,
and a pillow into one of the heavily loaded wagons and proceeded to
join it, sitting on the boxes or bags of coffee and sugar, as I might
choose.  The movement of the train was very slow, as the soil was
soft on the newly made and sandy roads.  We progressed but a few
miles on our first day's journey, and in the evening parked our train
at a point where there was no wood, a scant supply of water--and that
of bad quality--but an abundance of grass.  There being no
comfortable place to sleep in any of the wagons, filled as they were
to the bows with army supplies, I spread my blankets on the ground
between the wheels of one of them, and awoke in the morning feeling
as fresh and bright as would have been possible if all the comforts
of civilization had been at my command.

It took our lumbering train many days to reach Laredo, a distance of
about one hundred and sixty miles from Corpus Christi.  Each march
was but a repetition of the first day's journey, its monotony
occasionally relieved, though, by the passage of immense flocks of
ducks and geese, and the appearance at intervals of herds of deer,
and sometimes droves of wild cattle, wild horses and mules.  The
bands of wild horses I noticed were sometimes led by mules, but
generally by stallions with long wavy manes, and flowing tails which
almost touched the ground.

We arrived at Laredo during one of those severe storms incident to
that section, which are termed "Northers" from the fact that the
north winds culminate occasionally in cold windstorms, frequently
preceded by heavy rains.  Generally the blow lasts for three days,
and the cold becomes intense and piercing.  While the sudden
depression of the temperature is most disagreeable, and often causes
great suffering, it is claimed that these "Northers" make the climate
more healthy and endurable.  They occur from October to May, and in
addition to the destruction which, through the sudden depression of
the temperature, they bring on the herds in the interior, they are
often of sufficient violence to greatly injure the harbors on the
coast.

The post near Laredo was called Fort McIntosh, and at this period the
troops stationed there consisted of eight companies of the Fifth
Infantry and two of the First, one of the First Artillery, and three
of the Mounted Rifles.  Just before the "Norther" began these troops
had completed a redoubt for the defense of the post, with the
exception of the ditches, but as the parapet was built of sand--the
only material about Laredo which could be obtained for its
construction--the severity of the winds was too much for such a
shifting substance, and the work was entirely blown away early in the
storm.

I was pleasantly and hospitably welcomed by the officers at the post,
all of whom were living in tents, with no furniture except a cot and
trunk, and an improvised bed for a stranger, when one happened to
come along.  After I had been kindly taken in by one of the younger
officers, I reported to the commanding officer, and was informed by
him that he would direct the quartermaster to furnish me, as soon as
convenient, with transportation to Fort Duncan, the station of my
company.

In the course of a day or two, the quartermaster notified me that a
Government six-mule wagon would be placed at my disposal to proceed
to my destination.  No better means offering, I concluded to set out
in this conveyance, and, since it was also to carry a quantity of
quartermaster's property for Fort Duncan, I managed to obtain room
enough for my bed in the limited space between the bows and load,
where I could rest tolerably well, and under cover at night, instead
of sleeping on the ground under the wagon, as I had done on the road
from Corpus Christi to Laredo.

I reached Fort Duncan in March, 1854., and was kindly received by the
commanding officer of the, regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson
Morris, and by the captain of my company ("D"), Eugene E. McLean, and
his charming wife the only daughter of General E. V. Sumner, who was
already distinguished in our service, but much better known in after
years in the operations of the Army of the Potomac, during its early
campaigns in Virginia.  Shortly after joining company "D" I was sent
out on scouting duty with another company of the regiment to Camp La
Pena, about sixty or seventy miles east of Fort Duncan, in a section
of country that had for some time past been subjected to raids by the
Lipan and Comanche Indians.  Our outpost at La Pena was intended as a
protection against the predatory incursions of these savages, so
almost constant scouting became a daily occupation.  This enabled me
soon to become familiar with and make maps of the surrounding
country, and, through constant association with our Mexican guide, to
pick up in a short time quite a smattering of the Spanish language,
which was very useful to one serving on that frontier.

At that early day western Texas was literally filled with game, and
the region in the immediate vicinity of La Pena contained its full
proportion of deer, antelope, and wild turkeys.  The temptation to
hunt was therefore constantly before me, and a desire to indulge in
this pastime, whenever free from the legitimate duty of the camp,
soon took complete possession of me, so expeditions in pursuit of
game were of frequent occurrence.  In these expeditions I was always
accompanied by a soldier named Frankman, belonging to "D" company,
who was a fine sportsman, and a butcher by trade.  In a short period
I learned from Frankman how to approach and secure the different
species of game, and also how to dress and care for it when killed.
Almost every expedition we made was rewarded with a good supply of
deer, antelope, and wild turkeys, and we furnished the command in
camp with such abundance that it was relieved from the necessity of
drawing its beef ration, much to the discomfiture of the disgruntled
beef contractor.

The camp at La Pena was on sandy ground, unpleasant for men and
animals, and by my advice it was moved to La Pendencia, not far from
Lake Espantosa.  Before removal from our old location, however, early
one bright morning Frankman and I started on one of our customary
expeditions, going down La Pena Creek to a small creek, at the head
of which we had established a hunting rendezvous.  After proceeding
along the stream for three or four miles we saw a column of smoke on
the prairie, and supposing it arose from a camp of Mexican rancheros
catching wild horses or wild cattle, and even wild mules, which were
very numerous in that section of country along the Nueces River, we
thought we would join the party and see how much success they were
having, and observe the methods employed in this laborious and
sometimes dangerous vocation.  With this object in view, we continued
on until we found it necessary to cross to the other side of the
creek to reach the point indicated by the smoke.  Just before
reaching the crossing I discovered moccasin tracks near the water's
edge, and realizing in an instant that the camp we were approaching
might possibly be one of hostile Indians--all Indians in that country
at that time were hostile--Frankman and I backed out silently, and
made eager strides for La Pena, where we had scarcely arrived when
Captain M. E. Van Buren, of the Mounted Rifle regiment, came in with
a small command, and reported that he was out in pursuit of a band of
Comanche Indians, which had been committing depredations up about
Fort Clark, but that he had lost the trail.  I immediately informed
him of what had occurred to me during the morning, and that I could
put him on the trail of the Indians he was desirous of punishing.

We hurriedly supplied with rations his small command of thirteen,
men, and I then conducted him to the point where I had seen the
smoke, and there we found signs indicating it to be the recently
abandoned camp of the Indians he was pursuing, and we also noticed
that prairie rats had formed the principal article of diet at the
meal they had just completed.  As they had gone, I could do no more
than put him on the trail made in their departure, which was well
marked; for Indians, when in small parties, and unless pressed,
usually follow each other in single file.  Captain Van Buren followed
the trail by Fort Ewell, and well down toward Corpus Christi, day and
night, until the Indians, exhausted and used up, halted, on an open
plain, unsaddled their horses, mounted bareback, and offered battle.
Their number was double that of Van Buren's detachment, but he
attacked them fearlessly, and in the fight was mortally wounded by an
arrow which entered his body in front, just above the sword belt, and
came through the belt behind.  The principal chief of the Indians was
killed, and the rest fled.  Captain Van Buren's men carried him to
Corpus Christi, where in a few days he died.

After our removal to La Pendencia a similar pursuit of savages
occurred, but with more fortunate results.  Colonel John H. King, now
on the retired list, then a captain in the First Infantry, came to
our camp in pursuit of a marauding band of hostile Indians, and I was
enabled to put him also on the trail.  He soon overtook them, and
killing two without loss to himself, the band dispersed like a flock
of quail and left him nothing to follow.  He returned to our camp
shortly after, and the few friendly Indian scouts he had with him
held a grand pow-wow and dance over the scalps of the fallen braves.

Around La Pendencia, as at La Pena, the country abounded in deer,
antelope, wild turkeys, and quail, and we killed enough to supply
abundantly the whole command with the meat portion of the ration.
Some mornings Frankman and I would bring in as many as seven deer,
and our hunting expeditions made me so familiar with the region
between our camp and Fort Duncan, the headquarters of the regiment,
that I was soon enabled to suggest a more direct route of
communication than the circuitous one then traversed, and in
a short time it was established.

Up to this time I had been on detached duty, but soon my own company
was ordered into the field to occupy a position on Turkey Creek,
about ten or twelve miles west of the Nueces River, on the road from
San Antonio to Fort Duncan, and I was required to join the company.
Here constant work and scouting were necessary, as our camp was
specially located with reference to protecting from Indian raids the
road running from San Antonio to Fort Duncan, and on to the interior
of Mexico.  In those days this road was the great line of travel, and
Mexican caravans were frequently passing over it, to and fro, in such
a disorganized condition as often to invite attack from marauding
Comanches and Lipans.  Our time, therefore, was incessantly occupied
in scouting, but our labors were much lightened because they were
directed with intelligence and justice by Captain McLean, whose
agreeable manners and upright methods are still so impressed on my
memory that to this day I look back upon my service with "D" Company
of the First Infantry as among those events which I remember with
most pleasure.

In this manner my first summer of active field duty passed rapidly
away, and in the fall my company returned to Fort Duncan to go into
winter quarters.  These quarters, when constructed, consisted of "A"
tents pitched under a shed improvised by the company.  With only
these accommodations I at first lived around as best I could until
the command was quartered, and then, requesting a detail of wagons
from the quartermaster, I went out some thirty miles to get poles to
build a more comfortable habitation for myself.  In a few days enough
poles for the construction of a modest residence were secured and
brought in, and then the building of my house began.  First, the
poles were cut the proper length, planted in a trench around four
sides of a square of very small proportions, and secured at the top
by string-pieces stretched from one angle to another, in which
half-notches hack been made at proper intervals to receive the
uprights.  The poles were then made rigid by strips nailed on
half-way to the ground, giving the sides of the structure firmness,
but the interstices were large and frequent; still, with the aid of
some old condemned paulins obtained from the quartermaster, the walls
were covered and the necessity for chinking obviated.  This method of
covering the holes in the side walls also possessed the advantage of
permitting some little light to penetrate to the interior of the
house, and avoided the necessity of constructing a window, for which,
by the way, no glass could have been obtained.  Next a good large
fire-place and chimney were built in one corner by means of stones
and mud, and then the roof was put on--a thatched one of prairie
grass.  The floor was dirt compactly tamped.

My furniture was very primitive: a chair or two, with about the same
number of camp stools, a cot, and a rickety old bureau that I
obtained in some way not now remembered.  My washstand consisted of a
board about three feet long, resting on legs formed by driving sticks
into the ground until they held it at about the proper height from
the floor.  This washstand was the most expensive piece of furniture
I owned, the board having cost me three dollars, and even then I
obtained it as a favor, for lumber on the Rio Grande was so scarce in
those days that to possess even the smallest quantity was to indulge
in great luxury.  Indeed, about all that reached the post was what
came in the shape of bacon boxes, and the boards from these were
reserved for coffins in which to bury our dead.

In this rude habitation I spent a happy winter, and was more
comfortably off than many of the officers, who had built none, but
lived in tents and took the chances of "Northers." During this period
our food was principally the soldier's ration: flour, pickled pork,
nasty bacon--cured in the dust of ground charcoal--and fresh beef, of
which we had a plentiful supply, supplemented with game of various
kinds.  The sugar, coffee, and smaller parts of the ration were good,
but we had no vegetables, and the few jars of preserves and some few
vegetables kept by the sutler were too expensive to be indulged in.
So during all the period I lived at Fort Duncan and its sub-camps,
nearly sixteen months, fresh vegetables were practically
unobtainable.  To prevent scurvy we used the juice of the maguey
plant, called pulque, and to obtain a supply of this anti-scorbutic I
was often detailed to march the company out about forty miles, cut
the plant, load up two or three wagons with the stalks, and carry
them to camp.  Here the juice was extracted by a rude press, and put
in bottles until it fermented and became worse in odor than
sulphureted hydrogen.  At reveille roll-call every morning this
fermented liquor was dealt out to the company, and as it was my duty,
in my capacity of subaltern, to attend these roll-calls and see that
the men took their ration of pulque, I always began the duty by
drinking a cup of the repulsive stuff myself.  Though hard to
swallow, its well-known specific qualities in the prevention and cure
of scurvy were familiar to all, so every man in the command gulped
down his share notwithstanding its vile taste and odor.

Considering our isolation, the winter passed very pleasantly to us
all.  The post was a large one, its officers congenial, and we had
many enjoyable occasions.  Dances, races, and horseback riding filled
in much of the time, and occasional raids from Indians furnished more
serious occupation in the way of a scout now and then.  The proximity
of the Indians at times rendered the surrounding country somewhat
dangerous for individuals or small parties at a distance from the
fort; but few thought the savages would come near, so many risks were
doubtless run by various officers, who carried the familiar
six-shooter as their only weapon while out horseback riding, until
suddenly we were awakened to the dangers we had been incurring.

About mid-winter a party of hostile Lipans made a swoop around and
skirting the garrison, killing a herder--a discharged drummer-boy--in
sight of the flag-staff.  Of course great excitement followed.
Captain J. G. Walker, of the Mounted Rifles, immediately started with
his company in pursuit of the Indians, and I was directed to
accompany the command.  Not far away we found the body of the boy
filled with arrows, and near him the body of a fine looking young
Indian, whom the lad had undoubtedly killed before he was himself
overpowered.  We were not a great distance behind the Indians when
the boy's body was discovered, and having good trailers we gained on
them rapidly, with the prospect of overhauling them, but as soon as
they found we were getting near they headed for the Rio Grande, made
the crossing to the opposite bank, and were in Mexico before we could
overtake them.  When on the other side of the boundary they grew very
brave, daring us to come over to fight them, well aware all the time
that the international line prevented us from continuing the pursuit.
So we had to return to the post without reward for our exertion
except the consciousness of having made the best effort we could to
catch the murderers.  That night, in company with Lieutenant Thomas
G. Williams, I crossed over the river to the Mexican village of
Piedras Negras, and on going to a house where a large baille, or
dance, was going on we found among those present two of the Indians
we had been chasing.  As soon as they saw us they strung their bows
for a fight, and we drew our six-shooters, but the Mexicans quickly
closed in around the Indians and forced them out of the house--or
rude jackal--where the "ball" was being held, and they escaped.  We
learned later something about the nature of the fight the drummer had
made, and that his death had cost them dear, for, in addition to the
Indian killed and lying by his side, he had mortally wounded another
and seriously wounded a third, with the three shots that he had
fired.

At this period I took up the notion of making a study of ornithology,
incited to it possibly by the great number of bright-colored birds
that made their winter homes along the Rio Grande, and I spent many a
leisure hour in catching specimens by means of stick traps, with
which I found little difficulty in securing almost every variety of
the feathered tribes.  I made my traps by placing four sticks of a
length suited to the size desired so as to form a square, and
building up on them in log-cabin fashion until the structure came
almost to a point by contraction of the corners.  Then the sticks
were made secure, the trap placed at some secluded spot, and from the
centre to the outside a trench was dug in the ground, and thinly
covered when a depth had been obtained that would leave an aperture
sufficiently large to admit the class of birds desired.  Along this
trench seeds and other food were scattered, which the birds soon
discovered, and of course began to eat, unsuspectingly following the
tempting bait through the gallery till they emerged from its farther
end in the centre of the trap, where they contentedly fed till the
food was all gone.  Then the fact of imprisonment first presented
itself, and they vainly endeavored to escape through the interstices
of the cage, never once guided by their instinct to return to liberty
through the route by which they had entered.

