Ten o’clock, Wednesday morning, April 22d, Meacham is being transported to Ferree’s ranch at the south end of the Klamath lake twelve miles from Linkville. We have been here before. It was on the 27th of December, 1869, when conducting Captain Jack’s band on to Klamath Reservation. Then Captain Jack acknowledged the authority of the Government and was endeavoring to be a man. Now he is an outlaw. After a stormy passage across Tule lake last night, Fields and Dr. Cabanis landed at Gilliam’s camp. The surgeons are visiting the hospitals. Some of the patients are improving, but on one poor fellow we see the signet of the grim monster. The sunset gun tonight will not disturb him.

Lieut. Eagan is still improving. Fairchild is in camp, and assuring Gen. Gilliam that as “soon as the Oregon volunteers arrive, the Modocs will throw down their guns and come right out and surrender;” Riddle and wife in camp also, and assisting to care for the sick. “Muybridge,” the celebrated landscape artist, of San Francisco, is here with his instruments, photographing the “Lava Beds,” the council tent, and the scene of the assassination. “Bunker,” of the “San Francisco Bulletin,” is on the ground reporting for his paper. “Bill Dad,” with his long hair floating in the wind and a pipe in his mouth, slipshod and sloven, still hovers around to keep the readers of the “Record” posted.

Gen. Gilliam is consulting with his officers; they are indignant at the inaction manifested. Donald McKay and his Warm Springs Indians are scouting under the direction of army officers. Both Donald and his men are disgusted with the red-tape way of fighting Modocs.

Captain Jack and his people are quiet this morning. They are so closely hidden that even the sharp eyes of Donald McKay cannot discern their whereabouts. Captain Jack’s men are anxious to be on the warpath; but the chief restrains them. They, in turn, reproach him with want of courage. He insists that they must act on the defensive. Bogus, Boston, Shacknasty Jim and Hooker Jim are rebellious and threaten to desert. Couriers are bearing despatches to Y-re-ka announcing that “the Modocs cannot escape.”

A gun from the deck of the “Oriflamme” tells the people of San Francisco of her arrival with the remains of Gen. Canby. An immense concourse of citizens escort the hearse to the head-quarters of the army.

The widow sits in a carriage, with unmoistened eyes, while the populace pay homage to the great character of her husband. The body of Dr. Thomas is quietly resting with the dead, while he in spirit is enjoying the glories of eternal life; his last sermon preached, his trials over.

The three children of Meacham are drying their tears, and thanking God that they are not fatherless, and for the love of a brotherhood that brings to their home sunshine in the faces and words of Secretary Chadwick and Col. T. H. Cann, who have called this morning.

Away up in Umatilla, a young man, who has been bowed down with grief over a second great bereavement, this morning reads to the little orphans that climb on his knees, and their widowed mother, the telegram signed by Capt. Ferree, announcing the recovery of his brother. His joy is unbounded. A great load has been lifted from his shoulders and his heart.

Midway between the oceans and near Solon, Iowa, in the sitting-room of an old homestead, a group is kneeling around a family altar. The bent form of a silver-haired man is surrounded by his aged second wife, his two living daughters; and perhaps, too, the invisible presence of two daughters and two sons that have gone before, and their own mother, are also there. His voice is tremulous while he leads in prayer and recounts that half of his family has gone and half remains; blesses God that the dark sorrow that threatened them has passed away, and invokes Heaven’s blessings on the living loved ones.

Thursday morning, and we are in a cabin at Ferree’s ranch. The proprietor enters, holding a letter in his hand. “See here, old man, I don’t know but what you have jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. How does this suit you?”

“That don’t look wholesome for us, old man; but you are all right, you can play dead on ’em again, and they can’t scalp you nohow. We are pretty well stockaded and well armed. We can play them a merry string, if they do come. If we have to fight, why, you can’t do much, that’s so, except as old man Jones did at the camp-meeting last year. He said he couldn’t preach, he couldn’t pray much, but he could say Amen as well as anybody; and all through the meeting old Father Jones was shouting ‘Amen!’ ‘A-men!’ until they stopped the old fellow. Didn’t I never tell you about that? Well, brother Congar was preaching brimstone pretty lively, and Father Jones was shouting Amen occasionally. Brother Congar was saying to the congregation, ‘If you don’t repent and be baptized, you’ll all go to hell, shure as you’re born,’—‘Amen! Thank God!—Amen!’ shouts Father Jones. Brother Congar stops. ‘Father Jones, you didn’t understand what I was a-sayin,’—‘Yes, I guess I did, Bro. Congar, you told me if we come over here that, whenever you said anything powerful smart, I was to say ‘Amen!’ You said you couldn’t preach worth a cent unless I did, and I’ve done it, so I have. If it aint satisfactory, I quit and go back home,’—‘Amen!’ shouted brother Congar, and went on with the preaching. Now all we will ask of you, ‘old man,’ is to say ‘Amen,’ but don’t act the fool about it like Father Jones did, that’s all. We’ll tend to administering sulphur in broken doses, if they try to take us in. Don’t think there’s any danger though. Dyer isn’t over the scare he got in the race with Hooker Jim yet.”

