Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/221

Rh, many of the settlers and miners having traded their arms to the Indians, who were much better equipped for war than their white neighbors. The rifle and revolver had displaced the bow and arrow, and the war club with which the native was armed when the writer of this knew and fought them in 1848.

General Lane and Captain Alden at the commencement of the outbreak had sent an express to Governor George L. Curry, then Secretary and acting Governor. Major Rains of the 4th U. S. Infantry, commanding the district, with headquarters at Fort Vancouver, was called upon to supply the threatened settlers with arms and ammunition. Major Rains responded to the call for arms and ammunition, but was deficient in troops to escort them to their destination at the seat of war. Governor Curry at once authorized the writer to raise seventy-five men and escort the arms to the threatened settlements. The escort was soon raised in the town of Salem, and marched to Albany, where it waited a couple of days for the arrival of Second Lieutenant August V. Kautz in charge of the wagons with rifles and cartridges, together with a twelve-pound howitzer, and a good supply of fixed ammunition. Kautz was then fresh from West Point, and this was his first campaign. He subsequently achieved the rank of major general, and rendered good service during the "late unpleasantness" with the South, and is now colonel of the 8th U. S. Infantry.

After a toilsome march, dragging the howitzer and other materials of war through the Umpqua Canyon, and up and down the mountain trails, made slippery by recent rains, we arrived at General Lane's encampment on Rogue River, near the subsequent site of Fort Lane, on the 8th day of September. On the same day Capt. A. J. Smith, since the distinguished General Smith of the Union army, arrived at headquarters with Company C, First Dragoons.