After many adventures, Governor Stevens reached Olympia in safety. Governor Curry of Oregon had already called a force of volunteers into the field. The Oregon volunteers were divided into two divisions, one under Colonel J. W. Nesmith, which went into the Yakima country, and the other under Lieutenant-Colonel J. K. Kelley, which went to Walla Walla. The latter force fought the decisive battle of the campaign on the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of December, 1855. It was a series of engagements occurring in the heart of the Walla Walla Valley, a "running fight" culminating at what is now called Frenchtown, ten miles west of the present city of Walla Walla. The most important feature of it all was the death of the great Walla Walla chieftain, Peupeumoxmox. But though defeated and losing so important a chief, the Indians scattered across the rivers and were still unsubdued. In March, 1856, the sublime section of the Columbia lying between The Dalles and the Cascades became the scene of a series of atrocities the most distressing in the entire war. The Klickitats swooped down upon the defenceless settlers and massacred them with revolting cruelty. They vanished like a whirlwind, but men whom the writer has known have related to him how the volunteers, returning to the scenes of desolation, found all houses destroyed and the carcasses of cattle thrown into the springs and wells. They found the naked bodies of the girls and women with stakes driven through, and those of men horribly mutilated. In savage humour, the Indians had killed the hogs and left parts of human bodies in their mouths. One interesting fact connected with the campaign at the Cascades is that General Phil Sheridan fought his first battle there. The old Block House on the north side of the River, nearly opposite the present Cascade Locks, existed until a few years ago, and there was Sheridan's first battle. Meanwhile Governor Stevens had organised a force of Washington volunteers. As the year 1856 progressed, it seemed more plain that the discord which developed between the regulars under command of General John E. Wool and the volunteers would result in fatal weakness. Nevertheless Governor Stevens and Governor Curry kept pressing the movements of their backwoods soldiers with unflagging energy. They were at last rewarded with a measure of success. For Colonel B. F. Shaw, commanding the Washington volunteers, learning that the hostiles were camped in force in the Grande Ronde Valley, made a rapid march from Walla Walla across the western spur of the Blue Mountains and struck the collected force of Indians a deadly blow, scattering them in all directions and ending the war in that quarter.