He also introduced a bill granting bounty land to the officers and soldiers of the Cayuse war, which failed as first presented, but succeeded at a subsequent session.[1]
A measure in which Lane, with his genius for military affairs, was earnestly engaged, was one for the protection of the Oregon settlers and immigrants from Indian depredations. Early in February 1852 he offered a resolution in the house that the president should be requested to communicate to that body what steps if any had been taken to secure the safety of the immigration, and in case none had been taken, that he should cause a regiment of mounted riflemen to be placed on duty in Rogue River Valley, and on the road between The Dalles and Fort Hall.[2] In the debate which followed, Lane was reproved for directing the president how to dispose of the army, and told that the matter could go before the military committee; to which he replied that there was no time for the ordinary routine, that the immigration would soon be upon the road, and that the regiment of mounted riflemen belonged of right to Oregon, having been raised for that territory. But he was met with the statement that his predecessor Thurston had declared the regiment unnecessary, and had asked its withdrawal in the name of the Oregon people;[3] to which Lane replied that Thurston might have so believed, but that although in the inhabited portion of the territory the people might be able to defend themselves, there was no protection for those
- ↑ Speech of Brooks of N. Y., in Cong. Globe, 1851–52, 627. Failing to have Oregon embraced in the benefits of this bill, Lane introduced his own, as has been said, and lost it. But at the 2d session of the 33d congress a bounty land bill was passed, which by his exertions was made to cover 'any wars' in which volunteer troops had been regularly enrolled since 1790. Bacon's Merc. Life, MS., 16.
- ↑ Cong. Globe, 1851–2, 507.
- ↑ The secretary of war writes Gaines: 'All accounts concur in representing the Indians of that region as neither numerous nor warlike. The late delegate to congress, Mr Thurston, confirmed this account, and represented that some ill feeling had sprung up between the troops and the people of the territory, and that the latter desired their removal.' Or. Spectator, Aug. 12, 1851.
