I cannot close this communication without reverting to a few statements made in Generals Wool and Palmer's official dispatches, and also Agent Ambrose.
    Gen. Wool and Gen. Palmer say that the Indians attacked by a party under Maj. Lupton were friendly and on their way to the reserve. Such is not the fact. They were on their way to the reserve, I have no doubt, but were they peaceable? They had been trailed from the murders on the Siskiyou Mountain, committed about a week previous, and the scalp of a white man was found in their ranchos. Look at the conflicting statements of Wool and Palmer, and also of Agent Ambrose, who was on the ground. Wool and Palmer were from three hundred to three thousand miles distant. Palmer says "thirty persons--men, women and children." Wool says "twenty-five in all, nineteen being women and children." Agent Ambrose says "thirty-two in all, eight of them men," and further says, "the attack was made so early in the morning that the women were indistinguishable from the men." It seems very singular that such discrepancy should occur in official documents.
    Gen. Wool has set himself up as a commander, a legislator and a judge, and has endeavored to influence Congress about the payment of the war debt. The General has committed a great military blunder himself, and, because the Governor of our Territory acted promptly and with knowledge of the circumstances which reflected some on the General's tardiness, he (the General) would like to
    Gen. Wool knew that war existed in Southern Oregon from the 8th of October, 1855, and in the early part of November he sent the only company, under Major Fitzgerald, that at that time could be of any service, to the Dalles--Capt. Smith's company being hardly sufficient to retain and keep peace with those Indians on the reserve at Fort Lane--thus leaving the country destitute of protection against those hostile savages who, at that time, were murdering, burning and plundering all over the country, and not until the middle of March--some six months after the war broke out--was there any United States troops sent to the assistance of the people in Southern Oregon.
    Had it not been for the volunteers during this time, what would have become of the country? Those who reside there can best answer. Had a body of one hundred and fifty troops been stationed at the Big Bend of Rogue River within a month or six weeks after the war broke out, to stop communication amongst the Upper and Lower Rogue River Indians, all the murders and destruction of property at the mouth of Rogue River could have been prevented. Here were the lives of some forty of our citizens, and $250,000 worth of property, sacrificed to either the incapacity of willful mismanagement, or bad information, of an officer whom we pay $292 per month for superintending the very military movements which he has so wantonly neglected. And when the troops came to that part of Southern Oregon they were under the command of Lt. Col. Buchanan, who forthwith sent orders to Capt. Smith's command to join him at the mouth of Rogue River, leaving Rogue River Valley to be protected by either volunteers or the citizens themselves. This part of the southern country, too, being exposed to the Indians of John, George and Limpy, who were the most warlike Indians on the Pacific Coast.
    How can General Wool account to the country for neglecting to send troops to Southern Oregon and Northern California? Will it be said that nearly six months is too short a time to get troops from San Francisco to Crescent City or Port Orford, when they could have been landed from the steamer the third day from San Francisco? How will he acquit his conscience, having the means, not to use it for the protection of those citizens who were so inhumanly murdered on the night of the 22nd of February, 1856, at the mouth of the Rogue River, and within three days' sail of General Wool's headquarters? But as soon as Col. Buchanan came up, instead of punishing those murderers, he, from his acts, apparently had instructions to coax them into a treaty. But even then, none of them would come to terms but showed fight at the mouth of the river, and when the Colonel was urged to give them battle by Capt. Bledsoe, of the volunteers, he very graciously said "it was not his day for fighting." At that time the Indians were all around his camp, firing into it. While stopping at the mouth of Rogue River with his command, the Colonel killed several beef cattle belonging to some of the citizens, who managed, with the assistance of some volunteers, to save, when the balance of their property was destroyed by the Indians, and when the owners told the Colonel that they would like to have pay for their cattle, or, they would rather he would not kill them, the Colonel told them "he had captured them from the Indians, and they therefore belonged to the United States." Thus what the Indians left, the Colonel took good care not to leave.
    Having only one company of volunteers on Rogue River, near its mouth--and that consisted only of about fifty men--it was not enough to attack a large body of the enemy, and Captain Bledsoe, who was commanding, urged the necessity upon Col. B. to allow a company of regulars to cooperate with him up the river, but the Colonel refused to do this, and spurned the idea. Capt. Bledsoe's men were well acquainted with the country and rendered important service, and could have done more, could he have induced the regulars to move in concert with him. But that was beneath the valued Colonel's dignity, and not until old John, through the instrumentality of Chief George, out-generaled Col. B., and got him to divide his command and send Capt. Smith up to the Big Bend to receive some of them as prisoners, when the command had thirty-one men killed and wounded, with but little or no loss on the part of the Indians.
    Some three or four days after this affair, Capt. Bledsoe again urged him to send a company with him to a large camp of the enemy, who were congregated some eight miles below the mouth of Illinois River, on Rogue River. Col. B. this time reluctantly consented, and sent Capt. Augur, who took the north side of the river, and Capt. Bledsoe with his company of volunteers on the south side, and on the 5th of June they attacked them, and completely routed them, killing fourteen on the ground and some twenty-five in the river; eight were killed on the side of the volunteers, and six on the side of the regulars.
