Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/530

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SHOSHONE WAR.

1866–1868.

Companies and Camps—Steele's Measures—Halleck Headstrong—Battle of the Owyhee—Indian Raids—Sufferings of the Settlers and Transportation Men—Movements of Troops—Attitude of Governor Woods—Free Fighting—Enlistment of Indians to Fight Indians—Military Reorganization—Among the Lava-beds—Crook in Command—Extermination or Confinement and Death in Reservations.

 

In the spring of 1865 the troops were early called upon to take the field in Oregon and Idaho, the roads between The Dalles and Boisé, between Boisé and Salt Lake, between Owyhee and Chico, and Owyhee and Huraboldt in California, being unsafe by reason of Indian raids. A hundred men were sent in April to guard The Dalles and Boisé road, which, owing to its length, 450 miles, they could not do. In May, company B, Oregon volunteers, Captain Palmer, moved from The Dalles to escort a supply-train to Boisé. Soon after arriving, Lieutenant J. W. Cullen was dircted to take twenty men and proceed 150 miles farther to Camp Reed, on the Salmon Falls Creek, where he was to remain and guard the stage and immigrant road. Captain Palmer was ordered to establish a summer camp on Big Camas prairie, which he called Camp Wallace. From this point Lieutenant C. H. Walker was sent with twenty-two enlisted men to the Three Buttes, 110 miles east of Camp Wallace, to look out for the immigration. Leaving most of his command at Three Buttes, Walker proceeded to Gibson's ferry,

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