Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/425

Rh chastisement or the annual cavalcades of immigrants from across the plains—wasted and worn by the time they reached these last stages of the long and arduous journey—would fall victims to fiendish cruelty, and without some show of strength and prowess there would be grave danger, too, of a general conspiracy to overwhelm many of the outlying settlements of the Oregon community—if not the community as a whole. With hardly any warning and with no preparation Oregon was plunged into an Indian war.

The Treasurer's annual report, submitted on December 9 (the day after the announcement of the massacre), showed $43.72 of cash on hand, while the scrip outstanding amounted to $4,123.46. The conditions precipitated by the massacre, however, called for immediate military activity. The Governor was forthwith ordered to raise and equip a company of riflemen not to exceed fifty men to occupy The Dalles, where was the first missionary station up the Columbia just beyond the mountains. This action was taken by the Legislature on the same day that intelligence of the massacre was received. On the day following the company was en route for its destination. On the next day the Governor was authorized to raise a regiment of volunteers, not to exceed five hundred men, whose term of enlistment should be ten months, unless sooner discharged. The campaign would have to be conducted in a wilderness some two or three hundred miles from the Willamette Valley settlements. Such were the exigencies for which financial support must be forthcoming.

The same bill that authorized the raising of a regiment also appointed a loan commission, empowered to negotiate a loan not to exceed $100,000 for sinews of war. It was authorized to pledge the faith of the Territory for the payment of the sum borrowed, payable in three years "unless sooner discharged by the United States Government."