RIEL AGAIN
Some years ago a well-known Senator told me that he was at a dinner
party in Sir John Macdonald's house in Ottawa, when a telegram was
delivered to the Premier at the table. He read it and put it under his
plate. Nothing could be gained by throwing that bombshell in the midst
of his guests. But in a few minutes, as the friends were saying
good-night, Sir John came to the door with the Senator and said, "Mac,
there's the very mischief to pay in the North-West." The wire had
communicated the news of the Duck Lake fight, by which the rebellion,
under that mad egoist, Louis Riel, was publicly staged in its opening
act. And the Senator told me he recalled for all the years that followed
the look on the Premier's face as one of pained surprise and unexpected
shock. If the Senator was a good reader of faces and read that
expressive countenance aright, he could doubtless see indications of
pain, for Sir John was a tender-hearted man. But, if he saw surprise on
the face of the Premier, it is proof positive that official pigeon-holes
in the West had not divulged their secrets to Ottawa, or that his
subordinates were hoping to quell the discontent of the half-breeds on
the Saskatchewan without worrying the "old chieftain" unduly.
And this we say because the outbreak of rebellion was a surprise to
Western residents only in the sense that the resort to arms was
considered unlikely. But every one knew something of the discontent. The
Mounted Police saw it coming to a head, and Superintendent Crozier, who
was in command at Fort Carleton, on the North Saskatchewan, has reported
in July, 1884, some eight months before the outbreak, that Riel had been
brought from Montana to champion the "rights" of the half-breeds.
Superintendent Gagnon, who understood their language well, reported as
to Riel's presence and the discontent of the half-breeds more than once.
The causes of the discontent were not far to seek. Many of the
half-breeds on the South Saskatchewan were the same who had taken part
in Riel's first rebellion on the Red River fifteen years before. They
were not people of a settled temperament. They did not take naturally to
the farm. There was enough of the Indian blood in them to make them
nomadic hunters rather than settlers, and enough of the fiery volatility
of French blood to make them susceptible to the appeals of aggressive
agitation. And Riel, though not specially anxious to fight himself, was
a past master in stirring others up to get into conflicts. And when
Superintendent Crozier notified the Government that this hot-headed,
vain but magnetic agitator had come amongst his old compatriots, steps
should have been taken to deport him, or otherwise put him where he
could do no harm.
Gagnon was quite right when he stated later that the main cause of the
discontent amongst the half-breeds was the introduction by the
Government of the rectangular survey of land on the prairie. Under this
system settlers had to hold their farms in square blocks of 160 acres or
more, and in consequence such settlers would be necessarily some
distance apart. This was not to the mind of the half-breeds, who were
more given to social gatherings than to agriculture, and who preferred
the old survey that they knew on the Red River and the Assiniboine,
where their holdings were in narrow strips fronting on the river and
running two miles back. To introduce this on the prairie, the Government
contended, would lead to confusion, and so it was easy for the agitator
to stir up discontent amongst these inflammable people who had always
been accustomed to the freedom of the plains. It was easy for the orator
to say that the Government was trying to break up their old social
customs, and when such a statement was followed up by saying that their
patents giving them title to land were being long delayed, and that
possibly they would never be granted at all, a live coal had fallen on
material as combustible as the dry grass on the prairie. And once the
half-breeds began to consider revolt it was not hard for them to stir up
certain bad Indians with the proposal that by combining they could drive
out the whites and have the country to themselves again.
In any case our main interest in this book is the story of the Mounted
Police, and we repeat that they did their duty in warning the
authorities a long distance ahead. When their warning was not heeded and
the flame of rebellion broke out, they, as this story will show, did
more than their share in putting out the fire where it had started, and
in preventing it from spreading, as it might have done, over the whole
country.
We have quoted Superintendent Crozier's warning. Let us notice also the
testimony of another experienced officer, Superintendent Sam B. Steele.
