"Do Not Execute Chief Pocatello": President Lincoln Acts to Save the Shoshoni Chief

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 53, 1985, No. 3

"Do Not Execute Chief Pocatello": President Lincoln Acts to Save the Shoshoni Chief

BY JEFFERY S. KING

Abraham Lincoln. USHS collections.

IN LATE 1864 BRIG. GEN. PATRICK E. CONNOR, military commander of the District of Utah, was determined to capture and punish Chief Pocatello, the Shoshoni leader who for many years had menaced white settlers in the Northwest and had aroused both anger and fear among the military and the settlers. The general's tactics led to a conflict between the civilian Indian Office and the War Department. The Indian Office had been transferred from the War Department to the Department of the Interior in 1849. Subsequently, with the support of western politicians and editors, military officials would demand that the Indian Office be given back to the War Department, especially when an Indian war was going on. What transpired is also an example of the speed with which the Lincoln administration could act in an emergency and of the compassionate nature of President Lincoln, who summarily vetoed a ruthless execution of an Indian chief.

On November 25, 1864, Lincoln read a draft of his annual message to Congress at a cabinet meeting. Although Reconstruction was the major subject of the message, it also contained Lincoln's expression of regret that the Montana Territory was only partly settled because of Indian troubles and his belief that the problem could be solved.

In the early part of the Civil War Indian attacks on the stage and telegraph routes — the communication lines between East and West — had weakened national unity and hurt the Union cause. But by late 1864 the South was well on the way to defeat, and the development of the West had become of great interest to Lincoln.

Indian troubles had hindered settlement in the West during the Civil War, for most of the military forces had been transferred to the East to fight in the war. In his annual report of 1864 to Congress Lincoln said the country should be made "secure for the advancing settler." In fact, in spite of the demands of the war effort, Lincoln had taken steps to protect western settlers. In April 1862, for example, the president ordered a Mormon volunteer company of 100 men be formed to guard the 600 miles of trail east of Salt Lake City where there were vital stage and telegraph lines.

By the time of Lincoln's November 25, 1864, cabinet meeting prospects looked good for peace on the frontier, although there had been a terrible Indian war that summer. Most Indian leaders in the West were seeking peace, and, with the exception of a few hostile young warriors, it was quiet on the frontier.

Sometime after the cabinet meeting, Secretary of the Interior John Usher, the cabinet official responsible for Indian affairs, returned to inform Lincoln of an urgent request. Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Dole had just given him a hastily written memorandum about the efforts of O. H. Irish, the superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, to prevent the execution by General Connor of an Indian chief named Pocatello, a tragedy that could lead to an Indian war. Dole himself had only just received Irish's letter of October 29 on this very day, November 25. Pocatello's execution might be imminent, or it might already be too late. Usher had endorsed the letter by writing, "I think it would be wise to order the suspension of the execution of the Chief until ordered by the President." Lincoln read Dole's report with its supporting papers from Irish:

I refer herewith in a very hurried manner (. . .in order to save life) a letter from Superintendent Irish, of the 29th Ult., together with its enclosures, giving an account of his being in conflict, with General Connor, who it appears had announced his determination to hang a certain Indian Chief Pocatello — on his being found guilty of a theft, with which he is charged.

I respectfully ask your immediate interference in behalf of this unfortunate, though perhaps guilty Chief to the extent, that you will request the President to Telegraph to General Connor, directing him to delay the execution of Pocatello, if found guilty, until the papers in this case, have been submitted to your Department, and all the facts thoroughly investigated.

Lincoln agreed completely with Dole and Usher of the need for quick action. But he went further than they had advised and, after reading the documents from Irish, ordered the secretary of war not to execute Chief Pocatello at all. Dole wrote to Irish the following day that, "The President had directed the Secretary of War to Telegraph to General Connor not to execute the Chief Pocatello." So in the space of only one day the Indian Office, the Interior Department, the War Department, and President Lincoln had dealt with an emergency situation.

Lincoln learned from letters received by the Indian Office the following month what had happened to Pocatello. In early November 1864 the tense situation concerning Pocatello's life and peace in the Northwest had been settled. On November 4 Ben Holladay, proprietor of the Northern Stage Line, on whose complaint Chief Pocatello had been arrested, decided that the alleged offenses of Pocatello were really not very serious and asked General Connor in a letter that no further action be taken by him against Pocatello. Connor then transferred the prisoner Pocatello to Irish "for such action ... as you may regard necessary to maintain friendly relations with the Indian tribes and for the prompt punishment of offenders." Irish released the Indian chief at once.

