CONTROL OF DISAFFECTED INDIANS.

“It is simply a question as to whether the executive has the power, in carrying on the war, to take a summary course with a dangerous band of emissaries who have been the confederates of the Indians throughout, and by their exertions and sympathy can render to a great extent the military operations abortive.“It is a question as to whether the military power, or publiccommittees of the citizens, without law, as in California, shall see that justice is done in the case.“And he solemnly appeals to the same tribunals, before which he has been arraigned in the circular, in vindication of his course, being assured that it ought to be, and will be, sustained as an imperious necessity, growing out of an almost unexampled condition of things.”

“It is a question as to whether the military power, or publiccommittees of the citizens, without law, as in California, shall see that justice is done in the case.

“And he solemnly appeals to the same tribunals, before which he has been arraigned in the circular, in vindication of his course, being assured that it ought to be, and will be, sustained as an imperious necessity, growing out of an almost unexampled condition of things.”

Judge Lander’s own district included Thurston County and Olympia, and the term of his court was to be held in a few days after his release from arrest. The governor’s opponents and the judge determined to call him to account for contempt of court in proclaiming martial law and arresting the judge; and a strong-room was quietly prepared by the United States marshal for his incarceration in case of sentence to imprisonment. The governor issued his proclamation declaring martial law in Thurston County on May 13, and sent two of the prisoners, Charles Wren and John McLeod, to Cape Montgomery for trial before a military commission. The others were released and permitted to go to Steilacoom, on giving their parole to remain there.

Judge Lander opened his court on the 14th, and issued notice, and then a writ, summoning the governor to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. No notice being taken of these missives, on the 15th a writ of attachment was issued to be servedinstanter, and United States Marshal George W. Corliss, with a strong posse, armed with this document, proceeded to the executive office for the purpose of arresting the governor and bringing him before the court. The governor received them, when they announced their business, with a quiet, cool dignity, which completely nonplussed them, and remarked, “Gentlemen, why don’t you execute your office?” As they still hung back, and looked at each other, as though at a loss to know what to do, the clerks,aided by some gentlemen present, ejected the posse from the office, to which they offered no resistance. Major Tilton, Captain A.J. Cain, James Doty, Quincy A. Brooks, R.M. Walker, A.J. Baldwin, Lewis Ensign, Charles E. Weed, and Joseph L. Mitchell were they who expelled the posse; but it is evident that the latter made only a formal show of executing the writ.

This farcical attempt had scarcely ended when a force of mounted volunteers rode rapidly into town. Judge Lander, hearing of their approach, hastily adjourned court, and took refuge in the office of Elwood Evans, the acting clerk of court, a wooden building of two rooms, situated on the east side of Main Street, between Fourth and Fifth streets. To this, a few minutes later, came Captain Bluford Miller with a file of men, and demanded admittance. Finding the door locked, he remarked, “I’ll add a new letter to the alphabet: let her rip,” and kicked in the door with his heavy boots. Entering, he found the judge and Evans in the rear room, and arrested them. Mr. Evans was immediately released, and Judge Lander was taken to Camp Montgomery, where he was held in honorable custody until the war on the Sound was practically over, when he was set at liberty.

Immediately on the departure of the volunteers with their judicial prisoner, an attempt was made to hold a public meeting to protest against the governor’s action. Evans and Kendall were the chief movers and speakers, and harangued a small crowd on Main Street, in front of the governor’s dwelling and office. Mrs. Stevens, with her little girls, happened to be sitting in the front doorway as they approached, and refused to withdraw; but her presence did not deter nor mollify the speeches. Despite the would-be indignation of the promoters, the whole proceeding fell flat, for nearly every one approved the governor’s course, and only a mere handful took partin the demonstration. At length, having emptied the vials of their wrath, one of the speakers moved to adjourn in order to spare the feelings of Mrs. Stevens, who had sat apparently unmoved through it all, and the assemblage dispersed.

A mass meeting, one of the largest ever convened in Olympia, was held at the blockhouse on the public square, Judge B.F. Yantis presiding, and J.W. Goodell, secretary, and the course of Governor Stevens in the matter of martial law was emphatically indorsed, with but twelve dissenting votes. Memorials strongly defending his action were almost unanimously signed by the volunteers, and sent to the Oregon and Washington delegates in Congress. Both Judge Lander and Judge Chenoweth, in their reports to the Secretary of State, complaining of the governor for enforcing martial law, admit that the people indorsed his course, and that the marshals or sheriffs were powerless to resist his orders.

The two prisoners, Wren and McLeod, were tried by military commission on the charge of giving aid and comfort to the enemy; but owing to lack of evidence and the end of the war, they were not convicted, and were finally set at liberty.

