The Wild Frontier (36 page)

I
n the 1850s, soldiers in the West included some derelicts, drunks, and criminals hiding out from the law. This ragtag army was outnumbered by the Indians.
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When the Civil War began in 1861, a substantial part of the army in the West was occupied trying to prevent clashes between the settlers and the Indians. That war would be the most destructive in world history up to that time.
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The Union suffered horrendous casualties. More soldiers were needed, and they were taken from the West. Duane Schultz outlined what that meant:

After the Civil War, the army was reduced to about 30,000 men, and it remained at that strength (or perhaps even smaller) until the Spanish-American War began in 1898.
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The peacekeeping forces were again
spread very thin. Trouble and atrocities continued to occur—they could not be controlled.

In 1861, Apache chief Cochise vowed to exterminate all whites in Arizona.
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Second Lieutenant George N. Bascom was stationed at Fort Buchanan. He was ordered to find Cochise and demand the return of a boy and some stock seized in an Apache raid near the fort. Bascom and Cochise met in Bascom’s tent. Cochise, even though he had vowed to kill all whites, denied that his people had any part in the raid or its plunder. He truthfully blamed the White Mountain subtribe of Apache and offered to help get the boy and the stock back. Bascom told Cochise he and his party would be held hostage until the boy and stock were returned. Cochise drew his knife, slashed the tent, and escaped. The rest of his party—his brother, 2 nephews, and a woman with 2 children—were taken prisoner. Cochise already held 3 white prisoners before the meeting, but that night he seized a wagon train and got 2 more. The Apache also had 8 Mexican teamster prisoners, who were bound to wagon wheels and the wagons set on fire.

The next day, Cochise appeared under a flag of truce. Three Butter-field stagecoach employees who knew him went out to talk. The white flag was thrown down, the Indians seized one employee, James F. Wallace, both sides opened fire, the other 2 employees were hit, and one died. Bascom’s troops later found the burned wagon train with the charred corpses of the Mexican teamsters still attached to the wheels. They also found the remains of Cochise’s 6 white hostages, who were perforated by many lance holes and cut up to such an extent that Wallace could be identified only by his dental fillings.

Leaving behind the Indian woman hostage and her 2 children, Bascom took the rest of his prisoners (including Cochise’s brother) to the scene where the bodies of Cochise’s hostages had been found and hanged all of them. Their bodies stayed there for months as a warning.
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This was the beginning of the Apache Wars. Cochise inflicted “frightful tortures” on his captives during that time.
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During the next 2 months, it is believed his people killed 150 whites and Mexicans.
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In nearby New Mexico in 1861, settlers repeatedly raided the Navajo Indians and took captives who were later sold as slaves.
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The same year at Fort Lyon in New Mexico, a series of horse races was run between the soldiers and the Navajo Indians. The feature race was between an army lieutenant on a quarter horse and Navajo chief Manuelito on a Navajo pony. Many bets were made. Manuelito lost control of his pony early on, and it ran off the track. The Indians charged that its reins and bridle had been cut with a knife. The soldier judges declared the lieutenant
the winner. When the soldiers returned to the fort, angry Indians followed, and the gates were shut on them. One Indian tried to force his way in and was shot and killed.

Commander Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Chaves turned his troops on the 500 or so Indians gathered outside the fort. Captain Nicholas Hodt described what happened then. Indian women and children ran in all directions, but were shot and bayoneted. A soldier murdered 2 children and a woman. Hodt demanded that he stop, but he did not. The commander directed the howitzers to fire on the Indians. The sergeant in charge of the mountain howitzers pretended not to understand the command to fire, for he considered it to be unlawful, but being cursed by the officer of the day, and threatened, he felt he had to execute the order or else get himself in trouble. Thirty to 40 Navajo were killed. The rest fled and turned to raiding.
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Sometime before 1864, a Denver man reported what he had found after an Indian raid:

Colonel Kit Carson
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arranged for 5 Apache chiefs to go visit with Colonel James H. Carlton in Sante Fe around 1862. On the way, 2 of the chiefs met some soldiers commanded by Captain James Graydon, a former saloon keeper. Graydon offered them beef and flour, then the 2 groups parted, only to meet a second time. Graydon went into the chiefs’ camp, had a drink with them, then shot them dead. The other 3 met with Carlton and told him they no longer wanted to fight.
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Herman Lehmann, who was captured as a boy and raised as a warrior, participated in a joint Apache-Comanche raid near the headwaters of the Llano River in Texas. He later admitted that they had “burned a house and killed a man, his wife and four or five children. We tortured them before we killed them.”
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As usual, it wasn’t just the Indians who were killing. In 1862, Confederate
lieutenant colonel John Robert Baylor ordered one of his commanders to do away with all hostile Indians:

T
HERE WERE
two causes of the Santee Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, one chronic and one acute. The chronic cause was the failure of the government to pay the annuity due the Sioux so that they could buy food and other supplies from the government warehouses. The completely unrelated acute cause was the bravado of 4 young Sioux who had come home empty-handed from a hunting expedition.

