stake; but the dissembling had not stopped there. While the general judgment declared the sentence to be "for the barbarian murderers and violators. . . eternal remembrance; let them be pursued with unrelenting hatred and hostility, until life-blood has atoned for their infamous deeds,"[1] Spalding was employed in creating a similar feeling toward the bishop of Walla Walla, whom he had so lately addressed as his "dear friend and brother," with the request to do all he could to save him. In the heated state of the public mind, which was not prepared to reason, the impression that the sword had fallen because the bishop had cut the hair sank deeply. If it were not so, asked the Presbyterians, how could the Catholics remain when we have been driven away 1 That question was answered when the army approached the Umatilla, but the answer was not forthcoming when Spalding pointed out this significant fact to the volunteers, who went away prepared to encounter the horns and hoofs of his Satanic Majesty on that river.[2]
On the same day that Ogden arrived with the families from the missions in the interior, Colonel Gilliam set out for the Dalles with fifty men, in advance of the companies mentioned in the previous chapter, which were to follow on the 14th. He was accompanied by Meek's overland party; but such were the difficulties and consequent delays of the march in the winter, that the advance did not reach the Dalles till the 24th, three other companies being close behind, and three others organizing to follow, besides a number that were being raised for defence in some of the counties. A company of infantry was also forming in Portland, which expected to be ready to march by the 1st of February. On French Prairie a company
- ↑ Or. Spectator, Jan. 20, 1848.
- ↑ The excitement became so great that the volunteers in starting said that their first shots would be for the bishop and his priests; and that for several months the Catholic churches and establishments in the Willamette Valley were in the greatest danger of being burned down. Blanchet's Cath. Church in Or., 173.
