Chronicles of Camp Wright, Part I [pp. 24-32]

26 Chronicks of Camp Wrigkt. [July
a wild beast among his native hills, starva- the Sixth United States Infantry was ordered
tion and death staring him in the face which- from Benicia Barracks to Round Valley.
ever way he turned, the poor Indian would The inclemency of the season, however,
come to the army officer, his only friend, prevented the officer in command, Major
and, as far as his power extended, his only Johnson, from reaching his destination, and
protector, and pointing to his wounds would he was compelled to halt and go into winter
say, "You ask us to come on the Reserva- quarters at a place known later as Fort
tion, and tell us that we will not be molest- Weller, some fifty miles below the valley;
ed. We have been there, and our brothers, whence he dispatched an officer with a deour wives, and our children have been killed. tachment of seventeen enlisted men to
We do not know in whom to believe; we Round Valley, with~orders to take post at
have lost faith in everything but death." or near the Nome-cult Indian reservation or
During the first and second year of the fam~. Lieutenant Dillon, the officer in
settlement, the number of white inhabitants command of the detachment was instructed
was increased at different times by the ar- to afford all the aid in his power to the
rival of a certain class of white men known agent and employe's on the reservation; to
in the vernacular of the country as "float- induce as many Indians as he could to come
ers — men without fixed occupation or from the mountains; to prevent the Indians
abodes, who came, some as hunters, and from molesting the whites by kilJing their
others as stock-herders. Having no interest stock or otherwise, and to protect the Indians
at stake, these men were not over scrupulous from the whites. In view of the small force
in their conduct toward the Indians and at his disposal, which he was compelled to
their bad example appears to have contam- weaken still more by stationing small deinated some of the real settlers. From this tachments from it at points in the vicinity,
time dates the beginning of aggression and it must be admitted that these instructions
outrages on the part of the whites, and of were, to say the least, somewhat hard to
Indian retaliation in killing stock, and some- follow. From a military point of view, they
times whites, culminating at last in a war of were equivalent to his being ordered to
extermination waged by the whites upon front, at one and the same time, in three
the Indians. different directions; to sustain a combined
The first murders charged to the Indians assault on his front and rear, and to repulse
were those of two white men. If what is an attack on his flank. The result of this
related of one of these is true, the provoca- complication was that in his conscientious
tion certainly justified the deed. His favor- efforts to obey the dictates of humanity toite amusement is said to have been shooting ward the Indians he unfortunately incurred
at the Indians at long range, and he usually the enmity of many of the whites. Despite
brought down his game. Goaded to des- these untoward circumstances, his manifold
peration the Indians killed him. The shed- duties were discharged, on the whole, ~n a
ding of the first white blood, however, gave satisfactory and conscientious manner, but
an additional impetus to the already fast the relations between the two races do not
growing an~mosity of the whites; and matters appear to have become more amicable. The
began to assume a decidedly bad look for conflicting interests, or rather prerogatives,
the poor Vukas. of the civil, military, and Indian authorities,
This state of half hostility speedily grew added to the white and Indian complications,
from bad to worse, and in the latter part of were difficult to harmonize or conciliate,
the year i868, in answer to an urgent re- and his endeavors to compel a certain class
quest made by the settlers, a company of of white men to discontinue their outrages