By its 1851 treaty, the government agreed to make payments to the Sioux once a year. The payment due in mid-June was a large part of their income. In 1862 crops had failed. Their custom was to start their buffalo hunt in July, just after the payment was made, but July passed with no payment. The reason for this was that the government couldn’t decide whether to pay in gold or Civil War greenbacks, and therefore made no payment at all. But the food and materials that could be purchased with the payment were already present in warehouses on the reservation.
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About 3,000 hungry Sioux confronted Indian agent Thomas J. Galbraith, demanding the food and other things due them. He told them that the provisions could only be distributed when he got the money. Galbraith asked that they go hunting and come back in a month. They did. When they returned on July 14, he told them that the money still wasn’t there and that he would give them no food. On August 4, mounted warriors broke into a warehouse and started carrying away flour. Lieutenant Timothy J. Sheehan threatened them with a howitzer, and they left. Sheehan persuaded Galbraith to release some provisions. Sheehan also requested a meeting with the Sioux and local traders.
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Santee Sioux chief Little Crow
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represented the Sioux at the council
meeting. He protested they had no food and the warehouses were full, and asked that the Indian agent arrange for them to have food, “or else we may take our own way to keep ourselves from starving. When men are hungry, they help themselves.”
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Agent Galbraith put the matter to the traders, who could distribute provisions on credit if they chose. They deferred to Andrew J. Myrick, the most prominent trader, who, offended by Little Crow’s statement, said, “So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass!”
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But Captain John S. Marsh, the commander at Fort Ridgely, ordered Galbraith to start distributing food at once. Then Galbraith visited the Lower Agency (there were two agencies) on August 15, observed that the harvest there seemed abundant, and told Little Crow he had changed his mind, and there would be no distribution until the money arrived.
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The tinder was waiting for the spark.

The spark came about 2 days later, when 4 young Sioux, Brown Wing, Killing Ghost, Breaking Up, and Runs Against Something Crawling, were returning from an unsuccessful hunting trip. At the settlement of Acton, Minnesota, one of them stole a nest of eggs belonging to a settler. He was warned it would cause trouble, and the other 3 accused him of being a coward. He replied he wasn’t afraid to kill a settler. The 4 then went to the farmer’s house and started arguing with Robinson Jones, the owner of the hen, who was with his 15-year-old daughter and an infant son. Jones announced he was going to join his wife, who was visiting a neighbor, Howard Baker, and took his daughter with him, but left the infant at home. Later, the Indians followed Jones to the Baker house. In addition to Mrs. Jones and the Bakers, an immigrant couple, Mr. and Mrs. Viranus Webster, were there. The Indians proposed target shooting. The settlers agreed and shot first. They then stood back without reloading to see how the Indians did. The Indians shot and killed the 3 men, Mrs. Jones, and the daughter. They stole horses and fled, leaving Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Webster alive.

The Indian boys told their leaders what they had done, and there was a meeting at the home of Chief Little Crow that night. The war faction wanted to kill or drive out all the settlers, but others opposed that. Little Crow spoke last. He said he knew the numbers and power of the settlers, and that defeat lay at the end of the war trail. But then he said that if the tribe wanted war, he would lead them. It was agreed that a massive attack would take place.

One of the first killed was trader Andrew J. Myrick. A tuft of grass was stuffed in Myrick’s mouth after he was killed.
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An estimated 400

settlers died the first day of the uprising.
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Alan Axelrod concluded that “the opening phase of the uprising would stand as the worst Indian massacre of whites in the nation’s history.”
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Ralph K. Andrist added, “The word ‘massacre’ has been loosely used and misused, but what occurred in Minnesota was a massacre in the true sense of the word.”
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Duane Schultz reported on some of the details:

Women who were not killed were held as captives and subjected to mass rape. The Indians left children alone according to the impulse of the moment. A few men who had been their friends were spared, but in general they killed friend and foe alike.
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Several hundred whites were captured.
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The Indians even tried to trick the settlers in order to kill more. At Fort Ridgely, Little Crow appeared on horseback waving a blanket in an apparent request for a parley, then about 200 yelling warriors broke out of a ravine and headed toward the fort.
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At the Lake Shetek settlement, the Indians made a surrender agreement with the settlers, then shot several as they left the settlement, clubbed 2 or 3 children, and took the remaining women and children.
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The courage of settler women was shown at Lake Shetek, where the Eastlick family suffered grievous losses. Wife Lavina was born in New York and married at 17. She and husband John had 5 sons and had already made several moves, each farther west, before settling in Minnesota.
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When the uprising occurred, John was killed instantly. Lavina received 4 gunshot wounds and was clubbed over the head with a rifle until it broke. Two of the children were beaten and died. Then Lavina asked her 11-year-old son, Merton, to take care of her 18-month-old son, Johnny. Merton carried and led Johnny for 50 miles the next few days, finding enough berries to keep them alive. Lavina was finally able to come to their aid. She had been picked up by the mail carrier. (The boys’ uncle Tom had come out of a slough to try to talk peace, but was shot with buckshot. He said good-bye to Merton, but he too got up and made it to safety.
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)

Sixteen-year-old Mary Boyeau was captured. She saw the Sioux go into a house where a woman was baking bread in an oven with her infant
in a cradle nearby. They put the baby in the oven, the mother was cut and stabbed, then the baby was taken from the oven and its brains dashed out against the side of the house.
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The militia finally mounted a successful counteroffensive. Colonel Henry Sibley was in charge. He had been the first governor of Minnesota. After the decisive Battle of Wood Lake, the Indians were driven back so quickly that they left 14 dead behind, contrary to custom. Sibley discovered that all the dead Indians had been scalped. He gave his troops a lecture about acting like civilized gentlemen. It was claimed that the Indians were scalped by the Renville Rangers, many of whom had Sioux blood. Three days after the battle, 2,000 Indians surrendered and released about 370 captives.