Page:Protection afforded by volunteers of Oregon and Washington Territories to overland immigrants in 1854.pdf/16

Rh authorized to enlist a company of volunteers and order them upon that service, if, in your judgment, it should be deemed expedient and necessary. The number of volunteers and time of service will be regulated by your own knowledge of the necessity of the case, and organized under such rules and regulations as you may see proper to adopt, not inconsistent with the militia law of this Territory. Quartermaster General Drew is authorized to render you any assistance in his power in arming, equipping, and subsisting of such command. I am aware of the many embarrassments under which you will labor if it should be considered necessary to raise such a command without a single dollar to defray expenses you will be compelled to rely upon the liberality and patriotism of our fellow-citizens, who in turn will be compelled to rely upon the justness of the general government for their compensation.

For further information, I ask to refer you to my communication to Quartermaster General Drew of even date herewith, and remain, very respectfully, yours,

JOHN W. DAVIS, Governor.

Colonel John E. Ross,

Ninth Regiment of Oregon Militia.

O. T., August 5, 1854.

Whereas, having received orders from his excellency John W. Davis, Governor of Oregon Territory, dated Salem, July 17, 1854, authorizing me to call into service any number of volunteers I may deem necessary for the protection of the immigration on the southern route to Oregon and the Pi-ute, Modoc, and a part of the Shasta tribes of Indians having never entered into a treaty of peace with the whites, but, on the contrary, have plundered, robbed, and murdered a part of every immigration that has passed through the country which they inhabit, a large immigration being now on their way to southern Oregon; and recently the Indians on this route having stolen four horses at the head of Stewart's creek and waylaid the road leading from here to Yreka, murdering Daniel Gage and taking his loaded pack train and having killed another citizen in the immediate neighborhood and in the vicinity of the immigrant trail, and the regular army stationed at Fort Lane and Fort Jones being too small to send a force to protect the immigration, being wholly inadequate to prevent the Indians from committing depredations on the settlements therefore, I deem it absolutely necessary, from my personal knowledge of the many depredations heretofore committed on this southern route, to call into service one company of mounted volunteers, to consist of seventy or seventy-five men rank and file, for the protection of the immigration on the southern Oregon immigrant trail. As soon as seventy men have enrolled for this service they will elect from their number one captain, one first and one second lieutenant, and the captain will appoint the sergeants and corporals, or cause them to be elected by the company, at his discretion. As far as practicable, each officer and private will mount, arm, and equip himself. The quarter-