At the Cassner ranch many halted and were that evening joined by Col.  Bernard with his cavalry.  Bernard was told that there were six hundred Umatilla Indians at Fox Valley only a few miles from the John Day River, and knowing that they were only waiting to be joined by the Bannocks, determined to attack the latter before reaching them.  He was told that the Bannock’s must pass through a canyon to reach Fox Valley.  That was his opportunity, and he had sounded “boots and saddles” when Gen. Howard, surrounded by a strong body guard, rode up and ordered him to remain where he was.  This was an awful blunder, and cost the lives of a number of settlers in Fox Valley.  They, all unconscious of danger, were resting in fancied security when the Bannocks arrived, fraternized with the Umatillas and butchered them in cold blood.

But Gen. Howard had made a still more serious blunder.  Gen. Grover was coming into John Day Valley with 400 troops and had reached Prairie City, south of Canyon City, and about 45 miles from the Cummins Ranch.  He was coming in ahead of the Indians and would have been in a position, with the troops under Howard, to surround and destroy the savages.  He was, however, halted by orders from Howard and turned back to the Malheur Reservation.  In justice to Gen. Howard it should be said that he claimed his aide misunderstood the orders, and caused the fatal blunder.  But be that as it may, it saved the savages from annihilation or surrender and cost the lives of a large number of citizens throughout eastern Oregon.

From John Day Valley, Gen. Howard continued to herd the savages, following with his ox teams and his army of road makers, while the enemy were sweeping a belt thirty miles in width through the State and spreading death and desolation in their path.  Many skirmishes took place before the Indians reached the Umatilla Reservation.  Here Gen. Miles encountered them and in the battle that followed completely routed them.  Disheartened and losing confidence in the good medicine of their medicine men, the savages split up, a portion going on to Snake River and the Columbia, while the Stein’s mountain and Nevada Piutes doubled on their tracks and started back, for a greater portion of the way over the road they had come.  This again left the settlers exposed to butchery and plunder.  The military had followed the main bands towards the Columbia and Snake Rivers.  One band attempted to cross the Columbia by swimming their stock.  A steamer had been despatched up the river armed with gattling guns and protected by a force of soldiers.  While the vast herd of horses and Indians were struggling in the water the boat came in sight and opened with the gatlings.  Some of the Indians succeeded in crossing, but most of them were driven back, and the carcasses of Indians and horses floated down the river.

Chapter XVI.

Snake Uprising in Eastern Oregon.