В долине Якима перед Гражданской войной служили Макклеллан, Шеридан и Гарнетт

Before they gained glory — or infamy — on the battlefields of the Civil War, some famous soldiers spent time in the Yakima Valley. George B. McClellan, Isaac Stevens, Phil Sheridan and Robert Selden Garnett were among those whose official duties took them through the Valley, interacting with the Yakamas. George Armstrong Custer never made it to the Yakima Valley, contrary to local myth. While Yakima has a Custer Avenue, he went straight to the Army of the Potomac from West Point, and after the war served on the Great Plains before his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn turned him into a 19th century pop culture icon. George B. McClellan The first of the prominent Civil War figures to arrive here was McClellan, who was a captain at the time and conducting a surveying expedition to determine the future routes for railways in the Washington territory. McClellan encountered the Yakama, including the famed chiefs Owhi and Kamiakin, and assured them that they were only interested in railroads and not bringing settlers into the Valley. As history would show, that was not exactly the truth. Later on, McClellan would serve in what is now West Virginia before he was given command of the Union’s Army of the Potomac after the disastrous First Battle of Bull Run. McClellan is credited with being an excellent training officer who instilled discipline in the troops, but he was overly cautious as a battlefield commander, frustrating President Abraham Lincoln, who once famously sent a dispatch to McClellan asking if he could borrow the Army since the general was apparently not using it. While McClellan defeated Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Antietam, Lincoln removed him from command once and for all when McClellan failed to press his advantage and pursue Lee’s retreating troops. McClellan unsuccessfully ran for president against Lincoln and later became governor of New Jersey. Isaac Stevens Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens had previously served in the Mexican-American War, including the Battle of Chapultepec — the “Halls of Montezuma” from the Marines’ Hymn — in the final assault on Mexico City. Stevens also “negotiated” the Treaty of 1855 with the leaders of the 14 bands and tribes that would later form the Yakama Nation. While Stevens saw himself as a persuasive negotiator in getting Kamiakin to sign the treaty, the Yakama chief maintained that he made his mark under duress and did not consider it binding on him or his people. Stevens later served as the territory’s congressional delegate and, when the Civil War broke out, he was commissioned as a colonel in the 79th New York regiment. He was subsequently promoted to brigadier general and was killed at the Battle of Chantilly in September 1862. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of major general. Fort Stevens in Washington, D.C., was named in Stevens' honor after he was killed. It was also the place where Lincoln became the first sitting president to come under enemy fire, as a Confederate sniper shot at him. Lincoln was pulled to safety by a young Union officer who yelled, "Get down, you damn fool!" The officer's profane words to the president didn't hurt his career, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. went on to become one of the most respected justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Phillip Sheridan Like McClellan, Sheridan came west as part of a surveying team, working in northern California and Oregon. The West Point graduate was at Fort Vancouver in 1856 when he was ordered to take a group of 40 dragoons and Oregon volunteers to Central Washington to assist the U.S. Ninth Infantry in its fight with the Yakamas, participating in combat near Union Gap. Men under Sheridan’s command occupied the St. Joseph Mission at Ahtanum Creek during the war, looting and burning the church to the ground after they found a keg of gunpowder buried on the grounds and falsely accused the priests of arming the Indians. “They were more convincing as common pillagers than brave Indian fighters,” Sheridan wrote of the incident, which he and the other officers did not condone. Sheridan would later go on to command the Union’s Army of the Shenandoah and later battled Native Americans in the Great Plains. Robert Selden Garnett Maj. Robert Selden Garnett came to the Valley in 1856 to take command of Fort Simcoe, which was established to quell clashes that occurred when white settlers began violating the terms of the Treaty of 1855. Garnett oversaw two companies of soldiers and the construction of the fort. Garnett’s wife and infant son died of fever in September 1858 at the fort, and Garnett left to take them back to New York for burial. When the Civil War started, Garnett, like many other U.S. officers, resigned his commission to join the Confederate Army, in which he was promoted to brigadier general. Garnett has the distinction of being the first flag officer on either side to die in the war, when he was killed at the Battle of Corrick's Ford in what’s now West Virginia in 1861. Facing him on the opposite side of the field was McClellan, who at that time was commanding soldiers from Ohio. • It Happened Here is a weekly history column by Yakima Herald-Republic reporter Donald W. Meyers. Reach him at 509-577-7748 or [email protected]. Sources for this week's column include "Ka-mi-akin, Last Hero of the Yakimas" by Andrew J. Splawn, the American Battlefield Trust, the U.S. National Park Service and the archives of the Yakima Herald-Republic. This column was originally published March 18, 2018, and has been updated with additional information.