Martial law was revoked by proclamation on May 24. Judge Lander held his court at its next regular term in July. In response to notice the governor appeared by counsel, disclaimed any intentional disrespect to the court, but justified his action in proclaiming and enforcing martial law on the ground of imperious public necessity. A fine of fifty dollars for contempt was imposed, which he paid. Anticipating a heavy fine, his friends and admirers were preparing a popular subscription to defray it, but they were not called upon. The judge’s action in imposing a merely nominal fine was taken to be an acknowledgment, in accordance with the opinion of nine tenthsof the community, that the governor’s course, if technically illegal, was necessary and right. No action was taken against the volunteers who broke up the courts, or the citizens who turned the marshal and his posse into the street. In his communications to the government in defense of his course in proclaiming martial law, Governor Stevens advanced almost identically the same reasons and arguments that were afterwards adduced by President Lincoln to justify his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

By a letter of the Secretary of State, dated September 12, Governor Stevens was informed that the President, while having no doubt of the purity of his motives, disapproved his action in proclaiming martial law. THE CASE OF COMPANY A.

The chief punishment by which the governor maintained such excellent discipline among the volunteers was that of dishonorable dismissal from the service, which carried with it the loss of pay. This was inflexibly enforced in flagrant cases of disobedience or misconduct, and, being regarded as a disgraceful stigma, was found sufficient. The good conduct and discipline of the volunteers was doubtless promoted by the incessant activity and labor to which they were put; but they were due still more to the superior intelligence and character of the settlers who turned outen massein defense of their hearthstones, and carried on the war with such patriotic zeal.

In one case, however, the governor felt constrained to dismiss a whole company, an act afterwards made the pretext for much political denunciation and censure. It will be remembered that almost the first act of the governor, in the prosecution of the war, was to disband all local and home guards, and to enlist volunteers for general defense,to serve wherever and whenever ordered. On February 1 he directed Judge Lander to disband a company he had raised in Seattle for home defense, and to enlist there a company for six months, subject to the orders of the executive, in conformity with the proclamation calling out volunteers. “Every man,” wrote the governor to Lander, “who enlists, must do so with the understanding that he enlists for the general defense of the Territory, and that he must move to any point where his services, in the opinion of his commanding officer, are most needed.”

Under these instructions Lander disbanded his first company and raised another, Company A, which garrisoned Seattle for a time, and then built and occupied a post on the Duwhamish River, a few miles above Seattle, and rendered good service in scouting that vicinity and Lake Washington. It was this post and command that Lander abandoned in order to hold Judge Chenoweth’s court, with such mortifying results to himself.

On June 9 Lieutenant A.A. Denny, who succeeded to the command of Company A on Lander’s abandonment of it, was ordered to detail an officer and eight men to hold the post, and to move with his company to Fort Hays, on Connell’s prairie, thence to assist in cutting a road to Snoqualmie Falls. On his representation that a greater force was needed for the protection of the citizens in his vicinity than was designated, he was directed to leave twenty men at the post, and to send the remainder of his company by canoe to Steilacoom, thence to march to Camp Montgomery, where he would receive supplies. He was informed that—

“the representation of Captain Lander that forty men could be spared, the fact of parties of from three to five having traveled in safety the route from the falls of the Snoqualmie to Porter’s prairie, and the reports of Mr. Yesler that but six oreight Indians are still out east of Seattle, are sufficient to warrant the leaving of the town of Seattle to the protection of the naval forces and the regulars at Fort Thomas;”

and that fifteen days would probably be occupied in cutting the road. The Massachusetts lay in the harbor of Seattle, and fifteen of her men were on shore garrisoning the town. Lieutenant Denny, in a long and argumentative letter dated June 19, reiterated his opinion that it would not be safe to withdraw the company from its post. He wrote:—

“I am extremely surprised at the opinion represented as expressed by Judge Lander. During the period of his command it was often publicly stated by him that this company was expressly organized (by private understanding with the governor and commander-in-chief) for the protection of this immediate neighborhood.”

It is hard to reconcile this with the governor’s explicit orders and letter to Judge Lander.

For such failure to obey orders Lieutenant Denny was directed to turn over his command to the next officer in rank, and was relieved from duty in the volunteer service until further orders. Lieutenant D.A. Neely, the next in rank, was ordered to assume command of the company, and detail twenty men to proceed to Camp Montgomery for work on the road. But Lieutenant Neely and the whole company proved equally recusant, and signed and transmitted to the governor resolutions fully indorsing the course of Lieutenant Denny, and declaring that they considered the course of the commander-in-chief in suspending Lieutenant Denny from his command an act of injustice and an insult to the company, wholly unjustifiable and uncalled for.

With great forbearance, regarding the company not as willfully disobedient, but as led astray by feeling and badadvice, the governor sent his aide, Colonel Fitzhugh, to endeavor to bring them to reason and due sense of duty, and gave him the following instructions:—

“You will show these resolutions to the company, and request the signers to either repudiate or modify them in such a manner as to relieve themselves from the position of disobedience to the orders which these resolutions condemn.“You will represent to the company that the resolution disapproving of the course of the commander-in-chief, and considering it ‘an act of injustice and wholly uncalled for,’ places the company in an attitude of insubordination which will necessarily preclude the possibility of their being honorably discharged from the service until they, by their own acts, occupy different ground from that of justifying disobedience to orders.“There is nothing improper or objectionable in Company A requesting the reinstatement of Lieutenant Denny, and a request to that effect would be properly considered, but by indorsing and sustaining that officer in his refusal to obey orders they participate in a state of indiscipline and insubordination which is destructive to efficiency, and injurious to the reputation of the volunteer service of Washington Territory.“In the hope that the intelligent and gallant men of Company A will see the matter in the true light, and by their act in rescinding these unmilitary and insubordinate resolutions will place themselves upon the same footing as the rest of the regiment, and so enable the commander-in-chief to report as efficient and useful the whole body of troops raised from the citizen soldiery of Washington Territory, I have the honor to be,” etc.