Among the different kinds of birds captured in this way,
mocking-birds, blue-birds, robins, meadow larks, quail, and plover
were the most numerous.  They seemed to have more voracious appetites
than other varieties, or else they were more unwary, and consequently
more easily caught.  A change of station, however, put an end to my
ornithological plans, and activities of other kinds prevented me from
resuming them in after life.

There were quite a number of young officers at the post during the
winter, and as our relations with the Mexican commandant at Piedras
Negras were most amicable, we were often invited to dances at his
house.  He and his hospitable wife and daughter drummed up the female
portion of the elite of Piedras Negras and provided the house, which
was the official as well as the personal residence of the commandant,
while we--the young officers--furnished the music and such
sweetmeats, candies, &c., for the baille as the country would afford.

We generally danced in a long hall on a hard dirt floor.  The girls
sat on one side of the hall, chaperoned by their mothers or some old
duennas, and the men on the other.  When the music struck up each man
asked the lady whom his eyes had already selected to dance with him,
and it was not etiquette for her to refuse--no engagements being
allowed before the music began.  When the dance, which was generally
a long waltz, was over, he seated his partner, and then went to a
little counter at the end of the room and bought his dulcinea a plate
of the candies and sweetmeats provided.  Sometimes she accepted them,
but most generally pointed to her duenna or chaperon behind, who held
up her apron and caught the refreshments as they were slid into it
from the plate.  The greatest decorum was maintained at these dances,
primitively as they were conducted; and in a region so completely cut
off from the world, their influence was undoubtedly beneficial to a
considerable degree in softening the rough edges in a half-breed
population.

The inhabitants of this frontier of Mexico were strongly marked with
Indian characteristics, particularly with those of the Comanche type,
and as the wild Indian blood predominated, few of the physical traits
of the Spaniard remained among them, and outlawry was common.  The
Spanish conquerors had left on the northern border only their
graceful manners and their humility before the cross.  The sign of
Christianity was prominently placed at all important points on roads
or trails, and especially where any one had been killed; and as the
Comanche Indians, strong and warlike, had devastated northeastern
Mexico in past years, all along the border, on both sides of the Rio
Grande, the murderous effects of their raids were evidenced by
numberless crosses.  For more than a century forays had been made on
the settlements and towns by these bloodthirsty savages, and, the
Mexican Government being too weak to afford protection, property was
destroyed, the women and children carried off or ravished, and the
men compelled to look on in an agony of helplessness till relieved by
death.  During all this time, however, the forms and ceremonials of
religion, and the polite manners received from the Spaniards, were
retained, and reverence for the emblems of Christianity was always
uppermost in the mind of even the most ignorant.




CHAPTER III.

ORDERED TO FORT READING, CAL.--A DANGEROUS UNDERTAKING--A RESCUED
SOLDIER--DISCOVERING INDIANS--PRIMITIVE FISHING--A DESERTED
VILLAGE--CAMPING OPPOSITE FORT VANCOUVER.

In November, 1854, I received my promotion to a second lieutenancy in
the Fourth Infantry, which was stationed in California and Oregon. In
order to join my company at Fort Reading, California, I had to go to
New York as a starting point, and on arrival there, was placed on
duty, in May, 1855, in command of a detachment of recruits at
Bedloe's Island, intended for assignment to the regiments on the
Pacific coast.  I think there were on the island (now occupied by the
statue of Liberty Enlightening the World) about three hundred
recruits.  For a time I was the only officer with them, but shortly
before we started for California, Lieutenant Francis H. Bates, of the
Fourth Infantry, was placed in command. We embarked for the Pacific
coast in July, 1855, and made the journey without incident via the
Isthmus of Panama, in due time landing our men at Benecia Barracks,
above San Francisco.

From this point I proceeded to join my company at Fort Reading, and
on reaching that post, found orders directing me to relieve
Lieutenant John B. Hood--afterward well known as a distinguished
general in the Confederate service.  Lieutenant Hood was in command
of the personal mounted escort of Lieutenant R. S. Williamson, who
was charged with the duty of making such explorations and surveys as
would determine the practicability of connecting, by railroad, the
Sacramento Valley in California with the Columbia River in Oregon
Territory, either through the Willamette Valley, or (if this route
should prove to be impracticable) by the valley of the Des Chutes
River near the foot-slopes of the Cascade chain.  The survey was
being made in accordance with an act of Congress, which provided both
for ascertaining the must practicable and economical route for a
railroad between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, and for
military and geographical surveys west of the Mississippi River.

Fort Reading was the starting-point for this exploring expedition,
and there I arrived some four or five days after the party under
Lieutenant Williamson had begun its march.  His personal escort
numbered about sixty mounted men, made up of detachments from
companies of the First Dragoons, under command of Lieutenant Hood,
together with about one hundred men belonging to the Fourth Infantry
and Third Artillery, commanded by Lieutenant Horatio Gates Gibson,
the present colonel of the Third United States Artillery.  Lieutenant
George Crook--now major-general--was the quartermaster and commissary
of subsistence of the expedition.

The commanding officer at Fort Reading seemed reluctant to let me go
on to relieve Lieutenant Hood, as the country to be passed over was
infested by the Pit River Indians, known to be hostile to white
people and especially to small parties.  I was very anxious to
proceed, however, and willing to take the chances; so, consent being
finally obtained, I started with a corporal and two mounted men,
through a wild and uninhabited region, to overtake if possible
Lieutenant Williamson.  Being on horseback, and unencumbered by
luggage of any kind except blankets and a little hard bread, coffee
and smoking-tobacco, which were all carried on our riding animals, we
were sanguine of succeeding, for we traversed in one day fully the
distance made in three by Lieutenant Williamson's party on foot.

The first day we reached the base of Lassan's Butte, where I
determined to spend the night near an isolated cabin, or dugout, that
had been recently constructed by a hardy pioneer.  The wind was
blowing a disagreeable gale, which had begun early in the day.  This
made it desirable to locate our camp under the best cover we could
find, and I spent some little time in looking about for a
satisfactory place, but nothing better offered than a large fallen
tree, which lay in such a direction that by encamping on its lee side
we would be protected from the fury of the storm.  This spot was
therefore fixed upon, and preparation made for spending the night as
comfortably as the circumstances would permit.

After we had unsaddled I visited the cabin to inquire in regard to
the country ahead, and there found at first only a soldier of
Williamson's party; later the proprietor of the ranch appeared.  The
soldier had been left behind by the surveying party on account of
illness, with instructions to make his way back to Fort Reading as
best he could when he recovered.  His condition having greatly
improved, however, since he had been left, he now begged me in
beseeching terms to take him along with my party, which I finally
consented to do, provided that if he became unable to keep up with
me, and I should be obliged to abandon him, the responsibility would
be his, not mine.  This increased my number to five, and was quite a
reinforcement should we run across any hostile Indians; but it was
also certain to prove an embarrassment should the man again fall ill.

During the night, notwithstanding the continuance of the storm, I had
a very sound and refreshing sleep behind the protecting log where we
made our camp, and at daylight next morning we resumed our journey,
fortified by a breakfast of coffee and hard bread.  I skirted around
the base of Lassan's Butte, thence down Hat Creek, all the time
following the trail made by Lieutenant Williamson's party.  About
noon the soldier I had picked up at my first camp gave out, and could
go no farther.  As stipulated when I consented to take him along, I
had the right to abandon him, but when it came to the test I could
not make up my mind to do it.  Finding a good place not far off the
trail, one of my men volunteered to remain with him until he died;
and we left them there, with a liberal supply of hard bread and
coffee, believing that we would never again see the invalid.  My
reinforcement was already gone, and another man with it.

With my diminished party I resumed the trail and followed it until
about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when we heard the sound of voices,
and the corporal, thinking we were approaching Lieutenant
Williamson's party, was so overjoyed in anticipation of the junction,
that he wanted to fire his musket as an expression of his delight.
This I prevented his doing, however, and we continued cautiously and
slowly on to develop the source of the sounds in front.  We had not
gone far before I discovered that the noise came from a band of Pit
River Indians, who had struck the trail of the surveying expedition,
and were following it up, doubtless with evil intent.  Dismounting
from my horse I counted the moccasin tracks to ascertain the number
of Indians, discovered it to be about thirty, and then followed on
behind them cautiously, but with little difficulty, as appearances of
speed on their part indicated that they wished to overtake Lieutenant
Williamson's party, which made them less on the lookout than usual
for any possible pursuers.  After following the trail until nearly
sundown, I considered it prudent to stop for the night, and drew off
some little distance, where, concealed in a dense growth of timber,
we made our camp.

As I had with me now only two men, I felt somewhat nervous, so I
allowed no fires to be built, and in consequence our supper consisted
of hard bread only.  I passed an anxious night, but beyond our own
solicitude there was nothing to disturb us, the Indians being too
much interested in overtaking the party in front to seek for victims
in the rear, After a hard-bread breakfast we started again on the
trail, and had proceeded but a short distance when, hearing the
voices of the Indians, we at once slackened our speed so as not to
overtake them.

Most of the trail on which we traveled during the morning ran over an
exceedingly rough lava formation--a spur of the lava beds often
described during the Modoc war of 1873 so hard and flinty that
Williamson's large command made little impression on its surface,
leaving in fact, only indistinct traces of its line of march.  By
care and frequent examinations we managed to follow his route through
without much delay, or discovery by the Indians, and about noon,
owing to the termination of the lava formation, we descended into the
valley of Hat Greek, a little below where it emerges from the second
canon and above its confluence with Pit River.  As soon as we reached
the fertile soil of the valley, we found Williamson's trail well
defined, deeply impressed in the soft loam, and coursing through
wild-flowers and luxuriant grass which carpeted the ground on every
hand.

When we struck this delightful locality we traveled with considerable
speed, and after passing over hill and vale for some distance, the
trail becoming more and more distinct all the time, I suddenly saw in
front of me the Pit River Indians.

This caused a halt, and having hurriedly re-capped our guns and
six-shooters, thus preparing for the worst, I took a look at the band
through my field-glass.  They were a half-mile or more in our front
and numbered about thirty individuals, armed with bows and arrows
only.  Observing us they made friendly demonstrations, but I had not
implicit faith in a Pit River Indian at that period of the settlement
of our country, and especially in that wild locality, so after a
"council of war" with the corporal and man, I concluded to advance to
a point about two hundred yards distant from the party, when, relying
on the speed of our horses rather than on the peaceable intentions of
the savages, I hoped to succeed in cutting around them and take the
trail beyond.  Being on foot they could not readily catch us, and
inasmuch as their arrows were good for a range of only about sixty
yards, I had no fear of any material damage on that score.

On reaching the place selected for our flank movement we made a dash
to the left of the trail, through the widest part of the valley, and
ran our horses swiftly by, but I noticed that the Indians did not
seem to be disturbed by the manoeuvre and soon realized that this
indifference was occasioned by the knowledge that we could not cross
Hat Creek, a deep stream with vertical banks, too broad to be leaped
by our horses.  We were obliged, therefore, to halt, and the Indians
again made demonstrations of friendship, some of them even getting
into the stream to show that they were at the ford.  Thus reassured,
we regained our confidence and boldly crossed the river in the midst
of them.  After we had gained the bluff on the other side of the
creek, I looked down into the valley of Pit River, and could plainly
see the camp of the surveying party.  Its proximity was the influence
which had doubtless caused the peaceable conduct of the Indians.
Probably the only thing that saved us was their ignorance of our
being in their rear, until we stumbled on them almost within sight of
the large party under Williamson.

The Pit River Indians were very hostile at that time, and for many
succeeding years their treachery and cruelty brought misfortune and
misery to the white settlers who ventured their lives in search of
home and fortune in the wild and isolated section over which these
savages roamed.  Not long after Williamson's party passed through
their country, the Government was compelled to send into it a
considerable force for the purpose of keeping them under control.
The outcome of this was a severe fight--resulting in the loss of a
good many lives--between the hostiles and a party of our troops under
Lieutenant George Crook.  It finally ended in the establishment of a
military post in the vicinity of the battle-ground, for the permanent
occupation of the country.

A great load was lifted from my heart when I found myself so near
Williamson's camp, which I joined August 4, 1855, receiving a warm
welcome from the officers.  During the afternoon I relieved
Lieutenant Hood of the command of the personal escort, and he was
ordered to return, with twelve of the mounted men, over the trail I
had followed.  I pointed out to him on the map the spot where he
would find the two men left on the roadside, and he was directed to
take them into Fort Reading.  They were found without difficulty, and
carried in to the post.  The sick man--Duryea--whom I had expected
never to see again, afterward became the hospital steward at Fort
Yamhill, Oregon, when I was stationed there.

The Indians that I had passed at the ford came to the bluff above the
camp, and arranging themselves in a squatting posture, looked down
upon Williamson's party with longing eyes, in expectation of a feast.
They were a pitiable lot, almost naked, hungry and cadaverous.
Indians are always hungry, but these poor creatures were particularly
so, as their usual supply of food had grown very scarce from one
cause and another.

In prosperity they mainly subsisted on fish, or game killed with the
bow and arrow.  When these sources failed they lived on grasshoppers,
and at this season the grasshopper was their principal food.  In
former years salmon were very abundant in the streams of the
Sacramento Valley, and every fall they took great quantities of these
fish and dried them for winter use, but alluvial mining had of late
years defiled the water of the different streams and driven the fish
out.  On this account the usual supply of salmon was very limited.
They got some trout high up on the rivers, above the sluices and
rockers of the miners, but this was a precarious source from which to
derive food, as their means of taking the trout were very primitive.
They had neither hooks nor lines, but depended entirely on a
contrivance made from long, slender branches of willow, which grew on
the banks of most of the streams.  One of these branches would be
cut, and after sharpening the butt-end to a point, split a certain
distance, and by a wedge the prongs divided sufficiently to admit a
fish between.  The Indian fisherman would then slyly put the forked
end in the water over his intended victim, and with a quick dart
firmly wedge him between the prongs.  When secured there, the work of
landing him took but a moment.  When trout were plentiful this
primitive mode of taking them was quite successful, and I have often
known hundreds of pounds to be caught in this way, but when they were
scarce and suspicious the rude method was not rewarded with good
results.

The band looking down on us evidently had not had much fish or game
to eat for some time, so when they had made Williamson understand
that they were suffering for food he permitted them to come into
camp, and furnished them with a supply, which they greedily swallowed
as fast as it was placed at their service, regardless of possible
indigestion.  When they had eaten all they could hold, their
enjoyment was made complete by the soldiers, who gave them a quantity
of strong plug tobacco.  This they smoked incessantly, inhaling all
the smoke, so that none of the effect should be lost.  When we
abandoned this camp the next day, the miserable wretches remained in
it and collected the offal about the cooks' fires to feast still
more, piecing out the meal, no doubt, with their staple article of
food--grasshoppers.

