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

by Terry C. Johnston

  The chase was on.

  On 15 May the Teninos guided Hasbrouck’s men west on the trail of the fleeing Modocs. For some miles Captain Jack had led his people down the Ticknor Road. Soon, however, the soldiers found the Indian trail leading away toward Antelope Springs. It was there Hasbrouck gave up the chase and returned to Big Sand Butte while Mason transferred his command back to Juniper Butte to await more water and horses.

  His plans for following the Modocs renewed on the sixteenth, when he received fresh horses, Hasbrouck led his men west from Big Sand Butte toward Van Bremmer’s ranch. After several miles the captain met Captain Perry’s troop of First Cavalry out on a reconnaissance south from Davis’s camp. They camped together, and on the morning of 18 May continued in their search: Perry would ride south toward Antelope Springs, while Hasbrouck plodded north toward Van Bremmer’s Mountain, hoping to either find the Modocs trapped between them or, at the outside, to at least run across a fresh trail.

  On that same Sunday, the Modocs fleeing with Hooker Jim had already skirted south of Van Bremmer’s Mountain then crossed over Ticknor Road, heading west toward a long, J-shaped ridge of higher ground that joined Sheep Mountain in the south with Mahogany Mountain farther north, directly across the road from John Fairchild’s ranch.

  Moving on horseback still bothered Donegan’s tender wounds. Not as much as it had days ago. But this morning, the eighteenth, his shoulder was again stiff with the cold and damp after a night spent on the ground at Van Bremmer’s ranch with Captain Hasbrouck’s troops. Ian O’Roarke had come out from Davis’s camp with Captain Perry’s cavalry, and when they camped together on the seventeenth, Ian decided to stay on with his nephew.

  After a breakfast of strong coffee and hardtack, along with strips of fried pork, Hasbrouck moved his command south along the Ticknor Road.

  Approximately three miles down the wide trace, the captain came upon McKay’s scouts waiting in the middle of the road. They had something to show him.

  “Tracks?”

  McKay answered. “Hurrying west.”

  “How many?”

  “Seventy. Maybe eighty.”

  “Damn. That’s only half of what we were expecting to find.” Hasbrouck sounded disappointed in spite of the good news.

  “They split up on us,” McKay said with a shrug.

  “And maybe they haven’t. Maybe this isn’t the main trail. Perhaps it’s only something to throw us off.”

  The half-breed shook his head. “These Modocs. Warriors—with some women and children and some poor ponies. If they are not the big bunch you want, they lead you to Jack one day.”

  “All right. Tell me how old these tracks are. How many days ago were they here?”

  McKay gave the captain a quizzical look. “They crossed the road this morning. Maybe before dawn.”

  Hasbrouck tingled with anticipation as he looked to the west at the shadowy bulk of the ridge, encapsulated at either end by mountain peaks. “All right. Put your boys on the trail, McKay. We’ll be serving Modoc soup for dinner tonight.”

  A half-mile later the captain signaled Captain James Jackson forward. “I want you to take a squad of a dozen good horsemen ahead with two of McKay’s best. Press the trail hard.”

  “You really believe they’re just ahead of us?”

  “I do—and you’re going to find out for us, Jackson.”

  “Very well.” Jackson saluted Hasbrouck and loped back along the column to pick his dozen.

  “You mind if I ride along?” Donegan asked as Jackson was moving by.

  The captain reined up, glancing first at O’Roarke. “I appreciate the offer, Irishman. I do. But with that bad wing of yours, you might just hamper us if we get ourselves in trouble.”

  “Nothing I’m not accustomed to.”

  “But in this case, having you out of commission might mean an added danger to my men.”

  Ian had watched the disappointed look cross his nephew’s face. “What if I go along, Captain? I’d cover the lad’s ass. You’d not be responsible.”

  Jackson considered it, then grinned slightly. “I suppose we cut our teeth together in the Modoc War, didn’t we, Irishman?”

  Seamus sagged a little with relief. “We did, that, Captain.”

  “All right, you both come along. And by the way Mr. O’Roarke—if you ride with James Jackson—we all cover each other’s asses in this outfit.”

