They sailed on June 4, 1851. Tichenor had agreed to furnish arms, but when the ship had reached Astoria, Kirkpatrick discovered there weren't any. Though Tichenor insisted there wouldn't be any trouble with Indians, he put in at Astoria and bought three old muskets and ammunition and one old sword. Kirkpatrick bought a fine rifle to go with his two derringers. There was also one rifle and one revolver. This was all they had to fight Indians. They landed on the coast on June 9.
There were Indians there who seemed friendly, but probably didn't really like them there. The men landed. Kirkpatrick insisted that Tichenor leave the cannon with them, which he did. Tichenor then sailed on to San Francisco to get more men and supplies.
The men set up camp on top of a large rock on the coast that would become known as Battle Rock. The cannon was placed in the best defensive position. All other arms were loaded and ready. They were not as confident as Tichenor that there would be no Indian trouble.
The very next day, the Indians began shooting arrows at them, though they were too far away to do any damage. Then a canoe with 12 Indians, including a tall man in red who seemed to be in charge, landed near the rock. He led a charge of about 100 men against the white men on the rock. Carrigan used a board to help deflect some of the arrows. Two men were disabled right away. Another ran to hide. So there were only six left to fight. They waited until just the right moment to fire the cannon. The man in red and about a dozen others were killed. Two other Indians were killed in hand-to-hand combat. The rest scattered.
An hour later a chief approached the rocks and indicated he wanted to come to the white men's camp. Kirkpatrick went to meet him at the base of the rock. The chief wanted to carry away the dead warriors, which the white men allowed him and one other man to do. The chief would not carry away the man in red. When Kirkpatrick looked closer, he noticed that the man was in fact a white man. They buried him in the sand.
