Why don’t you howl with rage because a few “cut-throats” have murdered ten per cent. of an army of a thousand, “who were hired to fight and die if need be”? You did not want peace except “through war.” You have done your part to secure the shedding of blood. Are you satisfied now when, through the failure of the Peace Commission, so many men have yielded up their lives? This short apostrophe is intended for those who appropriate it; not for the really brave editors who were fearless enough to defend “The humane policy of the President and Secretary Delano,” in the face of a clamor that filled the country from the 1st of February to the 11th of April 1873.
BATTLE OF DRY LAKE.
Morning of the 10th, of May, 1873.—Fourteen days have passed, and Gen. Canby has been placed in his tomb, Indianapolis, Indiana. The widow, grief-stricken and heart-broken, is with her friends. Orderly Scott has been ordered to report at Louisville, Kentucky;
Adjutant Anderson, to head-quarters, Department Columbia. The emblems of mourning are everywhere visible around the home of Dr. Thomas. Meacham is at his home in Salem, Oregon, recovering rapidly, and with a heart full of gratitude and kindly feelings to Dr. Calvin DeWitt, U. S. A., who brought him safely through the hospital at the Lava Beds.
The mother of Lieut. Harris is sitting beside her wounded son, in the hospital at Gillam’s Camp. Gen. Jeff. C. Davis has assumed command of the expedition against the Modocs. Captain Jack and his people have left the Lava Beds. Dissensions are of every-day occurrence among them. Bogus and Hooker Jim, Shacknasty, and “Ellen’s man” are contentious and quarrelsome.
Read the telegram of Jeff. C. Davis to Gen. Schofield, and we may know something of what has occurred:—
Head-quarters in the Field, Tule Lake, Cal., May 8, 1873.
I sent two friendly squaws into the Lava Beds day before yesterday; they returned yesterday, having found the bodies of Lieutenant Cranston and party, but no Indians. Last night I sent the Warm Springs Indians out. They find that the Modocs have gone in a southeasterly direction. This is also confirmed by the attack and capture of a train of four wagons and fifteen animals yesterday P.M. near Supply Camp, on east side of Tule lake. The Modocs in this party reported fifteen or twenty in number; escort to train about the same; escort whipped, with three wounded. No Indians known to have been killed. I will put the troops in search of the Indians with five days’ rations.
JEFF. C. DAVIS,
Col. Twenty-Third Infantry, Com. Dept.
In his final report, Nov. 1st, 1853, he says: