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Oregon Sierras became a most interesting one. It was here that the hardest struggle of the war was carried on not in fighting Indians, but in keeping the men in the field who had undertaken to do the fighting. In point of fact, the commissary department was charged with the principal burden of the war, and the title of "general" which Palmer acquired through being at the head of this department, might well have been bestowed upon him for his services in sustaining the organization of the army under conditions such as existed in Oregon in 1847-48. Without arms, without roads, without transportation, other than small boats and pack horses, without comfortable winter clothing and with scanty food, the war was to be carried on at a distance of nearly three hundred miles from the settlements. And if the volunteer soldiers were called upon to endure these hardships, which General Palmer was doing his best to overcome, the commissioned officers were no less embarrassed by the want of the most ordinary appliances of their rank or position even to the want of a proper field glass! Says Governor Aber- nethy in a letter to Lee, written January fifth, before Col onel Gilliam had started from the rendezvous: "Mr. McMillan has the spyglass and papers. He can tell you we are getting lots of pork, and some wheat. * * * Perhaps we can get some small cannon ; I hope so." Also, under the same date: "There is considerable ammuni tion in one of Mr. Whitcomb s wagons; but it would not do to overhaul any wagons out at the gate where they are, as the Indians might overhaul after you. This step is dis cretionary with you." 5

Lee, meanwhile, was finding out the temper of the Indians above The Dalles. On the eighth of January a

5 Oregon Archives, 859. Letters from various persons concerning affairs at Fort Gil liam, give graphic accounts of their condition. There is among the papers in the Oregon archives a receipt given by Lieutenant-Colonel James Waters, January 22, 1848, for " four pairs pants, two coats, seven pairs shoes, six cotton shirts, two flan nel shirts, one wool hat, three pairs socks, two comforters, four camp kettles, twenty- four tin cups, ten pounds tobacco, fifteen pounds flour. On the same paper is a memorandum : " Distributed for the use of the army at Fort Gilliam, January thir tieth, one pound of powder ; receipted for at Portland."