Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/396

378 breast-work of logs thrown up on the side most exposed to attack.

On the 17th of October the bushes were found to be alive with savages. J. W. Pickett made a charge with six men, who were so warmly received that they were glad to retreat, Pickett being killed. Lieutenant Moore then took a position under a bank, on the side attack was expected, which he held four hours, exposed to a heavy fire; he and nearly half of his men were wounded, when they were compelled to retreat. One of the men, being mortally shot, fell before reaching the shelter of the camp, and a comrade, Allan Evans, in the effort to bring him in, was severely wounded. Captain Lewis was three times struck.

The Indians, discovering that the weak point of the volunteer force was on the left, made a bold attack, in which they lost one of their most noted Shasta warriors. Finding they could not dislodge the volunteers with balls, they shot lighted arrows into their camp. All day the firing was kept up, and during the battle every house in the mining town of Galice Creek was burned except the one occupied as the company's headquarters. By night one third of the company of thirty-five were killed and wounded. Thereupon the enemy retired, their loss not ascertained.

"I am proud to say," wrote Lewis to his colonel, "that we fought the hardest battle ever fought this side of the Rocky Mountains. More than 2,500 shots from the enemy, but every man stood his ground, and fought the battle of a lover of his country."

On the day of the battle Ross wrote Smith, at Fort Lane, that Chief John of Scott Valley had gone up Applegate Creek with eighty warriors; and that Williams was in that vicinity with a limited