Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins

  We dined as well as we could. Each man gave one dollar. Just think of it. It only cost one dollar a plate for beans baked in Boston. We got into Camp Harney very late that night. It took us three clays to overtake the troops. The same night we got there an Indian woman was taken prisoner. They brought her to our tent. I asked her about everything. She did not want to tell me at first. Sister Mattie said, “If you do not tell us we will see why—you had better tell us.” She was a Bannock woman. Then she was afraid and told us everything. She said her people were going right to Umatilla Reservation, and as the Umatilla Indians had told Oytes they would help them to fight the white people, this was why they were going there. She said Oytes had taken her nephew’s place as chief over the Bannocks. She cried, and said her nephew Buffalo Horn was killed at South Mountain. I told General Howard what she said. The next morning she was taken to Camp Harney, as she was blind, and the troops were ordered to go and have a fight with Bannocks about fifteen miles above us. The volunteer scouts kept coming to report. They said the Bannocks were waiting to fight there. General Howard asked me what I thought about it. All I said was, “General, if you find any Indians within two hundred miles of here you may say Sarah is telling lies.” “Then you think these scouts are not telling the truth, do you?”

  “That is what I mean.”

  So we pushed on ahead of the troops for a while, and sister and I saw something on a high hill above us and ahead of us. It looked as if there were a great many there. We knew what it was but we did not say anything for we wanted to see what they would do. At last the bugle sounded “Halt!” Sister said, “Now we will have some fun.” We just laughed, for we knew what was coming. The captain of the volunteer scouts rode up to General Howard and said,—

  “General, don’t you see them on that hill, yonder?” The General said, “I see something, but I don’t see them moving.”

  “I do—they are there to fight us. They have a good place up there.”

  Then General Howard called me and I went up to him. All the officers were there together. He said, “Sarah, what have you got to say now? The Indians seem to be there.”

  “I have the same thing to say as before. I see nothing but rocks put there to deceive you.”

  The officers took out their field-glasses and looked up and said, “Sarah, it surely looks like people there.”

  I said, “Well, I can’t say any more. Do as you think best.”

  One of them gave me a field-glass and told me to look. I said, “I will show you that there are no Indians there. I will go up there.”

  So I started to go, when General Howard called me back and said, “I don’t want you to get killed. I will send the troops up.”

  They found everything just as I had told them.

  How they did laugh that evening when we camped for the night. It is a way by which we Indians do deceive the white people by piling rocks on each other and putting round ones on the top to make them look like men. In this way we get time to get away from our enemy.

  In the morning we took up the trail in good earnest. At the dawn of the 28th we were at the end of the wagon-road in the direction where the Bannocks were moving. Yet rough and impassable as the way appears it was necessary, with the means of transportation then existing, to move the wagons across this mountain region. Just think—we were going to overtake them with wagons and well-mounted on fresh horses every day, and we with our wagons only. We might as well say an Indian will overtake white men in building railroads.