It appears that in 1884, when Steele was still in command at Calgary,
Mr. Magnus Begg, Indian agent of the Blackfeet, reported that the former
friendly attitude of those Indians seemed to be changing to one of
sulkiness and hostility. Steele asked him about a certain half-breed who
had been with Riel in Montana, and Begg, on being given the description,
said he was in the camp with Chief Crowfoot. Steele sent and had this
half-breed arrested, but he escaped by making a leap from the train. And
when next day Colonel Irvine and Superintendent Herchmer came to Calgary
to take over the command from Steele, who was under orders for duty in
the mountains, he reported the facts to them with his conviction that
the half-breed was one of Riel's runners trying to stir up the Indians.
They asked Steele to stay over and arrest him in Crowfoot's camp, and
taking two men with him, Walters and Kerr, well known for their strength
and reliability, he went to the camp, and, through L'Hereux, the
interpreter there, demanded the half-breed, whom he found in Crowfoot's
tent. Crowfoot, with the half-breed beside him and his chief men around
him, had evidently been imposed upon by sinister Riel propaganda, and
seemed to be quite hostile. He sprang up and faced Steele threateningly
as he entered the tent, but the giant policeman waved him back and told
him it would be the worse for him if he started anything, because he had
come for the half-breed and that he was going to take him, as the Police
always did when they started after a man. Then Steele, suiting the
action to the word, seized the half-breed by the back of the collar,
whirled him round, and, dragging him out of the tent door, handed him
over to the two stalwart constables, who lifted him into the buckboard
and drove away. Steele remained behind for a while, and told Crowfoot
that he had been misled by the half-breed, and addressing also the
hostile-looking band of Indians present, the Superintendent told them
that the half-breed had spoken to them with a forked tongue, and that it
would be sensible for them to remain friendly with the Government and
the Police. Steele told Superintendent Herchmer, when he came back to
Calgary, that he was sure Riel was going to make serious trouble, and
that he had runners like this half-breed in other places amongst the
Indians, and the sooner the Government knew it the better. So the Police
were doing their part to forewarn the authorities, but the men at Regina
and Ottawa either did not get all these warnings, or else they treated
them too lightly.
And, accordingly, Riel, down at Batoche on the South Saskatchewan, kept
up the agitation, and in the atmosphere of the adulation of his
half-breed admirers his characteristic vanity asserted itself till,
refusing to acknowledge the authority of either Church or State, he
looked on himself as a sort of Divinely ordained leader. Rattle-brained
as he was, he possessed elements of strength and magnetism enough to get
a large following in a short time, and, assuming the name of "Louis
'David' Riel, Exovede," he took the aggressive by plundering some
stores, arresting the Indian agent and others, and sending a flamboyant
message to Superintendent Crozier to come with his men and surrender to
the rebel chief. Crozier, who had done splendid service at Wood
Mountain, Cypress Hills and elsewhere, was not the kind of man to
surrender, but with the hope that he might avert trouble and
incidentally give the Government time to mobilize the long-delayed
reinforcements, he offered personally to meet Riel and discuss the whole
matter with him. Riel, however, would not venture out, and so Crozier
sent Mr. Thomas McKay, a well-known Prince Albert man and native of the
country, to see him at his headquarters. When McKay reached Riel's
council room at Batoche he found things at white heat. Riel told him
excitedly that there was to be a war of extermination, during which the
"two curses," the Government and the Hudson's Bay Company, and all who
sympathized with them were to be driven out of the country. "You don't
know what we are after," shouted Riel to McKay; "we want blood,
blood--it's blood we want." McKay had a cool head and so sparred for
time, till the rebel sobered down somewhat and then McKay left and
returned to Carlton, where he reported to Crozier. Next day, in answer
to a request from Riel, McKay and Mitchell, a merchant of Duck Lake,
with Crozier's consent, met two of Riel's men, Nolin and Maxime Lepine
(a brother of Riel's adjutant in the Red River revolt), who demanded
again the surrender of Fort Carlton. This, of course, was refused, and
in a few days rebellion was rampant, with this man, half-knave,
half-madman at its head.
