demned him, though it is but fair to say that at a subsequent session the Legislature gave him and his course approval.
Another mistake was made by the Governor not long after this one of martial law. He evidenced ill feeling towards Chief Leschi, and made it plain that he should be punished. He offered a reward for his capture. Tempted by this offer the chief was betrayed by one of his tribesmen. He was tried on the charge of murder at Steilacoom. The jurymen disagreed. Upon a second trial Leschi was convicted. He was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead. When the day of execution came, the Pierce County sheriff frustrated the court order by connivance with the friends of the Indian chief. The matter was taken into the Legislature, which placed it in the Supreme Court, which in turn ordered the chief hanged at Steilacoom by the sheriff of Thurston County, which order was executed in February, 1858. As the leader of the war party in western Washington, there was strong feeling against Leschi, and his trial in the county where he lived and operated at that time could not result favorably to him. Nevertheless, it was felt that he had been engaged in war, that it was customary at the conclusion of war to let by-gones be by-gones, that he had been greatly punished, and that further punishment in his case was neither wise nor well.
Though this war was a small one it was full of disagreeable features. One of these was the petulant fault-finding of General John E. Wool, at the head of the military forces on the Pacific Coast in 1855-56. He early assumed that the white people were more to blame than were the Indians, and he did not hesitate to say so again and again on every available occasion. Of course, his charges were disputed by the newspapers and citizens of both Oregon and Washington, as also by Governors Curry and Stevens. Wool maintained that the war was encouraged and continued for the purpose of employing unnecessary volunteer soldiery, supplying them with horses, foods, equipment and other necessaries at high rates of compensation, all to be charged against and collected from the general government. He charged them specifically and