    I only revert to these things to show that even Gen. Wool's saying there was no war did not prevent his regulars from getting badly whipped sometimes, and it is now a question of doubt whether if the volunteers had not fallen upon the enemy's rear, Col. Buchanan or any of his men would have got out of the mountains before chiefs John, George and Limpy would have had their scalps. A great ado is made by some of those pseudo-philanthropists, especially Generals Wool and Palmer, when an Indian woman or child is accidentally killed, or when an Indian is scalped, or his ears cut off, and there is none more opposed to that than the citizens of Oregon--but is the whole community to be censured for the indiscretion of one or two wild young men? And in every letter Gens. Wool or Palmer write, something must be said of the killing of an Indian squaw or two accidentally, but when the innocent, smiling infant is plucked from its mother's breast, its brains dashed out, perhaps against the corner of the house in which it was born, and then thrown into the well, head first, and this too in the presence of its mother and father--the mother then taken in the presence of her husband, who has to witness indecencies upon the companion of his bosom too horrible to mention, her bowels then cut open and she thrown into the well on top of her child, the father and husband all the time being overpowered could only look on--but now it comes his turn--he is knocked in the head with an axe, his thighs are split open, his breast is next cut open and his heart taken from thence, his scalp cut from his head, and if he has whiskers most of the skin cut from his face, and the greatest indignity of all, the parts which designate the man are cut from his body and stuck into his mouth. All this has been done, not to one family only, but to several. Yet those philanthropists never say a word about this, nor even move out of the even tenor of their way to prevent such things from occurring. And even now in Southern Oregon and Northern California murders of white citizens are of daily or weekly occurrence, and the United States troops even in the very neighborhood are falling back in "masterly inactivity." This course seems to be forced upon them to sustain the position of Gen. Wool, who, it appears, wishes to coax the Indians into a treaty instead of conquering a peace.
    Since I came in from the war south, I have been on the Grand Ronde Reservation and have talked with many of the chiefs, Old Sam in particular, who says Gen. Palmer has told him lies, that he promised to let him and his people go back to Rogue River Valley as soon as the war ended, and now he will not do it--and most all of the petty chiefs of the Rogue River Indians talk in the same way. I am of the opinion that it will require a sleepless vigilance by those having charge of the Indians on the reservation to prevent a greater outbreak amongst these people than has ever cursed the country. Having made this communication longer than I expected, I am most anxious that truth and justice may dispel the clouds that now darken our horizon, and that praise and censure may be placed to the credit of those to whom they justly belong.

    Editors Union: The "Rape of Helen," though it
did not create such widespread excitement as I perceive the Fraser River mines is making in excitable California. Not so in Oregon. Though the existence of gold, in considerable quantities, in that region of country and all along from thence to and beyond Fort Colville, is a fact established beyond a doubt in the minds of most Oregonians, yet they are slow (Pickett might attribute it to their laziness!) to brave the well-known hardships of a trip thither at the present. The truth is, we have had some experience of that country and the condition of the roads thither already, and though we thirst for "filthy lucre" as much as do our neighbors of the Eureka State, we do not wish to peril life or limb to procure it, especially since we have the comfortable assurance that if we only have patience to wait a little longer, the dangers will be lessened a hundred percent. In this I think we display a commendable prudence, which ought to, and I trust, as their friend, will, recommend itself to the numerous readers of the Union, who may feel approaching symptoms of the Fraser River fever. Wait until the end of July or middle of August. By that time the river will be navigable for a great way up, and the road will be cut through a sufficient distance to enable you to reach the mines without having to crawl through jungle "inaccessible"--as an old voyageur, familiar with the country, said to me a few days ago--"except to varmints." Added to this, provisions will then be there in abundance, and of course be cheaper than now, and the richness of the placers will be little if anything diminished from what they are now. This advice is the result of the accumulated experience of a thorough acquaintance with the Fraser River country. I do not pretend to a personal knowledge of the geographical position of that country, but I have conversed with many of the superannuated servants of the Hudson's Bay Company--who are scattered over this and the Willamette Valley--and are as familiar with every inch of the Colville and Fraser River country as a miner is with the few square feet in which he has delved for months. Besides, many of our young men, in the late wars against the Indians, though not penetrating quite as far north as the new gold fields, have brought home such a stock of experience of the neighboring country and its aboriginal inhabitants as is useful to conserve our public tranquility, and to repress our tendency to excitement consequent upon the recent discovery. All things considered, there are few Oregonians leaving for the mines. The few who are leaving are from the counties bordering on California. The bulk of these, I imagine, are Californians. I have encountered several companies bound landwise from Jacksonville and Yreka, and even as far south as Shasta County, to the new El Dorado. They are mostly on horseback and in large companies, led generally by one or more persons who know the route, having been north in the Indian wars, or to the Colville mines some two years ago. They go to the Dalles, lay in a stock of provisions, and proceed in organized companies to Fraser River. For persons starting from Southern Oregon or Northern California, and having their own animals, this is decidedly the best route. There is little danger from Indians, if they travel in bands of fifty to one hundred, from the Dalles northward. The Siwashes (Indians), no matter how numerous, will not venture to attack any respectable number of "Bostons," as they call all white men who are not regulars. The Indians have little or no fear of the regulars, and would sooner attack five hundred of them than a score of ragged "Bostons." The reason is obvious. The "Bostons" fight them upon their own plan--that is, with all the advantages of ambuscade, etc., taking "har" wherever they can find it, and showing no quarter. Not so the regulars, or the "pooh pooh men," as the Indians call them. They must march or halt to the beat of drum, load, aim and fire to the sound of trumpet, all of which are so many signals to the Indians as well as the regulars, and which the former are sure to take advantage of by squatting down in their hiding places (from which they always fight) when the charge is sounded, or the word to fire given. Even should they find themselves worsted in any engagement with the regulars, they have only to call for a "peace wawa"  (peace talk) and immediately they are treated with according to the usages of civilized warfare. This is altogether wrong, and so long as it continues in our dealings with the treacherous aborigines on this coast, just so long shall we have repetitions of the late attack upon Col. Steptoe's command. The Indians east of the Cascade Mountains and north of the Dalles are a semi-civilized and semi-Christianized race--the French Jesuit fathers, under the auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company, having had missions established among them for nearly half a century. They are consequently acquainted with all the usages of civilized warfare, and the policy of the United States government towards them. Many of them--as the Klickitats--have been driven from this side of the mountains by the encroachments of the whites, and are aware of our growing power on this coast. They are also acquainted with the condition of the Indian races east of the Rocky Mountains, and are aware that the rising tides of civilization from the East and the West threaten, at no distant day, to engulf them, with the remnant of their race, in the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains. All these considerations make them doubly sensitive to any occupancy of their narrowed and narrowing limits by the whites. Hence the cause of the recent attack upon Col. Steptoe. There is no losing sight of this fact--Uncle Sam will either have to guarantee them all the country east of the Cascade Mountains and west of the Rocky Mountains from the encroachments of the white race, or else fight them. Which will he do?
