USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. III > Part 33
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As soon as possible after the battle began those on board the steamers kindled their fires and began to get up steam. The Wasco was on the Oregon side of the river and the wind, which was blowing a gale at the time, was in her favor. She easily got away and left for the Dalles. The Mary was at the wharf near the store, and the Indians made a rush for her, regarding her no doubt as an easy prey. But the few men on board had now got their fires started, and, seizing such arms as were at hand, gave their assailants a warm welcome. The captain and one of the men attempted to throw off the lines, but the bullets were flying so thick about them that they were compelled for a time to desist. The fireman was shot through the shoulder, while another man, who had seized a gun and jumped to a flatboat lying alongside, was shot and fell overboard. The engineer shot an Indian with his revolver, who had reached the gang- plank and was already coming on board, while another was shot with an old dragoon pistol, in the hands of a man who had climbed on the upper deck.
By this time steam was up, and after taking two wounded men on board-a white men who had been driving an ox team, and a half-breed who was shot through the body,
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the lines were cast off and the boat steamed out into the river. Those in the store saw her leave with rejoicing, for they knew that in time she would bring them help.
While the boats were getting away three men, named Watkins, Finlay and Bailey, who were at work on a new warehouse, attempted to reach the store. Those inside first saw Finlay coming toward them, and called to him to lie down behind a rock, for the bank above him was covered with Indians, for whose rifles he was an easy mark. He had scarcely taken shelter when the other two men appeared, running toward Finlay's place of refuge, with a troop of Indians following. There was nothing for the three to do now but make their best efforts to run the gauntlet of the Indian rifles to the store. This they started to do. Bailey was shot through the arm and leg, and plunging into the river swam to the front of the store, which he reached without further injury. Watkins was hit by a bullet in the wrist, shattering his forearm to the elbow. His pursuers were close upon him, but those in the store poured such a hot fire upon them, from their nine muskets, that they were glad to seek cover. Watkins took shelter behind a rock which offered its protection, and was compelled to remain there until the battle ended, two days and nights afterward. During this time he fainted several times from cold, exposure and the pain of his wound. When he fainted he would roll down the bank into the river, which would revive him, and he would then crawl up the bank again to his hiding place. Meantime his wife and children were in the store, and almost frantic because they could do nothing to help or relieve him. He died two days later.
During the two days that intervened before the steamer brought the troops to the rescue, the battle was continued
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almost without interruption. There were forty men, women and children in Bradford's store, and several of them were wounded. Eighteen of the men and four of the women could and did fight bravely and almost continuously. The Indians made repeated efforts to set the building, and others near it, on fire by throwing flaming brands and hot rocks on them from the high bluff behind. Sometimes these were pushed off with long sticks and sometimes when this could not be done, and the roof began to take fire, the burning place was cut out, or the fire was quenched by cups of brine from a pork barrel, or a blazing board was pushed off and thrown so far away as to be no longer dangerous.
The besieged party suffered greatly for water during the first day of the battle. There was in the store two dozen bottles of ale, and a few bottles of whisky, but these were soon used up by forty persons. During the night a Spokane Indian, who was with Sinclair, volunteered to go to the river for water, and was hailed as a deliverer. Stripping himself almost naked he ran down to the river, filled his pail and was back in a moment. On the following night he filled four barrels in a similar way, and the party suffered no longer from thirst, while their fear of fire was greatly relieved.
As soon as it was dark and the first day's fighting began to lull, the Indians set fire to all the buildings they could approach, without coming within range of the muskets inside the store. These were never idle. Every moving object within range of the building, day or night, was fired at and many times with good effect, as there was reason to believe. For two full days and nights the men and women in this party kept their assailants at bay only by their utmost vigilance, and those who could not shoot, or fight fire, were
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abundantly occupied in caring for the wounded and for the children.