On the morning of August 5 Lieutenant Hood started back to Fort
Reading, and Lieutenant Williamson resumed his march for the Columbia
River.  Our course was up Pit River, by the lower and upper canons,
then across to the Klamath Lakes, then east, along their edge to the
upper lake.  At the middle Klamath Lake, just after crossing Lost
River and the Natural Bridge, we met a small party of citizens from
Jacksonville, Oregon, looking for hostile Indians who had committed
some depredations in their neighborhood.  From them we learned that
the Rogue River Indians in southern Oregon were on the war-path, and
that as the "regular troops up there were of no account, the citizens
had taken matters in hand, and intended cleaning up the hostiles."
They swaggered about our camp, bragged a good deal, cursed the
Indians loudly, and soundly abused the Government for not giving them
better protection.  It struck me, however, that they had not worked
very hard to find the hostiles; indeed, it could plainly be seen that
their expedition was a town-meeting sort of affair, and that anxiety
to get safe home was uppermost in their thoughts.  The enthusiasm
with which they started had all oozed out, and that night they
marched back to Jacksonville.  The next day, at the head of the lake,
we came across an Indian village, and I have often wondered since
what would have been the course pursued by these valiant warriors
from Jacksonville had they gone far enough to get into its vicinity.

When we reached the village the tepees--made of grass--were all
standing, the fires burning and pots boiling--the pots filled with
camas and tula roots--but not an Indian was to be seen.  Williamson
directed that nothing in the village should be disturbed; so guards
were placed over it to carry out his instructions and we went into
camp just a little beyond.  We had scarcely established ourselves
when a very old Indian rose up from the high grass some distance off,
and with peaceable signs approached our camp, evidently for the
purpose of learning whether or not our intentions were hostile.
Williamson told him we were friendly; that we had passed through his
village without molesting it, that we had put a guard there to secure
the property his people had abandoned in their fright, and that they
might come back in safety.  The old man searchingly eyed everything
around for some little time, and gaining confidence from the
peaceable appearance of the men, who were engaged in putting up the
tents and preparing their evening meal, he concluded to accept our
professions of friendship, and bring his people in.  Going out about
half a mile from the village he gave a peculiar yell, at which
between three and four hundred Indians arose simultaneously from the
ground, and in answer to his signal came out of the tall grass like a
swarm of locusts and soon overran our camp in search of food, for
like all Indians they were hungry.  They too, proved to be Pit
Rivers, and were not less repulsive than those of their tribe we had
met before.  They were aware of the hostilities going on between the
Rogue Rivers and the whites, but claimed that they had not taken any
part in them.  I question if they had, but had our party been small,
I fear we should have been received at their village in a very
different manner.

From the upper Klamath Lake we marched over the divide and down the
valley of the Des Chutes River to a point opposite the mountains
called the Three Sisters.  Here, on September 23, the party divided,
Williamson and I crossing through the crater of the Three Sisters and
along the western slope of the Cascade Range, until we struck the
trail on McKenzie River, which led us into the Willamette Valley not
far from Eugene City.  We then marched down the Willamette Valley to
Portland, Oregon, where we arrived October 9, 1855

The infantry portion of the command, escorting Lieutenant Henry L.
Abbot, followed farther down the Des Chutes River, to a point
opposite Mount Hood, from which it came into the Willamette Valley
and then marched to Portland.  At Portland we all united, and moving
across the point between the Willamette and Columbia rivers, encamped
opposite Fort Vancouver, on the south bank of the latter stream, on
the farm of an old settler named Switzler, who had located there many
years before.




CHAPTER IV.

"OLD RED"--SKILLFUL SHOOTING--YAKIMA--WAR--A LUDICROUS
MISTAKE--"CUT-MOUTH JOHN'S" ENCOUNTER--FATHER PANDOZA'S
MISSION--A SNOW-STORM--FAILURE OF THE EXPEDITION.

Our camp on the Columbia, near Fort Vancouver, was beautifully
situated on a grassy sward close to the great river; and--as little
duty was required of us after so long a journey, amusement of one
kind or another, and an interchange of visits with the officers at
the post, filled in the time acceptably.  We had in camp an old
mountaineer guide who had accompanied us on the recent march, and who
had received the sobriquet of "Old Red," on account of the shocky and
tangled mass of red hair and beard, which covered his head and face
so completely that only his eyes could be seen.  His eccentricities
constantly supplied us with a variety of amusements.  Among the
pastimes he indulged in was one which exhibited his skill with the
rifle, and at the same time protected the camp from the intrusions
and ravages of a drove of razor-backed hogs which belonged to Mr.
Switzler.  These hogs were frequent visitors, and very destructive to
our grassy sward, rooting it up in front of our tents and all about
us; in pursuit of bulbous roots and offal from the camp.  Old Red
conceived the idea that it would be well to disable the pigs by
shooting off the tips of their snouts, and he proceeded to put his
conception into execution, and continued it daily whenever the hogs
made their appearance.  Of course their owner made a row about it;
but when Old Red daily settled for his fun by paying liberally with
gold-dust from some small bottles of the precious metal in his
possession, Switzler readily became contented, and I think even
encouraged the exhibitions--of skill.

It was at this period (October, 1855) that the Yakima Indian war
broke out, and I was detached from duty with the exploring party and
required by Major Gabriel J. Rains, then commanding the district, to
join an expedition against the Yakimas.  They had some time before
killed their agent, and in consequence a force under Major Granville
O. Haller had been sent out from the Dalles of the Columbia to
chastise them; but the expedition had not been successful; in fact,
it had been driven back, losing a number of men and two mountain
howitzers.

The object of the second expedition was to retrieve this disaster.
The force was composed of a small body of regular troops, and a
regiment of Oregon mounted volunteers under command of Colonel James
W. Nesmith--subsequently for several years United States Senator from
Oregon.  The whole force was under the command of Major Rains, Fourth
Infantry, who, in order that he might rank Nesmith, by some
hocus-pocus had been made a brigadier-general, under an appointment
from the Governor of Washington Territory.

We started from the Dalles October 30, under conditions that were not
conducive to success.  The season was late for operations; and worse
still, the command was not in accord with the commanding officer,
because of general belief in his incompetency, and on account of the
fictitious rank he assumed.  On the second day out I struck a small
body of Indians with my detachment of dragoons, but was unable to do
them any particular injury beyond getting possession of a large
quantity of their winter food, which their hurried departure
compelled them to abandon.  This food consisted principally of dried
salmon-pulverized and packed in sacks made of grass-dried
huckleberries, and dried camas; the latter a bulbous root about the
size of a small onion, which, when roasted and ground, is made into
bread by the Indians and has a taste somewhat like cooked chestnuts.

Our objective point was Father Pandoza's Mission, in the Yakima
Valley, which could be reached by two different routes, and though
celerity of movement was essential, our commanding officer
"strategically" adopted the longer route, and thus the Indians had
ample opportunity to get away with their horses, cattle, women and
children, and camp property.

After the encounter which I just now referred to, the command, which
had halted to learn the results of my chase, resumed its march to and
through the Klikitat canon, and into the lower Yakima Valley, in the
direction of the Yakima River.  I had charge at the head of the
column as it passed through the canon, and on entering the valley
beyond, saw in the distance five or six Indian scouts, whom I pressed
very closely, until after a run of several miles they escaped across
the Yakima River.

The soil in the valley was light and dry, and the movement of animals
over it raised great clouds of dust, that rendered it very difficult
to distinguish friend from foe; and as I was now separated from the
main column a considerable distance, I deemed it prudent to call a
halt until we could discover the direction taken by the principal
body of the Indians.  We soon learned that they had gone up the
valley, and looking that way, we discovered a column of alkali dust
approaching us, about a mile distant, interposing between my little
detachment and the point where I knew General Rains intended to
encamp for the night.  After hastily consulting with Lieutenant
Edward H. Day, of the Third United States Artillery, who was with me,
we both concluded that the dust was caused by a body of the enemy
which had slipped in between us and our main force.  There seemed no
alternative left us but to get back to our friends by charging
through these Indians; and as their cloud of dust was much larger
than ours, this appeared a desperate chance.  Preparations to charge
were begun, however, but, much to our surprise, before they were
completed the approaching party halted for a moment and then
commenced to retreat.  This calmed the throbbing of our hearts, and
with a wild cheer we started in a hot pursuit, that continued for
about two miles, when to our great relief we discovered that we were
driving into Rains's camp a squadron of Nesmith's battalion of Oregon
volunteers that we had mistaken for Indians, and who in turn believed
us to be the enemy.  When camp was reached, we all indulged in a
hearty laugh over the affair, and at the fright each party had given
the other.  The explanations which ensued proved that the squadron of
volunteers had separated from the column at the same time that I had
when we debouched from the canon, and had pursued an intermediate
trail through the hills, which brought it into the valley of the
Yakima at a point higher up the river than where I had struck it.

Next day we resumed our march up the valley, parallel to the Yakima.
About 1 o'clock we saw a large body of Indians on the opposite side
of the river, and the general commanding made up his mind to cross
and attack them.  The stream was cold, deep, and swift, still I
succeeded in passing my dragoons over safely, but had hardly got them
well on the opposite bank when the Indians swooped down upon us.
Dismounting my men, we received the savages with a heavy fire, which
brought them to a halt with some damage and more or less confusion.

General Rains now became very much excited and alarmed about me, and
endeavored to ford the swift river with his infantry and artillery,
but soon had to abandon the attempt, as three or four of the poor
fellows were swept off their feet and drowned.  Meantime Nesmith came
up with his mounted force, crossed over, and joined me.

The Indians now fell back to a high ridge, on the crest of which they
marched and countermarched, threatening to charge down its face.
Most of them were naked, and as their persons were painted in gaudy
colors and decorated with strips of red flannel, red blankets and gay
war-bonnets, their appearance presented a scene of picturesque
barbarism, fascinating but repulsive.  As they numbered about six
hundred, the chances of whipping them did not seem overwhelmingly in
our favor, yet Nesmith and I concluded we would give them a little
fight, provided we could engage them without going beyond the ridge.
But all our efforts were in vain, for as we advanced they retreated,
and as we drew back they reappeared and renewed their parade and
noisy demonstrations, all the time beating their drums and yelling
lustily.  They could not be tempted into a fight where we desired it,
however, and as we felt unequal to any pursuit beyond the ridge
without the assistance of the infantry and artillery, we re-crossed
the river and encamped with Rains.  It soon became apparent that the
noisy demonstrations of the Indians were intended only as a blind to
cover the escape of their women and children to a place of safety in
the mountains.

Next morning we took up our march without crossing the river; and as
our route would lead us by the point on the opposite bank where the
Indians had made their picturesque display the day before, they at an
early hour came over to our side, and rapidly moved ahead of us to
some distant hills, leaving in our pathway some of the more
venturesome young braves, who attempted, to retard our advance by
opening fire at long range from favorable places where they lay
concealed.  This fire did us little harm, but it had the effect of
making our progress so slow that the patience of every one but
General Rains was well-nigh exhausted.

About 2 o'clock in the afternoon we arrived well up near the base of
the range of hills, and though it was growing late we still had time
to accomplish something, but our commanding officer decided that it
was best to go into camp, and make a systematic attack next morning.
I proposed that he let me charge with my dragoons through the narrow
canon where the river broke through the range, while the infantry
should charge up the hill and drive the enemy from the top down on
the other side.  In this way I thought we might possibly catch some
of the fugitives, but his extreme caution led him to refuse the
suggestion, so we pitched our tents out of range of their desultory
fire, but near enough to observe plainly their menacing and
tantalizing exhibitions of contempt.

In addition to firing occasionally, they called us all sorts of bad
names, made indecent gestures, and aggravated us, so that between 3
and 4 o'clock in the afternoon, by an inexplicable concert of action,
and with a serious breach of discipline, a large number of the men
and many of the officers broke en masse from the camp with loud yells
and charged the offending savages.  As soon as this mob got within
musket-shot they opened fire on the Indians, who ran down the other
face of the ridge without making the slightest resistance.  The hill
was readily taken by this unmilitary proceeding, and no one was hurt
on either side, but as Rains would not permit it to be held, a large
bonfire was lighted on the crest in celebration of the victory, and
then all hands marched back to camp, where they had no sooner arrived
and got settled down than the Indians returned to the summit of the
ridge, seemingly to enjoy the fire that had been so generously built
for their benefit, and with renewed taunts and gestures continued to
insult us.

Our camp that night was strongly picketed, and when we awoke in the
morning the Indians still occupied their position on the hill.  At
daylight we advanced against them, two or three companies of infantry
moving forward to drive them from the summit, while our main column
passed through the canon into the upper Yakima Valley led by my
dragoons, who were not allowed to charge into the gorge, as the
celerity of such a movement might cause the tactical combination to
fail.

As we passed slowly and cautiously through the canon the Indians ran
rapidly away, and when we reached the farther end they had entirely
disappeared from our front, except one old fellow, whose lame horse
prevented him keeping up with the main body.  This presented an
opportunity for gaining results which all thought should not be lost,
so our guide, an Indian named "Cut-mouth John," seized upon it, and
giving hot chase, soon, overtook the poor creature, whom he speedily
killed without much danger to himself, for the fugitive was armed
with only an old Hudson's Bay flint-lock horse-pistol which could not
be discharged.

"Cut-mouth John's" engagement began and ended all the fighting that
took place on this occasion, and much disappointment and discontent
followed, Nesmith's mounted force and my dragoons being particularly
disgusted because they had not been "given a chance."  During the
remainder of the day we cautiously followed the retreating foe, and
late in the evening went into camp a short distance from Father
Pandoza's Mission; where we were to await a small column of troops
under command of Captain Maurice Maloney, of the Fourth Infantry,
that was to join us from Steilicom by way of the Natchez Pass, and
from which no tidings had as yet been received.

Next morning the first thing I saw when I put my head out from my
blankets was "Cut-mouth John," already mounted and parading himself
through the camp.  The scalp of the Indian he had despatched the day
before was tied to the cross-bar of his bridle bit, the hair dangling
almost to the ground, and John was decked out in the sacred vestments
of Father Pandoza, having, long before any one was stirring in camp,
ransacked the log-cabin at the Mission in which the good man had
lived.  John was at all times a most repulsive looking individual, a
part of his mouth having been shot away in a fight with Indians near
Walla Walla some years before, in which a Methodist missionary had
been killed; but his revolting personal appearance was now worse than
ever, and the sacrilegious use of Father Pandoza's vestments, coupled
with the ghastly scalp that hung from his bridle, so turned opinion
against him that he was soon captured, dismounted, and his parade
brought to an abrupt close, and I doubt whether he ever after quite
reinstated himself in the good graces of the command.

In the course of the day nearly all the men visited the Mission, but
as it had been plundered by the Indians at the outbreak of
hostilities, when Father Pandoza was carried off, little of value was
left about it except a considerable herd of pigs, which the father
with great difficulty had succeeded in accumulating from a very small
beginning.  The pigs had not been disturbed by the Indians, but the
straggling troops soon disposed of them, and then turned their
attention to the cabbages and potatoes in the garden, with the
intention, no doubt, of dining that day on fresh pork and fresh
vegetables instead of on salt junk and hard bread, which formed their
regular diet on the march.  In digging up the potatoes some one
discovered half a keg of powder, which had been buried in the garden
by the good father to prevent the hostile Indians from getting it to
use against the whites.  As soon as this was unearthed wild
excitement ensued, and a cry arose that Father Pandoza was the person
who furnished powder to the Indians; that here was the proof; that at
last the mysterious means by which the Indians obtained ammunition
was explained--and a rush was made for the mission building. This was
a comfortable log-house of good size, built by the Indians for a
school and church, and attached to one end was the log-cabin
residence of the priest.  Its destruction was a matter of but a few
moments.  A large heap of dry wood was quickly collected and piled in
the building, matches applied, and the whole Mission, including the
priest's house, was soon enveloped in flames, and burned to the
ground before the officers in camp became aware of the disgraceful
plundering in which their men were engaged.