Friday morning, April 24th.—The army at the Lava Beds is performing some masterly feats of inactivity that would have been a credit to Gen. McClellan on the peninsula. The wild fowls that fly over the Lava Beds look down on the army of a thousand recuperating after the big battle of last week. Col. Miller is in charge of Captain Jack’s stronghold. The Warm Springs are divided up, and assigned to duty with the different squadrons of cavalry. Quartermaster Grier is having a coffin made and a grave prepared for a soldier that is dear to somebody somewhere, who is in blissful ignorance of his fate.

Ferree’s Ranch, Sunday morning, April 25, ’72.—A horseman arrives, and, taking Ferree aside, he informs him that a reliable friendly Indian had come in to Linkville and reported that it was understood that Meacham had killed Schonchin, and that some of Schonchin’s friends had been to Yai-nax—an Indian station on Klamath Reservation—and learned that Meacham was at Ferree’s. Further, that it was thought advisable that he be immediately removed to Linkville, lest the Modocs should make an attack on the ranch, seeking revenge for the death of Schonchin. The ambulance is ordered out, and the convalescent Peace Commissioner was again on wheels. Here we take leave of our inveterate joker—the Iowa veteran—Capt. Ferree leaving him to administer “saltpetre and blue-pills” to the red skins in the event of an attack.

Lava Beds, Gilliam’s Camp, Sunday morning, April 26th.—Something is to be done to-day. The location of the Modocs has been ascertained through the efforts of the Warm Springs Indian scouts. A reconnoissance of the new stronghold is ordered. The detachment designated for this purpose consisted of sixty-six white men and fourteen Warm Springs Indians under McKay; the whole under command of Capt. E. Thomas of 4th Artillery. First Lieut. Thomas Wright—spoken of in this volume as Col. Wright of Twelfth Infantry, a son of the gallant old General Wright—is of the party, and in immediate command of his own and Lieut. Eagan’s companies.

Lieut. Arthur Cranston and Lieut. Albion Howe of Fourth Artillery, Lieut. Harris also of the Fourth, Assistant Surgeon B. Semig, H. C. Tichnor as guide, Louis Webber, chief packer, and two assistants; the whole, exclusive of Warm Springs scouts, seventy-six. I may be pardoned for making more than mere mention of this expedition and the manner of its organization, because of its results; to understand it fairly, it should be stated that the parties named, except the Warm Springs scouts, were all of the army camp at the foot of the bluff, the head-quarters of Gen. Gilliam, commander of the army in the Modoc campaign.

The Warm Springs scouts were encamped near the old Modoc stronghold, and had been ordered to join the command of Capt. Thomas, while en route, or at the point of destination, which was a low butte or mound-like hill, on the further side of the Lava Beds, from the several camps. The outfit of this reconnoitring party, aside from the men and arms, consisted of a small train of pack mules. This train of packs was suggestive. Tacked on to the apparahos—pack-saddles—were subsistence and medical stores for the party, and also several stretchers. The object of the reconnoissance was to ascertain whether the field-pieces could be planted so as to command the new position of the Modoc General, Jack Kientpoos. Shells had done wonderful execution in the three days’ battle, and, of course, were the thing to fight Modocs with; provided, however, that the fools of the Modoc camp were not all dead; for it is an undoubted fact that out of only two or three hundred tossed into the Modoc stronghold, one of them had done more execution than all the bullets fired by the soldiers in the three days.

Capt. Thomas was instructed, in “no event, to bring on an engagement.” The point of destination was in full view of the signal station at Gilliam’s camp, and not more than three miles distant. The command proceeded with skirmishes thrown out, and proper caution, until their arrival at the foot of the butte. The Warm Springs scouts had not joined the command. Capt. Thomas remarked that, since no Indians were to be seen, the command would take lunch. Lieut. Wright replied, that “when you don’t see Indians is just the time to be on the look out for them.” The skirmish guards were called in, and the whole command, except Lieut. Cranston and twelve men, sat down to bivouac for an hour; Cranston, in the mean time, remarking that he “was going to raise some Indians,” proceeded to explore the surroundings. In so doing he passed entirely out of sight of the main party. The foot of the butte is similar to other portions of the Lava Beds, thrown into irregular ledges, or cut into chasms and crevices.

