The Winter War Blueprint: An 1858 Campaign to Subdue the Tribes

The Puget Sound Herald printed extracts from a letter by an Army officer in Oregon to a friend in this city, dated Sept. 6, 1858, concerning the Indian war in Oregon and Washington:

'Two corps are in the field operating against the Indians. One, on the west side of the Columbia River under Major Garnett, is traversing that region with all the energy of his character, and with some success, though he has lost an officer, killed by accident by his own men. Garnett, however, has just the right notions; he is opposed to halting now, and treats those who have compromised themselves recently, in any way, as law-breakers, and puts them to death. We hear this morning that he was at the Okanogan River, and had killed five hostiles—how, we know not.

Col. Wright crossed the Snake some twelve days since, of whom as yet we have no news. The Indians threaten to fight; I believe they will, and that we shall have stirring news from that quarter soon. The colonel has the command, and will give a good account of himself if the enemy will accept battle. We hear the Indians ahead of Col. Wright have burned the country on all sides, and hence he will have hard hardships to encounter, but I believe him resolutely disposed to meet them. The lateness of the season is also a serious obstacle to a very fruitful campaign. I am in favor of a winter campaign after the present one, and so is Garnett, who has urged his views in his department here.'

The writer then argued that if the commands now in the field under Col. Wright and Major Garnett, after traversing the hostile districts and seeking battle, should be marched back to Walla Walla and thence dispersed toward Vancouver for winter quarters, leaving only regular garrisons to occupy those points, the companies brought down to Vancouver would be involved in a long march of full 600 miles. It would be quite as late as May before operations could be resumed. Such an arrangement, the writer said, would result from 'mistaken notions of the true economy of military administration.'

'As you well know, only for some six weeks of mid-winter is the weather inclement in all this region, from here to Walla Walla, in that Grand Valley, and beyond the Snake, on the great plain of the Columbia River; but in the mountains (like the Blue Mountains and the Cascade Range) the snow falls very deep and remains late in May. ... Driven once from their winter quarters, they must lose their horses ... and their chances are nine in ten of being captured or slain ... on the mountains, the rigors of which they are no more proof against. ... Be assured a winter campaign is practicable and the true way to operate against those Indian tribes north of the Snake River.

Be this as it may, however, I point out plainly that the Colville Valley should be occupied in force during the winter. Then we should hold a position in rear of a large portion of the Indians—namely, the Coeur d'Alenes, Spokane, Palouse, etc.—and between them and their allies on the west bank of the Columbia from the Okanogan River to the north, and Indians beyond the boundary line, all being involved in the war. This Colville Valley is the key to very much of the whole hostile district. It has abundant fields of grass, and the council ground where all combinations against us are moulded into action. It would, therefore, seem to be of the first military importance to occupy such a point at once, and for the winter; and in that service six companies of infantry were barely sufficient. ... Timber is abundant in the Colville Valley, I know, and there is a saw-mill there; lime is also to be had, and hence the troops could shelter themselves in a short time at nearly no cost, while the military would remain to be compensated by the occupancy of the point—probably of great importance to the whole campaign.'

The writer added that the quartermaster's department on the Columbia should undertake the service, and discussed the Columbia as the main channel of supply.

'Oddly enough, the Hudson's Bay Company and the missionaries have been allowed to keep up their establishments among the hostiles just as if there were no war; and the country is full of neutrals, which any one ought to see is impolitic in the extreme, tending as it plainly must to make those Indians insensible to the gravity of their situation, and their unprovoked hostility to legitimate authority, and place it in their minds on the same footing with their petty broils with neighboring tribes.

Moreover, these establishments, if not supplying powder directly, sell other supplies to these Indians quite as necessary to them as ammunition, and which, if deprived of them, would soon bring them to their senses, and a lasting recognition of their subordinate relation to our people and authorities. Hence all these establishments should be closed, and all their employees of every sort, and all neutrals of white or half-blood, ordered at once out of the country. Let these Indians thus be made to understand the true character of their resistance, and that there can be no neutrals of the white race, be they missionaries, priests, or Hudson's Bay employees, they will come quickly to comprehend our mastery, and there will be an end to their futile but costly outbreaks.'

The Herald's editorial column called the extracts 'singularly explicit and clear,' and endorsed a vigorous winter campaign. It added that the general subject of the treatment of the Indians was brought by these notices from Washington Territory prominently before the government, and that as settlement pressed into the interior, 'it is time that we should adopt such rules of action as are demanded alike by necessity and the welfare of the august [government].' A winter campaign under Gen. Harney, it concluded, 'will do up the work of subjugation; and then the government should see to it, that its measures do not disturb the peace which its military force has conquered.'