Battle of Seattle (1856) - The Battle Begins

The Battle Begins

Because the natives' only common language was Chinook jargon, a trade language that many of the white settlers also spoke, the settlers were able to hear and understand the attackers' shouted orders "and revealed many incidents of the battle they were anxious to conceal."

An Indian known as "Jim", a relative of Curley's who died a few months later in a hunting accident, evaded Curley's vigilance and warned Dr. Williamson of the impending attack. Williamson sent a messenger to Yesler, who informed Gansevoort, and Decatur's troops abandoned their breakfast and returned to the positions they had held by night. 52 women and children found refuge on board Decatur, and others on board the barque Brontes. The non-combatants of the friendly tribes took to their canoes to get out of the way.

Curley's sister (and Yark-eke-e-man's mother) Li-cu-mu-low ("Nancy"), whom Phelps describes as "short, stout, and incapable of running," warned as she headed for her canoe that the Kliktat were gathered around Tom Pepper's house, which was in the forest, near the crest of First Hill. Decatur fired off a howitzer shell in that direction, the first shot of the battle. Phelps and a few others had been trying unsuccessfully to rouse the volunteers from their torpor. At the sound of the howitzer shell, they rushed as one for the blockhouse. There "Sergeant Carbine several times charged them out of one door, to return as often by the other, till, wearying of the trouble, he left them to cower behind the wooden bulwarks, protected from the bullets of the foe."

The third division, contrary to orders, charged up the trail that led towards the lake. This foolhardy charge met with an undeserved success, as they pushed the attackers back without taking any casualties themselves. Klakum held a position behind a tree, and shot at Peixotto standing on the block-house steps, but missed and killed a boy, Milton G. Holgate, who was standing a few steps higher.

On the south end, settlers on the peninsula faced off against natives on the mainland with a slough dividing them. Phelps describes "the incessant rattle of small-arms, and an uninterrupted whistling of bullets, mingled with the furious yells of the Indians," but there were few casualties. A settler was killed when he ducked from behind a stump to get some drinking water; Clarence Bagley, quoting William Bell two days after the event, says the casualty was Christian White; Phelps, writing 17 years later, says it was Robert Wilson.

Hans Carl, an invalided sailor on Decatur, died shortly thereafter, but for reasons unrelated to the battle.