    I perceive by late advices from Washington that Congress has passed a bill opening their country up to survey and settlement! Shouldn't Congress first take measures for the extinguishment of the Indian title, and the removal of the Indians? Take my word for it, either of these jobs are hard to accomplish. The Indians will not sell. They have no place to go to. They have their permanent homes where they are. They have houses, and cultivation and stock, and they do not mean to give up their country without a desperate struggle. Col. Steptoe is preparing to regain his lost position, and to chastise the rebellious semi-savages. Meanwhile, should Congress persist in its intention to send surveyors into their country to commence the work of white settlement, you may look out for an Indian war upon a scale more magnificent than any in which our Uncle has been engaged since the days of Black Hawk. All the Indians north to the British line, and many tribes beyond, will engage in it. Such are the threats of the Chief Kamiakin and his allies.
    In our political atmosphere there is little worthy to be chronicled transpiring since the recent election. The result of that has not (as you are aware) disappointed my expectations. The faction which has ruled Oregon for the last seven years with a petty personal malignity akin to despotism has taken a new lease of its existence. The "Statesman clique" party has triumphed in the recent election for state officers, but by a decreased majority, which augurs well for the coming era of independent thought and action. For once, even in party-ridden Oregon, many voters have disregarded the orders of the drill sergeant, and made an effort for their own liberation. This, I say, is significant, and is just cause for hope when we take into consideration the amount of political intelligence pervading our atmosphere, the force of habit and of party drill--and above all the almost superstitious reverence with which the masses regard that mythical piece of India-rubber composition yclept "the Democratic Party." You know "confidence" is said to be "a plant of slow growth." Well, I don't see why a want of it, especially in the infallibility of "the party," should not be. At least, such is my experience. But once awaken doubt, and faith in "the party," as well as in "the Westminster Confession of Faith," is at an end. Such is the condition (in my opinion) of the great bulk of the voters of Oregon today, as evinced by the result of the late election. The trickery, treachery and selfishness of the handful of unprincipled pap-eaters (renegades, for the most part, from their old party associations for the sake of office), have shaken the confidence of even the honest, patient props of party despotism in this Territory. They are in a transition state--out of the Egypt of old party tyranny, but not yet in the Canaan of individual independence. But we are on the high road to it. Now, mark that! And had the unwise leaders of the late opposition been anything else but time-serving old grannies, the goal might even now have been obtained. But the "Nationals" or "Standard" portion of "the Democratic Party," though professing to hate the ruling faction or "Statesman clique"--as they undoubtedly did, because they stood between them and the public fodder--failed to make any issue involving principle. The Eugene convention not only endorsed President Buchanan, but swallowed Lecompton whole, without making a wry face. They did this in the hope of securing a few pro-slavery votes of men in Lane and Benton counties, principally, who yet hope that the Supreme Court can make a slave state of Oregon! Having done so, it was impossible that the Republican Party--however ardently they desired to overthrow the Salem Dynasty--could heartily support their nominees. Had the Nationals come out and endorsed Douglas and his popular sovereignty doctrine--as the convention that framed our constitution and the people in their action upon it did--and had they canvassed the Territory upon that platform with zeal and ability--neither of which they exhibited in the late canvass, the result might have been different. Oregon, which had the most ample fair play in the formation and adoption of her own constitution, would, I am convinced, have endorsed the apostles of popular sovereignty, and condemned the effete Administration, which sought to deny similar opportunities to a sister Territory. But the "Nationals" didn't put faith in the honesty of the people of Oregon, and, as a consequence, the people put little confidence in them. They went down, as I am glad they did, and nobody laments their fall. Let them go back and eat dirt for another decade under the lash of the Salem dynasty.
    O'Meara (late of California and now of the Portland Standard) made the best run of any on the National, or opposition, ticket. This, however, was owing to the unpopularity of his rival candidate (Bush of the Statesman) for the state printership. Bush is elected by three or four hundred majority. O'Meara being a Californian, it was used against him with great effect. Bush ransacked the columns of the Sacramento Union--orthodox authority with him on this occasion, though at others he would not touch it with tongs--to prove the enormity of the California state printing swindle, and O'Meara's connection therewith. Bush, of course, knew that there was no analogy between the cases of California and Oregon in this respect, but no matter for that, he hung on to Dean Swift's old adage that a lie stuck to was as good as the truth. He did stick to it, and as our honest old farmers, hating taxes as they do next to California politicians, were fearful that by some unknown hocus pocus O'Meara might "come California" over their state treasury in the shape of printing bills, they kicked the balance slightly in favor of Bush. However, all things considered, the result is very complimentary to O'Meara, and had he been known better, I have no doubt he would have been elected.
