CHAPTER NINETEEN JOHNSTON PUNISHES THE INDIANS
The Indians became so troublesome that the soldiers from Camp Floyd were called out to stop their dreadful work. I got a letter from Major Egan directing me to meet him at Camp Floyd as soon as I could get there, for they wanted me to act as interpreter and guide for the soldiers. I started at once and made two hundred miles in three days. When I reached Camp Floyd, General Albert Sidney Johnston was all ready to start out against the Indians with four companies of soldiers. We traveled west, and crossed the Great American Desert in the night, so as not to be seen by the Indians.
The soldiers stayed at Fish Springs and sent me out with three other scouts to see if we could find any signs of the Indians we were after. We took only two days’ rations with us. The first day we met with no success, so the next morning we separated. I sent two of the scouts to circle around to the south, and took with me a young man by the name of Johnson, and went northwest. That afternoon we saw two Indians crossing a valley. We kept out of sight but followed them until night, and saw them go into a small bunch of cedars. We left our horses and slipped up as close to them as we could without letting them see us.
When we got pretty near to them, I recognized in one of the Indians my old friend Yaiabi; but not feeling sure that he would be glad to see me, I told Johnson to have his “shooting-irons”[5] ready and I would go up to them and see what they would do. As soon as they saw me coming they jumped up and drew their bows. I began to talk to them in their language. Yaiabi did not recognize me at first, and demanded to know what I was doing there. I told him I wanted water. He said there was no water except a very little they had brought with them. They asked me if I was alone. I told them that another young man was with me, then I called to Johnson to come up.
[5] Revolvers or guns.
After Yaiabi found out who I was he felt better, for they were very uneasy at first. When I asked him how he came to be there, he said they had been out to a little lake to see some Parowan Indians that were camped there. I asked him what the Indians were doing there. He said they were waiting for some more of the Pocatello Indians to come, and as soon as they arrived they were going to burn all the stations and kill all of the riders and station keepers.
“Are you going with them?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why then have you been with those Indians?”
He said that the Parowan Indians had stolen his sister’s little boy two years before, and he went out to see if he could find the child.
“Did you find it?”
“No,” he said, “they have sold it to the white folks.”
“Do you know when the Indians they are looking for will be there?”
“One sleep,”[6] he said.
[6] One night.
I knew it was a big day’s ride back to where the Indians were gathering and I knew it was a hard day’s ride to the place where the soldiers were camped. I did not know what was best for me to do. I had these two Indians and I did not want to let them go, for I was afraid they would skip back and let the others know that the soldiers were after them.
Here we were a big day’s ride to water, and our horses had had none since early morning, so I decided that it would be better to take the Indians to headquarters and let General Johnston decide what to do. I told Yaiabi my plans. He said he did not want to go to the soldiers, for he was afraid of them. I told him I would see that the soldiers did him no harm. He said, “Yagaki, you have known me ever since you were a little boy, and you never knew of my doing anything bad in your life.” I told him I knew that he had always been a good Indian, “but now you know that the soldiers are after those bad Indians and intend to kill the last one of them, and if I let you go, you will go to them and tell them that the soldiers are after them. Then if General Johnston should find out what I had done he would think I stood in with the Indians and would have me shot; so, you see, you must go with us to the soldiers’ camp.”
The Indian that was with Yaiabi said he would not go to the soldiers’ camp. He started to get his bow, but I had my pistol on him in a jiffy, and told him to stop. He stopped, and I kept him there while Johnson gathered up their bows and arrows. When I told them to get ready to start, Yaiabi said they were tired and would like to stay there until morning, but I said that our horses were so thirsty, we had better travel in the cool of the night or we should not be able to get them to camp, so we set out for Fish Springs.
I told Johnson to tie the bows and arrows to his saddle and to keep a close watch over them; Yaiabi mounted my horse while I walked and led the horse. When I got tired of walking, I changed places with Yaiabi, and then young Johnson walked and let the other Indian ride his horse. In this way we traveled until morning. When daylight came, I gave the bows and arrows to young Johnson and told him to go to General Johnston’s camp as soon as possible and send us fresh horses and some water. In about six hours he came back to us, accompanied by two soldiers with some water and two extra horses for the Indians to ride. By traveling pretty fast, we reached camp at one o’clock that day.
