Martial law in Pierce County

[1] With the onset of winter, Gen. John E. Wool decided to cease military operations until spring, but territorial Governor Isaac Stevens convened the Washington Legislature where he declared "the war shall be prosecuted until the last hostile Indian is exterminated.

"[2] On April 3, 1856, two months following the anticlimactic Battle of Seattle, Governor Stevens declared martial law in Pierce County and ordered the arrest of settlers of the Muck Creek area whom he suspected of collaborating with Yakama-allied Indians.

[3][4][a] The proclamation read: Whereas, in the prosecution of the Indian war, circumstances have existed affording such grave cause of' suspicion, such that certain evil disposed persons of Pierce County have given aid and comfort to the enemy, as that they have been placed under arrest and ordered to be tried by a military commission; and whereas, efforts are now being made to withdraw, by civil process, these persons from the purview of the said commission: Therefore, as the war is now being actively prosecuted throughout nearly the whole of the said county and great injury to the public, and the plans of the campaign be frustrated, if the alleged designs of these persons be not arrested, I, Isaac I. Stevens, governor of the Territory of Washington, do hereby proclaim martial law over the said county of Pierce, and do by these presents suspend for the time being, and till further notice, the functions of all civil officers in said county.In response to the arrests, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Washington, Francis A. Chenoweth, issued the writ of habeas corpus ordering the release of the settlers.

[7] Chenoweth, who had been ill during the drama of the preceding days, left his sick bed on Whidbey Island where he'd been recuperating and canoed to Steilacoom, announcing plans to reconvene Lander's court on 24 May.

In 1862, during the American Civil War, he was killed in action at the Battle of Chantilly at the head of his men and while personally carrying the fallen colors of his regiment in an open advance against Confederate States forces.