The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 13, 1901, Page 1

St . following batt ¥ t excitable, the ones that fighti: and they were 15 to meet le. There was that . protected behind eir t sure of their own eafety; we, a eenhorns, hardly knowing how s rifie, not grasping the fact tha ras to be obeyed, as easily shat reh—we fell liide untsman's aim. Venus, he mself ensconced In almost hid him. gh the smallest twisted himself 1 in thro: crack, had tree so that he was quite a th he blazed away the crack with his telescope rifle as from a portho! He was a shot, too, that fellow; he killed ive or forty of our men and cama mself with a whole ski The cause of that battle lay with a bunch of outlaws. They were whites, but they had acted In a way that would have disgraced had killed, mas- sacred thirty-five squaws, poor, helpless things who were camped on Bear Creek. So the bucks started on the warpath, no blame to them, but they killed a lot of good men instead of the outlaws. They made for the first white man’s house they came to; it belonged to a man named Har- ris. It was a double-storied hewed house, pretty good for thereabouts. Harris and his wife and the little 2-year-old girl wers at home. The woman, with the judgment that women have, tried to get her hus- band to stay inside; but no. he was going out to fight those thirty-five Indians. As he opened the door they shot him down, easily deadly oY course. The same fire that killed him wounded the little girl. Mrs. Harris picked up the child in left arm; a pistol was grasped in the right hand. For two days and nights that woman stood off the In- dians from her home and her baby, and till standing them off when we ad- vanced and took up their attention. That's the kind of stuff that women of the West were made of in early days. It was later on after much more trouble that we returned to Big Bend and tried to make a treaty. While we were camping one night a friendly squaw stole through the close trees and bushes to our camp- fire, and she warned us that attempt at a treaty was in vain; but we persisted and held our camp. The result was that nine men were killed on guard and we had the dickens of a time until Captain Ord was relieved. Then we licked them, and in the end the conquered Indiaus helped carry our wounded to the hospital at Port Or- ford, and we conducted the Indians safely to the reservation in the Willamette Val- ley. Colcnel Eteptoe was in charge of the ex- Aedition that left Walla Walla on 17th of May, 1838, an expedition of 130 men. Part of us under Lieutenant Gaston crussed the Snake River in canoes and swam our horses over. When we were within two days of Spokanc River we met forty or fifty mounted Indians. “We have killed two beeves,” thelr epokesman told us, “and the first beef was for peace and the second beef was for war.” That was what we had expected and we were pleased enough. When we had rid- den a mile further we came to three or four hundred, and they all wanted to fire. We went right on and paid no attention to them at first; they followed along near us, and when we had pitched camp on the lake they began in earnest. They kept firing right into the camp all night and we barelv held out. Early in the morning we started out, they- after us. We got into a canyon; its sides were perpendicular and we looked up to see abgve a great row of savage faces. They had us, had us tight, and they didn’t mean to waste their opportunity. We were penned in like sheep and they were firing as fast as they could load, straight into us. Lieutenant Gaston sent word to Step- toe that he had to have help; he couldn’t hold out any longer. Word came from Father de Smet: *I have done all T can; my resources are at an end.” He was the old French priest and a good man he was: he had a tre- mendous influence over the Indlans and he had used it as far as possible to avert this massacre that they were attempting. Help from the colonel came in time to prevent its being carried out in full. With a reinforcement we managed to make our way out of the canyon and we stood off 2000 Indians in the timber. We retreated fighting all the way to Steptoes Butte. Our men had fallen until there were hardly any left to report the battle. Lieu- tenant Gaston was killed and so was Cap- 75E s sy~ LTWE ipoy . B sk (st AN OF O taln Tavlor. We dug a grave there and we buried Tavlor and three soldiers—the others had fallen by the way—and near by we buried two mountain howitzers, the kind that are packed by. mules. There was nothing else to do with them. When we retreated from Steptoes Butte no one followed. That was the end of that battle to those of us who escaped. se whom the red devils captured. Sergeant Wil- llams was put to death—we never knew how, but we supposed he w tortured y being burned at the stake. That was the favorite method. Snichster, a Nor- fan, was made to run the gauntlet by swimming across the river while his tor- mentors stood on the bank and fired at him. He was a good swimmer and he escaped. 