Devil's Backbone: The Modoc War, 1872-3

by Terry C. Johnston

  A correspondent who would travel south with the command wrote, “Today the garrison is alive with preparation for war. Major Mason makes an interesting and conspicuous appearance mounted upon a snow-white war steed and wearing a fur cap. The greatest excitement prevails, but the troops are in good condition, and joyous over the expectations of coming events.”

  Mason’s eager soldiers crossed the rain-swollen Columbia on a paddle-wheel steamer, and at Portland boarded a train that would carry them south by rail to Roseburg. From there the soldiers trudged on foot along muddy, rutted roads up the Umpqua Valley and over the snow of the Cascades. For three long weeks the freezing rain held dominion of the skies, slowing the troops and bogging down their wagons in a mire of mud and ice. The troops arrived at Van Bremmer’s ranch, cold and soaked to the skin after a journey sure to take much of the ardor out of any young man’s war-fever. The day they slogged into Bernard’s camp, the sleet turned to an icy snow.

  With their arrival on 22 December, there were now 250 regulars readying to attack the Stronghold of the Modocs.

  Meanwhile, the local citizenry of both California and Oregon were consolidating their desire to avenge the deaths of the white settlers. Besides a band of twenty-five California volunteers loosely confederated under the leadership of John Fairchild, a larger group of 120 volunteers had formed themselves into the Oregon militia under the leadership of General John E. Ross. Upon their arrival at the scene, these men placed themselves under Wheaton’s command. Most of the sixty-eight Oregon volunteers under the command of Oliver Applegate were Klamath trackers who jumped at this chance to assist the white man wipe out their old enemies. So they would not be mistaken for Modocs, the Klamath trackers were provided regulation army kepi hats with white badges emblazoned on them.

  The rest of the men under Applegate were Linkville citizens, itching all on their own for a shot at the Modocs gathered with Captain Jack.

  Since Fairchid’s volunteers were in a large part hired hands working neighboring ranches, over the next several months they would continue to tend cattle and sheep and account for their chores between sporadic scouting and fighting. For that service to the Modoc campaign, these California volunteers would receive their regular wages, in addition to fifty-five cents per day and a clothing allowance from the army.

  Eventually, four hundred men were assembled in camps on the south shore of Tule Lake to dig seventy Modoc warriors from the Lava Beds.

  While the troops arrived with their meager supplies and the Oregon militia rode into camp intending to eat from the largesse of the quartermasters, the army’s supply line soon bogged down. After requisitioning every horse and mule in the Klamath region to serve as a pack-train to haul supplies, Wheaton’s officers had no other place to turn but to the merchants of nearby Linkville, who promptly marked everything up a hundred percent. Sorely in need of saddles, the army found itself paying forty dollars for a saddle priced the day before at twenty.

  Determining that it could not live with such exorbitant prices, the army strung out its supply line all the way west across the Cascades to Jacksonville. Since wagons could not force their way over the muddy, snowy passes, the horse and mule pack-trains were put into service. Adding insult to injury, little of the army’s whiskey ration arrived at the scene. Civilian packers claimed most of it had leaked out on the hazardous trip over the icy mountains.

  At the same time, rumors circulated hinting that the Modocs had somehow rustled themselves a herd of more than one hundred head of cattle now grazing on the limited grass in the Lava Beds. Yet Jack and his head men were not satisfied, and determined to somehow get their hands on more supplies in the event of a protracted stalemate as the white man slowly drew his noose tighter and tighter on their Stronghold.

  Despite the gloomy situation in the field, District Commander General Edward R.S. Canby remained cheerful:

  “I do not think the operations will be protracted. The snow will drive the Indians out of the Mountains and they cannot move without leaving trails that can be followed. It will involve some hardships upon the troops; but they are better provided and can endure it better than the Indians. In that respect, the season is in our favor.”

  Canby and the rest were about to find out how wrong they could be.

  For several hours beneath the pewter sky of 21 December, the Modocs had shadowed an incoming quartermaster’s wagon from Camp Bidwell.