Pocatello was born sometime early in the nineteenth century. He was first called Dono Oso, meaning Buffalo Robe. Later he was named Paughatella or Pocatello, meaning "he does not follow the road." His mother had been captured by another Indian tribe (probably the Gros Ventres Indians) but eventually escaped, returned to her people, and gave birth to Pocatello.

Pocatello was believed to be very hostile towards the whites. He disliked another major Shoshoni chief, Washakie, because he had refused to go to war against them. As early as September 1859 Pocatello had caused trouble for the military, which never knew exactly what to do with him. At that time a Lieutenant Gay of the U.S. Army had arrested the chief after the Indian had come to see Gay in his camp. But his superior, a Major Lynde, released the chief because of the lack of evidence of any crime and because he did not want to stir up trouble with the local Indians. The Deseret News in Salt Lake City criticized the army for letting the chief go free and asked, "Why was he not securely kept? and through whose agency was he permitted to escape?"

It was not easy for Pocatello to keep his glory-seeking warriors under control, and their exploits always created problems with the whites. As he put it, "there were some things that he could not manage, and among them were the bad thoughts of his young men towards the whites, on account of the deeds of the whites towards his tribe."

An unsubstantiated story claimed that his plain hatred of the white man increased when some immigrants murdered his father in 1860. The American Falls Press of March 4, 1915, reported:

General Pocatello was a silent Indian and could not become friendly to the whites. The probable reason for this was the dealing out, by a party of emigrants, of summary justice to a band of Shoshones. It was about 1860 that a band of Indians were harrassing [sic] an immigrant train on the Truckee river in Nevada. The immigrants were too strong for the Indians and captured one of them. Fastening the tongues of three wagons together, so as to make a tripod, they hanged the captured Indian, who happened to be Pocatello's father. Whatever Pocatello's conduct up to that time had been, he at once became an implacable foe of the whites.

At the time of his father's supposed death, Franklin, Idaho, near the Utah border, was being settled by immigrants. Pocatello directed his hatred towards them with constant harassment, but full-scale war did not break out until March 1862 when the Shoshonis struck at every stage station in a wide area. Overland Trail employees were completely unprepared for the Indian attacks, and the trail was effectively closed for a while. Almost every single horse and mule owned by the company in Shoshoni country was taken by the Indians. Numerous other Indian attacks against the whites were made during this period. Relief did not come until September 10, 1862, when Colonel Connor and his California Volunteers were sent to Salt Lake City to curb Indian disturbances.

Strong feelings against Indians often existed among the white population, aroused in part by newspaper horror stories about the Indians in the region. After one Indian attack the Deseret News told its readers:

One little girl five years old had both her legs cut off at the knees; her ears were also cut off and her eyes were dug out from their sockets, and to all appearances the girl, after having her legs cut off, had been compelled to walk on the stumps — for the sole purpose of gratifying the hellish propensity of savage barbarity.

In January 1863 Connor decided to defeat the Indians once and for all, and to take no prisoners. Insisting that the whole operation had to be a complete surprise, he ordered his troops to leave Salt Lake City at night on January 22. They continued to travel only at night and rested during the day. Chief Bear Hunter nevertheless heard about the troop movements in Franklin, Idaho, but felt the Indians could deal with the soldiers. Although the Indian leader quickly went to his camp to warn of the pending attack, adequate preparations apparently were not made.

At the Battle of Bear River in Idaho on the morning of January 29, Colonel Connor was able to defeat the Shoshonis decisively. At first the soldiers did poorly, for the Indians were well dug-in and had taken advantageous positions. But when Connor attacked the flanks of the Indians it turned into a massacre. Connor lost 23 of his men, with 44 wounded and 79 disabled by freezing. As many as 400 Indians were killed, including Bear Hunter, but Chief Pocatello had left the day before. After the battle the Shoshoni Indians did not again make a major effort to resist the whites.

