Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/590

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the immigration of 1851 suffered the most fiendish outrages at the hands of the Snakes, who regarded neither age, sex or condition. Thirty-four persons were killed, many wounded, and many thousand dollars worth of horses and cattle stolen. The road to California, now constantly traveled by going and returning gold miners, could not be safely passed over without constant danger of Indian ambuscades with frequent murders. David Dilley was murdered and his camp robbed of much gold dust by two professedly friendly Rogue Rivers ; Dr. James McBride, of Yamhill county, with thirty-one men returning from California, were attacked at Rogue river by two hundred Indians, half of whom were armed with rifles, the ilcBride party having only seventeen guns. The battle lasted four hours, and until the Indian Chief Chucklehead was killed, when the In- dians drew off. The white men lost sixteen hundred dollars worth of gold dust and other property, but no men ; the Indian loss not known. At the time of this battle Major Philip S. Kearney had a party of United States dragoons explor- ing out a road through the Umpqua canyon to Rogue river, and receiving infor-, mation of the fight made a forced march with twenty-eight men to the scene of the trouble, reaching Rogue river five miles below Table Rock, the ancient In- dian stronghold. Here he divided his force and sending one-half of the men up the south bank of the river under Captain James Stuart and leading the other half up the north bank, he soon found plenty of Indians who were prepared for and expecting an attack. The men had tied their sabers to their saddles to pre- vent noise and when they struck the Indian camp they dismounted so quicklj^ they forgot their sabers and dashed into the Indians firing their carbines and charging with revolvers. The Indians — 200 of them — fled from twenty-eight soldiers, leaving eleven dead on the ground; the only loss of the whites being- Captain Stuart who was shot through the kidneys by an arrow fired by an In- dian he had knocked down, dying the next daj^ from the wound, and being buried at the mouth of a creek emptying into Rogue River, and which from that incident received the name of Stuart creek.

Fi-om the Stuart creek battlefield, the Indians fell back to their natural forti- fication at Table Rock, which is a high, flat-topped promontory overlooking Rogue River valley, and from which signals can be given for many miles. Find- ing his force too small to attack the Indians in this position he made a camp to observe the enemy and wait for the balance of his force with volunteers to come in and prepare to attack the Indian stronghold. Here he was soon reinforced by thirty miners going to the Willow Springs mines, and by General Lane and forty men making a second venture to the California mines. And with this combined force of about one hundred men. Major Kearney attacked the Indians behind their log defenses on Table Rock on June 23, 1851. Two attacks were made on the 24th, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. General Lane's old friend. Chief "Jo" being in command of the Indians, and boasting that while he had not many guns, he had bows enough ' ' to keep a thousand arrows in the air all the time. ' ' There had then been practically four days of fighting, and Kearney then offered to treat for peace, and if no peace attack the Indians again on June 25th. The morning of the 25th came and found the Indians run- ning down the river, which they crossed seven miles below Table Rock and fled up Sardine creek. As soon as the course of the Indians was discovered, the reg- ulars and volunteers mounted their horses and all joined in hot pursuit of the