The first clash came on March 26, 1885, when Crozier sent out a small
detachment of Police with a few civilian volunteers from Prince Albert,
under the general direction of that experienced and fearless
frontiersman, Thomas McKay, above named, to bring in to Fort Carlton
some Government stores from Mitchell's trading place above mentioned.
This little detachment, of some twenty all told, were met when near Duck
Lake by that mischievous Indian, Chief Beardy, with his warriors and
Riel's fighting Lieutenant, a famous half-breed plainsman, Gabriel
Dumont, this rebel force being estimated by Duck Lake residents at
between 300 and 400 men, all well armed, though all did not appear then
on the field. A confab took place, Beardy and Dumont being very
insolent, and endeavouring evidently to get Crozier's men to begin
hostilities so that the rebels might wipe them out. But McKay, though
boldly standing his ground, would not be drawn, and after a somewhat
stormy interview, retired to Carlton, daring the rebels to follow.
In the meantime, the Commissioner, Colonel A. G. Irvine, a careful and
conscientious officer, who had succeeded MacLeod in command of the
Police in 1880, wired from Regina to Ottawa and got orders to take all
available men, less than 100, and proceed to Prince Albert, as that
whole section of country was exposed to the utmost danger. Irvine made a
record march through slush and snow, outwitted Riel's forces at South
Saskatchewan by going through their zone, and arriving at Prince Albert
with horses so used up by the spring roads that a day had to be taken to
get them able to go further. He had received word from Carlton that
there was no immediate likelihood of trouble, but he lost no time in
pressing on to that point, reaching there in the afternoon of March 26,
only to find that Crozier had gone out that day to Duck Lake with his
handful of police and civilian volunteers and had just returned after
experiencing a reverse.
At that time, and later in his formal report, Irvine expressed keen
regret that Crozier, knowing the Commissioner to be within 50 miles with
reinforcements, had not waited. But Crozier had been true to the Police
record of not counting odds when duty seemed clear. And so, when his
first small detachment, under Thomas McKay, had come back, the
Superintendent doubtless felt that unless he acted at once, the rebels
would say that the Police could be bluffed, and would thus be able to
call to the cause of the revolt hundreds of half-breeds and Indians, who
would take courage from the apparent apathy or weakness of the
Government forces. Besides this, it became known later that the
volunteers from Prince Albert were anxious to settle the rebels, as
their homes were menaced by the uprising.
So the Duck Lake fight took place between Crozier, Inspector Howe, with
Surgeon Miller and fifty-three men of the Mounted Police, aided by
forty-one civilian volunteers from Prince Albert, under Captains Moore
and Morton, a total of ninety-nine on the one side against Gabriel
Dumont, Chief Beardy and a force of nearly 400 half-breeds and Indians
on the other. The rebels first used a flag of truce, and under cover of
conference partially outflanked our men on the one side, while the rest
of their forces were well concealed under cover of log buildings and
brush. The thing was too unequal, and our men, after fighting in the
open with the utmost coolness and courage against a practically hidden
enemy, gathered up their nine dead and five wounded, who needed care,
and retired in good order to Carlton. The loss of the rebels, who
concealed their dead, was not known, but Gabriel Dumont was wounded by a
bullet which plowed along his head and felled him to the ground. A few
years later Mr. Roger Goulet, a famous loyalist French half-breed
land-surveyor in Winnipeg, who was on the Commission to inquire into the
question of half-breed rights, said to me: "The Duck Lake fight was
worth while, because Gabriel Dumont's wound, which I saw later when he
took off his hat to make an affidavit, cooled his ardour to such an
extent that he was timid for the rest of the campaign, or the rebellion
might have lasted much longer." Goulet's theory possibly accounts for
the fact that Dumont, whose judgment was for a night attack on
Middleton's camp at Fish Creek, gave up the idea rather swiftly when
Riel did not seem to see its advisability. When Colonel Irvine reached
Carlton, as related, and found out how things stood, the immediate thing
to settle was as to whether he should hold that post or not. This was
not hard to decide. Carlton was simply a Hudson's Bay post without
population, while Prince Albert was the largest white community in the
whole region. The people there must be protected as a first duty, and it
was only fair to the Prince Albert volunteers, who had left their homes
and came so splendidly to the aid of the little body of Police, that the
latter in turn should not leave those homes exposed to the barbarities
of the rebels now intoxicated by a certain success. Accordingly, Fort
Carlton was abandoned. It took fire from a hospital mattress and an
over-heated stove, just as the Police were leaving, and burned to the
ground. Irvine and his men, with their wounded, arrived in due course at
Prince Albert, which they found full of refugees from surrounding
homesteads as well as the town. Most of these refugees were in the
church there, which they had surrounded with a wall of cordwood in dread
of attack. The women and children were wild with apprehension of
possibly falling into the hands of Beardy's tribe. And there was a band
of Sioux to the north that it was feared might at any moment assert
their traditional love of the warpath.
