Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/57

 A SOLDIER OF THE OREGON FRONTIER. 49 of the army of the frontier remained loyal was of the greatest moment to the North. The private soldiers, likewise, in their service in old Oregon, were generally not out of harmony with the settlers. That there was unfortunate friction between the army and the set- tlers was due most of all to certain high commanding officers, who understood neither frontiersmen nor Indians who, in- deed, in the Major's phrase, lacked " craft." The latter grew indignant as he told me of the treatment he had seen settlers receive at the hands of one or two officers how that some set- tlers had been ruined financially by furnishing supplies to the army, which were paid for only by the promises of the com- mander ; and how others had given daring and unselfish serv- ices in times of need and had received no recognition. Major Trimble's years of close contact with settlers gave him sym- pathy with them. "None but those in actual contact with the settlers," he writes in a recent letter, "can fully appreciate the exposure to their lives of those who planted the germ of civilization in these wild regions and kept it nourished with their blood and tears. The hardships and life of the pioneers of the Pacific Coast are particularly interesting by reason of the great distance traversed by them to gain a home. I have often witnessed the anxiety and risk caused thereby. After completing a campaign to Salt Lake and Camp Floyd in 1859 a detachment of us was started back from Fort Walla Walla in November to assist or rescue some emigrants near the Sal- mon River Falls of the Snake River. This party of emigrants had endured such extremities by reason of the assaults of the Indians and complete loss of all stock as to be reduced (as we suspected) to cannibalism. However, we brought them away, though overtaken by deep snow." The reference in the preceding paragraph to the illy ad- justed conduct of one or two officers may be mistakenly under- stood to mean that Major Trimble rates the higher officers of the frontier army low. His criticism, however, applies to very few. "The bulk of the old regular army officers," he asserts, "were gentlemen par excellence, and their many brilliant