“You will represent to the company that the resolution disapproving of the course of the commander-in-chief, and considering it ‘an act of injustice and wholly uncalled for,’ places the company in an attitude of insubordination which will necessarily preclude the possibility of their being honorably discharged from the service until they, by their own acts, occupy different ground from that of justifying disobedience to orders.

“There is nothing improper or objectionable in Company A requesting the reinstatement of Lieutenant Denny, and a request to that effect would be properly considered, but by indorsing and sustaining that officer in his refusal to obey orders they participate in a state of indiscipline and insubordination which is destructive to efficiency, and injurious to the reputation of the volunteer service of Washington Territory.

“In the hope that the intelligent and gallant men of Company A will see the matter in the true light, and by their act in rescinding these unmilitary and insubordinate resolutions will place themselves upon the same footing as the rest of the regiment, and so enable the commander-in-chief to report as efficient and useful the whole body of troops raised from the citizen soldiery of Washington Territory, I have the honor to be,” etc.

But Colonel Fitzhugh was unable to induce the company to rescind the resolutions, and reported that a false sense of shame restrained them. He was then sent back to formally disband the company, which he did July 28, and they were dishonorably discharged. The governor, however, did not allow this discharge to deprive them of full pay, but in this respect presented their claims on the same footing as the other volunteers. All were finally paid by Congress.

Governor Stevens’s responsibilities and labors were vastly increased by the great number of Indians on the Sound who did not actively join in the outbreak, but who caused constant care and anxiety on the one hand to prevent their aiding their kindred who had taken the war-path, and on the other to protect them from retaliatory violence at the hands of infuriated settlers, whose nearest and dearest had been sacrificed in savage massacre, and from the destructive whiskey traffic with vicious and debased white men. Five thousand of such Indians were placed upon the insular reservations and supported, in large part, under the charge of reliable agents; while three thousand more remained on the Strait of Fuca and the western shore of the Sound in less strict custody, as they were more remote from the scene of hostilities. For a time these reservation Indians were in a very excited and disaffected state. It was impossible to prevent hostile emissaries from mingling among them, or some of the young braves from slipping away to help their brethren against the hated whites. The agents lived among them in constant and imminent danger of massacre; they carried their lives in their hands. The governor’s plan of enlisting them as auxiliaries, and sending them out under white officers to hunt down the enemy, although attended at first with great risk of treachery, was the most effective means of confirming their fidelity, and when the tide turned against the enemy, all were eager in their professions of friendship and offers of services. The first of these expeditions, that of Pat-ka-nim and his Snohomish warriors under Colonel Simmons, was considered a very doubtful and dangerous experiment; but heavy rewards were offered the chief for the heads of the hostiles he might slay, and one that he sent in was said to have beenthat of his own brother. Well might Shaw exclaim, “Blankets will turn any Indian on the side of the whites.” After this, Pat-ka-nim’s allegiance was well secured.

When Sidney Ford led a party of Chehalis Indians on a scout against the enemy, he lay one night pretending slumber, while he listened to a long discussion between hisfriendlyIndian followers as to the expediency of killing him and joining the hostiles. Agent Wesley Gosnell had a somewhat similar experience. What iron nerves, what devoted patriotism, thus to venture into the trackless forests at the head of these uncertain and treacherous savages! There is not the slightest doubt that a few weeks of Wool’s pacific and defensive policy would have united all these disaffected Indians in the outbreak, and swept the whole country with a whirlwind of savage war. Nothing but Governor Stevens’s prompt, aggressive, and masterly measures prevented the catastrophe.

By many of the settlers the governor’s treatment of the Indians was deemed too lenient and generous. They declared that Indians who received and concealed the visits of hostile warriors, and allowed their young men to join in the raids and fights, ought themselves to be treated as hostile, and warred down without mercy. On one occasion a worthy and intelligent clergyman pleaded long and earnestly with the governor, urging him to attack and put to the sword the Indians on the Squaxon reservation, many of whom were Nisquallies, the tribe that had taken the lead in the outbreak. But the governor disregarded all such appeals, and remained as firm in protecting the friendly or merely disaffected Indians as inflexible in requiring the punishment of the murderers who first instigated the war by the wanton massacre of inoffensive settlers.

Summary measures were taken with whiskey-sellers, when caught about the reservations. The agent wouldarm his employees, and when necessary a few stout and trustworthy Indians, descend on the culprit, stave, smash, and destroy his poisonous stores, and drive him to instant flight. There was no fooling with legal proceedings or courts. The means were effective, if somewhat high-handed, and the only ones that could be made so. It was more difficult to prevent the Indians from obtaining liquor away from the reservations, especially about the towns, and the governor complained that the regular soldiers were among the worst offenders in this respect.