General Johnston was very much pleased with me for bringing the two Indians in. At the sight of so many soldiers the Indians were very uneasy, but after they had been given something to eat and saw that they were not going to be hurt, they felt much better.
The General talked with the Indians for about an hour, and I acted as interpreter. Yaiabi told him just how the big camp of Indians was located, and said there were about three hundred warriors there then; they were looking for about fifty more to join them that night, and as soon as they could complete their plans they were going to burn the stations and kill all the white men they could find. He thought they would be ready in about five days to begin their bloody work.
The General liked the way Yaiabi talked. He called him a good Indian, and said he believed he was telling the truth. I told Yaiabi what the general said. General Johnston told me to get a little rest, for he wanted me to start out again that night if I would. I lay down and had a little sleep, and when I got up he told me that I was to go to the lake and see if Yaiabi had told the truth; and if everything was all right, to send back word as soon as I could by one of the scouts that he would send with me. He told me to do all my traveling at night and keep under cover in the daytime, and to meet him as soon as I could at a spring about half way between where we were and the Indians. Then on the following night he would move his soldiers to another spring which Yaiabi had told about, and which was within six miles of the lake where the Indians were gathering.
Howard R. Driggs
Ruins of barracks at Camp Floyd, Utah; an army post established by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston; also a home station for Pony Express and Overland Stage.
After dark, three of us started with four days’ rations. I rode the little pinto pony on this trip, the first I had ridden him for a long time. We traveled all night and reached the first spring just at daybreak. I knew it would be a hard night’s ride to go from here to the lake and then reach Yaiabi’s spring in the mountains before daylight.
About midnight we arrived at the north end of the lake, which was only a mile and a half long and half a mile wide. I had my two scouts stop there while I wrapped a red blanket around me and went on foot to find out what I could about the Indian camp. I had gone only a few steps when I came to a band of horses, and as I was passing around them I heard an Indian speak to a horse he was hobbling. I went up and asked him in Shoshone if he had come with the Pocatello Indians. He said he had, and that seventeen others came with him.
“We will start burning the stations, then, soon,” I said.
“Were you at the council tonight?” he asked. I told him I was not at the council, that I had been following a horse that had started back. He said that at the council it was decided that the Parowans were to go to Ruby Valley and burn and kill everything they came to; and that the Pocatello Indians and Gosiutes were to start at Ibapah and burn towards the east. I asked him when we were to start from there. He said, “In four days.” We were walking towards their camp as we talked, so as soon as I found out all I wanted to know, I said that I had forgotten my rope and would have to go back for it. So I parted company with my Indian friend. He was a Shoshone, and he thought I was another. When I got out of his sight, I wasn’t long getting back to where I had left the boys, and in a very short time one of them was carrying the news to the army.
The other scout and I went to find the spring Yaiabi had told me about. We got well into the mountains before daylight, and when it was light enough to see, we found the spring up a very rough canyon. We staked our horses so they could get plenty to eat and then crawled off into the willows for a good nap.
That afternoon I climbed a high mountain near by to see which would be the best way to go from there to the Indians’ camp in the night. After I had studied the lay of the country pretty well, I went back to the horses, ate a little cold lunch, and when it commenced to get dark, we struck out to meet General Johnston at the appointed place.
We did not travel very fast, for I knew we would reach the place before the soldiers could get there. We were at the spring about two hours before daylight, and had a good nap before General Johnston came. When he got to us he wanted to know if I thought it safe to make a fire to boil some coffee. I told him I thought there was no danger, so we made a small fire, and had a good cup of coffee, then we all lay down for a little nap.
About sundown, the packers began loading the hundred pack mules we had with us, and we got started just about dark for the Yaiabi spring, which was about six miles north of the Indians’ camp. We reached the spring in good time, and were all unpacked before dawn.
After breakfast, General Johnston and I went up on to the mountain so that he could see the Indian camp. He had a good pair of field glasses and could see everything very plainly. He asked if I knew anything about that bunch of willows he could see a little to the west of their camp. I told him I knew it very well, for when the express first started it came this way, and we had a station right where the Indian camp is now, so I had been there many times. He said, “Then you can take me to it in the night?” I told him I could, and pointed out to him the way we would have to go. He told me he wanted to make the attack the next morning at daybreak. We went back to camp, and found all the soldiers asleep, except the guard; and in a very short time we were rolled in our blankets and dreaming of the time when all the Indians would be good Indians.
