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Latest From the Lava Beds. Severe Fighting. Names of the Killed and Wounded.

Salt Lake City, 29 April 1873. Broadside, 11” x 8.125” (sheet size). Text in three columns. CONDITION: Good, but trimmed close at the top, possibly with the loss of a newspaper extra title; light soiling horizontal and vertical creases, two short tears at right of top margin.

An apparently unrecorded broadside detailing three bloody days in the final stages of the Modoc War, printed in Salt Lake City from a series of dispatches sent to San Francisco by U.S. troops pursuing Captain Jack (Kintpuash) and his comrades through the “Lava Beds” of northern California.

Vivid updates from April 26th through the early morning of April 28th, 1873, detail the bloody ambush and aftermath of the Battle of Sand Butte, when a U.S. reconnaissance force—pursuing the Modocs after they had eluded capture in their stronghold—was caught unprepared by the Modoc’s “severe fire” and forced “to seek such shelter as they could find in crevices and chasms.”

As usual the foe was unseen. The first position becoming untenable, owing to the fact that the Indians obtained both cross and flanking fire, and it was deemed expepient [sic] to retire to a better cover. In the first fire and that received during the retreat many fell killed or wounded, a list of which is appended. So severe was the fire, and so exposed the position, that up to seven o’clock p.m., only two wounded could go to camp, as nine wounded, including Lieut. Wright, of the 12th infantry, had sought shelter in a crevice which was particularly open [to] the Modoc fire. Great doubt exists as to their ultimate safety…troops were at once pushed forward to their rescue, four companies being ordered out, two of cavalry from this camp and two from Col. Mason’s. Stretchers for the conveyance of wounded were also forwarded. These latter are returning just now without having achieved the object for which they were intended. A bitter cold night at least before them it’s…possible…that some of them no longer heed cold or heat, their comrades…show plainly by their demeanor the heartfelt sorrow they feel for them, but are powerless in the matter.

Subsequent updates are dated “5:30 a.m., April 27,” “Later,” “5 P.M. April 27th,” “8:30 p.m. April 27,” and so on, and bring news of the killed and wounded, attempts made to rescue them, the shocked grief of the troops, the difficult terrain and the “treacherous” actions of the Modoc fighters (including their mistreatment of bodies), and so on. The morning after the attack brings word from “Col. Green, F[i]rst Cavalry,” that

the surprise has been much more complete and more terribly fatal than was at first supposed. The dispatch states that Captain Thomas, and Lieutenant A. K. Howe, Fourth Artillery, are killed, Lieutenant Harris, Fourth Artillery, badly, perhaps mortally, wounded, Lieutenant Cranston, Fourth Artillery, missing. A full list of the killed and wounded cannot now be obtained…The Modocs burned two of the bodies.

By 5:30 on the evening of the 27th, it is reported that sixteen dead, as well as a number of wounded, are still waiting to be conveyed back to camp—numbers that demonstrate “a large per centage of casualties from the small number of men engaged.” By night, reinforcements under Colonel Green are “expected momentarily” with the killed and wounded, and the hope is expressed that “The heavy rain now falling may be beneficial to the poor wounded men, alleviating their suffering and affording relief to their fevered limbs.”

The longest update, relaying “a second dispatch sent by Col. Moore” at 5 pm on the 27th, paints the scene of the conflict, with the challenging landscape (“so torn up by volcanic actions, leave crevices and these are adaptable to purposes either for hiding or defense”) and the risks incurred by U.S. soldiers and Warm Spring Scouts so unfamiliar with the landscape (“in several instances, the soldiers knowing nothing of the topography have come unawares on such fissures…Their positions were confronted with a wily Indian, his rifle leveled, his finger on the trigger…”). Blow by blow accounts of the fighting illustrate the “treachery and cunning” of the Modocs and the “well authenticated facts” (i.e., most likely embellished details) of U.S. troops’ bravery when surrounded by their “vindictive foe.” The final update, from 6 a.m. on April 28th, names “the killed and wounded” returning to camp, including the severity and location of their injuries, and mentions eight men “who were buried on the field whose names could not be ascertained.”

The Modoc War erupted in November of 1872, after years of Euro-American settlers encroaching on Modoc land and pushing for their forced relocation and elimination. A history of conflict with the Klamath and inadequate government support led many Modocs to escape the Klamath reservation in southern Oregon and return to their home. On November 28th, 1872, Major John Green set out with orders from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to again force the Modocs onto the reservation, and a series of deadly battles and skirmishes ensued. The Modocs killing of U.S. Peace Commissioners on April 11th, 1873, prompted an increase in U.S. forces in the region. Although the Modoc warriors outmaneuvered Green’s troops for a time, the band was forced repeatedly to move, attrition mounted, and Captain Jack ultimately surrendered. On October 3rd, 1863, he was hanged with several others who attacked the peace commissioners, and, shortly thereafter, over a hundred Modocs were sent as prisoners of war to the Quapaw Agency in Oklahoma, where a third of them would die from tuberculosis and substandard conditions.

No examples recorded in OCLC, and none recorded at auction.

A rare broadside conveying developing news from the U.S. Army in the immediate wake of their disastrous engagement with the Modocs at the tail end of the Modoc War.

Item #9792

Price: $3,750.00

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