year. Nor by saying this do I mean any disrespect. They were brave, loyal, earnest, but better fitted to execute than to command; to be loyal to a government than to construct one. Their tendencies were more toward military glory than pride of statesmanship. This spirit led them to organize under military rules for their journey to the Columbia, and to elect a set of officers sufficient for an army, with Gilliam as general.
Little is known of Gilliam's antecedents. He was brave, obstinate, impetuous, and generous, with good natural abilities, and but little education. His accomplishments were varied; he had served in the Black Hawk war, and also in the Seminole war in Florida, as captain; he had preached the gospel of Christ; he had been sheriff of a county, and had served in the Missouri legislature. He was, indeed, just the robust, impulsive, sympathetic, wilful, and courageous leader the men of the border would choose. His aid was John Inyard.[1]
The colonel of the organization was Michael T. Simmons, uneducated, but brave and independent, who sought in emigration to Oregon recovery of fortune and health. Four captains were elected under Gilliam: R. W. Morrison, William Shaw, Richard Woodcock, and Elijah Bunton.[2] Instead of a judge advocate, with that instinct toward civil liberties which characterized the frontiersman, a court of
- ↑ Minto, in Or. Pioneer Assoc, Trans., 1876, 39; Letter of W. H. Rees to John Minto. Inyard had served, in a subordinate capacity, with Gilliam in the Seminole war, taking part in the battle of Okechobee. In General Taylor's report of the battle, some disobedience of Captain Gilliam, which entailed a loss of life, was mentioned, for which unfavorable report both Gilliam and Inyard bore ever after an inveterate enmity toward the future hero of the Mexican war. Inyard, according to Rees, was ' an average man of the class reared in the south-west amid the ruinous institutions of human slavery. ' Id. This name, I find, is sometimes spelled Engart.
- ↑ Morrison was a thrifty farmer from the neighborhood of Weston. Minto's Early Days, MS., 18. Shaw was born in North Carolina, near Raleigh, in 1795; but emigrated with his father to Tennessee when a child; and again to Missouri in 1819, when the inhabitants were living in forts to protect themselves against the natives. He had fought under General Jackson in 1814-15, in the war against the Creeks and the British. Shaw's Pioneer Life, MS., 1, 2.