When I awoke that afternoon, I saw General Johnston and his staff going up the mountain to where we had been that morning. They got back to camp just before sundown, and held a hasty council with the remainder of the officers; then orders were given to pack up, and we got in line just at dark. I told General Johnston he would have to take his men down this canyon in single file, and in some places we would have to travel along the side of the mountain over very narrow trails; that we would have to climb above high cliffs, and pass through some very dangerous places. He said that I was to go ahead, and, when I came to the bad places, to dismount and they would follow suit. We had about two miles to go before we would come to the bad places, and when I got off the next man would get off and so on down the line. By doing this, we got down the canyon very well, except that three of our pack mules rolled over a cliff and were killed.
The head of the company got out of the canyon about eleven o’clock that night. We were within six or seven hundred yards of the Indian camp, for the lake lay almost at the foot of the mountains. As the soldiers came down they formed into lines, and General Johnston and I started to find the bunch of willows we had seen from the top of the mountain. We soon found it, and went back to the soldiers. The general said that was all he wanted with me until after the fight, and told me to take care of the two Indians we had with us. So I got Yaiabi and his friend, and we climbed a small hill not far away, where we could see the fight when it commenced.
The soldiers didn’t all get out of the canyon until about three o’clock in the morning, and the pack train was not all out when daylight came. In the meantime, General Johnston had strung the soldiers around the Indian camp.
Just as day was breaking, an old Indian chief started a fire in front of his tepee, and was standing there calling to some of the other Indians, when a soldier shot him without orders. Then the fight commenced. How the guns did rattle! It was almost too dark at first for me to see much of the fight, but it was getting lighter all the time. As we were coming down the canyon that night, the General gave me his field glasses to carry for him and I still had them.
Along the edge of the lake grew a lot of bulrushes. Soon after the firing began, I could see the papooses running into these rushes and hiding. From the volleys that were fired it got so smoky that I could not see very plainly, but the shooting soon stopped, and as the smoke rose, I could see everything that was going on. By this time they were in a terrible mixup, and were fighting fiercely, the soldiers with their bayonets and sabers, and the Indians with their clubs, axes, and knives. I could see little children not over five or six years old with sticks fighting like wildcats. I saw a soldier and an Indian that had clinched in a death struggle. They had each other by the hair of the head, and I saw a squaw run up to them with an ax and strike the soldier in the back and he sank to the ground, then she split his head with the ax. While she was doing this, a soldier ran a bayonet through her, and that is the way it was going over the whole battle ground. And what a noise they made! with the kids squalling, the squaws yelling, the bucks yelping, the dogs barking, and the officers giving their orders to the soldiers.
This was the worst battle and the last one that I ever saw. It lasted about two hours, and during that short period of time, every Indian, squaw, and papoose, and every dog was killed. After the battle, I was sent to bring up the baggage wagons to haul our wounded to Camp Floyd.
As we were on our way back to Camp Floyd with the wounded, and were passing through a rocky canyon, we were fired at by some straggling Indian, and I was shot through my left arm about half way between the wrist and elbow. The same bullet that went through my arm killed a soldier at my side. The one shot was all we heard, and we did not even see the one who fired it. I have sometimes wondered if that bullet was not sent especially for me.
That spring the great war between the North and the South broke out, and General Johnston sold all of the government cattle and wagons very cheap, and went back East with his pack mules. I bought a yoke of oxen for eighteen dollars and a new wagon for ten. There must have been as many as ten thousand oxen bought at from twenty-five to fifty dollars a yoke. That summer the gold mines were opened in Montana and everything had to be hauled with ox teams, and the same oxen we had bought for eighteen dollars were worth from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars a yoke. The poor people that had been living on greens and “lumpy dick” for two or three years now began to get very wealthy and proud. The young ladies began to wear calico dresses, and I even saw young men who could afford to wear calico shirts and soldiers’ blue overcoats and smoke store tobacco.
“I kept on swinging through the deserts … in the ‘boot’ of the Concord stage.”