BANNACK IN 1862
It is charitable to believe that Henry Plummer came to Bannack intending
to reform, and live an honest and useful life. His deportment justified
that opinion. His criminal career was known only to two or three persons
as criminal as himself. If he could have been relieved of the fear of
exposure and of the necessity of associating with his old comrades in
crime, it is not improbable that his better nature would have triumphed.
He possessed great executive ability, a power over men that was
remarkable, a fine person, polished address, and prescient knowledge of
his fellows—all of which were mellowed by the advantages of a good early
education. With all the concerns of a mining camp experience had made
him familiar, and for some weeks after his arrival in Bannack he was
oftener applied to for counsel and advice than any other resident. Cool
and dispassionate, he evinced on these occasions a power of analysis
that seldom failed of conviction. He speedily became a general favorite.
We can better imagine than describe the mixed nature of those feelings,
which, fired with ambitious designs and virtuous purposes, beheld the
way to their fulfilment darkened by a retrospect of unparalleled
atrocity. So true it is that the worst men are the last to admit to
themselves the magnitude of their offences, that even Plummer, stained
with the guilt of repeated murders and seductions, a very monster of
iniquity, believed that his restoration to the pursuits and honors of
virtuous association could be established but for a possible exposure by
some of his guilty partners. He knew their watchful eyes were upon him;
that they were ready to follow him as leader or crush him as a traitor.
Of no one was he in greater dread than his sworn enemy, Cleveland. This
man, who made no secret of his own guilty purposes, had frequently
uttered threats against the life of Plummer, and never lost an
opportunity publicly to denounce him. Their feud was irreconcilable.
Cleveland had incurred suspicion as the murderer of a young man by the
name of George Evans, and was regarded generally as a desperado of the
vilest character. It was no credit to Plummer that he came in his
company to Bannack. But their previous criminal connection was as yet
unrevealed.
A few days after the disappearance of Evans, a number of citizens were
seated in general conversation around the fire in a saloon kept by Mr.
Goodrich. Among the number were Plummer, Jeff Perkins, and Augustus
Moore. Suddenly the door was violently opened and Cleveland entered.
With an air of assumed authority he proclaimed himself “chief,” adding
with an oath that he knew all the scoundrels from the “other side” and
intended to get even with some of them. The covert threat which these
words revealed did not escape the notice of Plummer, but Cleveland upon
the instant charged Perkins with having violated a promise to pay some
money which the latter owed him in the lower country. Perkins assured
him it had been paid. “If it has,” said Cleveland, “it is all right,”
but as if to signify his distrust of Perkins’s statement, he commenced
handling his pistol and reiterating the charges. To prevent Cleveland
from carrying into execution his apparent design of shooting Perkins,
Plummer fixed his eyes sternly upon him and in a calm tone told him to
behave himself, that Perkins had paid the debt and he ought to be
satisfied.
Quiet was restored for the moment and Perkins slipped off, intending to
return with his pistols and shoot Cleveland on sight. Here the
difficulty would have ended had not Cleveland, in an evil moment, in a
defiant and threatening manner, with mingled profanity and epithet,
declared that he did not fear any of them. Filled with rage, Plummer
sprang to his feet, drew his pistol, and exclaiming, “I am tired of
this,” followed up the expression with a couple of rapid shots, the last
of which struck Cleveland below the belt. He fell on his knees. Grasping
wildly for his pistol, he appealed to Plummer not to shoot him while he
was down. “No,” said Plummer, whose blood was now up; “get up.”
Cleveland staggered to his feet, only to receive two more shots, the
second of which entered below the eye. He fell to the floor, and
Plummer, sheathing his pistol, turned to leave the saloon. At the door
he was met by George Ives and Charley Reeves, each of whom, pistol in
hand, was coming to take part in the affray. Each seizing an arm, they
escorted Plummer down the street, meanwhile suggesting with great
expletive emphasis a variety of surmises as to the possible effect of
the quarrel upon the public.
Hank Crawford and Harry Phleger, two respectable citizens, hastened to
the aid of the dying desperado, whom they conveyed to Crawford’s
lodgings. His bed being poorly furnished Cleveland sent him to Plummer’s
cabin to get a pair of blankets belonging to him. The interview, between
Crawford and Plummer on this occasion showed that the mind of the latter
was ill at ease. Like Macbeth’s dread of Banquo, so he felt that, while
Cleveland lived,—
“There is none but he
Whose being I do fear; and under him
My genius is rebuk’d.”
In the brief colloquy which took place between them, Plummer asked
Crawford no less than three times what Jack had said about him. His past
career of crime was all before him. Crawford as often replied,
“Nothing.”
“’Tis well he did not,” at length responded Plummer, “for if he had I
would kill him in his bed.”
Crawford then told him that, in reply to several questions asked him,
Cleveland had said,
“Poor Jack has got no friends. He has got it [meaning his death-wound]
and I guess he can stand it.”
