Arriving in Steilacoom, Chenoweth reconvened the court and prepared to again issue writs of habeas corpus ordering the release of the settlers. Learning of Chenoweth's arrival in Pierce County, Stevens sent a company of militia to stop the chief justice, but the troops were met by the Pierce County Sheriff whom Chenoweth had ordered to raise a posse to defend the court. The impasse was finally resolved after Stevens agreed to back down and release the farmers. Stevens subsequently pardoned himself of contempt, but the United States Senate called for his removal over the incident and he was censured by the Secretary of State of the United States who wrote to him that "... your conduct, in that respect, does not therefore meet with the favorable regard of the President." The Cascades Massacre on March 26, 1856 was the name given to an attack by a coalition of tribes against white soldiers and settlers in the Cascades Rapids. American officers had learned that they could starve the Indians and deny them an economic foundation by controlling this vital fishing location. The native attackers included warriors from the Yakama, Klickitat, and "Cascades tribes" (today identified as belonging to Wasco tribes: "Cascades Indians / Watlala" or "Hood River Wasco"). Fourteen settlers and three US soldiers died in the attack, the most losses for US citizens during the Yakima War. The United States sent reinforcements the following day to defend against further attacks. The Yakama people fled, but nine Cascades Indians who surrendered without a fight, including Chenoweth, Chief of the Hood River Band, were improperly charged and executed for treason. The U.S. Army arrived in the region in the summer of 1856. That August Robert S. Garnett supervised the construction of Fort Simcoe as a military post. Initially the conflict was limited to the Yakama, but eventually the Walla Walla and Cayuse were drawn into the war, and carried out a number of raids and battles against the American invaders. Perhaps the best known of these raids culminated in the Battle of Seattle, in which an unknown number of raiders briefly crossed the Cascade Range to engage settlers, Marines and the U.S. Navy before retiring. The last phase of the conflict, sometimes referred to as the Coeur d'Alene War, occurred in 1858. General Newman S. Clarke commanded the Department of the Pacific and sent a force under Col. George Wright to deal with the recent fighting.