  Jackson reined away to ride on down the column of his B Troop, choosing the best horsemen and shots he could from among his soldiers.

  O’Roarke nodded approvingly. “Maybe I’d done all right riding cavalry in the war like you, nephew. Sometimes I’ve wondered. So, why you want to try to get your head blown off again?”

  “Better than eating the dust of a long column of horse.”

  “Still I don’t like the idea of us riding up there in that timber—just daring those Modocs to jump us again.”

  He loosened the flap on his holster and eased the extra pistol from his belt. “Chances are good—a man goes riding with the likes of that Captain Jackson will come out of any tangle with the enemy.”

  Chapter 33

  May 18–22, 1873

  Gunfire greeted them before they had gone three miles up the Modoc trail, headed for Mahogany Mountain, across Ticknor Road from John Fairchild’s place.

  In among the trees flitted light and shadow, then rapid, bright muzzle flashes.

  The Modoc men had doubled back on their trail once rear scouts learned the soldiers were drawing close. The warriors waited until Jackson’s fifteen horsemen were into the thick timber, then cut loose.

  Riding down at the tail end of the long column, Seamus could only hear the rattle of riflefire mixing with war-cries and the screams of horses up ahead on the trail. Gray smoke puffed from the stands of juniper and mahogany. Soldier mounts reared, crying out in surprise and agony—painfully reminding him of that summer sunrise on the high plains when a band of fifty frightened men raced their own horses to a sandy island in the middle of a nameless river, then one by one shot those animals for barricades from the screaming Cheyenne of Roman Nose.*

  A solitary soldier tore past Donegan and O’Roarke, headed down the mountain, clinging to the neck of his mount.

  Spurring his snorting horse into action, Seamus freed the pistol from his belt. Only yards ahead around the hard twist in the trail, Jackson’s squad was a confused jumble of men and animals.

  More shadow and light flitted through the trees to his right this time. A puff of smoke followed the cruel whine of a bullet creasing the air near him. The horse jumped.

  Soldiers were on the ground, two of them hollering out and pinned under horses that lay thrashing, crying out in pain. Others were still in the saddle fighting wounded animals. A few already crouched behind their slain horses.

  “They’re shooting the horses!” Jackson called out as Seamus leaped forward, his animal clearing first one then another writhing horse sprawled on the narrow mountain trail. Nostrils flaring, its eyes wide as saucers, the horse fought the bit.

  With one good arm and the other in nagging pain, he yanked on the reins, nearly bringing the horse down as he brought it around on its haunches, ending its panicked race.

  “You’ve got them running, Captain!” O’Roarke shouted, pointing up the trail.

  It appeared the warriors were only covering the retreat of their women and children, delaying the soldiers long enough so they themselves could escape.

  “Damn those bastards!”

  Seamus quickly glanced over the carnage, wagging his head. “They didn’t hit a single one of your men, did they?”

  Jackson as quickly appraised the littered trail as men were pulled out from under horse carcasses. “Not a man. I—I don’t understand it.”

  “That bunch is telling you something, Captain,” O’Roarke declared. “I figure those warriors could have whittled your outfit down to nothing in a heartbeat.”

  “But instead they only shot the hor
ses out from under us. What does that tell you, Mr. O’Roarke?”

  Ian looked at Seamus for help.

  “Seems they don’t want any more killing,” Donegan replied quietly. “I think they realize that the army will track them to the end—but if they can slow you down by killing the horses, maybe they’ll buy themselves a little more time to run.”

  “Trying hard not to kill us, eh?”

  Seamus had no time to answer Jackson’s question. The clatter of bit and the squeak of leather joined the clatter of hoofbeats on the backtrail as that solitary soldier sent for help led the rest of Company B and a full contingent of McKay’s Tenino scouts.

  The new arrivals had but a few seconds for disappointment in not finding a hot fight of it on the trail, for Captain Jackson formed up what he had for mounted men and ordered them forward on the heels of the fleeing Modocs. Those troopers who had lost horses were ordered down the backtrail.

