missionaries among the Cayuses, to whom a letter had been sent[1] on the 20th.
About ten o'clock on the morning of the 24th, while the army was on the march, the commissioners being in advance with a flag, two Cayuse spies were discovered, and about noon a large force came in sight making signs of hostility; and when the commissioners advanced they were warned to keep off. They then returned to the volunteers, and the natives began closing in on all sides to the number of four hundred, about one hundred being unarmed spectators and women. Their first overt act was the shooting of a dog belonging to one of the men. Then the battle began.
It was a brave sight, the gayly dressed warriors mounted on their painted coursers galloping over the field, and the hills decorated with motionless human bronzes. The vanity of a native is his most distinguishing trait. These three hundred Cayuses had told each other, and believed it themselves, that they should have an easy conquest of the Americans. "We will beat the Americans to death with clubs, and then proceed to the Willamette and take the women, and all their property," said these boastful braves,[2] who had yet the art of war to learn. They had an advantage in the ground chosen, and in their general acquaintance with the country, and had they been as great warriors as they imagined, must easily have beaten the invaders.
But the volunteers behaved well, considering it
- ↑ This apparent neglect is explained by Brouillet in Authentic Account, 69, where he says that the Cayuses had been told that the missionaries would remain among them as long as they were at peace, but would retire as soon as war should be declared; and that on the 19th of Feb. the Cayuses had gone to meet the Americans, whereupon the priests removed to Fort Walla Walla on the 20th. Brouillet also says that Ogden promised the Cayuses to endeavor to prevent a war, and that he would send an express to Walla Walla to apprise them of the result; but that no such express came before the first engagement, and that the Indians suspected Ogden of betraying them. 'Had Ogden's letter arrived in time,' says Brouillet, 'it would probably have prevented the engagement, and induced the Cayuses to accept peace upon the terms offered by the government.'
- ↑ C. McKay, in Or. Spectator, March 23, 1848.