1t was when Colonel Wright took hold of ‘matters that there was a grand se:- tling. He said that the Indians woull have to pay for-a life with a life, and he told old Spokane Gerry, the bie chief, so. Spokane Gerry began to realize at last that the colonel .meant business and he went about seeing that the thing was carried out, for-the colonel informed him that he would hold three familles as host- age for every murder. Presently a big Indian, a sulky looking brute, came into the camp with a paper, which he handed to the colonel. His squaw was along with him. When the colonel looked at the paper he discovered that it was a neatly made out death war- rant for the bearer. We never knew for certain who made out that warrant and the others that followed, but we always supposed it was the old priest, Father da Smet, who was in the confidence of Spo- kane Gerry. At any rate, none of the bearers knew the contents, but had evi- dently been given some fictitious explana- tion of them by their chief, who had picked those he considered the most easily dispensed with. No sooner had the colonel read the war- rant than he ordered us, his men who //gj‘smm DY TED oy were in waiting, to seize and hang this n. I'll never forget the way that.squaw ed when she saw her lord and maste borne away. She gave one W then she took a firm grasp of the carried. It was a spear.. so. remarkable that looking at it all the time. It wa a deep red, set with brilliant decorated about the handle feathers. She took a perfect a colonel and whizz went the spear. dodging he got only a siight wound. riek she tones and with The weapon shot past him and stuck in tue tent. One after one Indlans bearing death warrants filed in and were promptly seized, much to their surprise. One after one we bumped them—strung them up, you know. At one time we had thirty five hanging to various trees, and the place has gone by the name of Hangmans Creek ever since. ~Before we got througn with the business we hanged as many .s 270 in different mps. Nevertheless Indian outbreaks were far from finished when the Civil ‘War arose, and I was sent off to the other side of the continent. I can’t name anywhere near all the bat- tles I was in between '61 and 6. There was Antietam and the seven days' figh:, and McClellan’s retreat and Chanceliors- ville, and, worst of all, there was Gettys- burg. That was fighting for you. For twenty- three days while we were in the Gettys- burg reglon We never Sunsaddled our horses. For twenty-three days we never took our clothes off. We rode night and day, with an hour's stop now and then to feed our horses or our- selves. Then “boots and saddles” would be sounded and off we would go again. We had plenty to eat, but little enough time to eat it. We had pork, coffee and crackers for rations. The crackers were about four inches square and we had twelve of them a day. The horses had plenty of grain but no hay. When it so hot straight we were doinx charged up aga rebs were b had the best fire was hoodooed. They couldn’t hit one of us. Only one horse got hurt. the real fighting it was y t @e just fought e hardly knew what remcmber how we I I rode with Sher too, ‘on “Sheri- can’s Ride.” I wis with him when he tarted, and rode to where the army had been demoralized by Early. I've always been proud that I was,under Sheridan, and I served under a lot more big men besides. There were Generals Stoneman, Buford, Merritt, Ple nton, Palmer, Me- Clellan, Burnside and Hooker. In Indian warfare I served under Generals Crook and Miles. It seems a wonder that I have dodged bullets the way I have: ) Seven wounds are all, and most of them were slight. I was struck by a spent ball several times, and I call that getting off easy. At the close of tne war, in '65, I went back to Indian fighting, and I quit twelve years later. I had enlisted when I was a boy of 18, and ‘T had kept on in the army until I was getting toward middle age, and I thought it was about time to quit. So I drifted back to the mines and I've been there ever since, except when I take it into my head to go off hunting for & spell. Lafely I've had a taste of a new pro- fession. What do you think of taking up & new profession at 667 I am in San Fran- cisco just now on a sort of vacation, and the other day as I was sitting in the park one of the art students came along and looked at me from all sides and kept walking around me and looking at me, and I asked him what the dickens was the matter. “Want to come to the studio and pose?* he said. So I'm an artist's model now. They're not leaving that job to the pry nowadays. Laesi o