Page:The Indian History of the Modoc War.djvu/261

 litary

posts, Fort Klamath, Camp Harney and Fort Bidwell. Gen- eral Frank Wheaton, who commanded the district, could have placed in the field, without weakening his garrison too much, a hundred and fifty men and would gladly have done so if necessary to secure a successful settlement of the mixed Mocloc question. "Captain Applegate, fearing that an effort to compel the insurgent band to come unto the reservation might be undertaken with an inadequate force, made a formal request of the Superintendent through Agent Dyar to call on General Wheaton to have all his available men in readiness and near at hand before a demand should be made on Captain Jack to come, lest the settlements be endangered and the Indians escape to the almost inaccessible volcanic regions south of the Modoc lakes. Had this advice been heeded we probably should have been spared the bloody drama of the Modoc War; but when Superintendent Odneal came up from Salem and through a messenger found the rebellious chieftain in no temper to com- ply with the treaty, not willing even to counsel with him, he called upon the commanding officer at Fort Klamath, Col. John Green, to provide a force to compel the recalcitrant chief to come at once, provided he still held out in the face of the display of soldiery. It was thought that fifty men were avail- able, at Fort Klamath, for active operations in the field, but when it came to preparing Captain James Jackson's troop for immediate service, properly mounted and equipped, only thirty-five could be gotten ready for the trip. This force proved inadequate, and the consequence was that nearly a third of Captain Jackson's command were disabled in the fight which ensued at Captain Jack's camp on Lost River, and the Modocs escaped to the almost inaccessible recesses of the Lava Beds, south of Tule Lake, California, massacreing most of the settlers about Tule Lake en route. Captain Jackson's force was too weak for aggressive action, no State troops were in the field and some days must elapse before troops could reach the scene of action from the other posts in the military District of the Lakes. Captain Applegate, sub-agent at Yainax, forty-five miles from Fort Klamath and eighty miles from Fort Bidwell, California, with five hundred Indians, a majority of