Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/386



them to engage in. Wrote Captain Rice after three months in the field: "With the exception of two weeks on Rogue river, the company has not camped four days at one place."

During all the time since the battle of Hungry hill, the companies which constituted the northern battalion under W. J. Martin, major, and later lieutenant-colonel, were oc cupied in scouting and guarding settlements, or escorting trains and travelers. The stations in this part of the field were Camas valley, twenty miles southwest of Roseburg, tit the head of the Coquille, where Captain Bailey had his winter quarters, with orders to furnish unprotected fami lies in his vicinity with a sufficient force to render them safe; Fort Smith, at the house of William Henry Smith, on Cow creek, where twenty-five men were stationed to escort trains between Umpqua canon and Fort Leland on Grave creek; Camp Eliff, at the south end of the canon, the station of Captain Buoy, who was instructed to protect families and keep open the road between this point and the crossing of Cow creek; Fort Bailey, five miles south of the crossing of Cow creek, where Captain Keeney was stationed to protect the road from there to Grave creek; and Camp Gordon, where Captain Gordon commanded, eight miles above the mouth of Cow creek. Captain W. W. Chapman was ordered to divide his force, about fifty men being at the mouth of the Umpqua, to keep a look out on the reservation at that point, and also on the Coos bay settlement, while thirty men were encamped on Ten- Mile prairie, near the house of L. D. Kent.

To his captains, Major Martin issued the order to "take no prisoners;" yet about Christmas time he had quite a number of prisoners, chiefly women and children on his hands, whom he directed Captain Buoy to escort to the Grand Rond reservation in Yamhill county. Agent Met- calf, however, refused to let them go, for the reason that they were nearly related to the Indians on the Umpqua