Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/372



364 FRED LOCKLEY

ernor Abernethy, Jesse Applegate and A. L. Love joy as se- curity, so that fixed that up.

"The legislature elected my father to be colonel of the regi- ment and his friend, James Waters, to be lieutenant colonel. H. A. G. Lee was made major and Joel Palmer was elected commissary general. They appointed Joe Meek to act as messenger to go back to Washington and ask for help to sup- press the Indians. They issued an appeal to all the citizens to help equip additional troops to be raised.

"The day that Peter Skene Ogden reached Portland with the survivors of the Whitman massacre, whom he had bought for blankets and other trade goods from the Indians who held them captive, was the day that my father started with 50 men for eastern Oregon. The rest of the troops were to come as soon as they could get ready. At Cascade portage they established a fort which was named after father Fort Gilliam. The stockade at The Dalles was named after Major H. A. G. Lee Fort Lee.

"Right after father got to The Dalles he took what men he had and went up on the Deschutes and had a fight with the Indians. He killed some and captured a lot of their horses and some cattle. The rest of the troops soon reached The Dalles and they went out and had a fight with the Cayuse Indians and drove them before them. The troops went up into the Walla Walla country. Father with two companies visited Wai-il-at-pu Mission, where the Whitmans were killed. The wolves had dug up the bodies so the soldiers reburied them. The soldiers met the Indians, mostly Palouses and Cayuses, on the Tucannon and defeated them, after which the soldiers returned to Fort Waters. f The troops were short of ammunition and they were getting tired of eating horse meat, so the officers held a council and decided to send a strong escort to The Dalles to secure powder and lead and food.

"On March 20th, ^Captain McKay's company with Captain

t This was at the site of the Whitman Mission, all buildings there having been destroyed.