Colonel Connor was not completely satisfied with the brilliant victory (after which he became a brigadier general). As he said, "The chiefs Pocatello and San Pitch, with their bands of murderers, are still at large." The soldier voiced his "determination to visit the most summary punishment, even to extermination, on Indians who committed depredations upon the lives and property of emigrants or settlers." Then during April 1863, rumors reached the frustrated Connor that the elusive Pocatello was in fact looking for a fight with him.

At the beginning of June 1863 Connor left Salt Lake City with cavalry for the purpose of capturing and killing dangerous Indians. However, when they met a band of Shoshonis they merely told them they would be punished like the Indians had been at Bear River if they misbehaved. Chief Pocatello was not found.

The following month Connor noticed that the Shoshonis had come under the control of the peace-loving Chief Washakie, and, as a result, the Indians were "in quiet contentment near Bridger." Pocatello himself sent a message to Connor indicating that even he was desperate for peace and wanted a meeting with the general. He told Connor he had been forced to leave his homeland and had only a few followers left. Connor replied that he was sure there would be everlasting peace in the near future. In a report Connor declared, "Thus at last I have the pleasure to report peace with the Indian on all hands, save only a few hostile Gosiutes west and north of Deep Creek."

To formalize these new feelings of good will, a treaty was signed with Pocatello's northwestern band at Box Elder (Brigham City), Utah, on July 30, 1863. Connor attended this and other treaty councils because it was felt the Indians would respect his ruthlessness. The treaty with Pocatello provided that the road to the Beaverhead gold mines in Montana would not be subject to attacks by Pocatello's Indians, nor would the roads going to southern Oregon and northern California. Under the treaty, which determined the boundaries of Shoshoni territory, the Indians received $2,000 immediately and a general increase of annuities to $5,000. The promised annuity goods were to compensate for the loss of grassland and wild game destroyed or killed by settlers. The treaty optimistically proclaimed that there would be eternal peace and friendship between the white man and the Shoshonis. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty but with amendments that required government authorities in 1864 to secure the agreement of the affected Indians before the treaty became final.

Events took a new turn on October 20, 1864, when Paul Coburn, assistant superintendent of the Overland Stage Line, made an official trip to the company's stage stations in Utah. At the Malad Spring station frightened employees told him that Chief Pocatello had visited the station and had taken almost all the food belonging to them. Indians in Pocatello's band had done the same thing several times before.

Next Coburn visited the Elk Horn station and found Pocatello there. The chief had ordered the wife of the station stockherder to cook for him and his wife and had taken some flour. When Coburn asked Pocatello if he was demanding "tithing along the Stage Line," Pocatello answered yes.

Two days later Coburn went to Camp Douglas near Salt Lake City and made a statement to Capt. Charles H. Hempstead, the post marshal. When Connor, the camp commander, heard the news he became very angry and ordered the arrest of Pocatello. He chose not to tell O. H. Irish, the superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, of his order even though his office was only a short distance away.

However, on October 24 Irish heard rumors of what was happening and asked Hempstead about it. Hempstead told him "that Gen. Connor had sent to arrest Pocatello, and that he would try him, and if guilty of the offences charged in the affidavit, — he would hang him." Chief Pocatello was at this time on his way to see Irish about treaty affairs and had gone freely through local settlements.

The following day Pocatello was arrested by a company of Nevada Volunteers who took him to Camp Douglas where he was put in the guard house. Captain Hempstead went to Irish's office that evening and asked him to come to the camp the next morning and see the prisoner. Irish relayed the information he had received on Pocatello to Territorial Gov. James Duane Doty.

Early the next day Irish and Doty visited Connor's headquarters. When Pocatello was brought in, he denied having stolen food from two stage stations. Irish described what happened then:

Gen. Connor in reply to a suggestion from me that he [Pocatello] might be handed over to the U.S. Courts to be tried under the laws provided for such cases said, "that more than twenty of his soldiers were buried within sight; killed by this murderer and his band, and he should take the sole responsibility of punishing him, if guilty" — He said if guilty of the offenses charged he would send Pocatello back to his country where he had committed his depredations and there erecting a gallows hang him between Heaven and Earth, a warning to all bad Indians.

I may here say that it is admitted by all that this chief was not at the Battle of Bear River at all, and while these men of Gen. Connor's Command were killed in that Battle, at the same time they had their revenge by killing as he reports some hundreds of Indians.