In a private letter to Colonel Nesmith, who succeeded him as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the governor says of his Indian agents:—

“I have never known a more faithful and efficient body of men than the officers and employees connected with me in the Indian service. I have never known, all things considered, a body of men at all to be compared to them in the high qualities which fit men for duty in times of emergency. They literally for months went with their lives in their hands, and moreover in the economy of the service they were vigilant and faithful. I look upon it as the duty of all officers, without waiting for instructions, to guard the treasury. I have had some difficulties to contend with in the past, growing out of political antipathies. I have from the beginning set my face sternly against all cliques, combinations, and sinister influences in the discharge of my duty.”

On these temporary insular reservations were collected some 5000 Indians. The Snohomish and other tribes, numbering 1700, were placed on Skagit Head, the southern point of Whitby Island, under Colonel M.T. Simmons; the Lummi, Nooksahk, and Samish, 1050, at Penn’s Cove, Whitby Island, under R.C. Fay; the Duwhamish, etc., 1000, on Port Madison Bay, Dr. D.T. Maynard, H. L. Yesler, and G.A. Paige taking charge of them; the Puyallaps, and Nisquallies, 806, on Fox Island, under Sidney S. Ford; the Quaks-na-mish, 400, on Klah-shemin or Squaxon Island, under Wesley Gosnell; the Chehalis, 400, on the Chehalis River, near Judge S.S. Ford’s, and under his charge; the Cowlitz, 300, near Cowlitz, under Pierre Charles.

On the Columbia River, under general charge of agent J. Cain, 200 Chinooks were collected at Vancouver; 200 Klikitats on the White Salmon, under A. Townsend; and 300 Yakimas, opposite the Dalles, under A.H. Robie.

The Indian Department, in response to Governor Stevens’s urgent letters taken to Washington by Secretary Mason, and the latter’s clear statement of the emergency, promptly remitted $27,000 to feed these Indians, and followed it with large sums for that purpose.

The northern Indians, gangs of whom persisted in visiting the Sound in their great war canoes in spite of the prohibition and warnings of both American and British authorities, caused great anxiety and apprehension. The governor urged the naval officers to keep a vessel constantly cruising the lower Sound to overawe and restrain them. On February 17 he wrote Captain Gansevoort that, from information received, he was apprehensive of a descent on the settlements by fourteen war canoes of these savages, and urged that the Active be kept cruising the whole time between Port Townsend, Bellingham Bay, and Seattle, saying:—

“These northern Indians, in daring, force, and intelligence, greatly surpass the Indians of the Sound. Their war canoes, carrying seventy-five men, can be moved through stormy seas, and with great rapidity. I deem it essential to the safety of the lower portion of the Sound that a steamer should be constantly in motion there.”

Apparently reliable reports were brought to the governor from time to time that these desperadoes were seeking to join the hostiles. Some of them actually offered their services to fight for the whites. They were attracted to the scene of war like vultures to the carrion, and were equally ready to fight and spoil either party to the conflict, or both. In July one of these unwelcome visitors was killed in a drunken brawl by a regular soldier at Steilacoom. From their well-known vindictive character, it was certain that they would avenge the death sooner or later by some act of atrocity. The governor therefore reinforced Whitby Island with fifteen men from the line of the Snohomish, and the Massachusetts and Hancock were kept diligently cruising. When, in November, another party appeared near Steilacoom, committing depredations, and had a fight with the Indians on the reservation, in which two of their number were killed, Captain Gansevoort hastened to the scene in the Massachusetts, determined to compel them to leave the Sound. They had already started down it, but he pursued and overtook them at Port Gamble, where he found them encamped on an island. After exhausting all efforts at conciliation, offering to pardon all their depredations, and even to tow their canoes to Victoria if they would only depart from the Sound, and all friendly overtures being treated with the utmost contempt and ridicule by the Indians, Captain Gansevoort opened fire upon them from his guns, and, throwing a party ashore, attacked them on land also. Their canoes were destroyed, and they were driven back into the woods, but they fought with desperate courage and determination, and continued the contest the entire day. To a message sent by a captured squaw, inviting them to surrender with the sole condition of leaving the Sound, they returned the defiant answer that they would fight as long as there was a man left alive. But being on a small island, and all their canoes and supplies destroyed, they were forced by hunger to surrender, which they did after holding out for forty-eight hours. The party consisted of one hundred and seventeen men, besidessquaws and boys, and lost twenty-seven killed and twenty-one wounded. Captain Gansevoort took the survivors in his vessel to Victoria, where he purchased canoes for them and started them northward, exacting their promises never to return to the Sound. Even this severe punishment did not deter them from seeking revenge. The following year a party of them landed on Whitby Island, murdered Colonel Isaac N. Ebey, the United States collector of customs, cut off his head, plundered his house, and departed northward with their booty and ghastly trophy.

