Lay the Mountains Low (6 page)

J
UNE
24, 1877

BY TELEGRAPH

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Indian Outbreak in Idaho.

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Desperate Engagement With Serious Losses.

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One Officer and Thirty-three Men Killed.

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The Salmon River Valley Desolated.

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IDAHO.

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Indian Outbreak.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 22.—A press dispatch from Boise City confirms the report of the Indian outbreak on the Salmon river. The Indians didn't kill women and children, but allowed them to be taken under an escort of friendly squaws to Slate creek, which has thus far been left undisturbed. At Slate creek the whites have fortified themselves in a stockade fort, into which has been received the wives and children of murdered men, with the families of men who escaped. A large number of families, women and children, are thus shut in in the midst of hostile Indians, without adequate means of defense and, without aid, they will certainly be overpowered and murdered. As the Indians declare the determination to take the fort and murder the men it can't be hoped that the Indians will again spare the women and children after losses they must sustain in capturing the fort, as the
men will fight to the last one. Our informant says he is reliably informed that the Indians did not burn the buildings or destroy property but cleaned out the country of stock which they have driven to the south side of the Salmon river where they seem to hope they will ultimately be the undisturbed proprietors of all the property the whites are now compelled to abandon. They think, not without reason, that before the country can be regained from them the army must be created and a long and doubtful campaign passed through. The Indians have now their camp and headquarters on Salmon river, where the stock stolen from the whites is gathered and pastured in an extensive triangular-shaped region formed by the Snake and Salmon rivers and a high mountain range lying about the sources of Fayette and Weaver rivers. Here there is abundant pasturage for summer and winter, and there they will doubtless make a final stand. In contradiction to previous reports that troops behaved badly, our informant says that by citizens, who were in the fight, he was assured that the troops, although they allowed themselves to be decoyed into ambush, displayed, throughout the action, the utmost gallantry, and fought like tigers. About twenty-five or thirty soldiers were killed in about the same number of minutes. The situation in northern Idaho far exceeds in gravity any Indian outbreak of our day, and it will tax the best resources of the government and of the people immediately interested, to subdue the Indians and restore peace to the country. The Indians know, that the army on this coast is but a skeleton, and the people helpless for want of arms, A special to the Portland Oregonian, just received from Lewiston, June 21st, 8 a.m., says: Sixty-five volunteers were to proceed from their defenses at Mount Idaho to reconnoiter the position of the Indians, who are supposed to be somewhere in the direction of the Salmon river. A steamer arrived this forenoon, having on board 107 troops. No extra arms
came on the steamer. About fifty volunteers have arrived here. A few of them have no suitable arms, but are awaiting them from below.

“B
ESS
!”
EMILY FITZGERALD CRIED IN EXASPERATION,
whirling on her seven-year-old daughter. “Take your little brother and go outside now while I am doing my best to finish this letter to your grandmother before the mail has to be posted.”

“Yes, Mamma,” responded young Elizabeth, immediately contrite at her mother's sharp tone. She turned to her younger brother. “Come on, Bertie. Let's find something to do outside with your toy horses until Mamma's done with her letter.”

With a sigh not in the least born of relief, but more so the sound one makes when faced with an arduous task, Emily fixed her eyes on the small cabinet photo of her mother she cradled in her left hand. How she wished that dear Quaker were there to comfort her at that moment.

Ever since he had returned to the fort from Portland, her husband, Jenkins—but better known as John—FitzGerald, the man whom she more often called Doctor, had hardly experienced a moment's rest, what with all the campaign preparations, all those duties laid about his shoulders now that General Howard had departed with his column to find the Nez Perce.

As she gazed at that sepia-toned memento of a visit to a Philadelphia photographer's studio with her mother, Emily angrily scolded herself for being so selfish, then propped the photograph beside the letter she was crafting.

Why wasn't she able to just accept how much better it was that Howard had decided to leave her husband behind at Fort Lapwai to see to supply-train and organizational matters for the time being? Far better than watching him ride off with the others that might not return! Dr. Jenkins A. FitzGerald, army surgeon, First U. S. Cavalry. A man of duty and honor …

In all their years together since the Civil War, she hadn't
addressed him as Jenkins more than two, perhaps three, times. Instead, she called him John or—mostly—Doctor.

He had been away from the post, visiting Portland on army business, when news of the murders first reached Fort Lapwai. How glad she had been that her John hadn't been here when Colonel Perry marched off with his hundred men. There simply was no convincing Emily that John wouldn't have been among all those dead left to rot on the White-Bird battlefield.

But when he did get back upriver, what a homecoming that had been! Even though they both knew it wasn't for long. General Howard was gathering 227 men, a complement of eight companies, from nearby posts and tiny garrisons: two troops of cavalry, five companies of infantry, along with a company of artillery who were armed with two Gatling guns and a mountain howitzer. My, but how they would go to work on Joseph's murderers now!