The commanding officer having received no news from Captain Maloney
during the day, Colonel Nesmith and I were ordered to go to his
rescue, as it was concluded that he had been surrounded by Indians in
the Natchez Pass.  We started early the next morning, the snow
falling slightly as we set out, and soon arrived at the eastern mouth
of the Natchez Pass.  On the way we noticed an abandoned Indian
village, which had evidently not been occupied for some time.  As we
proceeded the storm increased, and the snow-fall became deeper and
deeper, until finally our horses could not travel through it.  In
consequence we were compelled to give up further efforts to advance,
and obliged to turn back to the abandoned village, where we encamped
for the night.  Near night-fall the storm greatly increased, and our
bivouac became most uncomfortable; but spreading my blankets on the
snow and covering them with Indian matting, I turned in and slept
with that soundness and refreshment accorded by nature to one
exhausted by fatigue.  When I awoke in the morning I found myself
under about two feet of snow, from which I arose with difficulty, yet
grateful that it had kept me warm during the night.

After a cup of coffee and a little hard bread, it was decided we
should return to the main camp near the Mission, for we were now
confident that Maloney was delayed by the snow, and safe enough on
the other side of the mountains.  At all events he was beyond aid
from us, for the impassable snowdrifts could not be overcome with the
means in our possession.  It turned out that our suppositions as to
the cause of his delay were correct.  He had met with the same
difficulties that confronted us, and had been compelled to go into
camp.

Meanwhile valuable time had been lost, and the Indians, with their
families and stock, were well on their way to the Okenagan country, a
region into which we could not penetrate in the winter season.  No
other course was therefore left but to complete the dismal failure of
the expedition by returning home, and our commander readily gave the
order to march back to the Dalles by the "short" route over the
Yakima Mountains.

As the storm was still unabated, it was evident our march home would
be a most difficult one, and it was deemed advisable to start back at
once, lest we should be blocked up in the mountains by the snows for
a period beyond which our provisions would not last.  Relying on the
fact that the short route to the Dalles would lead us over the range
at its most depressed point, where it was hoped the depth of snow was
not yet so great as to make the route impassable, we started with
Colonel Nesmith's battalion in advance to break the road, followed by
my dragoons.  In the valley we made rapid progress, but when we
reached the mountain every step we took up its side showed the snow
to be growing deeper and deeper.  At last Nesmith reached the summit,
and there found a depth of about six feet of snow covering the
plateau in every direction, concealing all signs of the trail so
thoroughly that his guides became bewildered and took the wrong
divide.  The moment I arrived at the top my guide--Donald Mc Kay--who
knew perfectly the whole Yakima range, discovered Nesmith's mistake.
Word was sent to bring him back, but as he had already nearly crossed
the plateau, considerable delay occurred before he returned.  When he
arrived we began anew the work of breaking a road for the foot troops
behind us, my detachment now in advance.  The deep snow made our work
extremely laborious, exhausting men and horses almost to the point of
relinquishing the struggle, but our desperate situation required that
we should get down into the valley beyond, or run the chance of
perishing on the mountain in a storm which seemed unending.  About
midnight the column reached the valley, very tired and hungry, but
much elated over its escape.  We had spent a day of the most intense
anxiety, especially those who had had the responsibility of keeping
to the right trail, and been charged with the hard work of breaking
the road for the infantry and artillery through such a depth of snow.

Our main difficulties were now over, and in due time we reached the
Dalles, where almost everyone connected with the expedition voted it
a wretched failure; indeed, General Rains himself could not think
otherwise, but he scattered far and wide blame for the failure of his
combinations.  This, of course, led to criminations and
recriminations, which eventuated in charges of incompetency preferred
against him by Captain Edward O. C. Ord, of the Third Artillery.
Rains met the charges with counter-charges against Ord, whom he
accused of purloining Father Pandoza's shoes, when the soldiers in
their fury about the ammunition destroyed the Mission.  At the time
of its destruction a rumor of this nature was circulated through
camp, started by some wag, no doubt in jest; for Ord, who was
somewhat eccentric in his habits, and had started on the expedition
rather indifferently shod in carpet-slippers, here came out in a
brand-new pair of shoes.  Of course there was no real foundation for
such a report, but Rains was not above small things, as the bringing
of this petty accusation attests.  Neither party was ever tried, for
General John E. Wool the department commander, had not at command a
sufficient number of officers of appropriate rank to constitute a
court in the case of Rains, and the charges against Ord were very
properly ignored on account of their trifling character.

Shortly after the expedition returned to the Dalles, my detachment
was sent down to Fort Vancouver, and I remained at that post during
the winter of 1855-'56, till late in March.




CHAPTER V.

AN INDIAN CONFEDERATION--MASSACRE AT THE CASCADES OF THE
COLUMBIA--PLAN TO RELIEVE THE BLOCKHOUSE--A HAZARDOUS FLANK
MOVEMENT--A NEW METHOD OF ESTABLISHING GUILT--EXECUTION OF
THE INDIAN MURDERERS.

The failure of the Haller expedition from lack of a sufficient force,
and of the Rains expedition from the incompetency of its commander,
was a great mortification to the officers and men connected with
them, and, taken together, had a marked effect upon the Indian
situation in Oregon and Washington Territories at that particular
era.  Besides, it led to further complications and troubles, for it
had begun to dawn upon the Indians that the whites wanted to come in
and dispossess them of their lands and homes, and the failures of
Haller and Rains fostered the belief with the Indians that they could
successfully resist the pressure of civilization.

Acting under these influences, the Spokanes, Walla Wallas, Umatillas,
and Nez Perces cast their lot with the hostiles, and all the savage
inhabitants of the region east of the Cascade Range became involved
in a dispute as to whether the Indians or the Government should
possess certain sections of the country, which finally culminated in
the war of 1856.

Partly to meet the situation that was approaching, the Ninth Infantry
had been sent out from the Atlantic coast to Washington Territory,
and upon its arrival at Fort Vancouver encamped in front of the
officers' quarters, on the beautiful parade-ground of that post, and
set about preparing for the coming campaign.  The commander, Colonel
George Wright, who had been promoted to the colonelcy of the regiment
upon its organization the previous year, had seen much active duty
since his graduation over thirty years before, serving with credit in
the Florida and Mexican wars.  For the three years previous to his
assignment to the Ninth Infantry he had been stationed on the Pacific
coast, and the experience he had there acquired, added to his
excellent soldierly qualities, was of much benefit in the active
campaigns in which, during the following years, he was to
participate.  Subsequently his career was brought to an untimely
close when, nine years after this period, as he was returning to the
scene of his successes, he, in common with many others was drowned by
the wreck of the ill-fated steamer Brother Jonathan.  Colonel Wright
took command of the district in place of Rains, and had been at
Vancouver but a short time before he realized that it would be
necessary to fight the confederated tribes east of the Cascade Range
of mountains, in order to disabuse them of the idea that they were
sufficiently strong to cope with the power of the Government.  He
therefore at once set about the work of organizing and equipping his
troops for a start in the early spring against the hostile Indians,
intending to make the objective point of his expedition the heart of
the Spokane country on the Upper Columbia River, as the head and
front of the confederation was represented in the person of old
Cammiackan, chief of the Spokanes.

The regiment moved from Fort Vancouver by boat, March 25, 1856, and
landed at the small town called the Dalles, below the mouth of the
Des Chutes River at the eastern base of the Cascade Range, and just
above where the Columbia River enters those mountains.  This
rendezvous was to be the immediate point of departure, and all the
troops composing the expedition were concentrated there.

On the morning of March 26 the movement began, but the column had
only reached Five Mile Creek when the Yakimas, joined by many young
warriors-free lances from other tribes, made a sudden and unexpected
attack at the Cascades of the Columbia, midway between Vancouver and
the Dalles, killed several citizens, women and children, and took
possession of the Portage by besieging the settlers in their cabins
at the Upper Cascades, and those who sought shelter at the Middle
Cascades in the old military block-house, which had been built some
years before as a place of refuge under just such circumstances.
These points held out, and were not captured, but the landing at the
Lower Cascades fell completely into the hands of the savages.
Straggling settlers from the Lower Cascades made their way down to
Fort Vancouver, distant about thirty-six miles, which they reached
that night; and communicated the condition of affairs.  As the
necessity for early relief to the settlers and the re-establishment
of communication with the Dalles were apparent, all the force that
could be spared was ordered out, and in consequence I immediately
received directions to go with my detachment of dragoons, numbering
about forty effective men, to the relief of the middle blockhouse,
which really meant to retake the Cascades.  I got ready at once, and
believing that a piece of artillery would be of service to me, asked
for one, but as there proved to be no guns at the post, I should have
been obliged to proceed without one had it not been that the regular
steamer from San Francisco to Portland was lying at the Vancouver
dock unloading military supplies, and the commander, Captain Dall,
supplied me with the steamer's small iron cannon, mounted on a wooden
platform, which he used in firing salutes at different ports on the
arrival and departure of the vessel.  Finding at the arsenal a supply
of solid shot that would fit the gun, I had it put upon the steamboat
Belle, employed to carry my command to the scene of operations, and
started up the Columbia River at 2 A.M. on the morning of the 27th.
We reached the Lower Cascades early in the day, where, selecting a
favorable place for the purpose, I disembarked my men and gun on the
north bank of the river, so that I could send back the steamboat to
bring up any volunteer assistance that in the mean time might have
been collected at Vancouver.

The Columbia River was very high at the time, and the water had
backed up into the slough about the foot of the Lower Cascades to
such a degree that it left me only a narrow neck of firm ground to
advance over toward the point occupied by the Indians.  On this neck
of land the hostiles had taken position, as I soon learned by
frequent shots, loud shouting, and much blustering; they, by the most
exasperating yells and indecent exhibitions, daring me to the
contest.

After getting well in hand everything connected with my little
command, I advanced with five or six men to the edge of a growth of
underbrush to make a reconnoissance.  We stole along under cover of
this underbrush until we reached the open ground leading over the
causeway or narrow neck before mentioned, when the enemy opened fire
and killed a soldier near my side by a shot which, just grazing the
bridge of my nose, struck him in the neck, opening an artery and
breaking the spinal cord.  He died instantly.  The Indians at once
made a rush for the body, but my men in the rear, coming quickly to
the rescue, drove them back; and Captain Doll's gun being now brought
into play, many solid shot were thrown into the jungle where they lay
concealed, with the effect of considerably moderating their
impetuosity.  Further skirmishing at long range took place at
intervals during the day, with little gain or loss, however, to
either side, for both parties held positions which could not be
assailed in flank, and only the extreme of rashness in either could
prompt a front attack.  My left was protected by the back water
driven into the slough by the high stage of the river, and my right
rested secure on the main stream.  Between us was only the narrow
neck of land, to cross which would be certain death.  The position of
the Indians was almost the exact counterpart of ours.

In the evening I sent a report of the situation back to Vancouver by
the steamboat, retaining a large Hudson's Bay bateau which I had
brought up with me.  Examining this I found it would carry about
twenty men, and made up my mind that early next morning I would cross
the command to the opposite or south side of the Columbia River, and
make my way up along the mountain base until I arrived abreast the
middle blockhouse, which was still closely besieged, and then at some
favorable point recross to the north bank to its relief, endeavoring
in this manner to pass around and to the rear of the Indians, whose
position confronting me was too strong for a direct attack.  This
plan was hazardous, but I believed it could be successfully carried
out if the boat could be taken with me; but should I not be able to
do this I felt that the object contemplated in sending me out would
miserably fail, and the small band cooped up at the block-house would
soon starve or fall a prey to the Indians, so I concluded to risk all
the chances the plan involved.

On the morning of March 28 the savages were still in my front, and
after giving them some solid shot from Captain Dall's gun we slipped
down to the river-bank, and the detachment crossed by means of the
Hudson's Bay boat, making a landing on the opposite shore at a point
where the south channel of the river, after flowing around Bradford's
Island, joins the main stream.  It was then about 9 o'clock, and
everything had thus far proceeded favorably, but examination of the
channel showed that it would be impossible to get the boat up the
rapids along the mainland, and that success could only be assured by
crossing the south channel just below the rapids to the island, along
the shore of which there was every probability we could pull the boat
through the rocks and swift water until the head of the rapids was
reached, from which point to the block-house there was smooth water.
Telling the men of the embarrassment in which I found myself, and
that if I could get enough of them to man the boat and pull it up the
stream by a rope to the shore we would cross to the island and make
the attempt, all volunteered to go, but as ten men seemed sufficient
I selected that number to accompany me.  Before starting, however, I
deemed it prudent to find out if possible what was engaging the
attention of the Indians, who had not yet discovered that we had left
their front.  I therefore climbed up the side of the abrupt mountain
which skirted the water's edge until I could see across the island.
From this point I observed the Indians running horse-races and
otherwise enjoying themselves behind the line they had held against
me the day before.  The squaws decked out in gay colors, and the men
gaudily dressed in war bonnets, made the scene most attractive, but
as everything looked propitious for the dangerous enterprise in hand
I spent little time watching them.  Quickly returning to the boat, I
crossed to the island with my ten men, threw ashore the rope attached
to the bow, and commenced the difficult task of pulling her up the
rapids.  We got along slowly at first, but soon striking a camp of
old squaws who had been left on the island for safety, and had not
gone over to the mainland to see the races, we utilized them to our
advantage.  With unmistakable threats and signs we made them not only
keep quiet, but also give us much needed assistance in pulling
vigorously on the towrope of our boat.

I was laboring under a dreadful strain of mental anxiety during all
this time, for had the Indians discovered what we were about, they
could easily have come over to the island in their canoes, and, by
forcing us to take up our arms to repel their attack, doubtless would
have obliged the abandonment of the boat, and that essential adjunct
to the final success of my plan would have gone down the rapids.
Indeed, under such circumstances, it would have been impossible for
ten men to hold out against the two or three hundred Indians; but the
island forming an excellent screen to our movements, we were not
discovered, and when we reached the smooth water at the upper end of
the rapids we quickly crossed over and joined the rest of the men,
who in the meantime had worked their way along the south bank of the
river parallel with us.  I felt very grateful to the old squaws for
the assistance they rendered.  They worked well under compulsion, and
manifested no disposition to strike for higher wages.  Indeed, I was
so much relieved when we had crossed over from the island and joined
the rest of the party, that I mentally thanked the squaws one and
all.  I had much difficulty in keeping the men on the main shore from
cheering at our success, but hurriedly taking into the bateau all of
them it could carry, I sent the balance along the southern bank,
where the railroad is now built, until both detachments arrived at a
point opposite the block-house, when, crossing to the north bank, I
landed below the blockhouse some little distance, and returned the
boat for the balance of the men, who joined me in a few minutes.