CHAPTER XLIII LEGISLATIVE CENSURE.—POPULAR VINDICATION The family remained in Olympia during this year of Indian troubles. The children attended the public school, and found kind and judicious teachers in the Rev. George F. Whitworth and his estimable wife. Mrs. Stevens, escorted by her son, frequently rode on horseback over the neighboring prairies, heedlessly running a greater peril than they knew of, for the Indians murdered two men and committed depredations quite near the town. There was not much social gayety at such an anxious time, but the little community were drawn closer together by the dangers surrounding it.

When not absent on his trips, the governor usually worked in his office till long after midnight, and his assistants and clerks were kept hard at it to dispose of the multifarious orders, reports, accounts, and other details of the war and the Indian service. He kept both the War and Indian departments in Washington constantly informed of the progress of the war and the condition of affairs by frequent detailed and graphic reports, and these, with his correspondence, made a volume of four hundred pages as published with his message of 1857. His physical labors were also extreme, involving journeys to the Columbia River, the Dalles, Walla Walla, and down the Sound, aggregating over two thousand miles. And it should be borne in mind that he was not assisted by any regularly long established and tried services, but had in a measure to create the organizations, and to make use of hastily selected and inexperienced officers. He had by this time fully adopted the rough, serviceable costume of the country,—slouch hat, woolen shirt, and heavy riding-boots,—and, indeed, no other garb was practicable for one so constantly engaged on long and arduous journeys by horseback and canoe, frequently in stormy weather.

HOMESTEAD IN OLYMPIA

In the summer and fall the governor caused his block of land No. 84, which he purchased on his first arrival, to be cleared, and the late Benjamin Harned built for him a plain, square dwelling, with a wide hall in the centre and rooms on either side, a story and a half high. A smaller building, for an office, on the northeast corner of the block, and a stable in the rear on the southwest corner were also built. The family moved into the new home in December, and found the spacious rooms, with the magnificent view of the Sound and the Coast Range, a most agreeable change from the former contracted quarters and noisy surroundings.

The governor gave a house-warming, to which he invited the members of the legislature, a number of naval officers, who happened to be in the harbor, and about all the townspeople, including Elwood Evans and others who had been unmeasured in their denunciation of his course.

The site of the residence had been covered with immense fir-trees, and all within reach of the dwelling had to be felled to avoid danger of their falling and crushing the house during some storm, which involved the felling of the trees over an area of ten acres. But notwithstanding all this care, one of these forest monarchs was left standing some distance in front of the office, and the following winter fell directly across it, cutting the building clear to the ground. The labor of digging out the immense stumps was very great and expensive, and whenthe governor, late in the winter, assured Colonel Cock and Mr. George A. Barnes that he meant to have the finest garden in town the next spring, and would send them the earliest vegetables, these old settlers laughed in confident incredulity.

The governor was unable to follow up the improvement of the Taylor claim this year, but John Dunn, the hired man, and Hazard, now an active lad of fourteen, rode out there from time to time and planted and raised quite a crop of potatoes, celery, cabbages, etc., on the beaver meadow, which also afforded several tons of hay.

The legislature met in December, and Governor Stevens, in a strong message, accompanied by the correspondence with the War Department and military officers, rendered a clear and graphic account of his successful prosecution of the war. In view of his herculean labors and entire self-devotion, and the outrageous abuse heaped upon him, the concluding paragraph is touching in its manly simplicity and confidence:—

“I have endeavored faithfully to do my whole duty, and have nothing to reproach myself with as regards intention. I could have wished some things had been done more wisely, and that my whole course had been guided by my present experience. I claim at your hands simply the merit of patient and long labor, and of having been animated with the fixed determination of suffering and enduring all things in your behalf. Whether in the wilderness contending with the hostile elements, managing and controlling the more hostile aborigines, or exploring the country, or at the Capitol struggling with disaffection, the subject of obloquy and abuse, I have had no end but my duty, no reward in view but my country’s good. It is for you to judge how I have done my part, and for the Almighty Ruler to allot each man his desert.”

It was generally believed that the legislature, like the people, would gladly recognize the great services of the governor, and do all in their power to sustain him. Buthis political and personal enemies had been very active, and had covertly secured a number of members, some of them elected in the guise of pretended friends. From Whitby Island was chosen an able but corrupt man, J.S. Smith, commonly known as “Carving Fork Smith,” from the current report that his too pressing advances towards a married woman in Oregon had been repulsed with such an implement by the insulted matron. This worthy called upon Governor Stevens at the beginning of the session and proposed some deal, with the result that the governor indignantly ordered him out of the office. Angered at this repulse, he made common cause with the governor’s enemies, and eagerly sought means to attack and injure him. His general course in the prosecution of the war, and even in the martial-law difficulty, was so universally approved that it would be useless to assail him on that score, but finally they concluded to make a handle of the dismissal of Company A. Their object was to obtain some sort of legislative censure of the governor in aid of the untiring and unscrupulous efforts they were making for his removal. A resolution pronouncing the charge of insubordination against Company A to be without sufficient foundation and also a resolution condemning martial law were introduced, and by the combination of the supporters of the two, and the strenuous efforts of the governor’s enemies, were passed by a bare majority.