While they were thus engaged the nine soldiers in the blockhouse, a mile and a half away, at the middle Cascades, were not less busily employed. Sergeant Kelly, who was in charge, had been suspicious that something was wrong for several days previously, from seeing some Indians, who were camped near by, and who were supposed to be friendly, wearing more paint than was their custom, and noting that they made frequent visits to the timber on the bluffs. On the morning he had sent one of the men to the upper Cas- cades for a canteen of whisky. He had procured it and was returning along the tramway, when the firing began. At the first fire he was shot through both legs, but managed to hide under the river bank until night, when he crawled to the blockhouse. Only three soldiers and the cook had been inside the defense when the first shots were fired. The others were walking up or down the river at a considerable distance, not suspecting that the Indians were near. Even when they heard the firing at Bradford's store they did not suppose it had been attacked.
But the Indian bullets soon began to strike the blockhouse, and a soldier standing just outside was struck and mortally wounded. The other soldiers and the two or three families living near by soon came running in. All the soldiers reached shelter in safety save one, who was on the hill cutting wood and was captured. That night he was put to death by torture, and his comrades could hear his screams and agonizing groans without being able to render him the slightest assistance. Several of the men, women and children who ran the gauntlet between their homes and the blockhouse were wounded. One of these, George Griswold,
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might have escaped but for his confidence that the Indians knew and would not hurt him. His wound was mortal and he died soon after. A boy who had been sent down the river with a message, just before the attack was made, was struck by a bullet and disabled when within sight of the blockhouse. He lived for several hours after. Occasionally he would make an effort to rise, or beckon the soldiers to help him if they could, and would immediately be made a mark for many Indian rifles and arrows. The three men, who ran from Bradford's when the firing began, reached the blockhouse in safety, and became a valuable reinforcement to its defenders. With their rifles and the howitzer, for which they had fourteen rounds of ammunition, they made an active fight, from which the Indians retired near the close of the first day, but renewed the battle on the second, though without inflicting any further injury.
This party like that at Bradford's suffered greatly for both food and water during these two days.
Those at the lower Cascade suffered less during the fight than their neighbors. They were warned by the firing, particularly of the howitzer at the blockhouse, in time to barricade themselves in the strongest buildings, and were not attacked, except by their Indian neighbors, whom they had always, until now, regarded as friendly. Some of the families soon got away in small boats and escaped down the river to Vancouver, where they gave the alarm. Only one man was wounded. He was shot while attempting to push a boat out into the stream, but was not dangerously hurt.
The two little steamers which had been got away from their moorings amid so much excitement on the first morning
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of the battle, did not return as quickly as they were hoped for, but on the morning of the second day the steamer Belle arrived at the lower Cascade, bringing Lieutenant Phil. Sheridan, who had left Vancouver at 2 o'clock on the morn- ing of the 27th, with about forty dragoons, and a small cannon, which he had borrowed from a San Francisco steamer, which at the time was at the dock unloading military supplies. Only a narrow place was found for a landing, but on this the troopers disembarked, and Sheridan, with five or six of them, stole forward, under cover of some underbrush, to observe the Indian position. When they emerged from the shelter of this brush, they were greeted with a shower of bullets, one of which grazed Sheridan's nose, and killed a soldier standing by his side. The remain- der of the command soon came up, but the position was such that they could do little. The borrowed cannon was brought up, and used to send a number of solid shot into the jungle to which the Indians had retired, and where they lay con- cealed, but seemingly without much effect.
This place was held until evening when Sheridan found means to transfer his force to the south bank of the river, along which he intended to march to a point opposite the blockhouse, and then cross to its relief. The undertaking would be hazardous, but it seemed to be the only means that promised to accomplish anything, and if the besieged parties were not rescued soon they would probably starve or be killed. So on the morning of the 28th, after giving the savages a few more shots from the cannon, the party withdrew to the river bank, embarked in a boat which had been secured for the purpose, and transferred across the river, landing just below the end of Bradford's Island. Here it was found necessary to tow the boat up stream-for
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it would be needed to recross it-and the current was too swift for rowing. Ten men were assigned to this laborious task, and the remainder found their way, as best they could, along the south shore, to the place of rendezvous, opposite the blockhouse. With the ten men Sheridan then crossed back to the island, along which the boat was dragged with much difficulty, although the current was not so swift as along the mainland. The undertaking was a precarious one. Had the Indians discovered what was going on, and found means to cross to the island, the ten soldiers and their commander would have been at their mercy. But fortune favors the soldier who dares much, if he dares judiciously, and the enterprise succeeded.