[Illustration: COL. T. A. WROUGHTON. Asst.-Commissioner in command at
Vancouver, B.C. _Photo. Steffens-Colmer, Vancouver._]
[Illustration: LIEUT.-COL. AYLESWORTH BOWEN PERRY, C.M.G. Commissioner
since 1900. _Photo. Rossie, Regina._]
[Illustration: COL. CORTLANDT STARNES. Senr. Asst.-Commissioner, Ottawa.
_Photo. Topley, Ottawa._]
HEADQUARTERS STAFF, 1921.
[Illustration: R.N.W.M.P. WOOD CAMP. CHURCHILL RIVER.]
The Duck Lake fight, with its balance in favour of the rebels,
encouraged Big Bear up near Fort Pitt to rebel and do all the damage he
could, starting in with the massacre of nine white men, Government
agents, etc., on the reserve and imprisoning the rest, including the
Hudson's Bay factor and his family, who gave themselves up to the
Indians at Fort Pitt. It stirred up the powerful Cree element under
Poundmaker at Battleford, where depredations were committed, and where
the white people barricaded behind stockades suffered siege and the
imminent danger of famine and attack for many weeks. It sent its echoes
down into the south-west part of the territories where the warlike
Blackfeet confederacy had its centre. At each of these points, as at
Prince Albert, the few Mounted Police that were on duty became a literal
tower of strength. At Battleford, Inspector Morris, with his few men,
organizing also a home guard, guarded nearly 400 women and children who
sought refuge inside the stockade. And Constable Storer, riding out
alone from that stockade, when all the wires were cut, though pursued
for 60 miles, carried the dispatch to the relieving column at Swift
Current. At Fort Pitt, in the Big Bear country, Inspector Francis
Dickens, son of the famous novelist, with a mere handful of men, one of
whom, young Cowan, was killed by the Indians, and another, Loasby, was
wounded, held that Hudson's Bay post until the factor and his family and
employees gave themselves up to the Indians, when Dickens, having no
farther object in staying there, dropped down the river to Battleford
and took part in the fight against Poundmaker. And away in the
south-west, where the whole region was charged with the electricity of
revolt, the masterly hand of Superintendent Cotton, a cool, courageous
and diplomatic officer, ably assisted by Inspector Antrobus and Surgeon
Kennedy, was able to restrain the most dangerous of the Indian tribes in
the West. Superintendent McIllree commanded at Maple Creek and Medicine
Hat, and kept a constant eye by scouting parties on the Cypress Hills
region, and Inspector McDonnell's services at Wood Mountain were of much
value. Superintendent Deane was in charge at headquarters in Regina, and
did a great deal of important work in recruiting men and using his
influence for peace amongst Indians, such as Chief Pie-a-Pot and others.
Northward, in the Edmonton country, where there were great numbers of
Indians, amongst whom Riel and Big Bear had runners, that experienced
soldier, Inspector A. H. Griesbach, "the father of the Police Force," as
he was often called, accomplished tasks of first importance by holding
Fort Saskatchewan, where many settlers took refuge, and by assisting
with the organization of the Edmonton Home Guards, as well as patrolling
the whole region round about. No one who knew the situation as it really
existed at that critical hour, could ever dream of apportioning honours
differently to men who were actually in action and those who stood guard
over helpless settlers, or prevented by determined diplomacy the
uprising of the Indians in their localities.