Irish thought that Connor "ought not to punish Pocatello with death, even if the Military Commission found him guilty of all that was charged." In contrast, "Gen. Connor said that because of the bad conduct of Pocatello before the Treaty was made, he would punish him with death, if he was found guilty of these charges." On this day, October 26, Connor formally ordered the trial of Pocatello.

Twenty-four hours later Superintendent Irish wrote to Connor strongly objecting to the execution of Chief Pocatello. He believed that Pocatello should be severely punished if guilty but that the death sentence was not justified. Irish felt that "Our Indian relations so far as maintaining peace along and in the vicinity of the Overland route and generally throughout this rich mining country . . . still are so delicate and the interests involved in the preservation of peace so important, that in our opinion the greatest care should be taken on the part of the Government. . . ." He considered an Indian war a distinct possibility if Pocatello was executed, although "The Indians within this Superintendency are peaceful. . . ." The superintendent claimed that no white man had been killed since the Shoshoni treaty in 1863. Furthermore, since the annuities to the Indians had been late, it was conceivable that Chief Pocatello needed food. Connor himself had predicted how the Indians might react to the delay in their annuities. Executing Pocatello, Irish wrote, would "create distrust, a feeling of revenge & desperation on the part of the Indians which will be manifested in the commission of depredations and murders, and may eventually end in an Indian war." The superintendent resented that Connor took "the sole responsibility of the arrest, trial, and if he be found guilty of the offences charged, of the punishment of the Chief Pocatello."

Refusing to give up on the matter, Irish wrote to Commissioner Dole on October 29, 1864, that Connor was determined to hang Pocatello. The superintendent's offer to repay lost supplies had been rejected because it was "too trifling." He warned Dole, "It is my firm conviction that if Gen. Connor is permitted to proceed, as he declared he will do, to hang Pocatello that the consequences will be an Indian war. ... I find leading men of all parties, warriors and gentiles concur. . . ." In fact the northern bands of the Shoshonis had already gone to the mountains planning for war.

As already mentioned, early in November the tense situation concerning Pocatello's life was settled. On November 4 Ben Holladay, proprietor of the Northern Stage Line, asked Connor not to punish Pocatello because of the trivial nature of his offenses. Connor turned Pocatello over to Irish, who released him.

At the superintendent's direction, the chief immediately set out for Box Elder to gather his people together for a meeting with Irish the following week. As planned, the northwestern bands of the Shoshonis met with Irish and Governor Doty at Box Elder to discuss the amendments to the treaty and to distribute annuity goods. Irish told Dole:

We accomplished the purpose for which we visited them to our entire satisfaction and apparently to theirs. These have in times past been the most troublesome Indians in this Superintendency, they now seem remarkably well disposed toward the Government, my successful efforts on behalf of "Pocatello" has had a most salutary effect and I apprehend no further difficulties with them.

In his later years Pocatello mellowed and ceased hating the whites. For example, he became friendly with a white man, Judge Walter Taylor Oliver, who wrote that, "As I remember Chief Pocatello [in 1878] he was about 70 years old, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, straight as a sapling and a pretty good-looking old man. He was always pleasant and I have spent many hours talking with him for he often came to see me and my wife, sort of liked us, sometimes he would stay three or four days and camp a few rods from my house." Pocatello often wore the uniform of a U.S. Army colonel:

General Pocatello was always dressed in a colonel's uniform, cast off by some of the officers at Ross Fork, and wore a fine sword at his side which had been given him by the officers. He was very proud of his uniform and wore it all the time. By reason of this he was called General. He was buried in this uniform and the sword with him.

Pocatello wandered in company with several families, dogs, and horses. Accounts vary on the date of his death, but it appears to have been in April 1881 after a long illness. He received an elaborate and unusual funeral. He was buried in a deep spring near American Falls, Idaho, with about ten of his horses and many of his possessions so that he could continue to use them in his afterlife.

Tragically, Lincoln's hopes for peace on the frontier and conciliation with the Indians and the South were not realized. Only four days after his order not to execute Chief Pocatello was given, hundreds of peaceful Cheyenne Indians were murdered at Sand Creek in Colorado, starting another horrible Indian war. Then, a few months later, the president's assassination ended hopes for a mild Reconstruction in the South.

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