  On the morning of the 28th of June we were riding on. At six a. m. a rough wagon trail was all the road. We arrived in camp at eight p. m. Bernard goes some miles further. He sends back word of Indian pony tracks just ahead, and that they turned back suddenly. Sister and I again said, “Not so.” We were again on the way. The 29th of June was very cold, snowing all day. We went on ahead of the troops. At this place we came to a large camp. From fifteen hundred to two thousand Indians had been there, and there I found they had left a scalp behind them. It was the first scalp I had seen in my life, for my people never scalped any one. The Bannocks had left it there. We waited there until the troops came up. I ran to the General and showed him what I had found. All the officers gathered round to look at it. They all said it was a real scalp. Colonel Bernard said, “Sarah, you have done more than any of us. You have rescued your father and your people, captured the stage-driver’s whip, and now you have captured a scalp from the Bannocks.” General Howard said,— “Yes, Sarah, you must keep them.” All this time Mattie was looking round. She called to me. I ran to her and left my scalp and when I went back to get it someone had taken it, for which I was very glad. We camped here and the cavalry went on ahead of us. General Howard ordered Colonel Bernard to go in hot pursuit of the Bannocks and overtake them if he could, but he only went a little way and camped. The cavalry pursued through the deep canyon of the south park of the John Day River. Wagons cross a mountain range gradually working to the highest ridge. Oh, such a time as we did have! On July 1, great difficulty was encountered in getting the wagon train into the deep valley of the South Fork, the hill being five miles in descent and so steep as to cause constant sliding of the wagons. It took from two o’clock p. m. until after ten o’clock at night to worry the train down this hill into the camp. The cavalry was four days ahead of us. On July 2, we proceeded down South Fork about thirty miles to Stewart’s Ranch, on Murderer’s Creek, and saw evidences of a skirmish between volunteers and Indians. Here sister and I went on ahead, and came to where the bodies of two men were buried by our advanced scouts. On the third of July the infantry went into camp in John Day valley, near the mouth of South Fork. The wagon train was replaced by pack-mules that came to us from Canyon City. July 4, General Howard with his staff and sister and I pushed on to the advance and came up with the McGregors, and came on with them to Fox Valley. While we were marching along in the hot sun, someone came running his horse toward us, just as if he was running for his dear life. He said, “Oh, somebody shot at me. They are after me.” General Howard asked him if they were Indians. He said, “I don’t know, but I think they are white men.”

  “No wonder; you look just like an Indian, and they take you for such and shoot at you. Take your feathers off your horse.”

