Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/575



liitliaiis built large ami iiuiiiorous fires along tiie blulYs, or high lauds, some two miles iu advance. The next day Colonel Gilliam moved on, and without inci- dent worthy of note, reached Whitman's mission, the third day after the battle. The main body of Indians fell back towards Snake river, and a fruit- less attempt followed to induce them to give up the parties who had committed the murders at Waiilatpu. Colonel Gilliam at last determined upon making a raid into the Snake river country, and in carrying out this programme sur- prised a camp of Cayuses near that stream, among whom were some of the mur- derers. The captured camp professed friendship, however, and pointed out the horses of Indians on the hill, which they said belonged to the parties whom the Colonel was anxious to kill or capture, stating that their owners were on the north side of the Snake river and beyond reach. So well was their part acted that the officers believed their statements, proceeded to drive ofE the stock indicated, and started on their return. They soon found that a grievous error had been made in releasing the village, whose male population was soon mounted upon war horses, and assailed the volunteers on all sides, forcing them to fight their way as they fell back to the Touchet river. Through the whole day and even into the night after their arrival at the latter stream the contest was maintained — a constant harrassiug skirmish. The soldiers drove the Indians back again and again, but as soon as the retreat was resumed, the enemy were upon them once more. Finally, after going into camp on the Touchet, Colonel Gilliam ordered the captured stock turned loose ; and when the Indians got possession of it, they returned to Snake river without molesting the command any further. In the struggle on the Touchet, when the retreating soldiers first reached that stream. William Taylor was mortally wounded by an Indian who sprang up in the flushes by the stream and fired with but a few yards between them. Nathan Olney, afterwards Indian agent, seeing the act, rushed upon the savage, snatched from his hand a war club in which was fastened a piece of iron, and dealt him a blow on the head with it with such force as to cause the iron to split the club, and yet failed to kill him. He then closed with his antagonist in a hand-to-hand strug- gle, and soon ended the contest with a knife. There were no other casualties re- ported.

"Colonel Gilliam started from the Mission on the twentieth of March, with a small force destined to return from The Dalles with supplies, while he was to con- tinue to the Willamette and report to the governor. While camped at Well Springs he was killed by an accidental discharge of a gun, and his remains were taken to his friends west of the Cascades by Major Lee. This officer soon returned to his regiment with a commission as Colonel, but finding Lieutenant-Colonel Waters had been elected by the regiment to that position in his absence, he re- signed and filled a subordinate office, for the remainder of his term of enlistment. The attempt by commissioners, who had been sent with the volunteers, as re- quested by the Indians in a memorial to the Americans at the time the captives were ransomed, to negotiate a peaceful solution of the difficult problem, failed. They wanted the Indians to deliver up for execution all those who had imbued their hands in blood at Waiilatpu ; they wished the Cayvises to pay all damages to imigrants caused by their being robbed or attacked while passing through the Cayuse country. The Indians wished nothing of the kind. They wanted peace and to be let alone; for the Americans to call the account balanced and