IXXII ETHNOGRAPHIC SKETCH. 



chief only but also the military leader of the Modocs, selected for his head- 

 quarters the spacious cavern called Ben Wright's Cave, and there the tribe 

 remained, unattacked and unharmed, until the 17th of January of the vear 

 ensuing. 



The wintry season and the difficult condition of the roads, or rather 

 trails, in these mountainous tracts delayed the concentration of the troojis 

 a:id provisions to the Lava Beds for nearly two months. On the day 

 above mentioned Colonel Frank Wheaton, then in command, resolved to 

 attack from two sides the seventy* sturdy warriors in their stronghold. 

 Many of the troops were fresh from Arizona, and had fought against 

 Apaches armed with bows and lances only. The Modocs carried the old 

 octagonal small-bore Kentucky rifle with the greased patch and small ball, 

 which within its limited range had a very flat trajectory, and consequently 

 a large dangerous space.f The fog was so thick that men could not see 

 their right or left hand comrades, but in spite of this the commander ordered 

 the attack. Scarface Charley, a leader possessed of the best military and 

 engineering capacity in this war, claimed that he held his station, with three 

 squaws to load, against a platoon of cavalry. The troops counted in all 

 aliout four hundred men. One corps had to attack from the north, viz, 

 the shore of Tule Lake, tlie other from the west, and witJiout connecting 

 both by a field telegraph the commander ordered them to unite upon the 

 top of the hills after storming the Lidian positions. Tiie fog annihilated 

 these plans entirely, and the decimated troops were in the evening with- 

 drawn to Van Bremer's farm, west of the Lava Beds. 



After this signal discomfiture another officer, General Alvin C. Gillem, 

 was assigned to the command, and the troops were reinforced by four com- 

 panies of the Fourth Artillery from San Francisco. Instead of attacking 

 the Modocs again on a clear day and bombarding their positions, it was 

 deemed proper to negotiate with them for })eace. There was a party of 

 extremists for war in the Modoc camp and another inclined to listen to 

 peace overtures, and upon the latter the body of the Peace Commissionersf 



*For the later period of tbe war, beginning April 16, Frank Kiddle states the 

 nniuher of tbe Modoc waniors to have been fifty one; 42, 20. 



t Captain Fields, "The Modoe War." 



|Api)ointeil by the Secretary of the Interior, C. Delano. The particulars in 

 Texts ; note to 38, 1, page 48. 