 

Fort Lapwa
June 24, 1877

Dear Mamma,

I have not been able to write or even to think for a week, Such a confusion as our quiet little Lapwai has been in. When I can, I will write the particulars. Since the battle, we have all had a great deal to occupy us. Mrs. Boyle and I have been with Mrs. Theller … Then all week there have been troops passing through and we have entertained the officers … The parade ground is full of horses, the porches are full of trunks and blankets, everybody is rushing about, and everything is in confusion. My brain is in as much confusion as anything else. The army is so reduced, and none of the companies are full, and all the troops that can possibly be gathered from all this region only amount to three hundred. Those are now in the field, and it is a little handful! Oh, the government, I hate it! Much it respects and cares for the
soldier who, at a moment's notice, leaves his family and sacrifices his life for some mistaken Indian policy … I wish we were well out of it. The Nez Perce Indians are at war with the Whites. What a blow to the theories of Indian civilization. The whole tribe is wavering, and we don't know when it will all end
—

“Excuse me, Mrs. FitzGerald.”

Emily turned with a start, finding the slight woman framed by the open doorway leading onto the front porch, her pale hands clutched before her swollen belly like a pair of white doves that might take flight if she were not mindful of them. And those red, red eyes.

“Yes, Alice.”

The very-much pregnant Alice Hurlburt cleared her throat, took one step closer to the surgeon's wife, then said, “If it's fine by you, ma'am … can my young'uns play with your li'l ones?”

“I just sent Bessie outside with Bert.”

“Yes, I saw,” Mrs. Hurlburt replied, half-turning her head out the door, then back again. “They all play so well together.”

“It will be fine, Alice. Yes, quite fine.”

Those red-rimmed, cried-out eyes did their best to smile at Emily as Alice Hurlburt turned back through the open doorway, stepping into the shade of the porch, little protection from the growing heat of that summer afternoon.

Emily FitzGerald swatted at a fly, dipped her pen into the inkwell, and continued writing.

 

I have a sad, sad story to tell about the family of one of those who did not come home after Joseph's murderers ambushed Colonel Perry's men. It appears that William Hurlburt made a fine mess of his life as a civilian. Problem was, he had a wife and two children. With nowhere else to turn, and no other way to feed his family, Mr. Hurlburt joined the army and soon found himself transferred
to Nez Perce country. Only recently did his wife and children come west to join him at Lapwai In such hardship cases with enlisted men, the government will pay the costs of transportation of a man's family to his duty station, but a little is deducted from every paycheck until those costs are paid off.

And now it's clear to see she is with child again, Mamma. Pitiful creature, poor Alice is, for she lost her husband to the Nez Perce last week on White Bird Creek. Now she finds herself without a husband, deeply in debt, and without any prospects on how to return east to her people. Not knowing what else to do, I performed on my Christian charity and took them in until their situation can be sorted through. She is a very nice little woman, and her children are as nice as I know. It does my heart good to have them under our roof instead of being left out in the cold now that the army will no longer provide for her, but comes demanding repayment on its transportation debt. The children play so well together.

She is left destitute. After her sickness,
^*
we will all help her. A purse will be raised to take her back to her friends. She is a helpless sort of a little woman, and I never saw such a look of distress in my life as has taken possession of her face.

 

Outside, the children were shrieking with abandon and glee as they chased one another across the grass of the nearby parade. Emily went to the window, pushed aside the gauzy curtain, and peered into the unblemished June sunshine.
It is a blessing,
she thought,
a blessing the children can play as if they haven't a care in the world. As if one father isn't dead, mortifying in this harsh sun on an abandoned battlefield, and the other father soon to be marching off with those who will make the Nez Perce pay for their bloody crimes.

Search as she may out the window, Emily didn't catch a glimpse of the Doctor. So she returned to her letter, settling into the ladder-back chair at the small secretary once more, then dipped her pen into the inkwell

Soon enough their parting would come. In a war the soldiers needed their surgeons. All too soon Howard would summon John to the battlefront. Like other officers, dutiful and honor-bound, he would kiss his family farewell, mount up, and ride off to join the others.

She dragged the back of her left hand across both damp cheeks and continued writing.

 

*
That peculiar nineteenth-century euphemism for pregnancy.

J
UNE
24, 1877

BY TELEGRAPH

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The Idaho Indian Troubles.

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Attempted General Combination of all the Tribes.

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IDAHO.

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Latest from the Scene of Indian Disturbances.

BOISE CITY, June 23.—Hon. T. E. Logan, mayor of Boise City, and Bonin Costin, member of the legislative council, who left here on Wednesday for the purpose of visiting the Indians encamped on Great Camas prairie, twenty-five miles southeast of this place, returned at noon, accompanied by fourteen of the chiefs of the Indians there assembled. There are now encamped in that locality about 1,500 Indians of both sexes and all ages, embracing members of Bannacks, Shoshones and Yellowstone tribes. Logan and Costin went to Willow creek, forty miles distant, where they found a party of Indians. They made known their object, to obtain the disposition of the Indians and their intentions. The Indians were asked to send forward their best riders to the main camp, and request the principal chief to meet the commission at Willow creek. The Indians complied and soon the chiefs made their appearance and an interview took place which revealed the fact that these Indians had been visited by emissaries from the Nez Perces and other hostiles in the north, and a portion of them had been considering whether to remain friendly to the whites or to join the hostiles …