  Following the disastrous events of 29 November, Captain Bernard had so hurried to the scene that his troops found themselves running low on supplies. In addition, the captain realized the forthcoming attack on the Stronghold would require more ammunition. As important as that shipment was to his encampment, an overconfident army sent only five soldiers to ride as escort for the single wagon carrying those much-needed commissary staples and Bernard’s additional ammunition.

  “That was gunfire, Lieutenant!” shouted the captain as he rose from his camp stool, stepping from beneath the canvas awning. It was drawing close to three o’clock that dreary winter afternoon.

  John Kyle huffed to a stop before Bernard. “From the south, sir.”

  “What detail do you have out?”

  “None, Captain.”

  Bernard slammed a fist into his palm. “It can only be the supply train we’ve been expecting from Bidwell!”

  Kyle was already turning when the captain barked his orders.

  “Take the men you have ready and ride to their relief, Mr. Kyle! I’ll send another platoon right on your tail to support you.”

  In the time it takes a man to fly to his saddle, the young lieutenant was riding at the head of a column of ten cavalry troopers and a single gray-eyed civilian. As Kyle was disappearing up the road toward Clear Lake, Bernard was scribbling the dispatch he would send with a rider to the headquarters camp, requesting reinforcements.

  The veteran lieutenant turned once to look over his platoon, finding the civilian easing up on the outside of the galloping column. Kyle waved him on, then waited for the stranger to come alongside him as they raced up the icy road. “You familiar with this terrain, mister?”

  “Not from this country, Lieutenant,” Seamus apologized.

  The older Kyle regarded the civilian as the cold wind whipped tears from his eyes. “I thought you were one of the settlers from around this country.”

  “Me uncle is,” he answered, easing the Henry out of its saddle scabbard. “I don’t know the country—but I know fighting Injins.”

  Kyle grinned as he appraised the brass-mounted repeater, but it was as quickly gone. “Glad to have your gun along.”

  As the road brought itself around a large stand of timber, pointing east, they finally saw the wagon far ahead, stopped in the middle of the dark, rutted smear across the countryside, still at least an eighth of a mile away.

  With a shift in the wind at that next moment, the Modocs heard the soldiers clattering and slogging down the icy road. The warriors were just then crawling atop the wagon, ripping through the oiled canvas stretched over the high-walls.

  Try as he could, Seamus could not find sight of a single one of the military escort for the shipment. There were a few army mounts wary and nervous, some prancing and rearing, held by a handful of the Modocs. But no soldiers as Kyle’s unit came within rifle range.

  Over the Irishman’s head buzzed some angry wasps. A soldier behind him grunted. Seamus turned to find one of the young troopers gripping his upper arm, blood beginning to seep between the fingers of his woolen gloves. Donegan was just twisting back in the saddle when he found Kyle looking at him.

  “They’re going to make a fight of it, Lieutenant!” he shouted into the cruel wind.

  Kyle threw up his arm, signaling a halt. “Dismount and form a skirmish line—there!”

  “Three horse-holders to the rear,” shouted a young sergeant, directing a trio of soldiers to handle the mounts for the entire platoon. With hunched shoulders the three hurried back down the road and into the trees as Kyle and Don
egan led the other seven into the brush.

  “Spread ’em out, Lieutenant.” Seamus waved an arm to the left, then to the right. “Keep your heads down, boys—don’t shoot less’n you have a good target.”

  “We don’t want to waste ammunition now,” Kyle repeated. He looked up the road as some of the Modocs continued work in the back of the wagon, the rest fanning into the timber. “How many you figure to be up there?”

  “Two dozen. Maybe more that we never saw,” was Donegan’s answer.

  From the left flank of their pitifully small force came a volley of riflefire. Lead slapped the leaves of the trees, stung the brush about the soldiers. And with it arose many shrill, eerie Modoc war cries. Enough to send a jolt of cold down the Irishman’s spine. He knew the inexperienced soldiers were likely worrying about soiling their blue britches.

  “There!” he shouted, catching some movement through the brush and shadow of the thick timber lining the road.