  For the rest of that long afternoon, the soldiers pursued the unseen warriors covering the retreat of their women and children in a sporadic yet bitter running fight across some eight miles of rugged terrain marked by boulders and precipitous ridges covered with pine, juniper and mahogany.

  As the ground grew rougher, steeper still, the Modocs splintered. Lieutenants split their commands. Sergeants further divided their squads. Lathered army mounts lagged farther and farther behind their fleeing quarry as the day grew old, the warriors using every tree and boulder and tree again to fight and hide behind.

  Up and down the ridge the echo rang as the various units relayed Captain Jackson’s order to halt and turn about.

  “Pushing on now might jeopardize my men and mounts even more than they already are,” the captain explained after he had rejoined the main command down the slope of Mahogany Mountain.

  “I quite agree,” said Captain Hasbrouck. “Did we capture any?”

  “About ten—women and children only. Along with two dozen of their ponies.”

  “Enemy casualties?”

  “My men counted five dead.”

  “Warriors?”

  Jackson wagged his head wearily. “Two males. Three females.”

  Hasbrouck pushed his cap back on his head and scratched his brow. “Not to be ashamed of, Captain Jackson. The way those warriors were mixing in with their women and children in that mad flight—no wonder some of the innocents were sacrificed.”

  “That bunch was doing just what any man would do,” Seamus Donegan grumbled as he began to rein away, grown disgusted with the artillery officer.

  Hasbrouck jerked. “What was that you said, mister?”

  Seamus halted, reined about and glared at the captain. “I said those warriors were doing what any of us would do to protect their families.”

  Hasbrouck glanced quickly over his men, finding many of them nodding in grudging agreement as Jackson called out to his sergeant.

  “Reform the men into column of twos. Halt at the base of the ridge to await me.” The captain turned to Hasbrouck. “Damn, but I hate making war like this.”

  The cavalry officer nudged his exhausted horse onto the narrow foot-trail that descended the ridge.

  As soon as word of the running fight was relayed to Davis that afternoon, the colonel gave the command for his cavalry and infantry to hurry to John Fairchild’s ranch.

  “We know where they are,” Davis explained to his officers just before they moved out to Mahogany Mountain. “The Modocs are now within our grasp.”

  On the nineteenth Hasbrouck moved his combined command of artillery and cavalry up the Ticknor Road to Fairchild’s ranch from Van Bremmer’s place. The following day the remaining infantry was led from Davis’s camp by Major Mason. Likewise, the rest of the artillery units moved up the Pit River Road in the opposite direction toward the Peninsula.

  Davis had stripped the Lava Beds.

  That same Tuesday morning, while the breakfast fires still smoked, reeking of fried salt-pork and harsh coffee, and while the cavalry was saddling up for a renewed pursuit, John Fairchild strode up to Davis’s headquarters tent. He had with him a reluctant Modoc woman.

  “You’re trying to tell me that bunch of renegades claims they were coming to your place to surrender when Jackson caught them up the mountainside?” Davis asked, disbelief etched in every one of the wrinkles that gave such distinction to his face.

  Fairchild nodded as other civilian ranchers and settlers from the region drew close, curious all. “That’s what this woman came down yesterday to tell me. She didn’t make it all the way in when darkness came—but at first light she continued on down to my place. My wife fed her before I brought her over to you this morning. Look at her—how they must all be slowly starving to death.”

  Davis eyed the stocky, middle-aged Modoc squaw. “Don’t you figure they’re just buying time with this maneuver, Fairchild?”

  “No, I don’t,” answered Ian O’Roarke.

  Davis turned, as if pulled by a string.

  “I think they’ve had enough. Being in the Lava Beds, where they could come out and raid at will—and had good protection from army attack—that was one thing,” O’Roarke explained. “Having to run now … harried by your soldiers. Just look at her—look at her, Colonel. These people are done in. They haven’t eaten fit food. They grab water on the run when they can find it. They sleep curled under trees. Take a goddamned look there, Colonel—and any fair-minded man would know these people are done in.”

  A glare of anger flashed in Davis’s eyes, then as if something had doused the flames, that ire disappeared. He sighed, his great shoulders heaving.

