Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/157

Rh, glad of an opportunity to strike their hereditary foe, furnished their own horses, two to each man, and without pay or the promise of it, joined the white cavalry. But Currey's desire was for a considerable force of Indians, which might have been had for $10 a month per man, their clothing and rations, and the use of the arms furnished them, with their ammunition.

"With well trained troops, and one hundred riders equal to the Cossacks in agility, and the Mamelukes in bravery and intrepidity, fired by their hereditary hatred of the Snakes, there can be no doubt but that the spring flowers of 1865 would have come and found peace upon our borders so long the scene of plunder, massacre, and torture." * * "This digression," continues the report, "has been indulged in, not to reflect upon the military leaders of the country, nor with the hope of instructing the political rulers of the land, but to- give expression to an opinion pretty generally entertained by the subordinate officers doing military duty on our borders, where important and decisive action is constantly demanded at their hands without adequate force wherewith to accomplish it."

This abstract is, here made to show the spirit in which the Oregon volunteers performed their duties, at no time agreeable or wholly satisfactory. That they desired to have something to show for their three years' services, we are frequently reminded by paragraphs like the following: "When I visited this valley (the Grande Ronde) in 1862, what is now a thriving village of over a hundred houses, consisted of a single house, without any roof, and another up to the top of the valley that the settlers have thrown up as a fort against the Indians. I do not remember any others except those in La Grande. Now the whole valley is dotted with farm houses. This great change,