In the Land of Burnt Out Fires - Page 3

The following data is extracted from Northwestern Fights and Fighters.

raid they joined Captain Jack in the lava-beds. Col. Frank Wheaton, commander of the district, repaired to the scene of the action at once. The nearest available troops (detachments of the First Cavalry and Twenty-first Infantry) were sent to him together with two companies of Oregon militia and one from California. In all, his force numbered over four hundred men.

On Hot Creek, an affluent of Lower Klamath Lake, another band of Modocs dwelt. Some of these broke away and joined the defiant in the lava-beds, so that Jack's force was increased to fifty warriors and about one hundred and fifty women and children. They were well supplied with ammunition and food. They boasted that with the natural advantages of the lava-beds they could whip a thousand soldiers, a statement which was literally true, but which was laughed to scorn at the time. The fight they put up, whatever be their character, awakened the admiration of the world.

These lava-beds are among the most peculiar natural formations on the continent. They are a mass of volcanic debris included in a territory about eight miles long and four miles wide. The formation is thus described by Captain Lydecker of the United States Engineers, who surveyed and mapped it.

"They present the appearance on first view of an immense sage-bush plain, with no obstructions to easy movement in every direction. A closer examination, however, develops the fact that the plain is broken at irregular intervals by sections of low, rocky ridges. The ridges are not isolated, but occur in groups, and form a perfect network of obstructions, admirably adapted to a defense by an active enemy; they seldom rise to a height of ten feet above the bed, and are, as a rule, split open at the top, giving thus continuous cover along their crests."

Transversal crevices furnished excellent communication through which the Indians were enabled to pass from one ridge to another without the least exposure. Only a few of these cross passages and unseen positions, sufficient to satisfy the requirements of free communication, were left open by the Indians in that series of ridges which made up "Jack's Stronghold." The rest were in all cases blockaded by rolling in heavy stones.

The Modocs were familiar with every foot of it. None of the soldiers and few of the settlers had ever entered it; certainly, none of them had explored it. The ridge formation was not continuous. It broke out in spots separated by wide open places comparatively level, although the ground was everywhere terribly rocky and uneven. These open places, however, were cut up by deep, impassable ravines and pitted with holes or pockets. There was no way to tell the existence of a ravine or pocket, until one stood on the very brink of it.

During the campaign there were numerous small skirmishes for the description of which space is lacking. On the morning of January 17, 1873, a heavy fog lying low on the pedregal, the first effort at dislodgment began. The troops started out gleefully, shouting that they would have "Modoc steak" for breakfast. "A more enthusiastic, jolly set of regulars and volunteers I never had the honor to command. If the Modocs will only try to make good their boast to whip a thousand soldiers all will be satisfied," wrote Colonel Wheaton, two days before.

The soldiers fought all day and scarcely saw a Modoc. They stumbled blindly forward over rocks, ranging in size from a cobble to a church, with points like needles and edges like razors. From the most unexpected places would come a spit of fire, followed by the crack of a rifle or musket. Somebody generally received the bullet. The soldiers fired volleys at the ridges and did not hit a single Indian. Their courage was of the highest order. They scrambled forward over the rocks, blazing away at every rifle flash, fearlessly exposing themselves, traversing impassable ravines, in a desperate endeavor to come at close quarters with the enemy, and all to no avail. The Modocs had made good their boast!

When evening came the troops withdrew to their camps on the shores of the lake -they had attacked the stronghold from both sides - utterly discomfited, with a loss of nine killed and thirty wounded: The infantry battalion under Major Mason lost nearly onefourth of its strength, the loss among the volunteers was trifling. Captain Perry and Lieutenants Kyle and Roberts were wounded. If the Modocs had been better shots the loss would have been vastly greater. Thereafter, Colonel Wheaton stated that he would require at least a thousand men with mortars and other artillery to dislodge the little Modoc band from its position. He and other experienced officers declared that they had never seen a position so thoroughly defensible, so impossible of successful attack, as the lava-beds. The soldiers, no longer cheerful, were in a state of complete exhaustion. Their shoes were cut to ribbons, their uniforms in rags, their ammunition expended, their spirits depressed by the hardships and struggles of the long and fruitless day. Wheaton had done his best with the means at his command. Neither he nor his men had dreamed of the difficulties of the situation.

He was superseded, however, and Col. A. C. Gillem, First Cavalry, was ordered into the field. Reinforcements were hurried to him until the thousand men

Source: Northwestern Fights and Fighters

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