Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far WestDrannan, William F.
History
Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West
Drannan, William F.
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America -- Wars
As soon as it was dark Saturday evening George and I went to the
place mentioned and remained there until the time arrived for the
meeting. About nine o'clock that morning the fog raised and the
sun shone brightly, making it one of the most pleasant mornings we
had experienced for some time, thereby giving us a good view of
the grounds of the proposed meeting, and we could see Captain Jack
and another Indian there waiting. I could recognize Jack's
features through the glass, but the other Indian I could not. In a
short time we saw Gen. Canby, Col. Thomas, George Meeks and his
squaw coming. When they reached the lower end of the little
opening one hundred and fifty yards from where Captain Jack was
standing, they dismounted, tied their horses and walked slowly in
the direction where Captain Jack was standing, and every few steps
Gen. Canby would look back, apparently to see if any one was
following them. On arriving at the spot they shook hands with
Captain Jack and the other Indian, and probably fifteen minutes
elapsed when Captain Jack dropped his blanket from his shoulders
to the ground and suddenly turned and picked it up. This, I
believe, was a signal for an attack, for the next moment I saw
smoke from a number of guns from the rocks and could hear the
reports also. Col. Thomas, Meeks and his squaw started on the run,
but Gen. Canby fell in his tracks, a victim at the hands of
Captain Jack and his followers. Col. Thomas only ran about ten
steps, when he fell. Meeks ran nearly one hundred yards, when he
fell, and the squaw escaped unhurt, but badly scared, I presume.
As soon as Gen. Canby had fallen George Jones asked if he had
better go to headquarters and give the alarm. I told him to go
with all possible speed. George reached camp twenty minutes ahead
of me. The other officers could not believe that he was telling
the truth, but when I arrived and told them that the entire crowd
had been killed, with the exception of the squaw, they were
thunderstruck, and by the time I was through telling them the
squaw was there.
I do not know just how many soldiers were sent to recover the dead
bodies, but that day there was a general attack made on Captain
Jack, which was kept up from day to day almost as long as the war
lasted.
When it was foggy, as it was nearly all the time, the Indians
almost invariably got the best of the soldiers, from the fact that
they would come out without any clothing on their bodies with a
bunch of sage-brush tied on their heads, and their skins being so
similar in color to that of the lava rocks, that when the fog was
thick, at a distance of thirty or forty yards, it was impossible
to distinguish an Indian from a rock. There were more or less
soldiers killed and wounded every day until the end of the war.
One day only a short time after the assassination of Gen. Canby and
Col. Thomas, the soldiers were attacked in Dry Lake canyon by the
Modocs and were getting badly butchered up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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