Hazard Stevens

“ That not an Indian in the whole course of the war has been killed by the whites except in battle? That where a military commission, composed of a majority of volunteer officers, tried some months since eight Indians, only one was convicted, and that the sentence of death passed upon him has not yet been executed? It is the good conduct of our people, sir, that has so strengthened the hands of the authorities as to enable them to control these friendly Indians, and to prevent any considerable accessions to the ranks of the hostiles. ”

“ The last four miles across the prairie was made at a round trot, and within thirty minutes after first sighting the rapidly approaching column, the astonished Indians beheld thirty well-armed men gallop boldly up, range themselves in front of their lodges ready to open fire, and heard the peremptory summons to decide instantly for peace or war. Needless to say that they, too, were friendly and for peace. They were taken completely by surprise, and had no alternative but to choose the olive branch. Only three hours before they had heard that Governor Stevens had gone down the Missouri. ”

“ The whole vast region occupied by these numerous, brave, and manly Indians was still free from the intrusion of white settlers, save a handful in the Walla Walla valley and about Colville. But year after year they saw the long trains of emigrants pass through their country and settle, like swarming bees, upon the fertile plains of the Wallamet. They saw the Indians there dispossessed of their hunting grounds, and rapidly dying off the face of the earth. ”

“ Not a laggard, not a fugitive,—all the regiment in line,—all by their colors and in order of battle, but many dead and wounded men. I am profoundly affected by the circumstance that you have seized such an occasion to show your regard for me. Yes, beloved comrades, we are ready to expose and, if need be, to lay down our lives for our country. We will keep steadfastly to the work till this sad, terrible war is ended, and peace smiles again upon the land. My friends, I shall endeavor to be deserving of your magnificent testimonial of respect and affection. ”

“ The speech of Narkarty, one of the Chinook chiefs, will convey the idea they all had. ‘When you first began to speak,’ said he to the governor, ‘we did not understand you; it was all dark to us as the night; but now our hearts are enlightened, and what you say is clear to us as the sun. We are proud that our Great Father in Washington thinks of us. We are poor, and can see how much better off the white men are than we are. We are willing to sell our land, but we do not want to go away from our homes. ”

“ Seldom has our history shown a more shameful betrayal of duty than this veteran officer and his subordinates making a quasi-peace by surrendering to the demands of the hostile Indians for the abrogation of the treaties they had accepted, and the exclusion of white settlers from their country, and seeking to lighten “the protective duties of the army” by abandoning the defense and protection of their own race. ”

“ In the struggle which ensued, it was soon apparent that the Indian was the superior in weight and strength, and Ford had to put forth all his skill and agility to prevent being forced to the ground. At last, while all the spectators, both red and white, were breathlessly watching the straining, panting wrestlers, the whites especially with great anxiety and apprehension, Ford gave a sudden and mighty heave, the huge Indian’s bare legs and moccasined feet whirled in the air, and the next instant he struck the ground with a heavy and sickening thud, and lay senseless as the dead. ”

“ Peter John Colville, chief: “My heart is very poor, very bad. My heart is of all nations. I never hide it. My heart is fearful. There are some who have talked bad. I am always thinking that all would be well. I wish all the whites and Indians to be friendly; but even if my people should take up arms against the Americans, I myself would not. I know we cannot stop the river from running, nor the wind from blowing, and I have heard that you whites are the same. We could not stop you. I only speak to show my heart. ”

“ Only seventy miles back to the eastward stretched north and south the great Cascade Range, affording innumerable safe and hidden retreats; and many trails across it, well known to the Indians, but unknown to the whites, gave access to the Yakima emissaries and reinforcements to join the hostiles on the Sound, and furnished the latter the ready means of retreat to the Yakima country when hard pressed. In the dense forests and swamps the savages lurked at the very doors of the settlements, and no man ventured out, for fear of ambush by the wily and omnipresent foe. ”

“ At daylight the next morning, with Craig, Pearson, and the four Nez Perce chiefs, Looking Glass, Spotted Eagle, Three Feathers, and Captain John, the governor pushed on, leaving directions for the train to follow and come in next day. The evening sun was just sinking behind the mountains when the seven well-armed horsemen dashed up in front of the Cœur d’Alene village, rifles in hand and presented ready to fire, and in peremptory tones demanded of the astonished Indians, as they poured out of their lodges, “Are you friends or enemies? Do you want peace or war?” ”

“ It would seem to be more appropriate that you should first control and reform the conduct of your own people, before going out of your way to instruct and rebuke another branch of the public service,—a service, too, which, both from its experience and the success which has attended its labors, is entitled to the presumption that it is as much interested in, and as much devoted to, the peace of the country as yourself, and as well qualified, to say the least, to consider dispassionately and to judge wisely of affairs at the present juncture. ”

“ The rattle of musketry is still echoing in the forest, and Kearny’s fugitives are pouring out upon the open, when an officer in hot haste conveys Pope’s order to General Stevens to advance into the woods and attack. The only troops left him are the regiment and a half withdrawn from Groveton, only seven hundred strong. Without an instant’s delay, the troops take their muskets from the stacks, double-quick across the open ground, and form line at the edge of the woods. ”

“ Governor Stevens was preëminently a national man in all his ideas and sympathies. His Revolutionary ancestry, his West Point training, his participation in large national interests,—as the Mexican war, the Coast Survey, the exploration of the continent and upbuilding of the Pacific Northwest, together with the natural bent of his patriotic nature and comprehensive, far-sighted mind,—strengthened his love for and pride in the great Republic, and made sectionalism or disunion utterly abhorrent to him. ”