A committee was appointed to present them to him in person, in order to make the censure more emphatic and offensive. The governor received the committee with his wonted dignity and equanimity. One of the members was Colonel William Cock, whom the governor had always treated with consideration, whose son he had befriended and employed in the Indian service, and who had always professed a warm friendship for the governor, and approval of his course. But Colonel Cock had been wonover by the conspirators by appeals to his vanity, and had allowed himself to be placed on the committee. When it had delivered its message, the governor, genuinely grieved at the defection of a friend, addressed Colonel Cock in a quiet and friendly manner, pointing out how he had stultified himself, repudiating his own sentiments and declarations, endeavored to strike down the man who had done so much to defend the country, and his own professed friend, and finally, against his better feelings and judgment, had allowed himself to be made a tool of as a member of the committee. Colonel Cock, realizing at last the ignoble part he was playing, was thoroughly ashamed and took his leave, expressing his regret and sorrow at his course. The remainder of the committee sneaked out, feeling small and crestfallen. But the conspirators were jubilant, making sure that this legislative censure, coming on top of General Wool’s attacks, the martial-law resolutions, and the numerous secret affidavits sent on, would certainly cause the governor’s removal, and went about exclaiming, “Governor Stevens is a dead lion at last.”

After this deliverance, the legislature passed all the measures and memorials that the governor recommended. Some of the members who voted for the resolutions of censure regretted their action like Colonel Cock, and all were soon compelled to cower and apologize before the indignation which their action excited all over the Territory. Everywhere the real people, the stalwart settlers, the men of worth and character, were denouncing this underhanded and cowardly attempt to misrepresent their sentiments, and strike down the man who had saved the Territory in her peril and defended her fair fame against the slanders of high officials, whose patriotic self-devotion and herculean labors they had witnessed, whose courage, force of character, and ability they admired, and whoseleadership they were proud to follow. The people were eager to manifest their approval and support of Governor Stevens, and in response to this sentiment the Democratic convention, meeting at Cowlitz Landing, unanimously nominated him for delegate in Congress.

Meantime the governor, least disturbed of all at the unjust but impotent censure, enjoyed a little respite after four years of incessant and overwhelming responsibilities and labors. He was comfortably established in his new home, and hugely enjoyed his garden and farming. He employed two excellent men about the place, Joel Risden and William Van Ogle, and fully redeemed his promise of the finest garden and earliest vegetables in Olympia. He purchased a yoke of oxen, had a cart built, and commenced clearing the Walker claim, situated half way to Tumwater. The malignant charges and attacks upon him failed to cause his removal.

The governor, however, felt that he had not been properly supported at Washington. His Indian treaties were left unconfirmed, and Wool’s course in excluding settlers from the upper country and vilifying the people was not rebuked. He declared with great feeling that he would never accept another appointive civil office.

On January 26, 1857, at the instance of the governor, the legislature passed an act incorporating the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, with a capital of fifteen millions, which might be increased to thirty millions, and authority to build a railroad from one of the passes in the Rocky Mountains, on the border of Nebraska, westwardly across Washington by the Bitter Root valley, crossing the Cœur d’Alene Mountains, and traversing the plain of the Columbia, with two branches, one down the Columbia, the other over the Cascade Mountains to the Sound, with a line from the river to the Sound. Among the incorporators were Governor Isaac I. Stevens, SenatorRamsay, and General James Shields, of Minnesota, Judge William Strong, Colonel William Cock, Elwood Evans, A.A. Denny, and W.S. Ladd. The governor expected a rapid development of the Territory, and evidently thought that an organized company with a charter was a practical step towards starting the great railroad enterprise.

Early in the year 1857 General Wool was relieved of the command of the Pacific Department by General N. G. Clarke, colonel 6th infantry, and went to New York, where he continued his malignant warfare upon the authorities, volunteers, and people of Oregon and Washington, by whose governors and legislatures he was denounced, “and whose respect he had long since ceased to possess.”

After his nomination the governor determined to make a canvass of the Territory, and invited Alexander S. Abernethy, who was nominated by the Whig convention, to accompany and meet him in joint discussion. The newly appointed receiver of the Land Office, just arrived from the East, Selucious Garfielde, a man of fine, showy presence and great oratorical gifts, offered to assist in the canvass by discussing national politics. A small steam-tug, the Traveler, W.H. Horton owner and captain, was chartered to take the party around the Sound. Mr. Abernethy declined the invitation, but Colonel William H. Wallace went in his stead, and the governor, accompanied by Garfielde, Wallace, his son Hazard, and a few friends, started from Olympia in May, and visited Steilacoom, Seattle, Ports Madison, Gamble, Ludlow, and Townsend, thence up Hood’s Canal to Sebec, thence Whitby Island, thence Bellingham Bay, and thence returned to Olympia. At each point the governor spoke at length, defending his course, but devoting more time to pointing out the needs of the Territory and the measures necessary for its benefit, such as the confirmation of thetreaties, payment of the war debt, additional roads and mail service, and especially the Northern Pacific Railroad and its relation to the trade of Asia. With much feeling he indignantly denied the personal charges against himself, denounced the traducers, and defied them to meet him face to face and repeat them. Though not a fluent speaker, he was clear, strong, earnest, and convincing, and was everywhere received with the greatest attention and respect.