Some who did not know the situation--arm-chair critics at a safe
distance--levelled some darts of fault-finding at Colonel Irvine at
Prince Albert, and I write a paragraph or two in reply, because I know
whereof I speak. I have some reasons for claiming to know Prince Albert,
which was founded as a mission and named by some of my relatives in
1866. At the time of the rebellion there were two brothers and a sister,
as well as many other relations there whom I saw on my way down the
Saskatchewan after the rebellion was over. They knew that some people in
the East had raised the question as to Irvine remaining at Prince Albert
during the rebellion. But they spoke with indignation in regard to all
such critics, and said if these people who were talking in that way only
knew what panic would have ensued if the Police had been withdrawn, and
how likely it was that the whole settlement would have been pillaged and
probably wiped out, the criticism would cease. If the British way is
"women and children first," then the duty of protecting them against
death or worse comes before the desire to save oneself from possible
criticism. The Mounted Police, in over ten years' previous service on
the plains, had established an unprecedented reputation for courage
under all circumstances, and wherever in the rebellion time they had
opportunity in the field, they shone out conspicuously as men who had no
thought of self when fighting was the duty of the hour. In proportion to
the numbers engaged, more men of the Mounted Police were killed or
wounded than any other military body in the field. But when savages were
on the warpath, and defenceless people, principally women and children,
rushed for refuge to Prince Albert, Battleford or any other point,
nothing could be so un-British, not to say inhuman, as to abandon them
for the more exciting life on the field. Not only on Western plains, but
in India and other such portions of the Empire, has this been
exemplified. This much is said from the viewpoint of the ordinary
sensible and chivalrous onlooker. But more can be stated.
When the rebellion started with the fight at Duck Lake, the Government
dispatched General Middleton from Ottawa to the West. The plan of
campaign outlined had three objectives. General Middleton was to attack
Riel at Batoche, where the rebel headquarters were; Colonel Otter was to
march from Swift Current to the relief of Battleford, where Poundmaker's
band was in arms; and General Strange, a veteran of many years' service,
was to mobilize at Calgary whatever forces he could muster and go
northward into the Big Bear country, to relieve the Edmonton district,
settle with Big Bear and release the prisoners he had taken at Frog Lake
and Fort Pitt. Middleton, a good soldier and a brave man personally, was
in the supreme command of all the forces in the field, including the
Police, and it is not too much to say that he asserted that fact very
strongly all through the campaign, partly because of natural disposition
and partly because he under-estimated the value of the "raw soldiers" of
Canada, as he called them in a famous dispatch. Withal, while he was
totally unaccustomed to the kind of warfare he was facing, he was not
given to receive counsel from those who did know, and from close
personal contact with the situation at the time, as well as from careful
study since, I feel that General Middleton rather resented the dominant
place of the Mounted Police in the mind of the West, and was more ready
to make some slighting remarks about them than to take their counsel.
And this I say without seeking to disparage the general quality or the
personal valour of the officer in supreme command.
Hence it was that General Middleton never intimated in any way to
Colonel Irvine that he or any of his men should leave Prince Albert and
come to the seat of war at Batoche. On the contrary, Majors Bedson and
Macdowell, who made their way to Prince Albert from Middleton's camp by
way of Carrot River, told Irvine that the General wished the Police to
stay where they were and look out for the scattered half-breeds. And one
day, when things were quieted around Prince Albert and Irvine made a
reconnaissance in force to the south as far as Scott's, some 14 miles
out, he was met by one of Middleton's scouts with a message to return to
Prince Albert.