    The Legislature (for the election of two U.S. Senators) convenes on the first Monday of next month--July. Your humble servant means to be present to chronicle and send you the result in advance of all others. The contest will be rather of a personal than a political nature. My own opinion is that "old Jo Lane" and the Hon. Delazon Smith, of Linn County, will be the successful candidates. If Lane has got sufficient strength, he would prefer to have Governor Curry for a colleague. Lane may elect Curry, à la Broderick with Gwin. He both fears and hates Delazon for his abilities as an orator, and would greatly prefer a silent partner. Should Lane succeed according to his expectations, you may look out for radical changes in the federal offices in this Territory. A letter has been received by one of his friends here (this county is his home), in which he breathes no friendly spirit towards the federal officers appointed at the solicitation of his quondam friends the "Salem clique." But I am treading on private premises, and will forbear.
    It is reported that Gov. Jas. Douglas, of Vancouver Island, has imposed a duty of $5 upon each boat navigating Fraser River, and actually forbids any goods being sent up the river except such as are bought from the Hudson's Bay Company. I believe this report is all or nearly "all bosh." He may impose license on gold digging, but cannot, in my opinion, do the other. The report was obtained from the Sound papers, and should be received, like most of their other statements, with caution.
    Yours, &c.,        P.J.M.
Sacramento Daily Union, July 21, 1858, page 1


    GENERAL A. J. SMITH.--This officer is rapidly acquiring distinction in the service of his country, and to him is awarded the credit of retrieving the disaster brought upon Banks' army by the indiscretion of General Stone, and handsomely whipping the Rebel forces under Kirby Smith. General Smith was for many years in California and Oregon, a Captain of Dragoons in the regular army, and was esteemed by all who knew him for his manly and soldierly qualities. He commanded a detachment of regulars during the Indian war of 1855 and 1856, in Southern Oregon, and participated in the fight at Hungry Hill, which would doubtless have proved disastrous to the volunteers engaged in it but for his persevering courage. A detachment of volunteers afterward saved his scalp when he, with a handful of regulars, was surrounded and sore beset by the redskins, in a canon at the Big Meadows, on Rogue River. Before that time he had rather a contemptuous opinion of the volunteers, but afterwards he always spoke of them with respect. He was under Grant until after the fall of Vicksburg, when he was transferred to Banks' command.
Shasta Courier, Shasta, California, May 7, 1864, page 1


    When the great Indian war of 1855-6 broke out in Oregon and Washington, General Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of Washington, determined to occupy the country permanently by roads and blockhouses, by which, together with the stockades and blockhouses which the encouraged settlers were building and holding at many points, to circumscribe the hostile resorts and coverts, and open up the trackless back country. Indian auxiliaries were to be used as the best means of preserving their doubtful fidelity, and of using their knowledge of the country to search out and hunt down the hostiles. Governor Stevens appears not to have received the cordial support of the regular army in the war against the Indians, and his son, General Hazzard Stevens, savagely attacked General John E. Wool, then in command of the Pacific Division, in the biography of General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, soon to be published. The author says:
    This plan the Governor early communicated to Lieutenant Colonel Silas W. Casey (Major-General in the Civil War), then commanding at Steilacoom, and invited and secured his cooperation therewith. So desirous was he to ensure cooperation between the regular and volunteer forces that, waiving etiquette, he twice visited Casey in person; and early in February he again made the arduous journey to Vancouver, and by personal conference with Colonel George Wright, who commanded the regular troops both on the river and the Sound, sought to arrange harmonious and combined action between their respective forces. During the war the Governor spared no pains to consult with the regular officers and secure their concert of action with him, and this end he brought about quite fully with Casey, and, partially with Wright, notwithstanding both officers were under the strictest injunctions from Wool not to recognize the volunteer forces in any way. The letter which Governor Stevens wrote to General Wool on reaching Walla Walla gave very fully the results of his knowledge of the country and the Indians and his views and suggestions in regard to prosecuting the war, which, if adopted or heeded by the prejudiced commander, would have brought the contest to an end in a few months.
    The Governor recommended Wool to occupy the Walla Walla Valley with all his available force in January, establishing a depot camp there, and a line of barges on the Columbia between the mouth of the Deschutes and old Fort Walla Walla, to bring up supplies; in February to cross Snake River with 500 men and strike the Indians on the Palouse, where the hostiles driven out of the valley were congregated; to follow up this blow by sending a column of 300 men up the left bank of the Columbia toward the Okinakane River (Okanogan), while 200 remained to guard the line of the Snake and keep the Indians from doubling back. The effect of these movements would be to drive these hostiles across the Columbia into the Yakima country, when the troops north of the Snake were to follow them, and all the troops south of that stream, who had been holding the river crossings and depot camps, were to unite, cross the Columbia at the mouth of the Snake, and move up the Yakima Valley, and with the other column put the Indians to their last battle, for the effect of these movements would be to drive the enemy into a corner from which he could not easily escape. Moreover, and this was of the first importance, the plan would interpose the troops between the hostile and friendly tribes. Simultaneous movements against the Yakimas and north of Snake River would throw the hostiles upon the Spokanes, and might cause them to take up arms. About 800 effective troops would be required. There were already 500 mounted Oregon volunteers in the Walla Walla Valley, and Wool had, or would soon have, 500 to 600 regulars available. In the last paragraph of this letter the Governor stated:
    "In conclusion, it is due to frankness that I should state that I have determined to submit to the department the course taken by the military authorities in disbanding the troops raised in the Territory of Washington for my relief. No effort was made, although the facts were presented both to Major-General Wool and Major Rains to send me assistance. The regular troops were all withdrawn into garrison, and I was left to make my way the best I could, through tribes known to be hostile. It remains to be seen whether the commissioner selected by the President to make treaties with the Indians in the interior of the continent is to be ignored, and his safety left to chance."
