It is perhaps creditable to Colonel Casey’s discretion that he attempted no reply to this letter, but simply acknowledged its receipt, and admitted that, in attributing the report about Leschi to the governor, “it was an error on my part, and I cheerfully correct it.” A thoroughly well-meaning man, he was evidently affected by Wool’s orders and influence; and, moreover, he suffered himself to give ear to, and was consequently misled by, the clique of lawyers and politicians who had instigated the martial law trouble in order to embarrass the governor, and were now hounding him with unabated rancor.
Notwithstanding Casey’s scruples and Wool’s orders, Leschi and other accused murderers were duly indicted, arrested, and delivered to and received by Colonel Casey for custody at Fort Steilacoom, and thereupon the governor relieved him of his unwelcome protégés by sending them to the reservation. Leschi was tried in due time, but the jury disagreed. He was convicted at a subsequent trial, and expiated his crimes on the gallows. The regular officers at Fort Steilacoom, with certain lawyers and Indian sympathizers, made desperate efforts to save him from punishment, but in vain. The well-meaning Casey was even hanged in effigy by the people, indignant at his course.
Leschi’s brother, Qui-e-muth, was captured near Yelm prairie, November 18, and brought to the governor’s office in Olympia at midnight. The governor gave strict orders for guarding and protecting him there until morning, when he was to be taken to Steilacoom. Just before daylight, as he was sleeping on the floor, surrounded by his guards, who were also asleep, a man rushed into the room, the door being unlocked, shot Qui-e-muth in the arm with a pistol, and, as he rose to his feet, drove a bowie knife into his heart, and rushed out as suddenly as he had entered. The deed was done, the assassin vanished, the victim sank lifeless to the floor, all in an instant, ere the startled and astonished guards could raise a hand to protect their charge. The governor, who had retired to rest in his quarters in the next building, aroused by the shot and the trampling of feet, came immediately to the scene, and was horror-struck and filled with indignation at the crime, and denounced it in unmeasured terms as a disgrace to the good name of the people and of the Territory. He made every effort to identify and punish the murderer, but without avail. None of the guards could identify him, and no testimony could be found against any one. Yet it was currently whispered that vengeance for the murder of McAlister, a settler on the Nisqually and one of the earliest victims of savage treachery, had nerved the arm of his son-in-law, Joseph Bunting, to strike the blow.
Nothing that occurred during the whole war excited greater indignation in the mind of the governor than this act, or caused him more regret and chagrin. He had been unremitting in his efforts to protect the Indians from lawless violence, and with such remarkable success that the volunteers were wholly free from reproach; only six cases had occurred among the exasperated settlers, and several of these he had brought to trial. And now this dastardly deed brought reproach to his very door.
CHAPTER XLII
MARTIAL LAW.—DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME
During all the Indian outbreak and hostilities a number of Hudson Bay Company ex-employees, Scotchmen and Canadians, were living in the Indian country back of Steilacoom in safety, when every American settler was murdered, or had fled to the towns. They had Indian wives and half-breed children, and claimed to be neutral. They were in frequent communication with the hostile Indians, and were not molested by them. Captain Maxon and other officers reported that they were undoubtedly giving information, aid, and comfort to the enemy, and that their scouting expeditions were fruitless in consequence. The Indians who killed White and Northcraft in March so near Olympia were tracked straight to the houses of two of these neutrals, who acknowledged having been visited by the savages, but disclaimed any knowledge of their deeds. The volunteer officers, however, believed that they were not only sympathizers with, but active allies of, the hostiles, and were ready at the least intimation from the governor to treat them as hostiles. Colonel Casey declared that they ought not to be suffered to remain on their farms, where they could aid the enemy, if so disposed. The governor therefore ordered them to leave the Indian country and remove to Olympia, Fort Nisqually, or Steilacoom, and there remain until further orders, in order to place them where they would be unable to give information or aid to the enemy, and also for their own safety, for the indignation of the volunteers was at white heat against them. Accordingly they moved in as ordered, twelve of them.
Most of them had already taken out their first naturalization papers, and filed on their claims under the Donation Acts, and were entitled to all the rights of American citizens. A few lawyers at Steilacoom, political or personal opponents of the governor, most active of whom was Frank Clark, saw here a chance to embarrass him,—in their own vernacular, “to get him down.” They went to these ignorant men, exhorted them in regard to their rights as citizens, assured them that the governor had no authority to order them to abandon their claims, which Congress had bestowed upon them, and that they could return to their homes with safety, because the law and the courts would protect them in so doing. Thus persuaded, five of these misguided men, Charles Wren, Sandy Smith, John McLeod, Henry Smith, and John McField, went back to their farms. As soon as informed of their return, the governor caused them to be seized by a party of volunteers, taken to Fort Steilacoom, and turned over to Colonel Casey for safe custody, there being no jails in the Territory.
Clark and his coadjutors lost no time in suing out a writ of habeas corpus. They represented matters to Colonel Casey in such a light that he notified the governor to relieve him of the prisoners. But the governor was not the man to suffer a few political tricksters to frustrate his necessary military measures. He well knew that if he surrendered in this case, he would have to abandon the practice, indispensable for carrying on the war, of impressing teams and supplies, and that his hold upon and discipline of the volunteers would be seriously impaired. On April 3 he proclaimed martial law over the county of Pierce, and suspended the functions of all civil officers therein. He caused the prisoners to be taken from the custody of Colonel Casey, brought to Olympia, and incarcerated in a blockhouse.
As the regular May term of the United States Court for Pierce County drew near, the mischief-makers were urgent for Judge F.A. Chenoweth, of whose district that county formed part, to hold court and enforce the writ of habeas corpus; but he, being sick, or else, as was currently believed at the time, fearing trouble and feigning sickness, requested Chief Justice Edward Lander to hold the term in his stead. Judge Lander at the time was captain of Company A, and with his company was garrisoning the post on the Duwhamish, near Seattle; but without a word of notice to his military superiors he forsook his post, hastened to Steilacoom, and opened court on May 7. The governor previously urged him to adjourn his court for one month, by which time there was every prospect that the Indians would be subdued, and the exigency necessitating the restraint of the prisoners would have passed. But Lander refused this way of avoiding a conflict, and persisted in what he doubtless deemed his duty.