That the above represents General Middleton's general attitude is
further attested by the fact that when Riel's stronghold fell and
Middleton was on his way by Prince Albert to close the campaign by
proceeding against Chiefs Poundmaker and Big Bear, he declined Irvine's
offer to go with him with his men, who knew the country and the Indians
at first hand. Irvine offered to take his men, carrying their own
rations, and go a day ahead of the General, or to go on the other side
of the river, but was refused. Yet orders came back to Irvine a few
hours later to go to Carlton, which he did, arriving there before
Middleton, and sending out scouting parties in search of Big Bear's band
that, as we shall see in a later page, had been scattered by Strange's
column. It was not long before one of these Police scouting parties had
captured Big Bear with some others and landed them in the jail at Prince
Albert. And it is rather interesting to recall that it was big Tom
Hourie, a Police interpreter, accompanied by two Police scouts,
Armstrong and Diehl, who captured Riel and took him into Middleton's
tent at Batoche. It is also interesting at this point to reproduce an
overlooked extract from a letter written by the Earl of Minto, who, as
Lord Melgund, was chief of General Middleton's staff, and who,
therefore, wrote out of personal knowledge of the situation. After
speaking of our three main columns, this fine soldier, who was wounded
on duty, says:
"Besides these three columns there was another force in the
field--the North-West Mounted Police detachment, under Colonel
Irvine, the value of which has always seemed to me underrated. The
fact of Colonel's Irvine's force being at Prince Albert afforded a
safe refuge to many outlying settlers, and, if it had not been
there, the task General Middleton had to solve would have been
quite a different one. Hampered, as Colonel Irvine was, by the
civilian population of the settlement and by a difficult country,
the possibility of successful junction with Middleton must always
have been doubtful, whilst the moral effect of the force at Prince
Albert was certain."
I have gone ahead of the history in mentioning the capture of Big Bear,
the pursuit of whom is the record of General Strange's column which, as
already noted, mobilized at Calgary. In addition to the 65th Rifles of
Montreal, the Winnipeg Light Infantry, with whom I served, and some
irregular scouts under Major Hattin and Osborne, we had two Mounted
Police detachments, one from the mountains under Inspector Sam B.
Steele, and the other from Fort MacLeod under Inspector A. Bowen Perry,
the present able Commissioner of the Force. Both these officers, coming
at that time under the command of General Strange in the Militia, were
given the Militia rank of Major. Steele enlisted a number of men, mostly
ex-Mounted Policemen, as scouts, his whole corps, thus augmented, being
generally called Steele's scouts. Perry, who was selected by
Superintendent Cotton on account of special fitness, brought with him a
nine-pounder gun, which did unique service in demoralizing and
scattering Big Bear's murderous and pillaging band, to whose outrages we
have already referred. These two Police detachments became the tentacles
of our column and the mainspring of its ultimate success.
Of the two officers Steele was the senior in years and in length of
service. He had been in the Red River Expedition, and was in the School
of Gunnery at Kingston, when he enlisted in the Mounted Police at its
organization and worked his way up from the ranks. Powerfully built, he
had all the appearance and carriage of a frontier soldier, accustomed to
unexpected situations and always ready for any action that might be
necessary. Perry attracted me first by his stalwart appearance and fine
horsemanship. Even in a country where riding was a fine art, Perry was a
distinguished figure on a horse, and later on I discovered that he made
a point of doing everything well. He was a graduate of the Royal
Military College, and had served with the Royal Engineers before joining
up with the Mounted Police, where his genius for thorough administration
and his general popularity raised him to the highest position in the
Force.
The news from the North coming to us at Calgary, indicated that the
whole country north of the Red Deer River to Edmonton and beyond was
full of rather surly and hostile Indians, who would rise at any moment
if they thought there were any chances of success. Hence, General
Strange, a thorough-going soldier greatly beloved by all of us,
determined to push on to Edmonton with all speed accompanied by Steele.
