Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/99

Rh The arrest of the Cayuse murderers could not proceed until the arrival of the mounted rifle regiment then en route, under the command of Brevet-Colonel W. W. Loring. This regiment which was provided expressly for service in Oregon and to garrison posts upon the emigrant road, by authority of a congressional act passed May 19, 1846, was not raised till the spring of 1847, and was then ordered to Mexico, although the secretary of war in his instructions to the governor of Missouri, in which state the regiment was formed, had said that a part if not the whole of it would be employed in establishing posts on the route to Oregon. Its numbers being greatly reduced during the Mexican campaign, it was recruited at Fort Leavenworth, and at length set out upon its march to the Columbia in the spring of 1849. On the 10th of May the regiment left Fort Leavenworth with about 600 men, thirty-one commissioned officers, several women and children, the usual train agents, guides, and teamsters, 160 wagons, 1,200 mules, 700 horses, and subsistence for the march to the Pacific.

Two posts were established on the way, one at Fort