A plot was formed at Steilacoom to get up a row at the meeting to be held there, and under cover of it to assassinate the governor; and in consequence of the earnest entreaties of his friends there, who had discovered the plot at the last moment and were wholly unprepared for it, he made but a short stop at that point. In July he again visited Steilacoom, and held a meeting and joint discussion, but no attempt at disturbance was made, his friends being ready for it.

As the little Traveler slowly churned her way into Bellingham Bay, a great war canoe, manned by the northern Indians,—those dreaded sea wolves,—went speeding across the entrance to the bay twice as fast as the Traveler could possibly go, and the little party felt rejoiced to have escaped meeting them. It was only a few weeks later that the unfortunate Colonel Ebey met his tragic fate at the hands of a crew of these savages. They were forbidden to enter the Sound, and the appearance of one of their war canoes betokened only violence and robbery.

After returning to Olympia the governor spoke at meetings of the settlers there, at Tumwater, and Yelm, Chambers’, and Grand Mound prairies. Then he proceeded down the Chehalis River and traveled along the coast, crossing Gray’s Harbor and Shoalwater Bay, to the mouth of the Columbia, holding meetings on Miami prairie, and each of these points; thence, continuing the canvass,he went up the river, speaking at Cathlamet, Monticello, Lewis River, Vancouver, and the Cascades, and then, returning home by way of the Cowlitz, he spoke at Cowlitz Landing and Judge Ford’s.

In this canvass, in five weeks Governor Stevens traveled by steamer, canoe, and on horseback fourteen hundred and sixty miles, and spoke at forty meetings. His friends supported him with great enthusiasm, and one of the features of the contest was the “Stevens Hat,” adopted as a badge by his more enthusiastic supporters,—a black slouch hat, the rougher and shabbier the better.

The election took place July 13, and he was chosen by a vote of 986 against 549 for his opponent.

During the governor’s absence on the canvass occurred the untimely death of James Doty, his faithful secretary and assistant in so many difficult and dangerous Indian councils and expeditions. “I have never been connected with a more intelligent and upright man,” declared the governor. He was buried on Bush prairie beside his friend, George W. Stevens.

After his election as delegate Governor Stevens resigned as governor, August 11, 1857, and Lafayette McMullan, of Virginia, was appointed his successor. The governor turned over the gubernatorial office to the new appointee on his arrival, and the Indian superintendency to Colonel Nesmith, who was appointed superintendent for both Oregon and Washington, the two superintendencies having been united by the last Congress, in May. At his invitation Colonel Nesmith visited him at Olympia, and the governor took the greatest pains to impart to him all the information and assistance in regard to his new duties in his power.

It was on a beautiful morning in the early fall that Governor Stevens with his family started from Olympia on the return journey to the East. He rode his noblegray charger Charlie, and his son was also mounted, while Mrs. Stevens and the three little girls rode in an easy spring wagon. The roads were dry, the weather of the finest, the country in its most beautiful garb, and all the family were in high health and spirits; and the governor, buoyant with courage, hope, and vigor, having accomplished the tremendous tasks laid upon him by the government, carried the Territory through the Indian hostilities, overcome all obstacles, and put down his enemies, now looked forward with renewed confidence to vindicating his course in Washington, and compelling a deceived and misguided Congress and administration to do justice to his people and himself.

The return journey to the Cowlitz, and down that stream in canoes, and up the Columbia to Portland by steamboat was uneventful but pleasant, in strong contrast to the discomforts of the trip on entering the country three years previously. San Francisco was reached after a short voyage down the coast, where the governor was again welcomed by his old friends, and everywhere received with the attention and deference considered due his remarkable achievements in face of unprecedented obstacles.

On the voyage to Panama, the steamer Golden Gate broke her shaft the second day out, and had to creep back to port with one wheel, like a bird with a broken wing, losing an entire week. The Golden Age, which took her place, came near meeting a worse disaster; for one stormy and misty afternoon, as the captain and cabin passengers were at dinner, a steerage passenger on the forward upper deck espied a rock-bound island directly in front of the steamship, upon which she was rushing at full speed, and gave the alarm. The great paddle-wheels were instantly reversed, and the vessel just managed to back off before striking.

Colonel John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, the Republican candidate for the presidency, was one of the passengers,—a slender, alert man,—as was also one of the Californian senators, John Broderick, who fell in a duel with Judge Terry soon afterwards. The passage across the Isthmus was made safely and easily all the way by rail; and the voyage from Aspinwall to New York was unmarked, save by a severe storm, with mountainous billows for three days, off Cape Hatteras. They arrived in New York in time to make a short visit in Newport, and to spend Thanksgiving at Andover with the Puritan father.

