Four men only escaped the massacre. One of these was Dr. Spalding. He was on his way to visit the doctor on business, and to see his little daughter, who was a pupil in Mrs. Whitman's school. When nearing the station he met one of the Jesuit priests, who told him of the disaster. He immediately retraced his steps, fully expecting a like work at his own mission. He reached home the second night in a dazed condition. His Nez Perces, when they heard of it, rallied around him some five hundred of their bravest warriors, and escorted Dr. and Mrs. Spalding quickly to a place of safety. Their little daughter Eliza, nearly ten, was rescued and returned to them.
The Cayuse received their presents and seemed to think their work was over. In this they were mistaken. The hardy old pioneers of Oregon, who loved and honored Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, arose as one man, and in winter, without tents or proper equipments, moved down upon the Cayuse country. I do not intend to burthen my readers with the story of a long, desolating Indian war. It was a bloody and savage contest, where General Phil H. Sheridan was initiated into active military life and won his first honors.
The leaders in the massacre, Tilcokait, Tahamas, Ouichmarsum, Klvakamus, and Sichsalucus were arrested and hung at Oregon City, just before the author reached there. In 1850 one of the most miserable of the villains, Tarntsaky, was killed while being arrested. My room-mate in Oregon in 1850, the late Samuel Campbell of Idaho, spent the winter and spring of 1847 at the Whitman Mission, and never tired in telling of the lovely Christian character of Mrs. Whitman, of her kindness and patience to whites and Indians alike. She had retained the same glorious musical voice, and life wherever she went was filled with what Matthew Arnold would call "sweetness and light." Mr. Campbell said while he was a prisoner at Grand Ronde, old Tarntsaky one day boasted in his presence that he took the scalp from Mrs. Whitman's head, and told him of the long, golden, silky hair. He said, "Prisoner as I was, it was all I could do to keep my fingers from his throat." The many tribes around sided with the Cayuse, except the Nez Perces, and the whole land was closed to white settlers for over ten years, as the state government deemed it impossible to protect the scattered settlements.