We of the Winnipeg Light Infantry waited a few days till Perry could
reach us from MacLeod, and then we also started north under his
guidance. We forded the Bow River, but when we got to the Red Deer we
found it flooded by the spring freshets into what our Adjutant
Constantine, who later did such splendid service with the Mounted
Police, called, in warning the men, "a wide, swift-flowing and
treacherous stream." Strange had crossed before the river rose, but how
we were to get over was a problem. Our chances of getting on to the
north looked slim. It was well that Perry, whose service with the Royal
Engineers meant something, was along in command of the column. He
decided to throw a rope across with the little skiff, which was the only
thing in sight and then construct and cross by a swinging raft. The raft
was constructed under his direction, and his own detachment of Police,
with the gun and ammunition and harness put on board. Of course, he went
himself, as he never asked his men to go anywhere without him. Things
went fairly till near the other side, when the rope made out of the
picketing lines of the horses broke by binding round the tree, from
which it was being paid out, and the raft began to go down the raging
current. At the risk of their lives Perry and Constable Diamond,
grasping another rope, plunged into the torrent and managed to reach the
shore and fasten it to a tree. But the current was too strong and this
rope gave way. The boat went down a mile or so and, being caught in an
eddy, was beached, and the stuff on board dragged up a steep cut bank.
Then Perry commandeered lumber from a primitive saw-mill down the river,
and built a ferry on which, in a day or two, we crossed. In the
meanwhile, as we were in the hostile Indian country, Perry had
accomplished the difficult task of crossing the 65th Regiment in the
little skiff, taking a whole dark night to do it. He kept our regiment
on the south side till the ferry was built. He thus had both sides
guarded against any attack. Once over the river, we made a quick march
100 miles to Edmonton, where General Strange paid a high compliment
publicly to Major Perry for the splendid way in which he had overcome
obstacles and got our relief column through in such good time. The
people of Edmonton gave us a hearty welcome, as their position in the
midst of a big Indian country was very serious for a time.
Big Bear, with the prisoners, was now treking away to the north, and it
was our business to overtake him. The Infantry went down the river,
while the Mounted Men went by trail near the river bank, or our clumsy,
open flatboats might have come under fire. Forced marching, from Fort
Victoria by Frog Lake to Fort Pitt, brought us to the scene of the Big
Bear's atrocities, as we saw from the Sun-dance Lodge, the mutilated
body of Constable Cowan and the charred remains of the nine white people
who had been massacred at Frog Lake reserve. Fort Pitt was burning, but
we saved two buildings. Big Bear and his marauding band in large force
had kept up their retreat and vanished, but whether it was on the north
side of the river, or the south side where they would effect a junction
with Poundmaker could only be ascertained by scouting parties.
Accordingly, General Strange at this point detailed Major Perry and
seventeen men of his detachment (keeping the rest for the nine-pounder
gun) to cross the river to the south side and move towards Battleford.
It was not an enviable duty, and as the men crossed the river in the
darkness and started their ride through a region that was supposed to be
infested with hundreds on the warpath, it looked rather like a last
patrol. However, after a hard ride they made Battleford to find that
Poundmaker had surrendered, Middleton having just then arrived. Perry
reported to Middleton with the information that Big Bear must be on the
north side, arranged for a steamer to go up with supplies, which we
needed very badly, and got on the steamer to return with his men. When
part of the way back he got word that we were engaged with Big Bear, and
so he landed his men and sent the steamer back to Battleford for
reinforcements. After one of the most severe and risky rides of the
campaign, Perry and his men rejoined us to find that his gunners under
Sergeant O'Connor, and the nine-pounder, had made fine gun practice, and
had been mainly instrumental in demoralizing the forces of Big Bear,
with whom we had been in contact for two hot days. General Strange was
much pleased with the way in which Major Perry had carried out the
difficult reconnaissance with a handful of men.
Meanwhile, after our fight with Big Bear and his flight from Frenchman's
Butte, where he had a strong and well-fortified position, Major Steele,
with his mounted detachment, had made a rush to Loon Lake, where, in a
rattling encounter during which Sergeant Fury was severely wounded, he
completed the defeat of Big Bear. Two days or so afterwards our scouts
crossed Gold Lake in birch canoes and secured the release of the
remaining prisoners of Big Bear, the others having come in to our lines
after the fight at Frenchman's Butte, where Constable Donald McRae,
still happily surviving, was wounded, but refused to leave the field
till he had exhausted his ammunition.
