difficulty here they would, after becoming drilled and disciplined, be ordered East to engage in active service there. That they have fought no great battles, nor won any important victories, is the misfortune and not the fault of the Oregon volunteers." It indeed required of such men, and under such circumstances as the adjutant general declared in his report, as much patriotism to absent themselves from civilized society, and encounter the hardships and privations of frontier savage warfare, as did any service they could be Called upon to render.
It was midsummer of 1862 before all the six companies were uniformed, armed and mounted. The Dalles company was ordered about the last of March to Camp Barlow, near Oregon City, to be uniformed, and it was July before it was clothed for the service, although in May it was sent to Fort Walla Walla to do garrison duty. The summer was spent in patroling the region about the fort, arresting Indians who violated their .treaty obligations, and performing escort duty on the Oregon Trail, or to the mines. Detachments went to Coeur d'Alene Mission, Fort Colville, Umatilla Indian Reservation, and to the mouth of Palouse River to guard a depot of government freight intended for Fort Colville. In this way the eighty men in Company E were kept on duty and in motion.
In August Captain Currey was ordered to proceed to Grand Ronde and arrest three Indian chiefs who were driving settlers from their claims and tearing down their houses. When found and told that they were wanted by the commanding officer at Fort Walla Walla, they answered that they were on their own land, and if the officer desired to see them, he must come there. During the parley, other Indians gathered about, and Captain Currey, seeing that to fulfill his orders force would have to be used, entered the lodge of the principal chief with the