    But instead of profiting by the valuable information and sound views given him by Governor Stevens, Wool sarcastically replied that he had neither the resources of a territory nor the Treasury of the United States at his command. In stead of making use of, or cooperating with, the Oregon volunteers already in the Walla Walla Valley, he denounced them as making war upon friendly Indians and declared that, with the additional force recently arrived at The Dalles and Vancouver, he could bring the war to a close in a few months, provided the extermination of the Indians was not determined upon, and the volunteers were withdrawn from the Walla Walla Valley. He filled the greater part of a long letter with denunciations of outrages by whites upon Indians in Southern Oregon, and of the Oregon volunteers and Governor Curry. He declared that two companies had just sent to the Sound, with three already there, making five in all, under Lieutenant Colonel Casey, would be a sufficient force to suppress the outbreak in that region. He concluded by saying:
    "In your frankness and determination to represent me to the department, I trust you will be governed by truth, and by truth only. I disbanded no troops raised for your relief; and your communication gave me the first intelligence that any were raised for such a purpose.
    "The bad blood and duplicity of this communication was the more inexcusable from the facts that it was on the requisition of his own officers that the Washington volunteers had been raised and mustered into the United States service; that he made no complaint whatever against them or the people of that territory, and that his last assertion was a downright falsehood. Even after receiving the full and valuable memoir which Governor Stevens sent him, he declared in official communications: 'I have been kept wholly ignorant of the state of the country, except through the regular officers of the army.'
    "Thus, instead of the cooperation which he so earnestly sought with the regular service, Governor Stevens was coolly required by the commanding General to disband 13 companies of white troops and four bodies of Indian auxiliaries, abandon his posts and blockhouses defending the settlements, and in the enemy's country, leave the door of the Snohomish open for the Yakima emissaries to strike the reservations and the settlements--in a word, give up his whole campaign at the moment when he had inflicted a severe defeat upon the enemy, and, fully prepared, was on the eve of following it up with his whole force, all posted in the very positions and furnished with the needed supplies, which he had secured by so much labor and foresight, and to leave the defense of this extended and exposed frontier to an officer whose force would consist of only five companies of regulars and two of volunteers, seven in all, and whose most extended operations thus far had never gone beyond 15 miles from his headquarters at Fort Steilacoom. This artful and impudent request of Wool--for Colonel Casey made it by his instructions--was instantly rejected by the Governor with the scorn it deserved; and in a letter to Wool, dated March 20, 1856, he administered a well-deserved castigation to that ill-disposed officer:
    "I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of February 12, and to state generally in answer thereto that the events of the past four weeks, in connection with your own official course, afford satisfactory evidence that the most objectionable positions of your letter have been abandoned, and that you have finally been awakened to the true condition of the Indian war, and are seeking to make some amends for the unfortunate blunders of the past. You have probably learned how much you have been misled in your views of the operations of the Oregon volunteers, and how much unnecessary sympathy you have wasted on the infamous Peu-peu-mox-mox. For your own reputation I have felt pain at the statement made in your letter to me, for I am an authoritative witness in the case; and in the letter which submitted your own action in refusing to send me succor, I have presented briefly the facts, showing the unmitigated hostility of that chief. I assert that I can prove by incontrovertible evidence that Peu-peu-mox-mox has been hostile for months; that he exerted his influence to effect a general combination of the tribes; that he plundered Walla Walla and the settlers of the valley, distributing the spoils to his own and the neighboring tribes as war trophies; that he rejected the intercession of the friendly Nez Perces to continue peaceful; that he had sworn to take my life and cut off my party; that he and the adjoining tribes of Oregon and Washington had taken up their military position as warriors at the proper points of the Walla Walla Valley--and all this before the volunteers of Oregon moved upon him.…
    "That some turbulent men of the Oregon volunteers have done injury to the friendly Cayuses is unquestionable, and it is reprobated by the authorities and citizens of both territories. It has, however, been grossly exaggerated. Had, sir, the regulars moved up to the Walla Walla Valley, as I most earnestly urged both Major Rains and Colonel Wright both by letter and in person, these Indians would have been protected. The presence of a single company would have been sufficient. The responsibility, if evil follows, will attach, sir, to you, as well as to the volunteers.
    "In your letter of the 12th of February, you state: 'I have recently sent to Puget Sound two companies of the Ninth Infantry. These, with the three companies there, will give a force of nearly or quite 400 regulars, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Casey. This force, with several ships of war on the Sound, to which will be added in a few days the United States steamer Massachusetts, it seems to me, if rightly directed, ought to be sufficient to bring to terms 200 Indian warriors. Captain Keyes, in his last report, says there are not quite 250 in arms in that region.'