  This man would tie everything he could find belonging to Indians—feathers, beads, and red rags—on the mane and tail of his horse. He is no other than the man who talked so badly to me at the crossing of Malheur River, who, I said, was my best friend afterwards. He was a newspaper reporter of the name of Parker from Walla-Walla. It was he who sent word to the “Chronicle” that there were no Indians on the reservation after the Bannock war. The next day we went on with M’Gregor’s company, and overtook Bernard and the remainder of the cavalry. On July 6, the cavalry reached Canvass Prairie, in Oregon, passing through much timber. At this place a scout came and told us of another encounter of the volunteers with the Bannocks, and a rumor that the Umatillas had not joined the hostiles, but fought them. Just then came up another party of scouts, saying the Indians were coming right over the hill. All the cavalry drew up in line of battle. Sister and I put whips to our horses and rode up the hill. Colonel Mason and Major Babbitt rode up also. We could not see anybody. About two miles off on a mountain we saw some scouts going up with white linen coats. These are the reporters of the so-called noble citizens. Then Colonel Mason waved his hat to the troops to come on. The evening of the seventh brings our advance to Pilot Rock, where a junction is formed with the troops sent thither by Colonel Wheaton. At this place I told General Howard we had passed the Bannocks. Maybe they will go back the same way they came, or will go through the Blue Mountains. They know all the troops are on this side of the mountains. Just then three volunteer scouts rode up, and said the Indians were about fifteen miles from there. General Howard asked how many they thought they were. They said, “We think fifteen hundred, maybe more.” General Howard asked me if I would go to them and see if they would surrender without figh
ting. I said, “I will.” “I will see after supper,” he said. All the officers had a talk over it. At supper he said, “Sarah, I will not send you. If you should get killed your father will blame me. I will send some scouts to watch their camp during the night.” At the battle of Birch Creek General Howard formed a junction with his troops. Here they thought they would have an effective battle with the Bannocks and capture the fugitives. I did not think so, because the Bannocks had the best of it. They had the timber on their side. I knew they would go into the timber and get away, and this I told the General, but he would not believe it. Seven companies of 1st cavalry and twenty of Robbins’ scouts, with a Gatling gun, proceeded some three miles toward Battle Creek, when we met the two scouts who reported that the Indians were in position on a height about three miles from us. Bernard, taking the trail, moved quickly into position over the troublesome front hill, the east of which is fenced by a canyon, and over a mile in the ascent. The cavalry sped from hill to hill till in the vicinity of the enemy, strongly posted on a rocky crest. Oh, what a feeling I had just before the fight came on! Every drop of blood in my veins went out. I said to sister, “We will see a great many of our people killed today, and soldiers, too.” Then the bugle sounded “Fire!” I heard the chiefs singing as they ran up and down the front line as if it was only a play, and on our side was nothing but the reports of the great guns. All my feeling was gone. I wanted to go to them. During the engagement the advance was made along several approaches in a handsome manner, not a man falling out of the ranks. The different sides of the hill were steeper than Missionary Ridge; still the troops, though encountering a severe fire that emptied some saddles and killed many horses, did not waver but skirmished to the very top, the enemy abandoning his position and running to the next height in the rear, slightly higher and specially crowned with natural defenses of lava rock. In twenty minutes this height was charged from different sides and taken. Then the soldiers commenced a rapid pursuit of the flying Indians, who abandoned their spare horses that were in the field, perhaps two hundred. They were mostly jaded and worthless. They also left provisions and ammunition and camp material. The hostiles struck for the thick pines which crest the Blue Ridge, and again made a stand, using the trees for defenses. Again the cavalry pressed them in the front and on the flanks, and in a few minutes dislodged them a third time, and pushed them four or five miles further into the mountains. The rough country and the great exhaustion of horses and men caused a cessation of the pursuit for that day. In this battle I did not see an Indian fall, nor one killed, and there were five enlisted men wounded, and probably twenty horses killed. The Indian women and their children and their best horses in droves were well out of the way before the battle began, and all the officers and scouts said they were making for Grande Ronde, but I for one said, “No, they will go back or through Blue Mountains and Malheur Agency, and back to their own country,” but they all said the flight was in that direction. Captain Bernard was entitled to special credit for this engagement; yes, indeed, for the entire campaign, and his officers and men did as well as brave and true men can do. Dear reader, if you could only know the difficulties of this wilderness you could then appreciate their loyal service. The fight commenced at 8 a. m., under a hot sun and with no water. The whole of it was watched by the general commanding. The bullets were whistling all round us, and the general said to me and Mattie, “Get behind the rocks, Sarah, you will get hit.” I did not feel any fear. I asked the general to let me go to the front line where the soldiers were fighting. At last I heard Oytes say, “Come on, you white dogs,—what are you waiting there for?”

  I again asked the general if I might go to the front line, to hear what Oytes was saying, and he said, “Go, Sarah.” I put the whip to my horse, and away I went to where the Gatling gun was placed. I jumped off my horse and stood alongside of it, but Oytes did not speak again. Then General Howard rode up and took his stand at the Gatling gun. This battle lasted from 8 a. m., to 12:30 p. m. Where do you think the citizen volunteer scouts were during the fight? The citizens, who are always for exterminating my people (with their mouths only), had all fallen to the rear, picking up horses and other things which were left on the battle-field, and after the battle was over they rode up to where we were and asked where were the Indians. Gen. Howard said,

  “Go look for them.”

  Sometimes I laugh when I think of this battle. It was very exciting in one way, and the soldiers made a splendid chase, and deserved credit for it; but where was the killing? I sometimes think it was more play than anything else. If a white settler showed himself he was sure to get a hit from an Indian; but I don’t believe they ever tried to hit a soldier,—they liked them too well,—and it certainly was remarkable that with all these splendid firearms, and the Gatling gun, and General Howard working at it, and the air full of bullets, and the ground strewn with cartridges, not an Indian fell that day. One scout came running in to General Howard, and said an Indian was lying in a stream at the bottom of a deep canyon, tied to the tail of a horse, and dead.