Now Cranston has passed over a ledge, when suddenly from the rocks, that had been so quiet, a volley of rifles opens on both parties. It is not known whether Cranston and his men all fell on the first fire; it is, however, probable that he did not, as his remains were afterwards found several rods from where he was last seen by the survivors. Capt. Thomas’s party were thrown into confusion. He ordered Lieut. Harris to take a position on the hill-side, and when the point was reached, Harris found that the enemy was still above him and commanding his new position. His men were falling around him, and he was compelled to fall back, leaving two dead and wounded.

In making the retreat, Lieut. Harris was mortally wounded. The scene that followed is without a precedent in Indian warfare. Every commissioned officer was killed, except Surgeon Semig, who was wounded; and of the sixty-six enlisted men but twenty-three reached head-quarters.

Donald McKay and his scouts hurried to the scene, and arrived in time to prevent the annihilation of the entire party. That the soldiers were demoralized at the suddenness of the attack, there is no doubt. It seems to have had an unusual combination of circumstances attending the carnage. That Capt. Thomas should have permitted himself to be surprised by an enemy, for whose destruction he was at that time seeking a location for the batteries, is strange, especially after the warning suggestions of Lieut. Wright, whose long experience on the frontier—of almost a life-time—should have given weight to his views. Strange, too, that every officer should have fallen so early in the attack, and that Donald McKay, with his Warm Springs, should have been thirty minutes behind time, and then, when coming to the rescue, should have been held off by the fire of the soldiers, who mistook him and his men for Modocs, and compelled them to remain out of range so long that the soldiers were nearly all killed or wounded before Donald was recognized.

Singular that this butchery should have continued three hours in sight of the signal station before reinforcements were ordered to the rescue. Indeed, it is stated on good authority, that soldiers who escaped made their way into camp one or two hours before Col. Green was ordered to go to the scene with his command. Singular, indeed, that fifty-three men were killed or wounded by twenty-four Modocs, on ground where the chances were even for once, and not one of the twenty-four Modocs was wounded.

What is still more unaccountable is, that the Modocs should have become surfeited with the butchery, and desisted from satiety, calling out in plain Boston English,—“All you fellows that aint dead had better go home. We don’t want to kill you all in one day.”

This speech was heard by soldiers who still live, and for the truth of which abundant evidence can be had. We have it on Modoc authority that Scar-face Charley made this speech, and repeated it several times, and that he insisted that the Modocs should desist, because his “heart was sick seeing so much blood, and so many men lying dead.”

Follow the advancing wave of civilization from ocean to ocean, and no parallel can be found living, on printed page, or tradition’s tongue. Seventy-six well-armed men, with equal chances for cover, shot down by a mere handful of red men, until in charity they permitted twenty-three to return to camp!

Can we understand how this was done? It seems incredible, and yet it is true. While we shudder, and in our rage vow vengeance on the perpetrators, we are compelled to admit that there was behind every Modoc gun a man who was far above his white brother in fighting qualities. Much as we are inclined to underrate the red man, we are forced to admit that twenty-four men leaving a stronghold, and going out among rocks that gave even chances against them, was an act of heroism that if performed by white men would have immortalized every name, and inscribed them among the bravest and most successful warriors that this country has produced. Performed by a band of red-handed Indians, it is scarcely worthy of mention. While we do most emphatically condemn all acts of treachery, no matter by whom committed, we are not insensible to emotions of admiration for acts of bravery, no matter by whom performed. In speaking of this battle Gen. Jeff. C. Davis says, “It proved to be one of the most disastrous affairs our army has had to record. Its effects were very visible upon the morale of the command, so much so that I deemed it imprudent to order the aggressive movements it was my desire and intention to make at once upon my arrival, in order to watch the movements of the Indians.”

What, is it so, that with all the slaughter reported from time to time, Captain Jack still has men enough left to cause an army of one thousand to wait for recuperation and reinforcements before again attacking him?

This battle was fought on the 26th of April, ten days after the three days’ battle. Curious that “the press,” or that portion of it that was so loud in denunciation of the Peace Commissioners, did not find fault, and enter “protest” against the delay. The commission has been “out of the way” since the 11th inst., and three days’ battle has been fought, and one day’s slaughter withstood, and it has not cost much over half a hundred lives, that were required to satisfy the clamor for vengeance, and now why not raise your trumpet notes again, brave editors, and a proportionate howl for vengeance? You are safely seated behind your thrones, where no shot could reach you.

