8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IIO 



across the mountains from Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla. Con- 

 tinued Indian unrest in the Northwest prevented work on the project. 

 In 1858 Isaac I. Stevens was influential in obtaining an additional 

 Congressional appropriation for this work and in the assignment of 

 Lt. John Mullan to the position of officer in charge of the project. 



Lieutenant Mullan organized a party to explore and survey the 

 route at The Dalles, May 15, 1858, He employed Gustavus Sohon as 

 civilian "Guide and Interpreter" to the party. They had moved east- 

 ward but a few miles when Lieutenant Mullan received word of the 

 defeat of Colonel Steptoe's force by Spokan Indians on the Pelouse 

 River, directly in the path of Mullan's proposed route. Realizing the 

 impossibility of continuing the road survey, Lieutenant Mullan re- 

 turned to The Dalles and disbanded his party with the exception of 

 topographer Kolecki, guide Sohon, and a few men to care for his 

 stock. He then offered the services of the remainder of his party to 

 General Clarke, who assigned Mullan to the staff of Colonel Wright 

 as topographical officer. Lieutenant Mullan also commanded the 

 group of 33 loyal Nez Perce Indian guides and scouts attached to 

 Colonel Wright's command. Wright marched against the hostile 

 Indians at the head of a force of 680 soldiers. In the two battles of 

 Four Lakes on September i and Spokan Plains on September 5 he 

 decisively defeated the enemy force of Coeur d'Alene, Spokan, and 

 Pelouse Indians. 



Sohon made a sketch of the Battle of Spokan Plains on September 

 5, 1858 (pi. 4). It portrays the essential character of the battle. 

 The retreating Indians had set fire to the prairie grass and under 

 cover of the smoke, surrounded the soldiers on three sides. Colonel 

 Wright promptly ordered the pack train to close up and surrounded 

 it with a line of fighting men. The soldiers possessed improved long- 

 range rifles which they used with deadly effect to beat back the 

 sporadic attacks of the Indians who were armed only with short- 

 range Hudson's Bay muskets, bows and arrows, and lances. 



Mullan's men remained with Colonel Wright through the three 

 peace councils with the hostiles in late September. Later Lieutenant 

 Mullan returned to Washington to obtain further appropriations for 

 the wagon road project. 



In May 1859 Lieutenant Mullan again organized his party at The 

 Dalles. In June he ordered Sohon to move forward in search of a 

 possible route across the Bitterroot Mountains south of the Coeur 

 d'Alene River-St. Regis Borgia River crossing. In his published 