Governor Stevens lost no time in hastening to Washington, and the very next day after his arrival called upon the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in regard to the funds for, and accounts of, Superintendent Nesmith. The large numbers of Indians, chiefly in Oregon, still being restricted to reservations and partially supported by the government, necessitated heavy expenditures, some of which were made without previous authorization, and it was essential for the peace of the country that they should be approved and Nesmith sustained. Following the matter up with his accustomed energy and thoroughness, he calls upon the commissioner and Secretary of the Interior again and again; he has all the suspended accounts, estimates, and papers brought together, and, having mastered them, he sits down with the chief clerk,—“an old friend of mine,” he writes Nesmith,—posts him up and satisfies him on all points, and secures his favorable report, and then convinces the commissioner and secretary. By the very next steamer the funds for Washington Territory liabilities are sent to Nesmith, and during the next few months, by unremitting and painstaking efforts, his deficiency payments are allowed, his estimates approved, and ample funds remitted. This was an extremely difficult and laborious task, for the expenditures for the Indian service in the two Territories were unexpectedly large, the department was naturally reluctant to authorize them, and the difficulties werelargely increased by the rasping and peppery, if not insubordinate, letters which Nesmith, indignant at the neglect of his recommendations, addressed to the commissioner, and which the governor ingeniously neutralized by personally vouching for Colonel Nesmith, and submitting extracts of Nesmith’s letters to himself evincing the superintendent’s devotion to duty.

The still more important duty of vindicating his Indian treaties and procuring their ratification engaged his closest attention. In one short fortnight, by his clear exposition of their wise and beneficent provisions, and by his graphic portrayal of the conditions in the Pacific Northwest, he satisfies Commissioner Mix, Secretary Thompson, and President Buchanan that the treaties ought to be confirmed, and secures their urgent recommendations to the Senate in favor of confirming them without delay. He seemed to take his former attitude of personal influence with the highest officers of the government at a bound, despite the serious charges that had been made against him. On December 2 he writes Nesmith:—

“We have had many conferences with the commissioner, and two with the President and Secretary of War, in regard to Indian affairs. I am working very hard with the department in order to have everything completely in train against the meeting of Congress.“I have been most cordially received in all quarters since my arrival, and I hope I shall be useful to our Territories.”

“I have been most cordially received in all quarters since my arrival, and I hope I shall be useful to our Territories.”

And again, on December 17:—

“Lane and myself will canvass the Indian committees. Have seen Senator Sebastian, chairman Senate committee. Pushing armed steamer for the Sound. Indian and War departments and President all concur. I have had a most attentive and courteous hearing from all these gentlemen. Years since, I learned brevity and directness in the transactionof business here, and I find no difficulty whatever in effecting a good deal in very brief interviews.”

His old friends in Washington—Professors Bache, Henry, and Baird, General Totten, Mr. John L. Hayes, former brother officers, and others—welcomed him back, and were glad and proud to observe that he was unchanged except in increased maturity and strength of character, and that his very presence, with his simple, earnest, and dignified demeanor, refuted the infamous slanders that had been circulated against him. General Joseph Lane, the delegate from Oregon, received him with open arms, delighted to have so able a coadjutor to fight the battles of the far-distant and neglected Northwestern Territories. General Lane was highly esteemed by all parties, and had much influence with the Democratic leaders. The governor said he was a tower of strength. A devoted friendship grew up between the two whole-souled and patriotic men.

It will be remembered how inflexibly Governor Stevens insisted upon the trial and punishment of the Indian murderers who so treacherously massacred unoffending settlers, deeming the example absolutely necessary, to deter the commission of outrages by the Indians in the future. Having brought Leschi and the Sound murderers to condign punishment, in spite of the efforts of the regular officers to shield them, he now urged the Indian Department to make requisition upon the War Department for the arrest and delivery to the civil courts, for trial, of the Yakima murderers, whose atrocious slaying of their agent, Bolon, and the miners, precipitated the war, but who thus far had been virtually safeguarded by the pacific and temporizing policy of the regular officers. After a number of interviews with the Indian commissioner and the two secretaries, the demand was about to be complied with, for all agreed that the murderersought to be punished, when the objection was raised by the military authorities on the Pacific that an attempt to seize the offenders would lead to further hostilities, and it was intimated that the Indians regarded the quasi-peace operations of Colonel Wright in 1856 as promising them immunity for the murders. The Secretary of the Interior, doubtful how far the good faith of the government might be involved, was consequently reluctant to make the necessary requisition on the War Department. The governor thereupon addressed an able letter to the commissioner, in which he pointed out that an inflexible adherence to the policy of punishing perpetrators of unprovoked murders was the only course to impress savage tribes with respect, and deter them from the commission of similar outrages; that, while such a course in this case might be attended with the renewal of hostilities on a small scale with the recalcitrant faction of the Yakimas, it would do more than all else to strengthen the hands of peaceful and friendly Indians in other tribes. He declared that he had always understood, from repeated interviews with Colonel Wright, that that officer had given no immunity to murderers. Moreover, the very manner in which the military objected showed conclusively that no such immunity was ever granted; for, if it had been granted, they would have avowed it positively as their own act, and not merely have referred to it hypothetically, as it were, and as subordinate to the question of expediency. For if the faith of the government had been pledged, questions of expediency were subordinate. He concluded:—

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