Both parties reached the upper end of the island, and were ferried across to the Washington side, just as Colonel Step- toe, with a part of Wright's command, which had been recalled and brought down the river by the steamers Otter and Mary, arrived. The two forces were now united and the blockhouse was quickly relieved.
Sheridan then recrossed to the island, while Steptoe, who had already rescued the beleaguered party at Bradford's store, marched down the north shore. As was expected, Sheridan found the Indians who had pretended to be friendly until the hostiles arrived, on the island, and captured the whole party. They were very much frightened, and at first protested that they had taken no part in the fight, but when their guns were examined and found to have been very recently fired, they were disarmed and thirteen of them made prisoners. Ten of them were afterwards charged with treason-having violated their treaty-and nine of them were hanged by Colonel Wright's order, the tenth being reprieved on the gallows, and sent to
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Fort Vancouver, where, for a long time, he wore a ball and chain.
During the three days of fighting at these three points, seventeen persons were killed and twelve wounded. The trails made by the Indians on their retreat were followed by the soldiers for ten miles, but they were not overtaken, nor was it ever ascertained what their loss had been in either killed or wounded. From indications left about their camps, and along their lines of retreat, it was judged that from two to three hundred had joined in the attack.
The body of the captured soldier, whom the Indians had put to the torture, during the first night of the siege, was recovered and buried. It bore many evidences of the bru- tality of his captors: the face had been crushed by a blow with some blunt instrument, the flesh on various parts of the body cut and burned, and death was finally inflicted by hanging with willow withes.
Brutal and inhuman as the treatment of this poor captive was, it was even less shocking than another crime which was committed by some white monster in the neighborhood about the same time. A friendly Indian, known as Spencer, had been engaged by Wright as an interpreter, as he passed up the river. When the troops were recalled by the attack on the Cascades this Indian, for some unknown reason, had started his wife, with their two half-grown boys, three younger girls and a babe, down the river to Fort Vancouver. The veteran hunter and trapper Joe Meek had seen them start, and was at the time solicitous for their safety, but Spencer had confidence that his own friendly relations with the whites, which were widely known, would protect them. A day or two later Meek inquired of Sheridan about them, and as no one could be found who had seen them, search was made
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by the soldiers, and their dead bodies were found in the woods about a mile from the road, between the upper and lower landings. All had been strangled, a piece of rope about two feet long being still tightly knotted about the neck of all save the babe, which had been strangled with its mother's handkerchief. "In my experience," says General Sheridan, "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 that dastardly and revolting crime has never been effaced from my memory." These poor creatures had been killed, as Sheridan thinks, by white people whose wives and children had been killed by hostiles, "but who well knew that these unoffending creatures had no part in these murders."
Wright now remained at the Dalles for a month, during which time Wool paid him a hurried visit, and the plan of his campaign was materially changed. He wrote Stevens on April 10th, that he now intended to march into the Yakima country, and make the Indians "understand that we are going to make a permanent settlement among them, break up their fisheries and harass them constantly, in order that they shall have no time for laying in a supply of food. By this course I think they may be brought to terms-per- haps not until midwinter." He also wrote Governor Curry that he was "much embarrassed by the wanton attacks of the Oregon volunteers on the friendly Indians" and asked the governor to withdraw them from the Walla Walla country.