When the Indians attacked the people at the Cascades on the 26th,
word was sent to Colonel Wright, who had already got out from the
Dalles a few miles on his expedition to the Spokane country.  He
immediately turned his column back, and soon after I had landed and
communicated with the beleaguered block-house the advance of his
command arrived under Lieutenant-Colonel Edward J. Steptoe.  I
reported to Steptoe, and related what had occurred during the past
thirty-six hours, gave him a description of the festivities that were
going on at the lower Cascades, and also communicated the
intelligence that the Yakimas had been joined by the Cascade Indians
when the place was first attacked.  I also told him it was my belief
that when he pushed down the main shore the latter tribe without
doubt would cross over to the island we had just left, while the
former would take to the mountains.  Steptoe coincided with me in
this opinion, and informing me that Lieutenant Alexander Piper would
join my detachment with a mountain' howitzer, directed me to convey
the command to the island and gobble up all who came over to it.

Lieutenant Piper and I landed on the island with the first boatload,
and after disembarking the howitzer we fired two or three shots to
let the Indians know we had artillery with us, then advanced down the
island with the whole of my command, which had arrived in the mean
time; all of the men were deployed as skirmishers except a small
detachment to operate the howitzer.  Near the lower end of the island
we met, as I had anticipated, the entire body of Cascade Indianmen,
women, and children--whose homes were in the vicinity of the
Cascades.  They were very much frightened and demoralized at the turn
events had taken, for the Yakimas at the approach of Steptoe had
abandoned them, as predicted, and fled to the mountians.  The chief
and head-men said they had had nothing to do with the capture of the
Cascades, with the murder of men at the upper landing, nor with the
massacre of men, women, and children near the block-house, and put
all the blame on the Yakimas and their allies.  I did not believe
this, however, and to test the truth of their statement formed them
all in line with their muskets in hand.  Going up to the first man on
the right I accused him of having engaged in the massacre, but was
met by a vigorous denial.  Putting my forefinger into the muzzle of
his gun, I found unmistakable signs of its having been recently
discharged.  My finger was black with the stains of burnt powder, and
holding it up to the Indian, he had nothing more to say in the face
of such positive evidence of his guilt.  A further examination proved
that all the guns were in the same condition.  Their arms were at
once taken possession of, and leaving a small, force to look after
the women and children and the very old men, so that there could be
no possibility of escape, I arrested thirteen of the principal
miscreants, crossed the river to the lower landing, and placed them
in charge of a strong guard.

Late in the evening the steamboat, which I had sent back to
Vancouver, returned, bringing to my assistance from Vancouver,
Captain Henry D. Wallen's company of the Fourth Infantry and a
company of volunteers hastily organized at Portland, but as the
Cascades had already been retaken, this reinforcement was too late to
participate in the affair.  The volunteers from Portland, however,
were spoiling for a fight, and in the absence of other opportunity
desired to shoot the prisoners I held (who, they alleged, had killed
a man named Seymour), and proceeded to make their arrangements to do
so, only desisting on being informed that the Indians were my
prisoners, subject to the orders of Colonel Wright, and would be
protected to the last by my detachment.  Not long afterward Seymour
turned up safe and sound, having fled at the beginning of the attack
on the Cascades, and hid somewhere in the thick underbrush until the
trouble was over, and then made his way back to the settlement.  The
next day I turned my prisoners over to Colonel Wright, who had them
marched to the upper landing of the Cascades, where, after a trial by
a military commission, nine of them were sentenced to death and duly
hanged.  I did not see them executed, but was afterward informed
that, in the absence of the usual mechanical apparatus used on such
occasions, a tree with a convenient limb under which two empty
barrels were placed, one on top of the other, furnished a rude but
certain substitute.  In executing the sentence each Indian in turn
was made to stand on the top barrel, and after the noose was adjusted
the lower barrel was knocked away, and the necessary drop thus
obtained.  In this way the whole nine were punished.  Just before
death they all acknowledged their guilt by confessing their
participation in the massacre at the block-house, and met their doom
with the usual stoicism of their race.




CHAPTER VI.

MISDIRECTED VENGEANCE--HONORABLE MENTION--CHANGE OF COMMAND--EDUCATED
OXEN--FEEDING THE INDIANS--PURCHASING A BURYING-GROUND--KNOWING RATS.

While still encamped at the lower landing, some three or four days
after the events last recounted, Mr. Joseph Meek, an old frontiersman
and guide for emigrant trains through the mountains, came down from
the Dalles, on his way to Vancouver, and stopped at my camp to
inquire if an Indian named Spencer and his family had passed down to
Vancouver since my arrival at the Cascades.  Spencer, the head of the
family, was a very influential, peaceable Chinook chief, whom Colonel
Wright had taken with him from Fort Vancouver as an interpreter and
mediator with the Spokanes and other hostile tribes, against which
his campaign was directed.  He was a good, reliable Indian, and on
leaving Vancouver to join Colonel Wright, took his family along, to
remain with relatives and friends at Fort Dalles until the return of
the expedition.  When Wright was compelled to retrace his steps on
account of the capture of the Cascades, this family for some reason
known only to Spencer, was started by him down the river to their
home at Vancouver.

Meek, on seeing the family leave the Dalles, had some misgivings as
to their safe arrival at their destination, because of the excited
condition of the people about the Cascades; but Spencer seemed to
think that his own peaceable and friendly reputation, which was
widespread, would protect them; so he parted from his wife and
children with little apprehension as to their safety.  In reply to
Meek's question, I stated that I had not seen Spencer's family, when
he remarked, "Well, I fear that they are gone up," a phrase used in
that country in early days to mean that they had been killed.  I
questioned him closely, to elicit further information, but no more
could be obtained; for Meek, either through ignorance or the usual
taciturnity of his class, did not explain more fully, and when the
steamer that had brought the reinforcement started down the river, he
took passage for Vancouver, to learn definitely if the Indian family
had reached that point.  I at once sent to the upper landing, distant
about six miles, to make inquiry in regard to the matter, and in a,
little time my messenger returned with the information that the
family had reached that place the day before, and finding that we had
driven the hostiles off, continued their journey on foot toward my
camp, from which point they expected to go by steamer down the river
to Vancouver.

Their non-arrival aroused in me suspicions of foul play, so with all
the men I could spare, and accompanied by Lieutenant William T.
Welcker, of the Ordnance Corps--a warm and intimate friend--I went in
search of the family, deploying the men as skirmishers across the
valley, and marching them through the heavy forest where the ground
was covered with fallen timber and dense underbrush, in order that no
point might escape our attention.  The search was continued between
the base of the mountain and the river without finding any sign of
Spencer's family, until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when we
discovered them between the upper and lower landing, in a small open
space about a mile from the road, all dead--strangled to death with
bits of rope.  The party consisted of the mother, two youths, three
girls, and a baby.  They had all been killed by white men, who had
probably met the innocent creatures somewhere near the blockhouse,
driven them from the road into the timber, where the cruel murders
were committed without provocation, and for no other purpose than the
gratification of the inordinate hatred of the Indian that has often
existed on the frontier, and which on more than one occasion has
failed to distinguish friend from foe.  The bodies lay in a
semicircle, and the bits of rope with which the poor wretches had
been strangled to death were still around their necks.  Each piece of
rope--the unwound strand of a heavier piece--was about two feet long,
and encircled the neck of its victim with a single knot, that must
have been drawn tight by the murderers pulling at the ends.  As there
had not been quite enough rope to answer for all, the babe was
strangled by means of a red silk handkerchief, taken, doubtless, from
the neck of its mother.  It was a distressing sight.  A most cruel
outrage had been committed upon unarmed people--our friends and
allies--in a spirit of aimless revenge.  The perpetrators were
citizens living near the middle block-house, whose wives and children
had been killed a few days before by the hostiles, but who well knew
that these unoffending creatures had had nothing to do with those
murders.

In my experience I have been obliged to look upon many cruel scenes
in connection with Indian warfare on the Plains since that day, but
the effect of this dastardly and revolting crime has never been
effaced from my memory.  Greater and more atrocious massacres have
been committed often by Indians; their savage nature modifies one's
ideas, however, as to the inhumanity of their acts, but when such
wholesale murder as this is done by whites, and the victims not only
innocent, but helpless, no defense can be made for those who
perpetrated the crime, if they claim to be civilized beings.  It is
true the people at the Cascades had suffered much, and that their
wives and children had been murdered before their eyes, but to wreak
vengeance on Spencer's unoffending family, who had walked into their
settlement under the protection of a friendly alliance, was an
unparalleled outrage which nothing can justify or extenuate.  With as
little delay as possible after the horrible discovery, I returned to
camp, had boxes made, and next day buried the bodies of these hapless
victims of misdirected vengeance.

The summary punishment inflicted on the nine Indians, in their trial
and execution, had a most salutary effect on the confederation, and
was the entering wedge to its disintegration; and though Colonel
Wright's campaign continued during the summer and into the early
winter, the subjugation of the allied bands became a comparatively
easy matter after the lesson taught the renegades who were captured
at the Cascades.  My detachment did not accompany Colonel Wright, but
remained for some time at the Cascades, and while still there General
Wool came up from San Francisco to take a look into the condition of
things.  From his conversation with me in reference to the affair at
the Cascades, I gathered that he was greatly pleased at the service I
had performed, and I afterward found that his report of my conduct
had so favorably impressed General Scott that that distinguished
officer complimented me from the headquarters of the army in general
orders.

General Wool, while personally supervising matters on the Columbia
River, directed a redistribution to some extent of the troops in the
district, and shortly before his return to San Francisco I was
ordered with my detachment of dragoons to take station on the Grande
Ronde Indian Reservation in Yamhill County, Oregon, about twenty-five
miles southwest of Dayton, and to relieve from duty at that point
Lieutenant William B. Hazen--late brigadier-general and chief signal
officer--who had established a camp there some time before.  I
started for my new station on April 21, and marching by way of
Portland and Oregon City, arrived at Hazen's camp April 25.  The camp
was located in the Coast range of mountains, on the northeast part of
the reservation, to which last had been added a section of country
that was afterward known as the Siletz reservation.  The whole body
of land set aside went under the general name of the "Coast
reservation," from its skirting the Pacific Ocean for some distance
north of Yaquina Bay, and the intention was to establish within its
bounds permanent homes for such Indians as might be removed to it.
In furtherance of this idea, and to relieve northern California and
southwestern Oregon from the roaming, restless bands that kept the
people of those sections in a state of constant turmoil, many of the
different tribes, still under control but liable to take part in
warfare, were removed to the reservation, so that they might be away
from the theatre of hostilities.

When I arrived I found that the Rogue River Indians had just been
placed upon the reservation, and subsequently the Coquille, Klamath,
Modocs, and remnants of the Chinooks were collected there also, the
home of the latter being in the Willamette Valley.  The number all
told amounted to some thousands, scattered over the entire Coast
reservation, but about fifteen hundred were located at the Grande
Ronde under charge of an agent, Mr. John F. Miller, a sensible,
practical man, who left the entire police control to the military,
and attended faithfully to the duty of settling the Indians in the
work of cultivating the soil.

As the place was to be occupied permanently, Lieutenant Hazen had
begun, before my arrival, the erection of buildings for the shelter
of his command, and I continued the work of constructing the post as
laid out by him.  In those days the Government did not provide very
liberally for sheltering its soldiers; and officers and men were
frequently forced to eke out parsimonious appropriations by toilsome
work or go without shelter in most inhospitable regions.  Of course
this post was no exception to the general rule, and as all hands were
occupied in its construction, and I the only officer present, I was
kept busily employed in supervising matters, both as commandant and
quartermaster, until July, when Captain D. A. Russell, of the Fourth
Infantry, was ordered to take command, and I was relieved from the
first part of my duties.

About this time my little detachment parted from me, being ordered to
join a company of the First Dragoons, commanded by Captain Robert
Williams, as it passed up the country from California by way of
Yamhill.  I regretted exceedingly to see them go, for their faithful
work and gallant service had endeared every man to me by the
strongest ties.  Since I relieved Lieutenant Hood on Pit River,
nearly a twelvemonth before, they had been my constant companions,
and the zeal with which they had responded to every call I made on
them had inspired in my heart a deep affection that years have not
removed.  When I relieved Hood--a dragoon officer of their own
regiment--they did not like the change, and I understood that they
somewhat contemptuously expressed this in more ways than one, in
order to try the temper of the new "Leftenant," but appreciative and
unremitting care, together with firm and just discipline, soon
quieted all symptoms of dissatisfaction and overcame all prejudice.
The detachment had been made up of details from the different
companies of the regiment in order to give Williamson a mounted
force, and as it was usual, under such circumstances, for every
company commander to shove into the detail he was called upon to
furnish the most troublesome and insubordinate individuals of his
company, I had some difficulty, when first taking command, in
controlling such a medley of recalcitrants; but by forethought for
them and their wants, and a strict watchfulness for their rights and
comfort, I was able in a short time to make them obedient and the
detachment cohesive.  In the past year they had made long and
tiresome marches, forded swift mountain streams, constructed rafts of
logs or bundles of dry reeds to ferry our baggage, swum deep rivers,
marched on foot to save their worn-out and exhausted animals, climbed
mountains, fought Indians, and in all and everything had done the
best they could for the service and their commander.  The disaffected
feeling they entertained when I first assumed command soon wore away,
and in its place came a confidence and respect which it gives me the
greatest pleasure to remember, for small though it was, this was my
first cavalry command.  They little thought, when we were in the
mountains of California and Oregon--nor did I myself then dream--that
but a few years were to elapse before it would be my lot again to
command dragoons, this time in numbers so vast as of themselves to
compose almost an army.

Shortly after the arrival of Captain Russell a portion of the Indians
at the Grande Ronde reservation were taken down the coast to the
Siletz reservation, and I was transferred temporarily to Fort
Haskins, on the latter reserve, and assigned to the duty of
completing it and building a blockhouse for the police control of the
Indians placed there.

While directing this work, I undertook to make a road across the
coast mountains from King's Valley to the Siletz, to shorten the haul
between the two points by a route I had explored.  I knew there were
many obstacles in the way, but the gain would be great if we could
overcome them, so I set to work with the enthusiasm of a young
path-finder.  The point at which the road was to cross the range was
rough and precipitous, but the principal difficulty in making it would
be from heavy timber on the mountains that had been burned over years
and years before, until nothing was left but limbless trunks of dead
trees--firs and pines--that had fallen from time to time until the
ground was matted with huge logs from five to eight feet in diameter.
These could not be chopped with axes nor sawed by any ordinary means,
therefore we had to burn them into suitable lengths, and drag the
sections to either side of the roadway with from four to six yoke of
oxen.