  General Howard always sent sister and me to look after the Indians when he heard any were killed; and he sent us down that steep canyon that day to see if we knew the dead Indian; but we found nothing, though we went two miles along the stream. It was a false report, just such an one as citizen-scouts give. They take good care not to go too near Indians, and the officers know well enough what they are good for. If they wanted to find enemies, they would not send them to reconnoiter. They know very well that they would shirk any such duty, Have not the Indians good reason to like soldiers? There were no Custers among the officers in Nevada. If the Indians were protected, as they call it, instead of the whites, there would be no Indian wars. Is there not good reason for wishing the army to have the care of the Indians, instead of the Indian Commissioner and his men? The army has no temptation to make money out of them, and the Indians understand law and discipline as the army has them; but there is no law with agents. The few good ones cannot do good enough to make it worthwhile to keep up that system. A good agent is sure to lose his place very soon, there are so many bad ones longing for it.

  We camped here for the night. Here the poor soldier who was wounded so badly was brought to us, and Mattie and I watched over him. I asked him if I could do anything for him; but he shook his head. Later in the evening General Howard came with a book and read, and prayed with him. There was no one with him during the night. Sister and I went to see him once; but at four o’clock in the morning he cried out for someone to come to him. We went to him, poor fellow, and I asked him again if I could say or do anything for him. He looked at me, but could not speak, and died in a few minutes. He was buried at the same place, under a beautiful pine tree. Late in the fall he was taken up by the Odd Fellows and carried to Walla-Walla, Washington Territory.

  On the morning of the twentieth of July we struck the Indian rear guard in the canyon of the north fork of the John Day River. This canyon is about one thousand and two hundred feet deep; and as the walls are nearly perpendicular, our command actually slid down the trail that we were following into the stream, which rushed clown the bed of the canyon, and we had to climb up the opposite side, leading our horses, the ascent being so steep that several of our pack animals fell over backwards into the stream and were lost, while trying to follow the puzzling zig-zags of the trail. The Indians that constituted their rear guard numbered about forty. They had fortified themselves near the brow of the hill, on the trail, so as to command it for several hundred feet below their line of work. The scouts, numbering about eight, were a short distance ahead of us, who were in the advance guard. The Indians, who were in ambush, permitted them to get almost up to their line, when the accidental discharge of a carbine in the advance guard, caused them to believe that they were discovered, and they at once fired upon the scouts, killing H. H. Froman, a courier, who was with the advance, and severely wounding a scout, John Campbell. The advance guard was Company E, 1st Cavalry, under Cap
t. W. H. Winters. At the sound of the firing, he deployed his company, dismounted, and took a strong position, which was re-enforced by sending forward Company H, under Lieutenant Parnell, and Company L, under Lieutenant Shelton, and they extended the line to the right by pushing Company G, under Captain Bernard and Lieutenant Pitcher, up the side of the canyon to a projecting point which commanded and protected the trail and the bench of land upon which we had corralled our stock. As soon as this formation was completed, which occupied us about an hour and a half, and was made under fire of the enemy, the line moved forward, and the crest of the precipitous hill, or, more properly speaking, bluff, was reached, not soon enough however to give us a chance at the foe, who had mounted and fled.

  At this fight, a little girl-baby was found by a sergeant, who picked it up. He said it was lying on its little face. He carried it to the officers, and Captain M’Gregor was the first who gave it something to eat. It was ginger-snaps, sugar and water. They also took two Indian women. One of them I knew. She had returned during the night, looking for her lost children, and the other was a Bannock woman. I asked the woman I knew if she would be so kind as to look out and care for the baby for me. She said she would, and General Howard ordered some condensed milk for me, so that the woman might feed it, and I told her how to fix it. General Howard also told me to take good care of its little shirt and all its beads, and if they should ever surrender, we could find its mother. We had the little baby three months.

  Now we went on as quickly as possible to form a junction with all the troops, at what is called Burnt River Meadows. There were only eight companies of soldiers. We went in hot pursuit of the Indians, crossed the Blue Mountains range by very steep and difficult trails, and descended through the Granite Creek Valley.