“ On this Monday morning Jackson was marching down the turnpike with Longstreet and his whole wing following closely in support, thus turning the Union army at Centreville, and moving to fall upon its only line of retreat; “to strike it under the ribs,” as General Stevens so clearly foresaw. Pope had taken no steps to anticipate or guard against this fatal flank movement. He was groping in the dark, utterly at a loss what course to pursue, and consequently he did nothing until noon, when startling news forced him to decision and to action. ”

“ He always contrived, too, to procure fresh horses at certain points on his long trips, as at Walla Walla, Lapwai, and the Bitter Root valley, sometimes having previously left them, and sometimes by trading with the Indians. Imagine this little man of steel, insensible to cold, hunger, and fatigue, galloping like a centaur, day after day, across the vast, lonely plains, driving before him his two loose horses! ”

“ But since the war has broken out, whilst they have made every exertion to protect individuals, and to prevent other tribes joining in the war, they have occupied a position which cannot be filled on earth,—a position between the hostiles and the Americans. So great has been their desire for peace that they have overlooked all right, propriety, justice, necessity, siding with the Indians, siding with the Americans, but advising the latter particularly to agree to all the demands of the former,—murderers to go free, treaties to be abrogated, whites to retire to the settlements. ”

“ The following day the Nez Perces celebrated the happy conclusion of the treaty, and the return of Looking Glass and his braves from the buffalo country, by a scalp-dance. The chiefs and braves, in full war-paint and adorned with all their savage finery, formed a large circle, standing several ranks deep. Within this arena a chosen body of warriors performed the war-dance, while the densely massed ranks of braves circled around them, keeping time in measured tread, and accompanying it with their wild and barbaric war-song. ”

“ Why, sir, there were nearly five thousand disaffected Indians during all this time on the reservations lying along the waters of the Sound, and not a man ever went there to do them harm.
“I trust that the same measure of justice, which the committee propose to deal out to Governor Douglass, will be dealt out to the people of the Territories of Oregon and Washington. The debt in all the cases rests upon the same foundation. Our people furnished supplies and animals and shipping, and rendered their own services, on the faith of the government.” ”

“ The men there lay hugging the ground in rear of the guns, partially sheltered by the low ridges, while the artillery fired with its utmost rapidity upon the rebel lines of battle emerging over the distant ridge and advancing down the slope until lost to view in the woods, or beneath the smoke which now hung over the lower ground. They swept onward in splendid order, not in one or two long lines, but regiment after regiment, separately, with blood-red colors proudly borne aloft and pointed forward, like wave after wave of ocean after a storm, rolling onward with resistless majesty and power. ”

“ On this day’s march, as the division was halting for a noon rest, and the soldiers were reclining on the ground in groups, or making their cups of coffee over little fires of fence rails, a party of rebel cavalry with a section of artillery appeared on a cross-road a mile distant and near the river, and a lively shower of shells suddenly fell over and among the resting troops. ”

“ Let all men agree to a convention of all the States. When the delegates meet, I am sure it will be found easier to unite than to separate. If Union seems to be accompanied by occasional discord, separation will threaten perpetual war. If in Union there is not always harmony, in separation there will never be peace.
December 17. That the President will protect the public property and execute the laws, no one can doubt. That he has troops in readiness to embark at a moment’s warning to succor the forts in the event of their attack by South Carolina cannot be doubted. ”

“ She has been stabbed by traitorous hands, and by her most favored sons. Show by your acts that the hero age has not passed away, and that patriotism still lives. Better to fall nobly in the forlorn hope in vindication of home and nationality than to live witnesses of the triumph of a sacrilegious cause. The Lord God of battles will direct us; to Him let us humbly appeal this day to vouchsafe to us his crowning mercy; and may those of us who survive, when the evening sun goes down, ascribe to Him, and not to ourselves, the glorious victory.
By order of Brigadier-General Stevens. ”

“ What iron nerves, what devoted patriotism, thus to venture into the trackless forests at the head of these uncertain and treacherous savages! There is not the slightest doubt that a few weeks of Wool’s pacific and defensive policy would have united all these disaffected Indians in the outbreak, and swept the whole country with a whirlwind of savage war. Nothing but Governor Stevens’s prompt, aggressive, and masterly measures prevented the catastrophe. ”

“ Standing at Rosefield, the eye of the observer sweeps westward or frontward over a broad expanse of open country, descending to the lower ground crossed by the Groveton road, and beyond it, over the rising slopes and summit of a bare, high ridge two miles and a half distant, a ridge much higher than the one on which he stands, and the dominating feature of the landscape. ”

“ A thousand well-armed and brave hostile warriors under Kam-i-ah-kan, Pu-pu-mox-mox, Young Chief, and Five Crows were gathered in the Walla Walla valley, waiting to “wipe out” the party on its return; squads of young braves were visiting the Nez Perces, Spokanes, and Cœur d’Alenes, vaunting their victories, displaying fresh gory scalps, and using every effort to cajole or force them into hostility to the whites. ”

“ The governor had purchased of Mr. Pilkington a large pile of potatoes,--about a hundred bushels,—and he told the Indians to help themselves. They made the heap grow small in a short time, each taking what he required for food; but lest any one should get an undue share, Commissary Cushman and Colonel Simmons were detailed to stand guard on the potato pile, which they did with the utmost good feeling, keeping the savages in a roar of laughter by their humorous ways. ”