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LETTERS
To the Editor:
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| Your biographical sketch of Isaac Stevens, which introduces the fall 2005 issue, while necessarily short, does not do justice to this brave soldier, who played such an important role in the settlement of the West in the days leading up to the nation's Civil War. |
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Stevens graduated at the top of his class at West Point and served as an army officer during the Mexican War. In 1853, he was appointed governor of the Washington Territory and in 1857 was elected as the territory's delegate to Congress. As the Civil War commenced, Stevens returned to army life serving as colonel, then brigadier general, and finally major general of the 79th New York Highlanders. The article concludes simply: "On September 1, 1862, he died at the battle of Chantilly." While accurate, not all of your readers may be familiar with that battle or of General Stevens's bravery. |
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In the final days of August 1862, the armies of the North and the South met in the Second Battle of Bull Run, fought near Manassas, Virginia, less than fifty miles from Washington, D.C. The battle raged back and forth throughout the day in a driving rainstorm, and by nightfall on August 30 the drenched and demoralized Union army was in retreat and fell back about ten miles to a fortified ridge above Centerville, a key crossroads connecting northern Virginia to Washington, D.C. |
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The next day, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson organized his troops and began to march around the north side of Centerville. In the battlefield confusion, neither army knew where the other was positioned or what they planned to do next. General Stevens led his New York Highlanders north and east from Centerville looking for the Confederate army. On the afternoon of Monday, September 1, he found them on the south slope of Ox Hill in an area known as Chantilly. |
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With no more than four thousand troops under his command, Stevens ordered a surprise attack against Jackson's fifteen thousand Confederates, hoping Union reinforcements would hear the gunfire and come to his support. About 4 pm, in a driving rain, the Battle of Chantilly began. For the next hour the battle lines ebbed and flowed, as the weather worsened into a torrential rainstorm. |
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After an hour of intense combat, in which his son Captain Hazard Stevens was wounded, Stevens realized his attack had stalled and dramatic action was needed. During the fighting, four Union color guards had been killed. As the fifth flagbearer fell to the ground wounded, the diminutive five-foot, one-inch Stevens grabbed the flag and yelled, "Highlanders! My Highlanders ... follow your general!" As lightning flashed, wind blew, thunder roared, and the rain pounded the battlefield, Stevens led the charge on foot uphill to the wooden fenceline protecting the Confederate soldiers. As Stevens's charge reached the fence, he was hit in the head with a musket ball and fell to the ground dead, still clutching the flag. He was forty-four years old when he died. |
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The army renamed one of its forts ringing Washington, D.C., to honor Stevens's gallantry. On July 12, 1864, Fort Stevens, located in what is now Rock Creek Park, was the site of the Confederates' last strike on the Capital. After the Civil War, a second Fort Stevens was built on the Oregon coast at Warrenton, guarding the mouth of the Columbia River. |
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Readers who fly into Washington's Dulles Airport may want to take a short detour to the site of the Ox Hill battle. It will take some imagination to envision the site among the shopping malls, apartments, and parking lots that now cover the battlefield. Efforts to preserve the battlefield died in the late 1970s when Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus, former governor of Idaho, declined an opportunity to have the federal government purchase several hundred acres for a national battlefield. |
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| Frank Dillow
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| Arlington, Virginia |
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To the Editor:
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| The Fall 2006 issue of OHQ had an article by Greg Nokes on the Chinese Massacre Cove site, recently named by the Oregon Geographic Names Board. It is not an easy place to find. The Hells Canyon National Recreational Area map (North Half) is on a one-inch-to-the-mile scale and shows Deep Creek, a significant tributary. But the best detail is from the USGS 7.5-minute quads of this specific area — Cactus Mountain, Wolf Creek, and Lord Flat quads. |
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In denoting location for readers, you might note that the Deep Creek massacre site, a cove with soaring bluffs, is 60 miles upriver from Clarkston/Lewiston and 50 miles downriver from Hells Canyon Dam. This is in the designated Hells Canyon Wilderness portion of the National Recreation Area. Land access is only for the hardy — by foot or horseback through some of the most rugged terrain in the West. Arrangements could be made to reach this spot via a jetboat shuttle with services in Clarkston, Washington, or for a stop with one of the rafting guide services coming downriver from the launch site at Hells Canyon Creek just below the dam. Deep Creek is year-round flowing and drops some 5,000 feet to the Snake River from the summit ridge between the Snake and Imnaha rivers. |
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I have used the canyon trails in early spring and fall to beat the heat. The wildflowers are spectacular between mid March and May. Pilgrims to this area need to be alert to poison oak and rattlers and in summer for waterspouts as the cumulus buildups over the divide can be fast and dramatic. |
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The only way to get close enough for a day hike into the massacre site is to drive from Joseph to Imnaha in Wallowa County, take the county road north along Imnaha River until the blacktop turns to gravel and your on Wallowa Whitman National Forest road 4260. |
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It crosses the river at Cow Creek Bridge, climbs over Lone Pine Saddle and reaches the Snake at the famous Dug Bar 1877 crossing site for Chief Joseph's Wallowa Band of the Nez Perce. They followed their Nee-Mee-Poo Trail to this crossing. A half-mile south past the Nez Perce crossing the road terminates at Dug Bar Ranch and the Snake River Trailhead. |
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Starting south or upriver its about a four-mile hike to the massacre site. The trail climbs some 500 feet, drops into Dug Creek with numerous creek crossings, returns to Snake River and squeezes around bold outcrops to reach Deep Creek. There are signs of rocks piled for shelters or dugouts by the Chinese miners on the downstream side of the cove wall. The essence of what I'm reporting to you is the remoteness and challenging access for this site. |
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