  More gunfire erupted, this time from a few of Kyle’s men. In answer, more formless war-cries greeted the right end of the flank. The young soldiers returned a frantic fire.

  “We’re pinned down now, Lieutenant,” Seamus growled.

  “They’ve flanked us, haven’t they?”

  “Appears so—I’d better get back to those holders before the Modocs eat them for supper,” he whispered out of hearing of the other soldiers as he rose to a crouch. Donegan burst into the timber, at a dead run, hunched over and making himself as small as he could.

  A bullet whined past his nose, cutting through the branches. A second snarled close at his heels. Seamus kept going, dodging and weaving until he drew close to the horse-holders. Two of the mounts were already down. The rest just then clattering out of the timber, no longer held by the three soldiers who huddled behind the two heaving, thrashing brown carcasses.

  One of the soldiers, frightened and wide-eyed, pulled up his rifle on the Irishman as Donegan came sprinting up. Modoc bullets slapped the dying horse as Seamus made himself small behind the carcass.

  “Just about killed you, mister,” whispered the soldier.

  “I know, sojur,” he replied, the remnant of a grin disappearing now. “Let’s you and me turn our guns on them Injins.”

  “We ain’t got a chance!” shrieked another of the three.

  Seamus grabbed the youngster’s tunic with his left hand. “We don’t have a chance you give up like this. Now use that goddamned rifle!”

  As they laid their rifles over the ribby side of the still-warm carcasses and began firing back into the trees, the gunfire from the Modocs intensified. Along with the hair-raising war-whoops. Then, as suddenly as it had thickened, the gunfire died off.

  “They pulling back?”

  Seamus nodded at the young soldier. Then he understood why. Down the road to their right plodded the double-timing infantry, huffing out of the gray of the soggy afternoon along the icy scar of the Fort Bidwell Road that poked itself from the timber. Above their heads hung a seeping cloud of breath smoke, like sheer muslin, cold and gray.

  “We’ve just been rescued, Private,” Seamus announced quietly. Then he fell silent as he heard the mumbled prayer of a youngster lying on his side, eyes clenched tightly, blood seeping from a shiny hole in his side.

  “… and deliver us from evil…”

  Chapter 8

  January 17, 1873

  When they had driven off the Modocs back on that cold December day, the soldiers found all five of the troopers serving as wagon escort. Three were wounded, along with another so seriously shot up he did not last the night. Kyle himself found the body of the fifth escort twisted beneath the rear tailgate of the freight wagon.

  Completely stripped of his uniform and underclothing, his entire scalp gone, including the tops of both ears, Private Sidney Smith lay in a ice-slicked puddle turned red from the many bullet wounds in his head, belly and legs.

  Near dark the infantry had marched back to the scene after a running fight with the fleeing Modocs, who eventually disappeared around the south end of Clear Lake, evidently retreating to the Lava Beds.

  After a harrowing chase by some mounted Modoc warriors who nipped dangerously at his heels, Bernard’s courier had reached Jackson’s station at Crawley’s cabin. Without delay the captain had led his reinforcements down to Land’s ranch, where they went into camp with Bernard’s troops.

  In the past few days, Seamus had grumbled to Lieutenant Kyle and a few other officers what poor marksmen the young soldiers had turned out to be. The lieutenant had wagged his head sadly.

  “Even with the ammunition we saved on that wagon—we still have less than ten rounds for each man now. We can’t even begin to consider letting them practice with their weapons. You use the rounds to practice—or you use it to fight the Modocs. Word has it we’ll be going in after them soon enough.”

  “You know how soon?”

  “Captain Bernard figures by the middle of the month.”

  The army and civilians had marked time, waiting for any action after the first flurry of activity moving men and matériel to the scene. Yet as the days ground on, more of the soldiers grumbled about the food, about the weather, about the icy wet, about most anything, simply because there was nothing else to do but complain.

  Over on the west side of the Lava Beds where Ian O’Roarke and the other Californians were stationed, there was some brief excitement when a train of mules arrived from Oregon for use as pack animals by Mason’s forces. When it came time for the civilian packers to put the animals into service, they and the soldiers were surprised to discover the mules were green to sawbucks and diamond hitches. For a few days the breaking of those mules kept the packers busy, keeping their minds off the cold and the wet and the poor food.

