Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/458

 It is very strange that numerous outrages have been committed, as we are told by the Secretary of War. Sir, what are the facts? Not a single outrage was committed upon the frontier in the vicinity of Fort Laramie but this; and how was it produced? Was it produced by the Indians? We are told by the Secretary, too, forsooth, that an ambuscade was laid for the purpose of decoying this lieutenant, and massacring him and his party. Strange it was, indeed, that he should not have discovered this ambuscade, when he, for the distance of a mile or more, had marched through the Indians, with two pieces of artillery, to arrest an Indian, without requiring the chiefs, or waiting for them, to surrender the offender. But what was the offense? The killing of a crippled cow. That embraces the repeated outrages upon the people in the vicinity of Fort Laramie, and on the route to Oregon and to California!

Let us look into the facts. We are told by a most intelligent gentleman. General Whitfield, an Indian agent, that these Indians had committed no depredations until they were fired upon, and one of their chiefs wounded. That took place before they attempted to retaliate; and even then, in the first instance, they abstained from anything like retaliation, through the influence of their chiefs, until the artillery had fired upon them. Did that look like an ambuscade which was laid, or a deliberate design to massacre the party? Sir, these are facts. They are not deductions. They are verified by as gallant a man as ever was in a camp of the United States—a man of intelligence and of character. What was the condition of the Indians there? Why, sir, they had been promised annuities. They were aware that the goods had arrived there. They had been there for nearly three weeks. The Indians had patiently waited. Their provisions were scarce. The agent was expected to return daily, and did soon return and possess himself of all the facts. The individual who was relied on by the War Department, made an authentic statement to the agent, which was verified by no less than seven witnesses who were on the ground, that the aggression was made by the lieutenant, and at the instigation of a drunken interpreter, from whom the lieutenant had taken a bottle of whiskey, and had thrown it down and broken it. Who can suppose that such a medium through' which to communicate to the Indians was calculated either to inspire respect or confidence, or that he was a very suitable medium through which to present grave matters, and make reclamation for a cow?

Sir, that cow is to become the wonderful prodigy of the present age, and she is to enlist the sympathies of the whole country for the lieutenant and his company, who fell victims to indiscretion and rashness. Doubtless, induced by the language of this drunken interpreter, he acted with the indiscretion that would characterize youth, but not the deliberation of manhood, and yet this country is to be involved in a war, the least expense to be attached to which will be $5,000,000. It will be an expensive cow; and after you have carried on the war as long as the war continued in Florida, and it has cost you another forty-five millions, you will end it in the same way by peace. Where they have boundless deserts, and mountains, and fastnesses, and plains in which to find security, and when those in Florida, who were hemmed in on an isthmus or a cape, could not be reduced by the army of the United States, and the militia of the South, how are you going to take