Why don’t you howl with rage because a few “cut-throats” have murdered ten per cent. of an army of a thousand, “who were hired to fight and die if need be”? You did not want peace except “through war.” You have done your part to secure the shedding of blood. Are you satisfied now when, through the failure of the Peace Commission, so many men have yielded up their lives? This short apostrophe is intended for those who appropriate it; not for the really brave editors who were fearless enough to defend “The humane policy of the President and Secretary Delano,” in the face of a clamor that filled the country from the 1st of February to the 11th of April 1873.

Morning of the 10th, of May, 1873.—Fourteen days have passed, and Gen. Canby has been placed in his tomb, Indianapolis, Indiana. The widow, grief-stricken and heart-broken, is with her friends. Orderly Scott has been ordered to report at Louisville, Kentucky; Adjutant Anderson, to head-quarters, Department Columbia. The emblems of mourning are everywhere visible around the home of Dr. Thomas. Meacham is at his home in Salem, Oregon, recovering rapidly, and with a heart full of gratitude and kindly feelings to Dr. Calvin DeWitt, U. S. A., who brought him safely through the hospital at the Lava Beds.

The mother of Lieut. Harris is sitting beside her wounded son, in the hospital at Gillam’s Camp. Gen. Jeff. C. Davis has assumed command of the expedition against the Modocs. Captain Jack and his people have left the Lava Beds. Dissensions are of every-day occurrence among them. Bogus and Hooker Jim, Shacknasty, and “Ellen’s man” are contentious and quarrelsome.

Read the telegram of Jeff. C. Davis to Gen. Schofield, and we may know something of what has occurred:—

In his final report, Nov. 1st, 1853, he says:—

Gen. Davis does not state all the facts in the case. While it is generally admitted that Captain Jack was whipped this time, it is also true that Donald McKay and his Warm Springs Indian boys turn up at the right time again and assist in driving the Modocs three miles, recapturing the horses that were taken from the escort a few days since. Two Warm Springs scouts were killed in this fight, but their names have never been reported.

Captain Jack appears in this fight in Gen. Canby’s uniform. One Modoc was certainly killed this morning, because his body was captured. There can be no mistake; several persons saw it with their naked eyes,—so they did, oh! This Modoc, whose name was George, “Ellen’s man,” was Captain Jack’s assistant in the murder of Gen. Canby. His death was the signal for new quarrels among the Modocs, which ultimated in the division of the band, and made it possible for the thousand men to whip the remainder. The seceding Modocs, who are double-dyed traitors, were Bogus Charley, Hooker Jim, Shacknasty Jim, Steamboat Frank, and ten others, mostly Hot Creek Indians, and the same, except Hooker Jim, who were driven back to the Lava Beds after they had started under escort of Fairchild and Dorris to the Klamath Reservation, last December, ten days after the Lost-river battle, by the howl for blood that came up from every quarter. At that time they had committed no crimes; had not been in battle or butchery. After joining Captain Jack they had espoused the cause of the murderers who killed the Lost-river settlers. They were not indicted, and had less excuse than any other Modocs. Their home in “Hot Creek” was several miles from any scene of slaughter on either side. They had steadily opposed every peace measure offered, while Bogus had played his part so well that he was the favorite of the army officers, and had friends among the white citizens; he had instigated the assassination of the Peace Commissioners, laid the plans, and even slept in the camp of Gen. Canby, and ate his breakfast off the general’s table, and to his friend Fairchild declared, even after Canby and Thomas had started for the Lava Beds, that there was no intention of killing the Peace Commissioners.

The cause of the quarrel between these men and Captain Jack was the fact that the few deaths that had occurred among the Modocs had been of those who did not belong to Jack’s immediate family or band. They accused him of placing the outside Indians—Hot Creek and Cum-ba-twas warriors—in the front of the battles.

He replied that they had voted every time for war and against peace proposals. The quarrel increased, and after the defeat at Dry Lake, Captain Jack rebuked them for forcing the band into that fight against their will. The death of “Ellen’s man” brought the crisis. We see the band who started into the war with fifty-three braves, after having accomplished more than any band of an equal or proportionate number of men, of any race or color, in any age or country, quarrelling among themselves, now divided into two parties; one of whom, with fourteen men, every one of whom had voted for war, turning traitor to his chief, and offering themselves as scouts against him without promise of amnesty or other reward. Such perfidy stands unparalleled, and alone, as an act that has no precedent to compare it with. The succeeding events are clearly told in Gen. Davis’ report.