    "Here you have expressed a very confident opinion. You thought proper to quote Captain Keyes as to the number of Indians, but you found it did not suit your purpose to refer to the requisitions he had made upon you for six additional companies, two of which only had been sent forward; nor could you find time to refer to the fact that, after the war was over, eight companies should be permanently stationed there for the protection of the Sound.
    "You think volunteers entirely unnecessary, although after having received from the executive information as to the condition of the country. It is now March, a month later, and you send two companies of regulars, and direct Colonel Casey to call upon me for two additional companies of volunteers.
    "Thus you have practically acknowledged that you were wrong, and that I was right; and thus I have your testimony as against yourself in vindication of the necessity of my calling out volunteers. As regards the call for volunteers, it is presumed that Colonel Casey informed you that the whole available force of the Sound country was bearing arms, and that the great proportion of them were actively engaging the enemy; that, organized in two battalions, the Northern Battalion occupied the line of the Snohomish, where they were establishing blockhouses and closing the passes of the Snoqualmie.
    "That the Central Battalion was occupying the military road over the Naches, in relation to which road and its military bearing your aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Arnold, will be able to give you full information; and that on both lines decisive blows had been struck; and also that it was beyond the ability of our citizens to raise an additional company of even 50 men to honor your requisition.
    "I had a right to hold you to a full knowledge of our condition here. If you say you were misinformed, then you are not fit for your position, and should give place to a better man. If you were informed, then your measures as a military man manifest an incapacity beyond example.
    "Therefore, the call on me for two companies of volunteers is a call upon me to withdraw the troops now in the field with 60 to 80 days' provisions, after decisive blows have been struck, and when everything is ready to strike and, perhaps, the decisive blow to end the war.
    "I am, sir, too old a soldier ever to abandon a well-considered plan of campaign, or do otherwise than press forward with all my energies in the path marked out, promising, as it does, the speedy termination of the war; and, sir, I am too wary a man not to detect the snare that has been laid for me. You never expected, sir, that the requisition would be complied with. You knew that it was a practical impossibility; but, not having the courage to acknowledge your errors, it was resorted to in the hope that my refusing your requisition might enable you to occupy my vantage-ground, and throw me on the defensive. I hold you, sir, to the facts and necessity of the case, clearly demonstrating by your own confession the propriety of my course, and the necessity on my part of a steady adherence to it.
    "You have referred to the atrocities committed upon friendly Indians by the whites. I know nothing of what has occurred in Southern Oregon; but I have to state that no man, to my knowledge, in the Territory of Washington, advocates the extermination of the Indians. The authorities here have not only used every exertion to protect them, but their exertions have been completely successful. Did you learn, sir, in your brief visit to the Sound, that nearly 4000 Indians--friendly Indians--had been moved from the war ground on the eastern shore of the Sound and its vicinity, to the adjacent islands, and have for nearly five months been living in charge of local agents? That not an Indian in the whole course of the war has been killed by the whites, except in battle? That where a military commission, composed of a majority of volunteer officers, tried some months since eight Indians, only one was convicted, and that the sentence of death passed upon him has not yet been executed? It is the good conduct of our people, sir, that has so strengthened the hands of the authorities as to enable them to control these friendly Indians, and to prevent any considerable accessions to the ranks of the hostiles.
    "I have recently heard from the Nez Perces, the Coeur d'Alenes, and the Spokanes. The former are firm in their allegiance; but the Spokanes urge me to have a military force on the great prairie between them and the hostile Indians, so these latter may not be driven to their country, and thus incite their young men to war. The letter of Garry, chief of the Spokanes, is a most earnest and plaintive call for help, so his hands may be strengthened in keeping his people to their plighted faith; and the coincidence is remarkable that this Indian chief, a white man in education and views of life, should have urged upon you, for you will remember, in my memoir, I urge that the troops, in operating against the Indians, should be interposed between the friendly and hostile tribes to prevent those now friendly from joining in the war. I have, sir, studied the character of these Indians, and my views as to the influence upon the friendly Indians, of the mode of carrying on the war against the hostiles, are confirmed by the only educated Indian of either Oregon or Washington, and the head chief of the tribe in reference to which I made the recommendation and felt the most solicitude.
    "It seems to me that the present condition of things imposes upon you the necessity of recognizing the services of the volunteers of the two Territories now in the field, and of your doing everything to facilitate their operations. But if you waste your exertions in the fruitless effort to induce either the authorities to withdraw their troops, to abandon their plan of campaign in order to comply with your requisition, or to meet your peculiar notions, I warn you now, sir, that I, as the Governor of Washington, will cast upon you the whole responsibility of any difficulties which may arise in consequence, and that by my firm, steady, and energetic course, and by my determination to cooperate with the regular service, whatever may be the provocation to the contrary, I will vindicate the justice of my course, and maintain my reputation as a faithful public servant. I warn you, sir, that, unless your course is changed, you will have difficulties in relation to which your only salvation will be the firm and decided policy of the two Territories whose services you have ignored, whose people you have calumniated, and whose respect you have long since ceased to possess.
    "Can you presume, sir, to be able to correct your opinions by a hasty visit to the Sound for a few days? And do you expect, after having taken my deliberate course, that I shall change my plans on a simple intimation from you, without even a conference between us? Were you desirous, sir, to harmonize the elements of strength on the Sound, you would have seen that it was your duty at least to have informed me of your presence, and to have invited me to a conference.
