The exigencies of the Civil War, failure of Congress to fulfil treaty stipulations, and the discovery of gold along the Snake served to change the character of the Nez Percés. Lawyer's annuity of five hundred dollars, as Principal Chief, was at best not royal, and when its vouchers had to be cashed in greenbacks at from forty-five to fifty cents on the dollar, he complained of hardship. It was difficult to persuade the savage that a depreciated greenback was as good as money. Congress was slow with the annuities promised in 1855. In 1861, only one Indian in six could have a blanket, while the 4393 yards of calico issued allowed under two yards to each Indian. The Commissioner commented mildly upon this, to the effect that "Giving a blanket to one Indian works no satisfaction to the other five, who receive none." The gold boom, with the resulting rise of Lewiston, in the heart of the reserve, brought in so many lawless miners that the treaty of 1855 was soon out of date. In 1863 a new treaty was held with Chief Lawyer and fifty other headmen, by which certain valleys were surrendered and the bounds of the Lapwai reserve agreed upon. Most of the Nez Percés accepted this, but Chief Joseph refused to sign and gathered about him a band of unreconciled, non-treaty braves who continued to hunt at will over the Wallowa Valley, which Lawyer and his followers had professed to cede. It was an interesting legal point as to the right of a non-treaty chief to claim to own lands ceded by the rest of his tribe. But Joseph, though discontented, was not dangerous, and there was little friction until settlers began to penetrate into his hunting-grounds. In 1873, President Grant created a Wallowa reserve for Joseph's Nez Percés, since they claimed this chiefly as their home. But when they showed no disposition to confine themselves to its limits, he revoked the order in 1875. The next year a commission, headed by the Secretary of the Interior, Zachary Chandler, was sent to persuade Joseph to settle down, but returned without success. Joseph stood upon his right to continue to occupy at pleasure the lands which had always belonged to the Nez Percés, and which he and his followers had never ceded. The commission recommended the segregation of the medicine-men and dreamers, especially Smohalla, who seemed to provide the inspiration for Joseph, and the military occupation of the Wallowa Valley in anticipation of an outbreak by the tribe against the incoming white settlers. These things were done in part, but in the spring of 1877, "it becoming evident to Agent Monteith that all negotiations for the peaceful removal of Joseph and his band, with other non-treaty Nez Percé Indians, to the Lapwai Indian reservation in Idaho must fail of a satisfactory adjustment," the Indian Office gave it up, and turned the affair over to General O. O. Howard and the War Department.