Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1 / Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties

by William Denison Lyman

The baffled Governor now started on his way down the river, but not without another battle. For, as he was marching a short distance south of what is now Walla Walla City, the Indians burst upon his small force with the evident intention of ending all scores then and there. But Colonel Steptoe established a rude stockade fort on Mill Creek in what is now the heart of the present Walla Walla City, and went into winter quarters there in 1856-57. Governor Stevens returned to Olympia and launched forth a bitter arraignment against Wool. The latter, however, was in a position of vantage and issued a proclamation commanding all whites in the upper country to go down the river and leave the Cascade Mountains as the eastern limit of the white settlement. Thus ended for a time this unsatisfactory and distressing war. To all appearances Kamiakin and his adherents had accomplished all they wanted.

But this was not the end. Gold had been discovered in Eastern Washington. Vast possibilities of cattle raising were evident on those endless bunch-grass hills. Although there was as yet little conception of the future developments of the Inland Empire in agriculture and gardening, yet the keen-eyed immigrants and volunteers had scanned the pleasant vales and abounding streams of the Walla Walla and Umatilla and Palouse, and had decided in their own minds that, Wool or no Wool, this land most be opened. In 1857 the Government, as already noted, decided on a change of policy and sent Gen. N. S. Clarke to take Wool's place. General Clarke opened the gates, and the impatient army of land hunters and gold hunters began to move in. Meanwhile, Colonel Wright and Colonel Steptoe, though formerly they had closely followed Wool's policy, now began to experience a change of heart. Out of these conditions the third Indian war, in 1858, quickly succeeded the second, being indeed its inevitable sequence.

Three campaigns marked this third war. The first was conducted by Colonel Steptoe against the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes, and ended in his humiliating and disastrous defeat. The second was directed by Major Garnett against the Yakimas, resulting in their permanent overthrow. The third was conducted by Colonel Wright against the Spokanes and other northern tribes who had defeated Steptoe. This was the Waterloo of the Indians, and it ushered in the occupation and settlement of the upper Columbia country.

The Steptoe expedition, the first of that series of campaigns, was one of the most disastrous in the history of Indian warfare. When the command had reached a point near Four Lakes, probably the group of which Silver Lake is largest, a formidable array of Indians met them, all the hosts of the Spokanes, Pend Oreilles, and allied tribes. Seeing the dangerous situation into which they were running, Steptoe gave the word to retreat.

The force turned back and that night all seemed well. But at 9 o'clock the next morning, while the soldiers were descending a cañon to Pine Creek, near the present site of Rosalia, a large force of Indians burst upon them like a cyclone. As the battle began to wax hot the terrible consequences of the error of lack of ammunition began to become manifest. Man after man had to cease firing. Capt. O. H. P. Taylor and Lieutenant Gaston commanded the rear-guard. With extraordinary skill and devotion they held the line intact and foiled the efforts of the savages to burst through. Meanwhile the whole force was moving as rapidly as consistent with formation on their way southward. Taylor and Gaston sent a messenger forward, begging Steptoe to halt the line and give them a chance to load. But the commander felt that the safety of the whole force depended on pressing on. Soon a fierce rush of Indians followed, and, when the surge had passed, the gallant rear-guard was buried under it. One notable figure in the death-grapple was De May, a Frenchman, trained in the Crimea and Algeria, and an expert fencer. For some time he used his gun barrel as a sword and swept the Indians down by dozens with his terrific sweeps. But at last he fell before numbers and one of his surviving comrades relates that he heard him shouting his last words, "O my God, my God, for a sabre!"

But the lost rear-guard saved the rest. For they managed to hold back the swarm of foes until nightfall, when they reached a somewhat defensible position a few miles from the towering cone of what is now known as Steptoe Butte. There they spent part of a dark, rainy, and dismal night, anticipating a savage attack. But the Indians, sure of their prey, waited till morning. Surely the first light would have revealed a massacre equal to the Custer massacre of later date, had not the unexpected happened. And the unexpected was that old Timothy, the Nez Percé guide, knew a trail through a rough cañon, the only possible exit without discovery. In the darkness of midnight the shattered command mounted and followed at a gallop the faithful Timothy, on whose keen eyes and mind their satiation rested. The wounded and a few footmen were dropped at intervals along the trail. After an eighty-mile gallop during the day and night following, the yellow flood of Snake River suddenly broke before them between its desolate banks. Saved! The unwearied Timothy threw out his own warriors as a screen against the pursuing foe, and set his women to ferrying the soldiers across the turbulent stream.

Thus the larger part of the command reached Fort Walla Walla alive.

With the defeat of Steptoe, the Indians may well have felt that they were invincible. But their exultation was short-lived. As already noted, Garnett crushed the Yakimas at one blow, and Wright a little later repeated Steptoe's march to Spokane, but did not repeat his retreat. For in the battle of Four Lakes, on September 1st, and that of Spokane Plains on September 5th, Wright broke forever the power and spirits of the northern Indians.

The treaties were thus established at last by war. The reservations, embracing the finest parts of the Umatilla, Yakima, Clearwater, and Coeur d'Alene regions, were set apart, and to them after considerable delay and difficulty the tribes were gathered.