Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/536

518 B, 1st Oregon cavalry, and company I, 1st Oregon infantry. All the various camps in Oregon were abandoned except Camp Watson, against the removal of which the merchants of The Dalles protested, and Camp Alvord, which was removed to a little different location and called Camp C. F. Smith. Camp Lyon and Fort Boisé were allowed to remain, but forts Lapwai and Walla Walla were abandoned. These changes were made preparatory to the arrival of several companies of regular troops, and the opening of a new campaign under a new department commander.

The first arrival in the Indian country of troops from the east was about the last of October 1865, when two companies of the 14th infantry were stationed at Fort Boisé, with Captain Walker in command, when the volunteers at that post proceeded to Vancouver to be mustered out. No other changes occurred in this part of the field until spring, the United States and Oregon troops being fully employed in pursuing the omnipresent Snakes. Toward the middle of February 1866, a large amount of property having been stolen, Captain Walker made an expedition with thirty-nine men to the mouth of the Owyhee, and into Oregon, between the Owyhee and Malheur rivers, coming upon a party of twenty-one Indians in a cañon, and opening fire. A vigorous resistance was made before the savages would relinquish their booty, which they did only when they were all dead but three, who escaped in the darkness of coming night. Walker lost one man killed and one wounded.

On the 24th of February Major-general F. Steele