re the command of Capt. Kelley was disbanded, Applegate's company
having been discharged at Linkville. I then returned to Salem and a few
days later paid a visit to Gen. Canby at Ft. Vancouver in company with
Governor L. F. Grover. The entire situation was gone over, Gen. Canby
expressing entire confidence in the ability of Gen. Wheaton and his
officers. Fortunate, indeed, would it have been had that brave officer
and splendid gentleman been left to develop and carry out his plans, but
unhappily that was not to be, for the churches succeeded in hypnotizing
the grim soldier in the White House, and the result was the "Peace
Commission."

Chapter XII.

The Peace Commission's Work.

A. B. Meacham was at that time in Washington. He had been superseded as
Superintendent of Indian Affairs by T. B. Odeneal. Meacham wanted the
place, and backed by the churches and humanitarians of New England,
thought he could accomplish his purpose by means of a compromise with
Jack and his band. He declared to President Grant that he knew Jack to
be an honorable man and that he could easily effect a compromise and
induce the outlaws to return to the reservation. Meantime a clamor went
up all over the country, especially in the east. Sentimentalists shed
barrels of tears over the wrongs of the Indians, the horrors of the Ben
Wright massacre were recapitulated with all manner of untruthful
variations, and the great Beecher from the pulpit of his Brooklyn
tabernacle sent up a prayer for "that poor, persecuted people whose long
pent up wrongs had driven them to acts of outrage and diabolical
murder." Delegations, at the instigation of Meacham, visited the White
House and finally succeeded in bending the iron will of the grim old
soldier to their own. The hands that slew the Bodys and Brothertons were
to be clasped in a spirit of brotherly love, and the principles and
precepts of the "Lowly Nazarene" were to be extended to these gentle
butchers.

Accordingly in February a commission was appointed consisting of A. B.
Meacham, Jesse Applegate, and S. Case. The commission arrived at
headquarters towards the last of February. They were instructed by the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs "to ascertain the causes which led to
hostilities between the Modocs and the U. S. troops;" to offer them a
reservation somewhere on the coast with immunity for past crimes. In
vain Gov. Grover of Oregon protested against any compromise with the
murderers of Orego