k, the Indians would leave their
reservations in squads, and after murdering and pillaging the
settlements, would return with their plunder to the protection of the
agencies. Demands made for their surrender by the settlers were answered
by a counter demand for their authority, which required delay and
generally ended with the escape of the murderers. The result was that
squads of Indians off the reservations were attacked and sometimes
exterminated. Thus affairs grew from bad to worse until the final great
outbreak during the summer of 1855.

Geo. L. Curry, Governor of the Territory of Oregon, at once issued a
call to arms and volunteers from every part of the territory instantly
responded. A company of U. S. dragoons under command of Capt. A. J.
Smith, who subsequently achieved fame in the war of the States, was
stationed in Southern Oregon, and rendered all possible aid, but the
slow tactics of the regulars was illy calculated to cope with the
savages. The main reliance, therefore, must be placed in the citizen
soldiery. Every county in the Territory answered the call to arms,
forming one or more companies, the men, as a rule, supplying their own
horses, arms, ammunition, and at the beginning of the outbreak, their
own blankets and provisions. There was no question about pay. The men
simply elected their own officers and without delay moved to the front.

Linn county furnished one company under Capt. Jonathan Keeny and went
south to join Col. Ross' command and was joined by many of our
neighbors. My two brothers also went with this command, one as teamster,
the other shouldering the spare rifle. As previously remarked, age was
not considered, the boy of 14 marching side by side with the gray haired
man, armed with the rifles they brought from the States. The ammunition
consisted of powder, caps and molded bullets, nor was the "patchen" for
the bullet omitted. The powder was carried in a powder horn, the caps in
a tin box, the bullets in a shot pouch and patchen for the bullets was
cut out the proper size and strung on a stout leather thong attached to
and supporting the shot pouch and powder horn.

In the fall after the departure of the first contingent, and at a time
when families were practically defenseless, news reached us by a tired
rider that 700 Indians had crossed the trail over the Cascade mountains
and were burning the homes and butchering the settlers on the Calapooya,
twenty miles away. The news reached