On the disbanding of the Alberta Field Force General Strange, who had
served ever since the Mutiny, warmly commended the Infantry, and
expressed the opinion that he had never commanded better soldiers than
were in the Mounted Police detachments, ready for all kinds of duty.
Preceding the surrender of Poundmaker, already mentioned, at Battleford,
the fight at Cut Knife Hill had occurred. Colonel Otter had made a swift
march from Swift Current to Battleford and relieved the beleaguered
garrison and civilians there. With Otter came Superintendents W. M.
Herchmer and Neale with a few Mounted Police. And when Otter decided to
go out and attack Poundmaker these, with the few who had been at
Battleford, and those who had come from Fort Pitt under Inspector
Dickens, made up seventy-five Police, who went on that errand with
Otter, and some 200 of his infantry and artillery. Just why Otter went
out has never been very clear, except that he possibly wished to punish
the band of Indians and prevent a possible junction of Poundmaker and
Big Bear. Anyway, the Police were under his command, and they went in
obedience to orders, as was their fashion. And the Police, being the
advance guard to Cutknife, and both the advance and rear guard on the
return, as well as in the hottest part of the fight for seven hours,
where they behaved with great gallantry, lost heavily in killed and
wounded in proportion to their numbers. It is not any reflection on the
gallantry of the other corps, who were totally unused to Indian warfare,
to say that it was the masterly tactics of the Police which extricated
the column from the ravine after Colonel Otter saw that it was not
advisable to continue the conflict against the large force of Indians
who had every advantage in position. A few days after this Poundmaker,
who was a very splendid-looking Indian, and who had given the order to
cease fire when Otter was retiring, came in and surrendered to General
Middleton, and the rebellion was practically over, though it was still a
few days before Big Bear was captured, as already related.
Perhaps there is no finer summing up of the services of the Mounted
Police during the rebellion than that given by Dr. A. Jukes, Senior
Surgeon of the Force, in his report at the end of that year. He says,
"While I must leave to those whose duty as combatant officers it more
especially becomes to record with sorrow, not unmingled with pride, the
names and services of the gallant men who have fallen unflinchingly in
the path of duty, I cannot withhold my humble tribute to the courage and
fortitude of the mere handful of Mounted Police who, fewer in numbers
than any battalion engaged in active operations, and generally far
over-matched by enemies wherever it was their privilege to meet them,
have left beneath the bosom of the prairie of their dead, 'killed in
action,' a number greater than that of any battalion in the field, save
one whose record, at least, they have equalled."
And one cannot close this chapter without emphasizing what has often
been overlooked by those who do not know Western affairs at first hand.
Looking back now over the years, one is not surprised to have to see
that the collapse of the rebellion, instead of leaving the Mounted
Police Force carefree, actually added to their burdens and ushered them
into a period of pronounced and continuous strain. The Militia, which
was made up of several thousands of men--infantry, artillery,
cavalry--all were withdrawn and scattered to their homes in various
parts of Canada. The Mounted Police stayed at their posts or moved from
place to place, as required in a readjustment period. The defeated
rebels and many of the Indians were in a sullen mood, the year had been
wasted from the standpoint of producing anything for food, the Indians
were off their reservations in some cases, in others the reservations
had been laid waste, and the buildings that had been erected for their
comfort had been burned or wrecked by themselves when the spirit of
destruction arose as they went on the warpath. Yet the officers and men
of this remarkable corps, without any cessation or furlough, took up the
ravelled skein of human life around them, and with great patience, skill
and tact, soon had things running smoothly again. It was a wonderful
piece of reconstructive statesman-like work and, as it proceeded, both
the half-breeds and Indians who had been disaffected began to regret
deeply the action they had been misled by agitators into taking contrary
to the advice of the men in the scarlet tunic, who had always been their
friends, and who always had stood for the square deal for every one. It
was not only not the fault of the Mounted Police, but largely through
ignoring their long-repeated warnings to the Government that the
rebellion had taken place. While it lasted these Police did their duty
like men at great cost without ever saying, "We told you so." And when
it was over they so comported themselves in the midst of a distracted
population that it could never occur again.