The work was both tedious and laborious, but in time perseverance
surmounted all obstacles and the road was finished, though its grades
were very steep.  As soon as it was completed, I wished to
demonstrate its value practically, so I started a Government wagon
over it loaded with about fifteen hundred pounds of freight drawn by
six yoke of oxen, and escorted by a small detachment of soldiers.
When it had gone about seven miles the sergeant in charge came back
to the post and reported his inability to get any further.  Going out
to the scene of difficulty I found the wagon at the base of a steep
hill, stalled.  Taking up a whip myself, I directed the men to lay on
their gads, for each man had supplied himself with a flexible hickory
withe in the early stages of the trip, to start the team, but this
course did not move the wagon nor have much effect on the demoralized
oxen; but following as a last resort an example I heard of on a
former occasion, that brought into use the rough language of the
country, I induced the oxen to move with alacrity, and the wagon and
contents were speedily carried to the summit.  The whole trouble was
at once revealed: the oxen had been broken and trained by a man who,
when they were in a pinch, had encouraged them by his frontier
vocabulary, and they could not realize what was expected of them
under extraordinary conditions until they heard familiar and possibly
profanely urgent phrases.  I took the wagon to its destination, but
as it was not brought back, even in all the time I was stationed in
that country, I think comment on the success of my road is
unnecessary.

I spent many happy months at Fort Haskins, remaining there until the
post was nearly completed and its garrison increased by the arrival
of Captain F. T. Dent--a brother-in-law of Captain Ulysses S. Grant
--with his company of the Fourth Infantry, in April, 1857.  In the
summer of 1856, and while I was still on duty there, the Coquille
Indians on the Siletz, and down near the Yaquina Bay, became, on
account of hunger and prospective starvation, very much excited and
exasperated, getting beyond the control of their agent, and even
threatening his life, so a detachment of troops was sent out to set
things to rights, and I took command of it.  I took with me most of
the company, and arrived at Yaquina Bay in time to succor the agent,
who for some days had been besieged in a log hut by the Indians and
had almost abandoned hope of rescue.

Having brought with me over the mountains a few head of beef cattle
for the hungry Indians, without thinking of running any great
personal risk I had six beeves killed some little distance from my
camp, guarding the meat with four Soldiers, whom I was obliged to
post as sentinels around the small area on which the carcasses lay.
The Indians soon formed a circle about the sentinels, and impelled by
starvation, attempted to take the beef before it could be equally
divided.  This was of course resisted, when they drew their knives
--their guns having been previously taken away from them--and some of
the inferior chiefs gave the signal to attack.  The principal chief,
Tetootney John, and two other Indians joined me in the centre of the
circle, and protesting that they would die rather than that the
frenzied onslaught should succeed, harangued the Indians until the
rest of the company hastened up from camp and put an end to the
disturbance.  I always felt grateful to Tetootney John for his
loyalty on this occasion, and many times afterward aided his family
with a little coffee and sugar, but necessarily surreptitiously, so
as not to heighten the prejudices that his friendly act had aroused
among his Indian comrades.

The situation at Yaquina Bay did not seem very safe, notwithstanding
the supply of beef we brought; and the possibility that the starving
Indians might break out was ever present, so to anticipate any
further revolt, I called for more troops.  The request was complied
with by sending to my assistance the greater part of my own company
("K")from Fort Yamhill.  The men, inspired by the urgency of our
situation, marched more than forty miles a day, accomplishing the
whole distance in so short a period, that I doubt if the record has
ever been beaten.  When this reinforcement arrived, the Indians saw
the futility of further demonstrations against their agent, who they
seemed to think was responsible for the insufficiency of food, and
managed to exist with the slender rations we could spare and such
indifferent food as they could pick up, until the Indian Department
succeeded in getting up its regular supplies.  In the past the poor
things had often been pinched by hunger and neglect, and at times
their only food was rock oysters, clams and crabs.  Great quantities
of these shell-fish could be gathered in the bay near at hand, but
the mountain Indians, who had heretofore lived on the flesh of
mammal, did not take kindly to mollusks, and, indeed, ate the
shell-fish only as a last resort.

Crab catching at night on the Yaquina Bay by the coast Indians was a
very picturesque scene.  It was mostly done by the squaws and
children, each equipped with a torch in one hand, and a sharp-pointed
stick in the other to take and lift the fish into baskets slung on
the back to receive them.  I have seen at times hundreds of squaws
and children wading about in Yaquina Bay taking crabs in this manner,
and the reflection by the water of the light from the many torches,
with the movements of the Indians while at work, formed a weird and
diverting picture of which we were never tired.

Not long after the arrival of the additional troops from Yamhill, it
became apparent that the number of men at Yaquina Bay would have to
be reduced, so in view of this necessity, it was deemed advisable to
build a block-house for the better protection of the agents and I
looked about for suitable ground on which to erect it.  Nearly all
around the bay the land rose up from the beach very abruptly, and the
only good site that could be found was some level ground used as the
burial-place of the Yaquina Bay Indians--a small band of fish-eating
people who had lived near this point on the coast for ages.  They
were a robust lot, of tall and well-shaped figures, and were called
in the Chinook tongue "salt chuck," which means fish-eaters, or
eaters of food from the salt water.  Many of the young men and women
were handsome in feature below the forehead, having fine eyes,
aquiline noses and good mouths, but, in conformity with a
long-standing custom, all had flat heads, which gave them a distorted
and hideous appearance, particularly some of the women, who went to
the extreme of fashion and flattened the head to the rear in a sharp
horizontal ridge by confining it between two boards, one running back
from the forehead at an angle of about forty degrees, and the other up
perpendicularly from the back of the neck.  When a head had been
shaped artistically the dusky maiden owner was marked as a belle, and
one could become reconciled to it after a time, but when carelessness
and neglect had governed in the adjustment of the boards, there
probably was nothing in the form of a human being on the face of the
earth that appeared so ugly.

It was the mortuary ground of these Indians that occupied the only
level spot we could get for the block-house.  Their dead were buried
in canoes, which rested in the crotches of forked sticks a few feet
above-ground.  The graveyard was not large, containing probably from
forty to fifty canoes in a fair state of preservation.  According to
the custom of all Indian tribes on the Pacific coast, when one of
their number died all his worldly effects were buried with him, so
that the canoes were filled with old clothes, blankets, pieces of
calico and the like, intended for the use of the departed in the
happy hunting grounds.

I made known to the Indians that we would have to take this piece of
ground for the blockhouse.  They demurred at first, for there is
nothing more painful to an Indian than disturbing his dead, but they
finally consented to hold a council next day on the beach, and thus
come to some definite conclusion.  Next morning they all assembled,
and we talked in the Chinook language all day long, until at last
they gave in, consenting, probably, as much because they could not
help themselves, as for any other reason.  It was agreed that on the
following day at 12 o'clock, when the tide was going out, I should
take my men and place the canoes in the bay, and let them float out
on the tide across the ocean to the happy hunting-grounds:

At that day there existed in Oregon in vast numbers a species of
wood-rat, and our inspection of the graveyard showed that the canoes
were thickly infested with them.  They were a light gray animal,
larger than the common gray squirrel, with beautiful bushy tails,
which made them strikingly resemble the squirrel, but in cunning and
deviltry they were much ahead of that quick-witted rodent.  I have
known them to empty in one night a keg of spikes in the storehouse in
Yamhill, distributing them along the stringers of the building, with
apparently no other purpose than amusement.  We anticipated great fun
watching the efforts of these rats to escape the next day when the
canoes should be launched on the ocean, and I therefore forbade any
of the command to visit the graveyard in the interim, lest the rats
should be alarmed.  I well knew that they would not be disturbed by
the Indians, who held the sacred spot in awe.  When the work of
taking down the canoes and carrying them to the water began,
expectation was on tiptoe, but, strange as it may seem, not a rat was
to be seen.  This unexpected development was mystifying.  They had
all disappeared; there was not one in any of the canoes, as
investigation proved, for disappointment instigated a most thorough
search.  The Indians said the rats understood Chinook, and that as
they had no wish to accompany the dead across the ocean to the happy
hunting-grounds, they took to the woods for safety.  However that may
be, I have no doubt that the preceding visits to the burial-ground,
and our long talk of the day before, with the unusual stir and
bustle, had so alarmed the rats that, impelled, by their suspicious
instincts, they fled a danger, the nature of which they could not
anticipate, but which they felt to be none the less real and
impending.




CHAPTER VII.

LEARNING THE CHINOOK LANGUAGE--STRANGE INDIAN
CUSTOMS--THEIR DOCTORS--SAM PATCH--THE MURDER OF A
WOMAN--IN A TIGHT PLACE--SURPRISING THE INDIANS--CONFLICTING
REPORTS OF THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN--SECESSION QUESTION IN
CALIFORNIA--APPOINTED A CAPTAIN--TRANSFERRED TO THE EAST.

The troubles at the Siletz and Yaquina Bay were settled without
further excitement by the arrival in due time of plenty of food, and
as the buildings, at Fort Haskins were so near completion that my
services as quartermaster were no longer needed, I was ordered to
join my own company at Fort Yamhill, where Captain Russell was still
in command.  I returned to that place in May, 1857, and at a period a
little later, in consequence of the close of hostilities in southern
Oregon, the Klamaths and Modocs were sent back to their own country,
to that section in which occurred, in 1873, the disastrous war with
the latter tribe.  This reduced considerably the number of Indians at
the Grande Ronde, but as those remaining were still somewhat unruly,
from the fact that many questions requiring adjustment were
constantly arising between the different bands, the agent and the
officers at the post were kept pretty well occupied.  Captain Russell
assigned to me the special work of keeping up the police control, and
as I had learned at an early day to speak Chinook (the "court
language" among the coast tribes) almost as well as the Indians
themselves, I was thereby enabled to steer my way successfully on
many critical occasions.

For some time the most disturbing and most troublesome element we had
was the Rogue River band.  For three or four years they had fought
our troops obstinately, and surrendered at the bitter end in the
belief that they were merely overpowered, not conquered.  They openly
boasted to the other Indians that they could whip the soldiers, and
that they did not wish to follow the white man's ways, continuing
consistently their wild habits, unmindful of all admonitions.
Indeed, they often destroyed their household utensils, tepees and
clothing, and killed their horses on the graves of the dead, in the
fulfillment of a superstitious custom, which demanded that they
should undergo, while mourning for their kindred, the deepest
privation in a property sense.  Everything the loss of which would
make them poor was sacrificed on the graves of their relatives or
distinguished warriors, and as melancholy because of removal from
their old homes caused frequent deaths, there was no lack of occasion
for the sacrifices.  The widows and orphans of the dead warriors were
of course the chief mourners, and exhibited their grief in many
peculiar ways.  I remember one in particular which was universally
practiced by the near kinsfolk.  They would crop their hair very
close, and then cover the head with a sort of hood or plaster of
black pitch, the composition being clay, pulverized charcoal, and the
resinous gum which exudes from the pine-tree.  The hood, nearly an
inch in thickness, was worn during a period of mourning that lasted
through the time it would take nature, by the growth of the hair,
actually to lift from the head the heavy covering of pitch after it
had become solidified and hard as stone.  It must be admitted that
they underwent considerable discomfort in memory of their relatives.
It took all the influence we could bring to bear to break up these
absurdly superstitious practices, and it looked as if no permanent
improvement could be effected, for as soon as we got them to discard
one, another would be invented.  When not allowed to burn down their
tepees or houses, those poor souls who were in a dying condition
would be carried out to the neighboring hillsides just before
dissolution, and there abandoned to their sufferings, with little or
no attention, unless the placing under their heads of a small stick
of wood--with possibly some laudable object, but doubtless great
discomfort to their victim--might be considered such.

To uproot these senseless and monstrous practices was indeed most
difficult.  The most pernicious of all was one which was likely to
bring about tragic results.  They believed firmly in a class of
doctors among their people who professed that they could procure the
illness of an individual at will, and that by certain incantations
they could kill or cure the sick person.  Their faith in this
superstition was so steadfast that there was no doubting its
sincerity, many indulging at times in the most trying privations,
that their relatives might be saved from death at the hands of the
doctors.  I often talked with them on the subject, and tried to
reason them out of the superstitious belief, defying the doctors to
kill me, or even make me ill; but my talks were unavailing, and they
always met my arguments with the remark that I was a white man, of a
race wholly different from the red man, and that that was the reason
the medicine of the doctors would not affect me.  These villainous
doctors might be either men or women, and any one of them finding an
Indian ill, at once averred that his influence was the cause,
offering at the same time to cure the invalid for a fee, which
generally amounted to about all the ponies his family possessed.  If
the proposition was accepted and the fee paid over, the family, in
case the man died, was to have indemnity through the death of the
doctor, who freely promised that they might take his life in such
event, relying on his chances of getting protection from the furious
relatives by fleeing to the military post till time had so assuaged
their grief that matters could be compromised or settled by a
restoration of a part of the property, when the rascally leeches
could again resume their practice.  Of course the services of a
doctor were always accepted when an Indian fell ill; otherwise the
invalid's death would surely ensue, brought about by the evil
influence that was unpropitiated.  Latterly it had become quite the
thing, when a patient died, for the doctor to flee to our camp--it
was so convenient and so much safer than elsewhere--and my cellar was
a favorite place of refuge from the infuriated friends of the
deceased.

Among the most notable of these doctors was an Indian named Sam
Patch, who several times sought asylum in any cellar, and being a
most profound diplomat, managed on each occasion and with little
delay to negotiate a peaceful settlement and go forth in safety to
resume the practice of his nefarious profession.  I often hoped he
would be caught before reaching the post, but he seemed to know
intuitively when the time had come to take leg-bail, for his advent
at the garrison generally preceded by but a few hours the death of
some poor dupe.

Finally these peculiar customs brought about the punishment of a
noted doctress of the Rogue River tribe, a woman who was constantly
working in this professional way, and who had found a victim of such
prominence among the Rogue Rivers that his unlooked for death brought
down on her the wrath of all.  She had made him so ill, they
believed, as to bring him to death's door notwithstanding the many
ponies that had been given her to cease the incantations, and it was
the conviction of all that she had finally caused the man's death
from some ulterior and indiscernible motive.  His relatives and
friends then immediately set about requiting her with the just
penalties of a perfidious breach of contract.  Their threats induced
her instant flight toward my house for the usual protection, but the
enraged friends of the dead man gave hot chase, and overtook the
witch just inside the limits of the garrison, where, on the
parade-ground, in sight of the officers' quarters, and before any one
could interfere, they killed her.  There were sixteen men in pursuit
of the doctress, and sixteen gun-shot wounds were found in her body
when examined by the surgeon of the post.  The killing of the woman
was a flagrant and defiant outrage committed in the teeth of the
military authority, yet done so quickly that we could not prevent it.
This necessitated severe measures, both to allay the prevailing
excitement and to preclude the recurrence of such acts.  The body was
cared for, and delivered to the relatives the next day for burial,
after which Captain Russell directed me to take such steps as would
put a stop to the fanatical usages that had brought about this
murderous occurrence, for it was now seen that if timely measures were
not taken to repress them, similar tragedies would surely follow.