  “Perhaps you’re right, Mr. O’Roarke. Maybe—Maybe we’ve had all we can take too.” Davis turned back to Fairchild. “All right Let’s see if these people really want to come in. Among our prisoners, I want you to find those two squaws who went out to find the bodies of Lieutenant Cranston’s men in the Lava Beds. They’re trustworthy.”

  “What you have in mind?” Fairchild asked.

  “Tell them to go with this woman. Find the Modocs up there in the hills. Tell them the specific terms of surrender.”

  “Colonel, if I may?” Hasbrouck asked, waiting for Davis to nod. “Do you want to put a time limit on it? We’ve waited before and they’ve scattered to the four winds on us, sir.”

  Davis sighed again behind lips pursed in resignation. “The captain’s right, Fairchild. Tell the Modocs they have two days to come in. After that, we’ll hunt them down. If it means taking them one at a time as prisoner, or shooting them down where we find them on this mountain—we’ll do what we have to in bringing a conclusion to this war.”

  “I want O’Roarke along,” Fairchild said.

  Davis eyed the other civilian. “All right Whatever it takes. Looks like we’re back to trying to make peace with this bunch, gentlemen. But I won’t be responsible if you go up there without any weapons.”

  Fairchild flicked his eyes at O’Roarke. “Neither one of us is going up that mountain without a gun, Colonel.”

  By midmorning Fairchild and O’Roarke were saddled and pulling away from the rancher’s corral set to the side of the log home and outbuildings. Behind them rode Fairchild’s wife and the three squaws. Seamus watched them disappear across Ticknor Road, up the pine-studded ridge that climbed toward Mahogany Mountain. In silence he prayed beneath those scattered, fluffy clouds dotting the blue canopy that the Modocs truly wanted to come in.

  But try as he might, Donegan couldn’t squeeze from his mind the horrible vision of Canby’s scalped and butchered body, or Meacham’s brutal wounds which nearly took his life.

  On the following day, the twenty-first, Colonel Davis completed the inevitable. He relieved Colonel Gillem of his command of the Modoc War.

  In his Special Orders 59a, Davis declared that since Gillem’s infantry “must be made to conform to the new order of things,” present and future operations would now “more conveniently be carried on under the immediate orders of the Department Commander, whi
le on the spot, than under those of a special commander of the expedition … Colonel A. C. Gillem is therefore relieved from duty with this command and will proceed to Benicia Barracks.”

  The time of that change could not have been more unfortunate, perhaps even ruinous for Gillem’s career. In fact, it was perhaps a senseless deed that the last words of Davis’s order returned Lieutenant Colonel Frank Wheaton to command of the Modoc campaign, although there was no mistake to be made in the fact that he would be serving under Davis. Perhaps this was Davis’s manner of saying, if not the army’s way of apologizing, in publicly declaring that it had not been Wheaton’s responsibility for those catastrophes at Lost River and in that first attack on the Stronghold.

  “Here they come!”

  Seamus turned at the shout of the young picket stationed up high along a rocky outcrop above the Ticknor Road, across from the yard in front of the Fairchild house. The soldier was pointing up the hillside, into the trees at something those in the valley could not yet see.

  “The civilians bringing ’em in!” hollered the picket, waving his hat at the end of his arm to the soldiers standing in curious attention at their noon fires that Thursday, 22 May.

  With a flick of his wrist, Donegan slopped the rest of his coffee in his cup onto the ground. The entire camp was on its feet in breathless wonder by the time the leader of the procession appeared from the distant trees. Seamus found a sudden, hot and scratchy lump in his throat as he recognized Fairchild. Slowly the rancher came on, as Colonel Davis and his staff officers pushed across the road to the base of the trail. Many more troops surged forward silently, jostling for a good view of the narrow trail that slashed down the hillside like a brown scar amidst the green kissed by spring rains.

  Riding some fifty yards behind the rancher, Mrs. Fairchild appeared from the trees into the brilliant sunshine of that midday. Riding right behind her on the trail came the two squaws Davis had twice trusted to help his soldiers. As yet, no one in the valley could tell if they had been successful in bringing in the renegades.