    "Whilst in the country, in the fall and winter, you complained that the authorities of the two Territories did not communicate with you. Why did you not inform me of your presence in the Sound on your arrival at Steilacoom? I learned of your probable arrival by simply learning on Saturday morning of your having left Vancouver, and I immediately dispatched the chief of my staff to wait upon you with a letter. But you were gone; and whether you did not know the courtesy due the civil authorities of the Territory, who had taken the proper course to place themselves in relations with you, or whether you were unwilling to meet a man whose safety you had criminally neglected, and whose general views you have been compelled to adopt, is a matter entirely immaterial to me.
    "What, sir, would have been the effect if Governor Curry had not made the movement which you condemn, and my party with the friendly Nez Perces had been cut off? Sir, there would have been a hurricane of war between the Cascades and Bitter Root, and 3000 warriors would now be in arms. Every tribe would have joined, including the Snakes, and the spirit of hostility would have spread east of the Bitter Root to the upper Pend d'Oreilles.
    "I believe, sir, I would have forced my way through the 500 or 600 hostiles in the Walla Walla Valley with 50-odd white men and 150 Nez Perces. Would you have expected it? Could the country expect it? And what was the duty of those having forces at their command? Governor Curry sent his volunteers and defeated the enemy. You disbanded the company of Washington Territory volunteers raised expressly to be sent to my relief.
    "I have reported your refusal to send me succor to the Department of War, and have given some of the circumstances attending that refusal. The company was under the command of Captain William McKay. Before your arrival there was a pledge that it should be mustered into the regular service and sent to my assistance. Major Rains informs me that he did everything in his power to induce you to send it on. William McKay informs me that he called on you personally, and that you would do nothing. I am informed that your aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Arnold, endeavored to get you to change your determination. What was your reply? 'Governor Stevens can take care of himself. Governor Stevens will go down the Missouri. Governor Stevens will get aid from General Harney. If Governor Stevens wants aid, he will send for it.' These were your answers, according to the changing humor of the moment.
    "And now, sir, in view of your assertion that you disbanded no troops raised for my relief, and that my communication gave you the first intelligence that any were raised for that purpose, I would commend the challenge to your own lips, 'that I trust you will be governed' hereafter 'by the truth, and the truth only.' "
    Unable to answer this letter, which so clearly exposed and justly rebuked his reprehensible course and conduct, Wool returned it, with a note from his aide stating that it was done by his order. In response, the Governor, in a final letter to Wool, remarks of this act.
    "It can only be construed as evincing a determination on your part to have no further official communication with the Executive of the Territory of Washington, at the very time when, from the circumstances of the case, and the nature of their respective duties, there should, and must often be, such communications.
    "It is a matter which is not to be decided by personal feeling, but by consideration of public duty, which alone should govern public acts. I shall therefore continue in my official capacity to communicate with the Major-General commanding the Department of the Pacific whenever, in my judgment, duty and the paramount interests of the territory shall demand such communication to be made, casting upon that officer whatever responsibility before the country and his superiors may attach to his refusal to receive such communications. My duty shall be done. Let others do their duty."
    The Governor was always of the opinion, the result undoubtedly of what he was told by other officers, that, in disbanding the troops raised for his relief, Wool was actuated by resentment at his, the Governor's, manly declaration in San Francisco when, disgusted at Wool's self-laudation and disparagement of a greater commander, he said that every officer knew, and history would record, "that General Taylor won the battle of Buena Vista." However that may be, after the caustic letter given above, Wool's malice knew no bounds. He redoubled his accusations of making war upon friendly Indians, gathered up and sent on to the War Department in his official reports newspaper slanders against the Governor, and even declared that he was crazy. He reiterated his orders to his subordinates to have nothing to do with the territorial volunteers or authorities, and finally went to the length of directing his officers to disarm the volunteers, if practicable. No attempt was ever made in that direction.
    The hostile Indians on the Sound having been thoroughly subdued, and those of the upper country being still in unbroken strength and confidence, Governor Stevens, on May 28, 1856, proposed to Lieutenant Colonel Casey a joint movement of their respective forces across the Cascades:
    "I would suggest your sending three companies to the Naches, retaining one at or near the pass, and advancing the others into the Yakima country.
    "At the same time I will put my whole mounted force through the Snoqualmie Pass and down the main Yakima. The northern battalion shall occupy posts on the line of the Snoqualmie from the falls to the eastern slope. A depot shall be established on the eastern slope; all the horsemen will then be available to strike and pursue the enemy."
    But Casey, strictly forbidden by Wool to recognize the volunteers, sent two companies under Major Garnett to reinforce Wright by the circuitous Cowlitz and Columbia route, declining to "send him across the Naches Pass, for the reason, first, I consider there would be too much delay in getting across. In the next place, I have not sufficient transportation to spare for that purpose." From Steilacoom to Wright's camp on the Naches was barely a hundred miles by the direct route across the pass; by the Cowlitz-Columbia route it was 315 miles, for 115 of which the troops could be transported by water, leaving 200 to march. By these facts, and by the ease and celerity of Shaw's march a few days later over the rejected route, the validity and candor of Casey's reason may be judged.
    Such a combined movement would have given Wright ample reinforcements, and in the mounted volunteers the very arm he most needed; for infantry could never reach the Indians on those plains in summer unless the latter chose to fight. And for the second time he was given the opportunity, by availing himself of the cooperation of the volunteers, to inflict a severe punishment upon the enemy. Unhappily Wool's orders tied his hands, and Wright himself was imbued with Wool's delusion that the Indians of the upper country--the great hostile tribes that had plotted and brought on the war afresh from treacherously signing the treaties at Walla Walla, had murdered the miners and Agent Bolon, and had plundered Fort Walla Walla, and laid themselves in wait to cut off Governor Stevens and his party--were innocent and peaceably disposed Indians, who had been forced to war by the aggressions of the whites.
