Hell With the Fire Out

The Modoc War, pivotal in American history, pitted the peace policies of President Ulysses S. Grant and Quaker activist Lucretia Mott against William Tecumseh Sherman - the destroyer of Georgia - and his outspoken desire for the Modocs' "utter extermination." When it ended in 1873, with the execution of the tribal leaders and the relocation of the Modoc tribe to Oklahoma, the federal goverment's Peace Commission was in tatters. The way was paved toward the more famous, but no bloodier, battle at Little Bighorn and the battle at Wounded Knee, the last battle of the western Indian wars and the final closing of the frontier.