 | Joaquin Miller's Poems |  |
OLD GIB AT CASTLE ROCKS
His step is doubtful, slow,
And now men pass him by today:
But forty years ago—
Why forty years ago I say
Old Gib was good to know.
Where cars glide to and fro,
The Modoc held the world at bay,
And blood was on the snow.
Ay, forty years ago I say
Old Gib was good to know.
This valley lay in flame;
Up yonder pass and far away,
Red ruin swept the same:
Two women, with their babes at play,
Were butchered in black shame.
Old Gib loomed like a pine;
“Now will you fight, or will you fly?
I'll take a fight in mine.
Come let us fight; come let us die!”
There came just twenty-nine.
And, too, a motley crew
Of half-tamed red men; would they fly,
Or would they fight him too?
That was a time to do.
And growl in Castle Rocks,
Straight up till Shasta gleamed in snow,
And shot red battle shocks;
Till clouds lay shepherded below,
A thousand ghostly flocks.
No looking backward then;
His bare feet bled; the rocks were red
From torn, bare-footed men.
Yet up, up, up, till well nigh dead—
The Modoc in his den!
“Now, white man, what would you?
Behold my hundreds for the fight,
But yours so faint and few;
We are as rain, as hail at night
But you, you are as dew.
I will not fight so few;
Yet if I hear one rifle crack,
Be that the doom of you!
Back! down, I say, back down your track,
Back, down! What else to do?”
Brave men have died before;
And you shall fight, or you shall fly.
You find no women more,
Shall storm your Castle's door!”
Six thousand feet below,
Sweet Sacramento ceased to sing,
But wept and wept, for oh!
These arrows sting as adders sting,
And they kept stinging so.
And we can die as they;
But ah! my babe, my one year's bride!
And they so far away.
Brave Captain lead us back—aside,
Must all here die today?”
Yea, no man there that day—
No white man there but turned to red,
In that fierce fatal fray;
But Gib with set teeth only said:
“No; we came here to stay!”
But when the night came on,
No white man there was now afraid,
The last Modoc had gone;
His ghost in Castle Rocks was laid
Till everlasting dawn.
Parties with Indian depredation claims against the Government desiring exact information touching the first trouble with the Modocs, now nearly forty years ago, the venerable leader of the volunteers in the first battle made out, with his own hand, the following quaint account of it, swore to it before a Notary, and sent it to Washington. The italics, capitals, and all are as he set them down in his crude but truthful way.—
Frank Leslie's Magazine, 1893.I Reuben P. Gibson Was Born in Lowell Mass in 1826 of American Parents, shiped on board a whaler of New Bedford in 1846, Rounded Cape Horn, spent several years on the Pacific Ocean, and in 1846 landed in California. Came to the Mines in Shasta County California, and have lived here in Shasta County more than 40 years, most of which time I have been and am now a Magistrate. I have had much to do with Indians, and in 1855 they became Very Restless, and some of them took to the Castle Rocks, Called Castle del Diablo, at that time by the Mexicans, and they—the Hostiles began to destroy our Property, and Kill White people. Troops of the Regular Army tried to engage them, but found them inaccessible. I then raised a Company of Twenty-Nine White men and thirty Indian (friendly) Scouts and after hard Perilous Marches by Night. We engaged and destroyed the Hostiles, having taken Many Scalps. This battle was Fought in the Castle Rocks in this Shasta County and was in June 1855. The hostiles were Modocs and Other Renegades and this was the first Battle in a war that Spread all over the Coast I had Some Indians hurt, and one man mortally wounded, James Lane by name. Some Others were more or less hurt with Arrows. Joaquin Miller Received an Arrow in the face and Neck at my Side and we thought would die but at last got Well. He and Mountain Joe had a Post at Soda Springs below Castle Rocks, and their property had been destroyed and made untenable. In all My Experience I know of nothing in Indian warfare so effectual for good as this Campaign. The indians had Possessions of the lines of travel connecting Middle and Northern California and it Was impossible for the Mails to get through until the Hostiles were destroyed.
(Signed) Reuben P GibsonSubscribed and sworn to before me this 17th day of November, 1892, and I hereby certify that I am well acquainted with said affiant and know him to be a person of veracity and entitled to credit. He is a Justice of the Peace in this Shasta County.
[SEAL] F. P. Primm, Notary Public in and for Shasta County, Cal.Let me here introduce a line of facts stranger than anything imagined in all these pages. I had not intended to insert these verses and had delivered to my publishers the completed collection without them. Against my objection that the lines were not only too personal, but unequal, it was urged that they would be missed by my readers; besides their preservation was due to my old commander, and as this was the first of my three terrible Indian campaigns, and I had served only as private instead of leader, I could hardly be held guilty of egotism. Deference to the dead made me consent to try and find the lines at once in some library. On my way I met a man whom I knew but slightly as U. S. Marshal under President Hayes. My weary eyes were unequal to the task before me, and I asked him to go with me. This he did, and now let his letter tell the rest.
“Oakland, Dec. 20, 1896.“Joaquin, my dear fellow, I enclose herewith the copies you expressed a wish for. I think they are exact. I was especially careful in making the affidavit of Old Gib; so where he differs with Webster orthographically, I follow Gib.
“Now my boy, I've a little story. I'll be considerate and make it brief. In the early part of the summer of 1855, I was one of a company of about twenty that left Auburn, Placer Co., on a prospecting expedition, intending, unless we found satisfactory prospects nearer, to go to the Trinity. We crossed the Yuba and Feather, camping a few days on Nelson Creek, then traveling in a northwesterly direction, we reached the headwaters of the Sacramento, where we found a party of white men and Indians who, a day or two previous to our meeting them, had had a desperate fight with Indians. They told us they had lost several men, killed and wounded, but had nearly exterminated the Indians. I saw one of their men, a boy in appearance, who had, as I understood, received two arrow wounds in the face and neck. He was in great pain, and no one believed he could recover.
“Twelve years later I, then Sheriff of Placer Co., had occassion to go to Shasta on official business. W. E. Hopping was then Sheriff of Shasta Co. In the course of conversation with him, I spoke of the incident narrated above. He interrupted me, and said: ‘The Captain of the volunteers at the battle is in town.’ He found him, and introduced me to the man who was doubtless Old Gib, though his name has gone from my memory. I asked about the young fellow who was so desperately wounded. ‘Oh, he pulled through all right, the game little cuss,’ said he, ‘he's up in Oregon, I believe.’ I don't think he mentioned his name, but in copying the affidavit of Old Gib, it dawned upon me who that ‘game little cuss’ was.
Yours, A. W. Poole.” | Joaquin Miller's Poems | |