Knowing all the men of the Rogue River tribe, and speaking fluently
the Chinook tongue, which they all understood, I went down to their
village the following day, after having sent word to the tribe that I
wished to have a council with them.  The Indians all met me in
council, as I had desired, and I then told them that the men who had
taken part in shooting the woman would have to be delivered up for
punishment.  They were very stiff with me at the interview, and with
all that talent for circumlocution and diplomacy with which the
Indian is lifted, endeavored to evade my demands and delay any
conclusion.  But I was very positive, would hear of no compromise
whatever, and demanded that my terms be at once complied with.  No
one was with me but a sergeant of my company, named Miller, who held
my horse, and as the chances of an agreement began to grow remote, I
became anxious for our safety.  The conversation waxing hot and the
Indians gathering close in around me, I unbuttoned the flap of my
pistol holster, to be ready for any emergency.  When the altercation
became most bitter I put my hand to my hip to draw my pistol, but
discovered it was gone--stolen by one of the rascals surrounding me.
Finding myself unarmed, I modified my tone and manner to correspond
with my helpless condition, thus myself assuming the diplomatic side
in the parley, in order to gain time.  As soon as an opportunity
offered, and I could, without too much loss of self-respect, and
without damaging my reputation among the Indians, I moved out to
where the sergeant held my horse, mounted, and crossing the Yamhill
River close by, called back in Chinook from the farther bank that
"the sixteen men who killed the woman must be delivered up, and my
six-shooter also." This was responded to by contemptuous laughter, so
I went back to the military post somewhat crestfallen, and made my
report of the turn affairs had taken, inwardly longing for another
chance to bring the rascally Rogue Rivers to terms.

When I had explained the situation to Captain Russell, he thought
that we could not, under any circumstances, overlook this defiant
conduct of the Indians, since, unless summarily punished, it would
lead to even more serious trouble in the future.  I heartily seconded
this proposition, and gladly embracing the opportunity it offered,
suggested that if he would give me another chance, and let me have
the effective force of the garrison, consisting of about fifty men, I
would chastise the Rogue Rivers without fail, and that the next day
was all the time I required to complete arrangements.  He gave me the
necessary authority, and I at once set to work to bring about a
better state of discipline on the reservation, and to put an end to
the practices of the medicine men (having also in view the recovery
of my six-shooter and self-respect), by marching to the village and
taking the rebellious Indians by force.

In the tribe there was an excellent woman called Tighee Mary (Tighee
in Chinook means chief), who by right of inheritance was a kind of
queen of the Rogue Rivers.  Fearing that the insubordinate conduct of
the Indians would precipitate further trouble, she came early the
following morning to see me and tell me of the situation Mary
informed me that she had done all in her power to bring the Indians
to reason, but without avail, and that they were determined to fight
rather than deliver up the sixteen men who had engaged in the
shooting.  She also apprised me of the fact that they had taken up a
position on the Yamhill River, on the direct road between the post
and village, where, painted and armed for war, they were awaiting
attack.

On this information I concluded it would be best to march to the
village by a circuitous route instead of directly, as at first
intended, so I had the ferry-boat belonging to the post floated about
a mile and a half down the Yamhill River and there anchored.  At 11
o'clock that night I marched my fifty men, out of the garrison, in a
direction opposite to that of the point held by the Indians, and soon
reached the river at the ferryboat.  Here I ferried the party over
with little delay, and marched them along the side of the mountain,
through underbrush and fallen timber, until, just before daylight, I
found that we were immediately in rear of the village, and thence in
rear, also, of the line occupied by the refractory Indians, who were
expecting to meet me on the direct road from the post.  Just at break
of day we made a sudden descent upon the village and took its
occupants completely by surprise, even capturing the chief of the
tribe, "Sam," who was dressed in all his war toggery, fully armed and
equipped, in anticipation of a fight on the road where his comrades
were in position.  I at once put Sam under guard, giving orders to
kill him instantly if the Indians fired a shot; then forming my line
on the road beyond the edge of the village, in rear of the force
lying in wait for a front attack, we moved forward.  When the hostile
party realized that they were completely cut off from the village,
they came out from their stronghold on the river and took up a line
in my front, distant about sixty yards with the apparent intention of
resisting to the last.

As is usual with Indians when expecting a fight, they were nearly
naked, fantastically painted with blue clay, and hideously arrayed in
war bonnets.  They seemed very belligerent, brandishing their muskets
in the air, dancing on one foot, calling us ugly names, and making
such other demonstrations of hostility, that it seemed at first that
nothing short of the total destruction of the party could bring about
the definite settlement that we were bent on.  Still, as it was my
desire to bring them under subjection without loss of life, if
possible, I determined to see what result would follow when they
learned that their chief was at our mercy.  So, sending Sam under
guard to the front, where he could be seen, informing them that he
would be immediately shot if they fired upon us, and aided by the
cries and lamentations of the women of the village, who deprecated
any hostile action by either party, I soon procured a parley.

The insubordinate Indians were under command of "Joe," Sam's brother,
who at last sent me word that he wanted to see me, and we met between
our, respective lines.  I talked kindly to him, but was firm in my
demand that the men who killed the woman must be given up and my
six-shooter returned.  His reply was he did not think it could be done,
but he would consult his people.  After the consultation, he returned
and notified me that fifteen would surrender and the six-shooter
would be restored, and further, that we could kill the sixteenth man,
since the tribe wished to get rid of him anyhow, adding that he was a
bad Indian, whose bullet no doubt had given the woman her death
wound.  He said that if I assented to this arrangement, he would
require all of his people except the objectionable man to run to the
right of his line at a preconcerted signal.  The bad Indian would be
ordered to stand fast on the extreme left, and we could open fire on
him as his comrades fell away to the right.  I agreed to the
proposition, and gave Joe fifteen minutes to execute his part of it.
We then returned to our respective forces, and a few minutes later
the fifteen ran to the right flank as agreed upon, and we opened fire
on the one Indian left standing alone, bringing him down in his
tracks severely wounded by a shot through the shoulder.

While all this was going on, the other bands of the reservation,
several thousand strong, had occupied the surrounding hills for the
purpose of witnessing the fight, for as the Rogue Rivers had been
bragging for some time that they could whip the soldiers, these other
Indians had come out to see it done.  The result, however,
disappointed the spectators, and the Rogue Rivers naturally lost
caste.  The fifteen men now came in and laid down their arms
(including my six-shooter) in front of us as agreed, but I compelled
them to take the surrendered guns up again and carry them to the
post, where they were deposited in the block-house for future
security.  The prisoners were ironed with ball and chain, and made to
work at the post until their rebellious spirit was broken; and the
wounded man was correspondingly punished after he had fully
recovered.  An investigation as to why this man had been selected as
the offering by which Joe and his companions expected to gain
immunity, showed that the fellow was really a most worthless
character, whose death even would have been a benefit to the tribe.
Thus it seemed that they had two purposes in view--the one to
propitiate me and get good terms, the other to rid themselves of a
vagabond member of the tribe.

The punishment of these sixteen Indians by ball and chain ended all
trouble with the Rogue River tribe.  The, disturbances arising from
the incantations of the doctors and doctresses, and the practice of
killing horses and burning all worldly property on the graves of
those who died, were completely suppressed, and we made with little
effort a great stride toward the civilization of these crude and
superstitious people, for they now began to recognize the power of
the Government.  In their management afterward a course of justice
and mild force was adopted, and unvaryingly applied.  They were
compelled to cultivate their land, to attend church, and to send
their children to school.  When I saw them, fifteen years later,
transformed into industrious and substantial farmers, with neat
houses, fine cattle, wagons and horses, carrying their grain, eggs,
and butter to market and bringing home flour, coffee, sugar, and
calico in return, I found abundant confirmation of my early opinion
that the most effectual measures for lifting them from a state of
barbarism would be a practical supervision at the outset, coupled
with a firm control and mild discipline.

In all that was done for these Indians Captain Russell's judgment and
sound, practical ideas were the inspiration.  His true manliness,
honest and just methods, together with the warm-hearted interest he
took in all that pertained to matters of duty to his Government,
could not have produced other than the best results, in what position
soever he might have been placed.  As all the lovable traits of his
character were constantly manifested, I became most deeply attached
to him, and until the day of his death in 1864, on the battle-field
of Opequan, in front of Winchester, while gallantly leading his
division under my command, my esteem and affection were sustained and
intensified by the same strong bonds that drew me to him in these
early days in Oregon.

After the events just narrated I continued on duty at the post of
Yamhill, experiencing the usual routine of garrison life without any
incidents of much interest, down to the breaking out of the war of
the rebellion in April, 1861.  The news of the firing on Fort Sumter
brought us an excitement which overshadowed all else, and though we
had no officers at the post who sympathized with the rebellion, there
were several in our regiment--the Fourth Infantry--who did, and we
were considerably exercised as to the course they might pursue, but
naturally far more so concerning the disposition that would be made
of the regiment during the conflict.

In due time orders came for the regiment to go East, and my company
went off, leaving me, however--a second lieutenant--in command of the
post until I should be relieved by Captain James J. Archer, of the
Ninth Infantry, whose company was to take the place of the old
garrison.  Captain Archer, with his company of the Ninth, arrived
shortly after, but I had been notified that he intended to go South,
and his conduct was such after reaching the post that I would not
turn over the command to him for fear he might commit some rebellious
act.  Thus a more prolonged detention occurred than I had at first
anticipated.  Finally the news came that he had tendered his
resignation and been granted a leave of absence for sixty days.  On
July 17 he took his departure, but I continued in command till
September 1, when Captain Philip A. Owen, of the Ninth Infantry,
arrived and, taking charge, gave me my release.

From the day we received the news of the firing on Sumter until I
started East, about the first of September, 1861, I was deeply
solicitous as to the course of events, and though I felt confident
that in the end the just cause of the Government must triumph, yet
the thoroughly crystallized organization which the Southern
Confederacy quickly exhibited disquieted me very much, for it alone
was evidence that the Southern leaders had long anticipated the
struggle and prepared for it.  It was very difficult to obtain direct
intelligence of the progress of the war.  Most of the time we were in
the depths of ignorance as to the true condition of affairs, and this
tended to increase our anxiety.  Then, too, the accounts of the
conflicts that had taken place were greatly exaggerated by the
Eastern papers, and lost nothing in transition.  The news came by the
pony express across the Plains to San Francisco, where it was still
further magnified in republishing, and gained somewhat in Southern
bias.  I remember well that when the first reports reached us of, the
battle of Bull Run--that sanguinary engagement--it was stated that
each side had lost forty thousand men in killed and wounded, and none
were reported missing nor as having run away.  Week by week these
losses grew less, until they finally shrunk into the hundreds, but
the vivid descriptions of the gory conflict were not toned down
during the whole summer.

We received our mail at Yamhill only once a week, and then had to
bring it from Portland, Oregon, by express.  On the day of the week
that our courier, or messenger, was expected back from Portland, I
would go out early in the morning to a commanding point above the
post, from which I could see a long distance down the road as it ran
through the valley of the Yamhill, and there I would watch with
anxiety for his coming, longing for good news; for, isolated as I had
been through years spent in the wilderness, my patriotism was
untainted by politics, nor had it been disturbed by any discussion of
the questions out of which the war grew, and I hoped for the success
of the Government above all other considerations.  I believe I was
also uninfluenced by any thoughts of the promotion that might result
to me from the conflict, but, out of a sincere desire to contribute
as much as I could to the preservation of the Union, I earnestly
wished to be at the seat of war, and feared it might end before I
could get East.  In no sense did I anticipate what was to happen to
me afterward, nor that I was to gain any distinction from it.  I was
ready to do my duty to the best of my ability wherever I might be
called, and I was young, healthy, insensible to fatigue, and desired
opportunity, but high rank was so distant in our service that not a
dream of its attainment had flitted through my brain.

During the period running from January to September, 1861, in
consequence of resignations and the addition of some new regiments to
the regular army, I had passed through the grade of first lieutenant
and reached that of captain in the Thirteenth United States Infantry,
of which General W. T. Sherman had recently been made the colonel.
When relieved from further duty at Yamhill by Captain Owen, I left
for the Atlantic coast to join my new regiment.  A two days' ride
brought me down to Portland, whence I sailed to San Franciso, and at
that city took passage by steamer for New York via the Isthmus of
Panama, in company with a number of officers who were coming East
under circumstances like my own.

At this time California was much agitated--on the question of
secession, and the secession element was so strong that considerable
apprehension was felt by the Union people lest the State might be
carried into the Confederacy.  As a consequence great distrust
existed in all quarters, and the loyal passengers on the steamer, not
knowing what might occur during our voyage, prepared to meet
emergencies by thoroughly organizing to frustrate any attempt that
might possibly be made to carry us into some Southern port after we
should leave Aspinwall.  However, our fears proved groundless; at all
events, no such attempt was made, and we reached New York in safety
in November, 1861.  A day or two in New York sufficed to replenish a
most meagre wardrobe, and I then started West to join my new
regiment, stopping a day and a night at the home of my parents in
Ohio, where I had not been since I journeyed from Texas for the
Pacific coast.  The headquarters of my regiment were at Jefferson
Barracks, Missouri, to which point I proceeded with no further delay
except a stay in the city of St. Louis long enough to pay my respects
to General H. W. Halleck.




CHAPTER VIII.

AUDITING ACCOUNTS--CHIEF QUARTERMASTER AND COMMISSARY OF THE ARMY OF
SOUTHWEST MISSOURI--PREPARING FOR THE PEA RIDGE CAMPAIGN--A
DIFFERENCE WITH GENERAL CURTIS--ORDERED TO THE FRONT--APPOINTED A
COLONEL.

Some days after I had reached the headquarters of my regiment near
St. Louis, General Halleck sent for me, and when I reported he
informed me that there existed a great deal of confusion regarding
the accounts of some of the disbursing officers in his department,
whose management of its fiscal affairs under his predecessor, General
John C. Fremont, had been very loose; and as the chaotic condition of
things could be relieved only by auditing these accounts, he
therefore had determined to create a board of officers for the
purpose, and intended to make me president of it.  The various
transactions in question covered a wide field, for the department
embraced the States of Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Arkansas,
and all of Kentucky west of the Cumberland River.

The duty was not distasteful, and I felt that I was qualified to
undertake it, for the accounts to be audited belonged exclusively to
the Quartermaster and Subsistence departments, and by recent
experience I had become familiar with the class of papers that
pertained to those branches of the army.  Indeed, it was my
familiarity with such transactions, returns, etc., that probably
caused my selection as president of the board.

I entered upon the work forthwith, and continued at it until the 26th
of December, 1861.  At that date I was relieved from the auditing
board and assigned to duty as Chief Commissary of the Army of
Southwest Missouri, commanded by General Samuel R. Curtis.  This army
was then organizing at Rolla, Missouri, for the Pea Ridge campaign,
its strength throughout the campaign being in the aggregate about
fifteen thousand men.

As soon as I received information of my selection for this position,
I went to General Halleck and requested him to assign me as Chief
Quartermaster also.  He was reluctant to do so, saying that I could
not perform both duties, but I soon convinced him that I could do
both better than the one, for I reminded him that as Chief
Quartermaster I should control the transportation, and thus obviate
all possible chances of discord between the two staff departments; a
condition which I deemed essential to success, especially as it was
intended that Curtis's army should mainly subsist on the country.
This argument impressed Halleck, and becoming convinced, he promptly
issued the order making me Chief Quartermaster and Chief Commissary
of Subsistence of the Army of Southwest Missouri, and I started for
Rolla to enter upon the work assigned me.

