“Fourth Commandment. Thou shalt not remember what thy friends do at home on the Sabbath day, lest the remembrance may not compare favorably with what thou doest. Six days thou mayst dig or pick all that thy body can stand under; but the other day is Sunday, when thou shalt wash all thy soiled shirts, darn all thy stockings, tap all thy boots, mend all thy clothing, chop all thy whole week’s firewood, make up and bake thy bread, and boil thy pork and thy beans, that thou wait not when thou returnest from thy long tour, weary. For in six days’ labor only, thou canst not wear out thy body in two whole years; but if thou workest hard on Sunday also, thou canst do it in six months, and thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy male friend, and thy female friend, thy morals, and thy conscience, be none the better for it, but reproach thee shouldst thou ever return with thy worn-out body to thy mother’s fireside, and thou strive to justify thyself, because the trader and the merchant, the carpenter and the blacksmith, the tailors and the Jews, defy God and civilization, by keeping not the Sabbath day, and wish not for a day of rest such as memory and home and youth made hallowed.
“Ninth Commandment. Thou shalt not tell any false tales about ‘good diggings in the mountains’ to thy neighbor, that thou mayst benefit thy friend who hath mules and provisions and blankets and mining tools he cannot sell; lest in deceiving thy neighbor, when he returneth through the snow with naught save his rifle, he presenteth thee with the contents thereof, and like a dog thou shalt fall down and die.”
CHAPTER XXI
BATTLE OF BEAR RIVER
During the year preceding the period whereof I write, and in fact from the time of the discovery of the Salmon River mines, nearly every train or single company of immigrants going in that direction was attacked, robbed, the animals belonging to it stolen, and frequently many of the persons composing it slain, by predatory bands of Bannack Indians, which tribe possessed the entire country for a distance of five hundred miles north of Salt Lake City. Their rapacity and cruelty had become the great terror of a journey otherwise full of difficulty and discouragement. So frequent and terrible had been this warfare, that nearly all communication between the distant mines and Salt Lake City was suspended; yet the wretches who conducted it, conscious of their superior power, hesitated not, meantime, to visit the settlements, and maintain an apparent friendliness towards the people. Several attacks had been made upon them by detachments of troops from Camp Douglas, attended with more or less success, but none of them had the effect to allay their murderous depredations. Success had made them defiant as well as bloodthirsty, and long impunity begot in them the belief that they were invincible.
When the winter began to close in, rich in the spoils of their bloody forays, a large band of nearly three hundred Bannacks, under their chiefs Sand Pitch, Sag Witch, and Bear Hunter, established quarters for the cold months in a ravine on the west bank of Bear River, about four days’ march distant from the Federal camp. Gen. P. Edward Connor, the officer in command at Camp Douglas, had carefully watched their movements with the intention of inflicting the severest punishment upon them for the enormities they had committed. The example to be salutary, must be terrible, and Connor contemplated nothing less than the destruction of the entire band. It was a measure of safety. Many thousand people in the States and Territories were engaged in active preparation to make the journey to the northern mines, on the return of warm weather, and the lives and property of many of them depended, as General Connor knew, upon the success of his contemplated expedition.
The Indians selected their camp because of the protection it afforded from the inclemencies of the weather. The general southwest course of the river was, by a bend, changed so as to be nearly due west where it passed their encampment. The nook or ravine, open on the bank, stretched tortuously between high precipitous banks, north from the river several hundred yards, until lost in the abrupt ascent of a lofty overhanging mountain. Clumps of willows grew irregularly over the surface of the little dell, amid which the Indians pitched their buffalo tents, and fastened their ponies for better protection against wind and snow. Their women and children were with them, and all the conveniences and comforts known to savage life were clustered around them.
Perceiving soon after they took possession of the spot, that it united with its other advantages admirable means of defence against an approaching enemy, they went to work, and improved, by excavation and otherwise, every assailable point, until satisfied that it was perfectly impregnable. During the occasional visits of their chiefs and head men to the settlements, they learned and came to believe that an attack of some kind would be made upon them before spring. They relished the idea as a good joke, and with more than customary bravado declared their readiness to meet it, boldly challenging the whites to come on.
The winter sped on. Colder than usual even in these high latitudes, both Indians and whites felt that if nothing else would prevent an attack, the cold weather was sufficient. General Connor kept his own counsel, but matured his plans with consummate skill. The citizens of Salt Lake City, seeing no military preparations in progress, grew restive under the delay, charged the garrison with neglect of duty, and finally appealed to the civil authorities. In the latter days of January, when General Connor’s plans were approaching maturity, Chief Justice Kinney issued warrants for the arrest of Sand Pitch, Sag Witch, and Bear Hunter, for murders committed by them on emigrants passing through the Territory. The officer directed to serve these writs, on one of the coldest days of the middle of January, applied to General Connor, at Camp Douglas, for an escort.
“I have an expedition against the Indians in contemplation,” said the general, “which will march soon. You can go under its escort; but as I do not intend to take any prisoners, I cannot tell you whether you will be able to serve your writ or not. My opinion is you will find it difficult.”
Whether the intimation conveyed in this closing remark touched the official pride of the marshal, or not, I cannot say. Certain it is that he concluded at once to accompany the expedition, and arrest the accused chiefs.