Historian examines intricacies of Snake War in lecture series

Attendees heard more about the Snake War’s place in frontier history on June 12 as the Klamath County Museum continued its lecture series on the conflict with a look at the Oregon 1st Volunteer Cavalry. When Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, igniting the American Civil War, regular U.S. Army troops stationed throughout the Pacific Northwest were reassigned eastward, cutting the strength of the military Department of Oregon nearly in half. The sudden reduction left settlers, politicians and federal officials concerned about the security of the vast frontier, prompting the creation of a mounted volunteer force known as the 1st Oregon Volunteer Cavalry. But according to Dr. James Robbins Jewell, a history professor at North Idaho College, raising the regiment proved to be far more challenging than simply issuing a call for volunteers. “Actual responsibility for recruiting regiments fell to governors; that was not an option in Oregon,” Jewell said. A known Southern sympathizer, Governor John Whitaker, who many Oregonians accused of harboring secessionist leanings, sparked concerns that officers appointed through his administration might lack loyalty to the Union. As a result, federal officials bypassed the governor in organizing the regiment, instead turning to Oregon Senator Edward D. Baker, a close ally of President Abraham Lincoln. Even with Union leadership in place, Jewell said recruiters struggled to fill the ranks, relying on appeals to patriotism, cash bounties and promises of land to attract volunteers. “Recruiters in Oregon did what their counterparts in the East did.” Jewell said. “They appealed to patriotism, lied, and, if that failed, they fell back on incentivizing with money.” Even with those incentives, the regiment never reached its intended strength. By spring 1862, only six of the planned 10 companies had been raised with a seventh company being added in 1863. Uniquely too, the regiment never operated as one full unit, instead having its companies scattered across the region, assigned to guarding forts, escorting immigrant trains, patrolling trails, responding to settler complaints and scouting lands for farming, grazing and mining. “Most of all, its job was to maintain as peaceful an environment as possible to encourage white immigration and therefore the extension of white development,” Jewell said. CREATING A BUFFER Starting in 1862, three companies were sent toward Fort Hall in what is now southeastern Idaho to protect immigrant trains and serve as a buffer between white travelers and Native people, primarily Shoshone and Bannock bands. Another was stationed near the Nez Perce Reservation, where soldiers were expected to prevent conflict between the Nez Perce and encroaching white miners. Meanwhile, Company C was sent to Southern Oregon, where local leaders had complained of possible Native raids, and later helped to build Fort Klamath. The historian said the military presence in Southern Oregon reflected the federal government’s broader goal of reassuring settlers and supporting continued white settlement, even in areas where military leaders found little evidence of an immediate threat. “There was no real evidence (settlers) had any fear at that moment from the Klamaths, Modocs and other people,” Jewell said. “However, that didn’t matter. They kept complaining. They put a lot of political pressure on the military.” Officials often instructed soldiers to prevent conflict and protect “peaceable Indians” from abuse by whites, but those protections were unevenly applied. Jewell explained that whites threatening the peace were only investigated, whereas indigenous people accused of similar, often just by their mere proximity to white settlements, faced death. “Preventing conflict was purely a practical preference, not necessarily a humanitarian one,” Jewell said. “Since one of the Oregon Cavalry’s stated goals for 1863’s campaigning season was to find and kill so-called snakes (a derogatory term for Native Americans) in their home country, it seems pretty clear to me the Snake War had begun.” CALVARY ATTACKS NATIVES That year, Oregon cavalrymen were ordered into southeastern Idaho to “strike them in their haunts,” as orders shifted from protection and escort duty to the explicit targeting of indigenous tribes. During the campaign, soldiers attacked at least two Native bands without provocation, killing and wounding people despite reports from immigrant trains that they had not been harassed. The violence escalated in 1864 as the cavalry focused more heavily on Eastern Oregon. Captain George Curry and other officers led patrols that Jewell said included both combat and killings of small groups of Native people. In one incident, Curry’s men fired into a small encampment of unidentified Native people after reports of stolen livestock. In another, Jewell said cavalrymen killed several likely Paiute men who were fishing, then continued searching for others. “When whites used the term ‘savage’ on native peoples, they clearly had no sense of irony,” Jewell said. Reflecting on the language used in military reports and frontier accounts, Jewell said many of the actions carried out against Native communities stand in stark contrast to how Indigenous people were portrayed by settlers and soldiers. He also highlighted incidents involving Captain Curry, whose reports described the killing of Native people during patrols and expeditions referencing an 1864 report where Curry wrote that his men encountered several Native men along a creek and “killed them and moved up the creek in search of more, but only found one. Killed him and moved up and then returned to camp.” Jewell said such accounts illustrate the often routine manner in which violence against Native people was recorded in military documents. “The Oregon Cavalry focused more on the ‘snakes’ in 1864 than at any other time in its service,” Jewell said. CHIEF PAULINA’S NOTORIETY In March of that year, Oregon cavalrymen and civilian volunteers pursued a group believed to have taken livestock, leading to a running fight in which several soldiers disappeared and were never seen again. Two months later, near Juniper Butte, Lt. Stephen Watson, two troopers and at least two scouts were killed during an attack on a Paiute camp believed to be connected to Chief Paulina. As a result, both civilians and military leaders increasingly attributed Native resistance throughout the region to Paulina, regardless of whether he was directly involved or not. Jewell acknowledged Paulina led resistance to white encroachment and was connected to raids on immigrant routes and settlements, but argued that military reports often exaggerated his presence. “There would be some interesting psychological history done on the sudden rise in notoriety of Chief Paulina,” Jewell said. “It was decided he was not only the primary leader of all hostile interactions, he personally participated in almost every encounter, no matter how far apart they were geographically. Chief Paulina was in the headspace of the U.S. cavalry.” Paulina would agree to a treaty in 1865 after military forces captured his wife and child, though Jewell said the details of Paulina’s death and its aftermath fall largely outside the timeframe of his research on the First Oregon Cavalry. ENLISTMENTS EXPIREBy 1865, cavalry enlistments started to expire, and the regiment had been reduced to a fraction of its former strength leaving fewer than 200 men in the field with regular troops and Oregon infantry returning from the Civil War front taking over much of the military role in the Snake War. “The major military buildup of the regular Army after the end of the Civil War led to an expansion of the violence and resulted in forced treaties much more quickly than was possible to achieve by a single undersized regiment carrying out multiple responsibilities,” Jewell said. The regiment’s remaining soldiers would be posted in smaller detachments