Having reported to General Curtis, I quickly learned that his system
of supply was very defective, and the transportation without proper
organization, some of the regiments having forty to fifty wagon each,
and others only three or four.  I labored day and night to remedy
these and other defects, and with the help of Captain Michael P.
Small, of the Subsistence Department, who was an invaluable
assistant, soon brought things into shape, putting the transportation
in good working order, giving each regiment its proper quota of
wagons, and turning the surplus into the general supply trains of the
army.  In accomplishing this I was several times on the verge of
personal conflict with irate regimental commanders, but Colonel G. M.
Dodge so greatly sustained me with General Curtis by strong moral
support, and by such efficient details from his regiment--the Fourth
Iowa Volunteer Infantry--that I still bear him and it great affection
and lasting gratitude.

On January 26, 1862, General Curtis's army began its march from Rolla
to Springfield, Missouri, by way of Lebanon.  The roads were deep
with mud, and so badly cut up that the supply trains in moving
labored under the most serious difficulties, and were greatly
embarrassed by swollen streams.  Under these circumstances many
delays occurred, and when we arrived at Lebanon nearly all the
supplies with which we had started had been consumed, and the work of
feeding the troops off the country had to begin at that point.  To
get flour, wheat had to be taken from the stacks, threshed, and sent
to the mills to be ground.  Wheat being scarce in this region, corn
as a substitute had to be converted into meal by the same laborious
process.  In addition, beef cattle had to be secured for the meat
ration.

By hard work we soon accumulated a sufficient quantity of flour and
corn meal to justify the resumption of our march on Springfield; at
or near which point the enemy was believed to be awaiting us, and the
order was given to move forward, the commanding general cautioning
me, in the event of disaster, to let no salt fall into General
Price's hands.  General Curtis made a hobby of this matter of salt,
believing the enemy was sadly in need of that article, and he
impressed me deeply with his conviction that our cause would be
seriously injured by a loss which would inure so greatly and
peculiarly to the enemy's benefit; but we afterward discovered, when
Price abandoned his position, that about all he left behind was salt.

When we were within about eight miles of Springfield, General Curtis
decided to put his troops in line of battle for the advance on the
town, and directed me to stretch out my supply trains in a long line
of battle, so that in falling back, in case the troops were repulsed,
he could rally the men on the wagons.  I did not like the tactics,
but of course obeyed the order.  The line moved on Springfield, and
took the town without resistance, the enemy having fled southward, in
the direction of Pea Ridge, the preceding day.  Of course our success
relieved my anxiety about the wagons; but fancy has often pictured
since, the stampede of six mule teams that, had we met with any
reverse, would have taken place over the prairies of southwest
Missouri.

The army set out in pursuit of Price, but I was left at Springfield
to gather supplies from the surrounding country, by the same means
that had been used at Lebanon, and send them forward.  To succeed in
this useful and necessary duty required much hard work.  To procure
the grain and to run the mills in the country, replacing the
machinery where parts had been carried away, or changing the
principle and running the mills on some different plan when
necessary, and finally forward the product to the army, made a task
that taxed the energy of all engaged in it.  Yet, having at command a
very skillful corps of millwrights, machinists, and millers, detailed
principally from the Fourth Iowa and Thirty-sixth Illinois volunteer
regiments, we soon got matters in shape, and were able to send such
large quantities of flour and meal to the front, that only the bacon
and small parts of the ration had to be brought forward from our
depot at Rolla.  When things were well systematized, I went forward
myself to expedite the delivery of supplies, and joined the army at
Cross Hollows, just south of Pea Ridge.

Finding everything working well at Cross Hollows, I returned to
Springfield in a few days to continue the labor of collecting
supplies.  On my way back I put the mills at Cassville in good order
to grind the grain in that vicinity, and perfected there a plan for
the general supply from the neighboring district of both the men and
animals of the army, so that there should, be no chance of a failure
of the campaign from bad roads or disaster to my trains.  Springfield
thus became the centre of the entire supply section.

Just after my return to Springfield the battle of Pea Ridge was
fought.  The success of the Union troops in this battle was
considerable, and while not of sufficient magnitude to affect the
general cause materially, it was decisive as to that particular
campaign, and resulted in driving all organized Confederate forces
out of the State of Missouri.  After Pea Ridge was won, certain
efforts were made to deprive Curtis of the credit due him for the
victory; but, no matter what merit belonged to individual commanders,
I was always convinced that Curtis was deserving of the highest
commendation, not only for the skill displayed on the field, but for
a zeal and daring in campaign which was not often exhibited at that
early period of the war.  Especially should this credit be awarded
him, when we consider the difficulties under which he labored, how he
was hampered in having to depend on a sparsely settled country for
the subsistence of his troops.  In the reports of the battle that
came to Springfield, much glory was claimed for some other general
officers, but as I had control of the telegraph line from Springfield
east, I detained all despatches until General Curtis had sent in his
official report.  He thus had the opportunity of communicating with
his superior in advance of some of his vain subordinates, who would
have laid claim to the credit of the battle had I not thwarted them
by this summary means.

Not long afterward came the culmination of a little difference that
had arisen between General Curtis and me, brought about, I have since
sometimes thought, by an assistant quartermaster from Iowa, whom I
had on duty with me at Springfield.  He coveted my place, and finally
succeeded in getting it.  He had been an unsuccessful banker in Iowa,
and early in the war obtained an appointment as assistant
quartermaster of volunteers with the rank of captain.  As chief
quartermaster of the army in Missouri, there would be opportunities
for the recuperation of his fortunes which would not offer to one in
a subordinate place; so to gain this position he doubtless intrigued
for it while under my eye, and Curtis was induced to give it to him
as soon as I was relieved.  His career as my successor, as well as in
other capacities in which he was permitted to act during the war, was
to say the least not savory.  The war over he turned up in Chicago as
president of a bank, which he wrecked; and he finally landed in the
penitentiary for stealing a large sum of money from the United States
Treasury at Washington while employed there as a clerk.  The chances
that this man's rascality would be discovered were much less when
chief of the departments of transportation and supply of an army than
they afterward proved to be in the Treasury.  I had in my possession
at all times large sums of money for the needs of the army, and among
other purposes for which these funds were to be disbursed was the
purchase of horses and mules.  Certain officers and men more devoted
to gain than to the performance of duty (a few such are always to be
found in armies) quickly learned this, and determined to profit by
it.  Consequently they began a regular system of stealing horses from
the people of the country and proffering them to me for purchase.  It
took but a little time to discover this roguery, and when I became
satisfied of their knavery I brought it to a sudden close by seizing
the horses as captured property, branding them U. S., and refusing to
pay for them.  General Curtis, misled by the misrepresentations that
had been made, and without fully knowing the circumstances, or
realizing to what a base and demoralizing state of things this course
was inevitably tending, practically ordered me to make the Payments,
and I refused.  The immediate result of this disobedience was a
court-martial to try me; and knowing that my usefulness in that army
was gone, no matter what the outcome of the trial might be, I asked
General Halleck to relieve me from duty with General Curtis and order
me to St. Louis.  This was promptly done, and as my connection with
the Army of Southwest Missouri was thus severed before the court
could be convened, my case never came to trial.  The man referred to
as being the cause of this condition of affairs was appointed by
General Curtis to succeed me.  I turned over to the former all the
funds and property for which I was responsible, also the branded
horses and mules stolen from the people of the country, requiring
receipts for everything.  I heard afterward that some of the blooded
stock of southwest Missouri made its way to Iowa in an unaccountable
manner, but whether the administration of my successor was
responsible for it or not I am unable to say.

On my arrival at St. Louis I felt somewhat forlorn and disheartened
at the turn affairs had taken.  I did not know where I should be
assigned, nor what I should be required to do, but these
uncertainties were dispelled in a few days by General Halleck, who,
being much pressed by the Governors of some of the Western States to
disburse money in their sections, sent me out into the Northwest with
a sort of roving commission to purchase horses for the use of the
army.  I went to Madison and Racine, Wis., at which places I bought
two hundred horses, which were shipped to St. Louis.  At Chicago I
bought two hundred more, and as the prices paid at the latter point
showed that Illinois was the cheapest market--it at that time
producing a surplus over home demands--I determined to make Chicago
the centre of my operations.

While occupied in this way at Chicago the battle of Shiloh took
place, and the desire for active service with troops became uppermost
in my thoughts, so I returned to St. Louis to see if I could not get
into the field.  General Halleck having gone down to the Shiloh
battle-field, I reported to his Assistant Adjutant-General, Colonel
John C. Kelton, and told him of my anxiety to take a hand in active
field-service, adding that I did not wish to join my regiment, which
was still organizing and recruiting at Jefferson Barracks, for I felt
confident I could be more useful elsewhere.  Kelton knew that the
purchasing duty was but temporary, and that on its completion,
probably at no distant date, I should have to join my company at the
barracks; so, realizing the inactivity to which that situation of
affairs would subject me, he decided to assume the responsibility of
sending me to report to General Halleck at Shiloh, and gave me an
order to that effect.

This I consider the turning-point in my military career, and shall
always feel grateful to Colonel Kelton for his kindly act which so
greatly influenced my future.  My desire to join the army at Shiloh
had now taken possession of me, and I was bent on getting there by
the first means available.  Learning that a hospital-boat under
charge of Dr. Hough was preparing to start for Pittsburg Landing, I
obtained the Doctor's consent to take passage on it, and on the
evening of April 15, I left St. Louis for the scene of military
operations in northeastern Mississippi.

At Pittsburg Landing I reported to General Halleck, who, after some
slight delay, assigned me to duty as an assistant to Colonel George
Thom, of the topographical engineers.  Colonel Thom put me at the
work of getting the trains up from the landing, which involved the
repair of roads for that purpose by corduroying the marshy places.
This was rough, hard work, without much chance of reward, but it, was
near the field of active operations, and I determined to do the best
I could at it till opportunity for something better might arise.

General Halleck did not know much about taking care of himself in the
field.  His camp arrangements were wholly inadequate, and in
consequence he and all the officers about him were subjected to much
unnecessary discomfort and annoyance.  Someone suggested to him to
appoint me quartermaster for his headquarters, with a view to
systematizing the establishment and remedying the defects complained
of, and I was consequently assigned to this duty.  Shortly after this
assignment I had the satisfaction of knowing that General Halleck was
delighted with the improvements made at headquarters, both in camp
outfit and transportation, and in administration generally.  My
popularity grew as the improvements increased, but one trifling
incident came near marring it.  There was some hitch about getting
fresh beef for General Halleck's mess, and as by this time everybody
had come to look to me for anything and everything in the way of
comfort, Colonel Joe McKibben brought an order from the General for
me to get fresh beef for the headquarters mess.  I was not caterer
for this mess, nor did I belong to it even, so I refused point-blank.
McKibben, disliking to report my disobedience, undertook persuasion,
and brought Colonel Thom to see me to aid in his negotiations, but I
would not give in, so McKibben in the kindness of his heart rode
several miles in order to procure the beef himself, and thus save me
from the dire results which be thought would follow should Halleck
get wind of such downright insubordination.  The next day I was made
Commissary of Subsistence for the headquarters in addition to my
other duties, and as this brought me into the line of fresh beef,
General Halleck had no cause thereafter to complain of a scarcity of
that article in his mess.

My stay at General Halleck's headquarters was exceedingly agreeable,
and my personal intercourse with officers on duty there was not only
pleasant and instructive, but offered opportunities for improvement
and advancement for which hardly any other post could have afforded
like chances.  My special duties did not occupy all my time, and
whenever possible I used to go over to General Sherman's division,
which held the extreme right of our line in the advance on Corinth,
to witness the little engagements occurring there continuously during
the slow progress which the army was then making, the enemy being
forced back but a short distance each day.  I knew General Sherman
very well.  We came from near the same section of country in Ohio,
and his wife and her family had known me from childhood.  I was
always kindly received by the General, and one day he asked me if I
would be willing to accept the colonelcy of a certain Ohio regiment
if he secured the appointment.  I gladly told him yes, if General
Halleck would let me go; but I was doomed to disappointment, for in
about a week or so afterward General Sherman informed me that the
Governor of Ohio would not consent, having already decided to appoint
some one else.

A little later Governor Blair, of Michigan, who was with the army
temporarily in the interest of the troops from his State, and who
just at this time was looking around for a colonel for the Second
Michigan Cavalry, and very anxious to get a regular officer, fixed
upon me as the man.  The regiment was then somewhat run down by
losses from sickness, and considerably split into factions growing
out of jealousies engendered by local differences previous to
organization, and the Governor desired to bridge over all these
troubles by giving the regiment a commander who knew nothing about
them.  I presume that some one said to the Governor about this time,
"Why don't you get Sheridan?"  This, however, is only conjecture.  I
really do not know how my name was proposed to him, but I have often
been told since that General Gordon Granger, whom I knew slightly
then, and who had been the former colonel of the regiment, first
suggested the appointment.  At all events, on the morning of May 27,
1862, Captain Russell A. Alger--recently Governor of Michigan
--accompanied by the quartermaster of the regiment, Lieutenant Frank
Walbridge, arrived at General Halleck's headquarters and delivered to
me this telegram:

(By Telegraph.)
"MILITARY DEPT OF MICHIGAN,
"ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,
"DETROIT, May 25, 1862.

GENERAL ORDERS NO. 148.

"Captain Philip H. Sheridan, U. S. Army, is hereby appointed
Colonel of the Second Regiment Michigan Cavalry, to rank from
this date.

"Captain Sheridan will immediately assume command of the
regiment.

"By order of the Commander-in-Chief,
"JNO. ROBERTSON,
"Adjutant-General."


I took the order to General Halleck, and said that I would like to
accept, but he was not willing I should do so until the consent of
the War Department could be obtained.  I returned to my tent much
disappointed, for in those days, for some unaccountable reason, the
War Department did not favor the appointment of regular officers to
volunteer regiments, and I feared a disapproval at Washington.  After
a further consultation with Captain Alger and Lieutenant Walbridge, I
determined to go to the General again and further present the case.
Enlarging on my desire for active service with troops, and urging the
utter lack of such opportunity where I was, I pleaded my cause until
General Halleck finally resolved to take the responsibility of
letting me go without consulting the War Department.  When I had
thanked him for the kindness, he said that inasmuch as I was to leave
him, he would inform me that the regiment to which I had just been
appointed was ordered out as part of a column directed to make a raid
to the south of the enemy, then occupying Corinth, and that if I
could turn over my property, it would probably be well for me to join
my command immediately, so that I could go with the expedition.  I
returned to my tent, where Alger and Walbridge were still waiting,
and told them of the success of my interview, at the same time
notifying them that I would join the regiment in season to accompany
the expedition of which Halleck had spoken.

In the course of the afternoon I turned over all my property to my
successor, and about 8 o'clock that evening made my appearance at the
camp of the Second Michigan Cavalry, near Farmington, Mississippi.
The regiment was in a hubbub of excitement making preparations for
the raid, and I had barely time to meet the officers of my command,
and no opportunity at all to see the men, when the trumpet sounded to
horse.  Dressed in a coat and trousers of a captain of infantry, but
recast as a colonel of cavalry by a pair of well-worn eagles that
General Granger had kindly given me, I hurriedly placed on my saddle
a haversack, containing some coffee, sugar, bacon, and hard bread,
which had been prepared, and mounting my horse, I reported my
regiment to the brigade commander as ready for duty.








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