Oregonian, Portland, June 13, 1900, page 10


    "We wintered in Salt Lake City in 1854-55," said Michael Kinny of Walla Walla. "In the spring of 1855 we started for Fort Lane in Southern Oregon. At Carson Sinks, near the head of the Humboldt River, Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe took two companies of the Third Artillery to California while the rest of us belonging to the First Dragoons under Lieutenant Oleson went on to Fort Lane. We reached Fort Lane in July and almost at once we were into the thick of the Rogue River Indian War. We were detailed to act as escort for pack trains to Yreka, Crescent City and Jacksonville.
    "I have fought for Uncle Sam for many a long year. I have been among Indians for more than 50 years, and in all that time I have yet to see the Indian war that was started by the Indians. Every time the trouble has been stirred up by bad whites and the rest of the country has been dragged into it. I mind how Lieutenant John L. Gratton, of the Sixth Infantry, one of the most popular young fellows in the service, was killed with 29 troopers over a lame cow belonging to an emigrant. The cow didn't keep up with the rest of the stock. The Indians, finding it without an owner, took it and ate it. The owner made complaint to the commanding officer at Fort Laramie, who sent Lieutenant Gratton out to round up the nearby Sioux Indians and arrest the thief. The upshot of the matter was the Indians refused to specify the thief or turn him over. They came to words over the matter and then to blows and Gratton and 29 out of his 30 men were killed. Next spring a force of 1300 cavalry and infantry were sent out from Fort Leavenworth to make further investigations about the lost cow. Little Thunder, the chief of the Sioux Indians, asked for a parley, but the officer said, 'No, we have come to fight, not to parley.' When the matter was adjusted there were a lot more dead soldiers, and they picked up and buried 83 dead Indians. They called this fight the battle of Ash Hollow.
    "In August, 1855, a white man in Southern Oregon sold some Indians whiskey, and the result was a fight in which a number of the Indians and several white men were killed. A company of volunteers was organized, its members came to our captain, A. J. Smith, and demanded the Indians. Captain Smith would not turn the Indians over to be killed without trial. This made hard feelings toward the regulars. The settlers couldn't see what need there was of trying Indians. They thought hanging was too good for them. The settlers said they were tired of fighting the Indians and soldiers, too, but whenever there was any real fighting to be done I notice they always said we were paid for fighting and told us to wade in.
    "The miners and settlers kept having brushes with the Indians, and finally Colonel John E. Ross of the Oregon militia organized a number of companies and took the field against the Indians. The Indians and volunteers had a fight on Skull Bar on Rogue River in October, 1855, in which some of the volunteers and some Indians were killed. Late that same month in the hills of Grave Creek to the southward of Cow Creek, 250 volunteers and about 100 United States dragoons had a fight with the Indians. Our captain, A. J. Smith, had grown gray in the service and yet he was outranked by the commander of the volunteers, so he had no voice in the matter. The volunteers had an idea they knew how to fight better than the regulars. Well, we had the fight and the Indians licked us. Captain Smith was told to charge up the hill and dislodge the Indians. We did so and had three men killed and seven badly wounded. During the next two days we killed some Indians, and they killed and wounded a good many whites, both volunteers and regulars. We were more afraid of the volunteers than of the Indians, for in the volunteers every man was his own boss and some of them were so inexperienced they would shoot if they saw a bush move, and as often as not the bush was moved by one of our dragoons working his way forward toward the Indians. If a regular was told to go he went, whether he knew he would be killed or not, but in the volunteers, the officers had but little authority and the men stopped to argue the question. The amateur officers of the volunteers were brave enough, but they had no experience. They were lawyers, clerks and politicians, and none of these jobs had trained them in military science.
    "Toward the last of the year we were ordered to go to Applegate Creek, where the volunteers had surrounded Chief Jo and a band of Indians. We had been in the saddle for 24 hours and were dead for sleep, but we started out and rode through rain and sleet for 12 hours. There were 40 of us under Lieutenant Underwood. We had a howitzer along. The Indians were fortified in three log cabins. We dropped a howitzer shell through the roof of one of the cabins and scattered the Indians in that cabin to the other cabins. It was dusk, so we decided to wait till next morning and do the job by daylight. During the night the Indians escaped.
    "Later we caught up with them and dispersed them with some loss on both sides. During the early part of 1856 Lieutenant Colonel R. C. Buchanan of the Fourth Infantry was in command and kept us in the field constantly. He had two batteries of the Third Artillery, four companies of the Fourth Infantry and our troop--Troop C of the First Dragoons. Our hardest fight was in May at the Big Bend of the Rogue River. We were 90 strong, and we stood off a vastly superior force of Indians for a day and a half until we were relieved by Captain C. C. Augur of the Fourth Infantry. More than a third of our force of 90 men were killed or wounded in the 36 hours' fighting. Captain John's band finally surrendered.
    "We took about 700 Indians by boat to Portland and from there to the reservation at Grand Ronde in Polk County. We escorted Chief John's band and the Pistol River and Chetco bands from near Roseburg overland to the Grand Ronde Reservation. That settled the Rogue River War."
Oregon Daily Journal, Portland, May 12, 1915, page 6