But these heroic Oregon warriors did not wait to be recalled, or to further annoy the colonel, or his superior officer. They had been but poorly supplied either with food or clothing during the winter, their subsistence depart- ment being badly managed, and knowing that the regulars
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would soon be in the field, Colonel Cornelius, who had now succeeded Nesmith, prepared to return home. But as he had recently received reinforcements, he resolved to make some use of them before doing so. Breaking camp on March 9th, he made a raid into the hostile country north of the Snake River, followed the Palouse for some distance northward, and then struck west across the country for the Columbia at Priest Rapids. On this long march his men suffered much from want of water and provisions, and subsisted largely on horseflesh. From the rapids the river was followed along its eastern bank to the mouth of the Yakima, where the command was divided, about half of it being sent to the Dalles by way of Fort Henrietta and the Umatilla, while Cornelius, with the remainder, marched up the Yakima. One day's march from the Columbia Captain Hembree, with a few of his men, were decoyed into an am- bush, and Hembree was killed. Cornelius immediately charged the savages and recovered the body, but not until after it had been scalped. A running battle, lasting nearly a whole day, followed, in which six Indians were killed, while the volunteers suffered no further loss. This fight occurred on April 6th, and the Indians engaged were doubtless a part of those who had made the attack at the Cascades.
After this incident Cornelius crossed the country to the Dalles, and went thence down the river to the Willamette, where his men were mustered out. During their winter campaign these volunteers had inflicted more damage on the hostiles, and rendered the two territories a greater service than the regulars were permitted to give them in the two years following. Had they been better supplied, and main- tained in the field until Shaw's command could reach them,
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the war would have been ended, and all its objects gained, within the year.
Wright crossed the Columbia at the Dalles, and moved north on April 28th, following the same route that Haller and Rains had taken. His march was made in a leisurely way, as it well might be, since its object, under Wool's instruc- tions, was only to establish a post, and "ascertain the feelings and dispositions of the several tribes." On May 18th he encamped on the Nachess, now so much swollen by the melting snows in the mountains that he was unable to cross it. On the opposite shore Indians were encamped in great numbers. They sent messengers to say that they were tired of war, and now wished for peace. They continued these gratifying assurances until June 11th, when Owhi and Te-i-as-doubtless representing Kam-i-ah-kan, who always did his lying by proxy when possible-gave assurance that within five days all their people would be present, and peace could then be agreed upon. A day or two later all the Indians disappeared, and after waiting for their return until the 18th, Wright crossed the river, over which he had now built a bridge, and marched with eight companies to the Wenass, leaving Steptoe with three companies to guard the Nachess, which was not threatened. On the 20th, Wright was in the Kittitas Valley, but could find no Indians. Still it did not apparently occur to him that they had tricked him, and he wrote Wool: "I do not despair of ultimately reducing these Indians to sue for peace. I believe they really desire it; and I must find out what outside influence is operating to keep them from coming in."
While here Wright narrowly missed a meeting with Shaw and his volunteers, who had now crossed the Cascades to cooperate with him, if he would permit, and if not to move
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into the Walla Walla Country. Stevens had early tendered their assistance to Wright, who had declined it. He had proposed to Casey to unite the volunteers with the regulars, and cross into eastern Washington, but Casey had refused, and was now sending his regulars by way of Fort Vancouver and the Columbia. Finding that Wright did not intend to establish a post at Walla Walla at once, as Wool had directed, and as he had originally intended, and as it was necessary to send supplies to the Nez Perces, as had been promised, Stevens had been forced to send Shaw, with as many volun- teers as could be spared, to operate on his own account. He knew from Craig, who was his agent among the Nez Perces, and from other sources, that the emissaries of the hostiles had been active for a long time, not only among the Nez Perces, but among the Spokanes and other tribes who had not yet yielded to their solicitations, but that unless the authority of the government was asserted in that region very soon, the hostiles would be greatly reinforced.