  Christmas itself had been a dismal day. Most of the countryside found itself under a foot of new, wet snow when Lieutenant Colonel Wheaton himself arrived at Crawley’s cabin to discover Mason’s sixty-four men shivering around smoky fires. He pressed on to Van Bremmer’s ranch, where he established his headquarters for the planned assault on the Modocs’ hideout.

  While out on a scout on 5 January, fourteen of the Oregon volunteer militia had themselves a hot skirmish with some Modocs. Despite the amount of lead flung back and forth, no one was hurt on either side.

  A few days later, when Governor Grover mustered out his Oregon volunteers, stating that they had completed their thirty-day enlistment period, Wheaton grew anxious. If the militia marched home, it would deprive the lieutenant colonel of a full fourth of his fighting force. He requested General Ross to keep his men on, which made the federal government responsible for all future expenses incurred by the volunteers.

  Despite the aborted attack on the supply wagon and the long wait in the cold, wet weather, much of the talk in camp remained jovial.

  Another supply wagon was attacked several days later when the first shot from the Modocs grazed one of the lead mules. The driver immediately put the team into a gallop, losing most of his load by the time he made it in to Bernard’s camp—his wagon box lighter by a few canteens, a keg of whiskey, and more of the sorely-needed ammunition. That night the men in camp watched the glow of a bright fire and listened to the distant war-cries as the Modocs celebrated not only the soldiers’ supplies, but the white man’s liquid fortification as well.

  When final battle orders were issued on Sunday, 12 January, every man grew more expectant with the coming assault on the Lava Beds scheduled five days away. Wasn’t a soldier or civilian who didn’t believe they wouldn’t have a short time of it when it came to digging the Modocs out. A simple matter throwing several hundred soldiers against seventy warriors.

  Captain Perry and his cavalry were sent ahead to a ridge at the southwest side of Tule Lake. His troopers were to clear the area of any hostiles and establish a staging area for the bulk of Wheaton’s forces, including the artillery detachment with their two twelve-pound mountain howitzers, who would move over from Van Bremmer’s r
anch on Thursday, 16 January. Major Green would assume command of this arm of the attack.

  Perry and Oliver Applegate took a combined force of soldiers and Klamath volunteers to the ridge on Monday to establish their advance base. But when Modoc sentries on the bluffs overlooking the west side of Tule Lake heard the clattering approach of the ghostly forms swimming out of the thick fog, the warriors opened fire.

  Quickly dismounting, Perry’s troops and the Klamaths prepared to attack. But when they pressed forward they found the Modocs had retreated into the labyrinth of the Lava Beds. Again, apparently no damage was done to either side, although the volunteers captured one old Modoc rifle. Moreover, what caused Applegate the greatest worry during the brief fight was that between flinging shots at the white men, the warriors had hurled their threats at the agent’s Klamath trackers—telling them to come over and fight on their side.

  When his Indians hollered back that they would help Captain Jack, Applegate became gravely concerned and sent his trackers far from the front lines.

  All hope of surprise had melted away like summer snow in the Cascades. Unless they were blind and deaf, every Modoc in the Lava Beds realized the soldiers were moving against them at last.

  Through the next few days both staging camps were filled with the normal bragging of men assured of quick success as the moment of attack drew nigh. Ian O’Roarke often wagged his head ruefully as he listened to the boastful chatter of Wheaton’s soldiers and Ross’s Oregon volunteers alike—every man seemingly afraid of nothing more than that the battle would not last long enough for him to collect a scalp for a souvenir: something valuable in return for his weeks of eating bad food, wearing damp clothing and sleeping in wet blankets, huddled around smoky fires as the sky argued whether it would rain or snow each new day.

  “These boys here will show the army how fighting Injuns is done!” spouted one of the Oregon militia as he pointed to a knot of nearby soldiers. “I’ll ride Jack’s horse back here to camp myself.”