Crawford left with the impression that Plummer still thought Cleveland
had exposed him, and was careful afterwards to go armed, as he felt that
his own life was in danger. Cleveland lingered in great agony for three
hours, and was decently buried by Crawford. Soon after he had been
removed to Crawford’s cabin, Plummer sent a man known as “Dock,” a cook,
into the cabin as a spy, where he remained until Cleveland died. He said
that the only reply Phleger received to repeated questions concerning
the difficulty between him and Plummer was, “It makes no difference to
you.” The secret, if secret there was, died with him.
No immediate investigation was made of the circumstances of this affray.
It was thought by many that Plummer merely anticipated Cleveland’s
intention by firing first. Shooting of pistols and duelling were so
common as of themselves to excite no attention. Many bloody encounters
took place of which no record has been preserved, and which at the time
were regarded as very proper settlements of difficulties between the
parties.
A few incidents as illustrative of the customs of a mining camp will not
be out of place in this immediate connection. On one occasion during the
winter a quarrel sprung up between George Ives and George Carrhart in
the main street. After a long wordy war interlarded with much profanity
and various opprobrious epithets, Ives ran into a near saloon for his
pistol, exclaiming, “I will shoot you.” Carrhart followed him and both
reappeared at the door of the saloon a moment thereafter, each armed
with a revolver. Facing each other upon the instant, both parties raised
their pistols and fired without effect. After a second fire with no
better effect, both parties walked rapidly backwards till they were
widely separated, at the same time firing upon each other. Ives having
emptied his revolver, stood perfectly still while Carrhart took
deliberate aim and shot him in the groin, the ball passing through his
body, inflicting a severe wound. Soon afterwards they reconciled their
difficulties, and Ives lived with Carrhart on his ranche the remainder
of the winter.
Many of the early emigrants arrived at Bannack so late in the fall that
they could provide themselves with no better shelter from the weather
during the winter than was afforded by their wagons. Of this number were
Dr. Biddle and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Short, and their hired man from
Minnesota. While seated around their camp-fire one dismal afternoon,
engaged in conversation with Mr. J. M. Castner, a bullet whizzed so near
the ear of Castner that he felt its sting for several days. Castner
ascertained that it was fired by one Cy. Skinner, a rough, who excused
himself with the plea that he thought they were Indians, and by way of
amends invited Dr. Biddle and Castner to drink with him. Castner had the
good taste to decline.
The very composition of the society of Bannack at the time was such as
to excite suspicion in all minds. Outside of their immediate
acquaintances, men knew not whom to trust. They were in the midst of a
people which had come from all parts of this country and from many of
the nations of the Old World. Laws which could not be executed were no
better than none. A people, however disposed to the preservation of
order and punishment of crimes, was powerless for either so long as
every man distrusted his neighbor. The robbers, united by a bond of
sympathetic atrocity, assumed the right to control the affairs of the
camp by the bloody code. No one was safe. The miner fortunate enough to
accumulate a few thousands, the merchant whose business gave evidence of
success, the saloon-keeper whose patronage was supposed to be
productive, were all marked as victims by these lawless adventurers. If
one of them needed clothing, ammunition, or food, he obtained it on a
credit which no one dared refuse, and settled it by threatening to shoot
the person bold enough to ask for payment. Such a condition of society,
as all foresaw, must sooner or later terminate in disaster to the lovers
of law and order or to the villains who depredated upon them. Which were
the stronger? The roughs knew their power, but their antagonists,
separately hedged about by suspicion as indiscriminate as it was
inflexible, knew not how to establish confidence in each other upon
which to base an effective opposition. Meantime the carnival of crime
was progressing. Scarcely a day passed unsignalled by outrage or murder.
The numerous tenants of the little graveyard had all died by violence.
People walked the streets in fear.
This suspense was at last broken by a murder of unprovoked, heartless
atrocity, which the people felt it would be more criminal in them to
overlook than it was in the perpetrators to commit. In January, 1863,
that notorious scoundrel, Charley Reeves, bought a squaw from the Sheep
Eater tribe of Bannack. She soon fled from him to her friends to escape
his abuse. The tepee was located on an elevation south of that portion
of the town known as “Yankee Flat,” a few rods in rear of the street.
Reeves went after her. Finding her deaf to persuasion, he employed
violence to force her return to his camp. An old chief interfered and
thrust Reeves unceremoniously from the tepee. Burning with resentment,
Reeves and Moore fired into the tepee the next evening, wounding one of
the Indians. They then returned to town, where they were joined by
William Mitchell, with whom they counter-marched, each firing into the
tepee, and this time killing the old chief, a lame Indian, a papoose,
and a Frenchman by the name of Cazette, who had come to the tepee to
learn the cause of the first shot. Two other persons who had been
influenced by similar curiosity were badly wounded. When the murderers
were afterwards told that they had killed white men, Moore with a
profusion of profane appellations said “they had no business there.”