On June 18th he wrote to Wright: "The Walla Walla Valley must be occupied immediately to prevent the exten- sion of the war in the interior. Kam-i-ah-kan has, since your arrival on the Nachess, made several attempts to induce the tribes thus far friendly, to join the war. He has flattered the Spokanes, where he was on the 25th of May, and has endeavored to browbeat the Nez Perces. The Spokanes have answered in the negative; and the Nez Perces will, I am satisfied, continue friendly. I am ready, as the super- intendent of Indian affairs, to take charge of any Indians that may be reported by yourself as having changed their condition from hostility to peace. I am ready to agree to any arrangement which may be for the good of the Indians. I presume your views and mine do not differ as to the terms
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which should be allowed the Indians, viz., unconditional submission, and the rendering up of all murderers and insti- gators of the war for punishment. I will, however, respect- fully put you on your guard in reference to Leschi, Nelson, Kitsap and Quiemuth from the Sound, and suggest that no arrangements be made which shall save their necks from execution."
But Wright, under the influence of Wool's views and instructions, was in no humor to accept advice or suggestions from the governor. Indeed he was apparently convinced that he had no need of either, for on the very day that Stevens wrote the letter above quoted, he wrote to General Wool that notwithstanding the numerous difficulties and embarrass- ments that he had encountered "the war in this country is closed. We have penetrated the most remote hiding places of the enemy, and have forced him to ask for mercy." This was a curious announcement for a commander to make who had not yet struck a single blow, or even seen the enemy but once, since he had begun his campaign, and was now utterly unable to find him. But Wool accepted this announc- ment as genuine and, on the second of August, issued an order to Colonel Wright in which he said: "The general commanding congratulates you on your successful termina- of the war with the Yakimas and Klikitats." He then directed him, with the least possible delay, to move to the Walla Walla country, and gave these directions for main- taining the peace which both he and Wright now pretended to have secured: "No immigrants, or other whites, except the Hudson's Bay Company, or persons having ceded rights from the Indians, will be permitted to settle or remain in the Indian country, or on land not ceded by treaty, confirmed by the Senate, and approved by the president of the United
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States, except the miners at the Colvile mines. These will be notified, however, that if they interfere with the Indians or their squaws, they will be punished and sent out of the country. It appears that Colonel Shaw, from Puget Sound, with his volunteers has come to the Walla Walla country. Colonel Wright will order them out of the country, by way of Fort Dalles. If they do not go immediately they will be arrested, disarmed and sent out."
It was said of Napoleon that "he made a solitude, and called it peace." Wool seemingly intended to make peace with the Indians by giving the country up to them, and permitting nobody to enter it with whom they could make trouble. They were to have peace of the same kind that they had before white people came to their country, and the army of the United States was to maintain it.
Shaw started from camp Montgomery on the 12th of June. His force consisted of 175 officers and men, from Company C, Captain Henness, Company D, Lieutenant Powell, Company J, Captain Miller, and a part of Major Maxon's Mounted Rifles. They were to be supplied by a pack train of 107 animals and 27 packers.
While he was marching over the Cascades, by the Nachess Pass, the volunteers recently enlisted on the Columbia were moved to the Dalles. This force consisted also of 175 men, under Captains Goff and Williams, with a train of 45 wagons and 35 pack animals.
On the 20th of June Colonel Shaw's command reached the Wenass River, which Wright had left only a day or two earlier, and he was still in the Kittitas Valley. About this time he wrote to Wool: "I have not overlooked, from the first, the evident determination of the volunteers to cooperate with the regular forces, to bring this war to a close; and
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I have certainly resisted all advances. My efforts have been retarded, but not defeated by what was done."
Finding that Wright was determined not to cooperate with him, Shaw continued his advance, and on the 9th of July his force, and most of that under command of Captain Goff, which had advanced up the Columbia, came together on Mill Creek, near the ground on which the great council had been held a little more than a year before. There they met the Nez Perce auxiliaries, who had marched from their country under Lieutenant-Colonel Craig. On the march Goff had detached a part of his force, numbering about 75 men, on the Umatilla, to go to the assistance of Captain Layton of the Oregon volunteers, who was then confronted by a large number of the enemy in the Blue Mountains.
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