Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/327

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THE EOGUE EIVER WAE8. 309

miles were thus laid waste. On the day of the hanging, Isaac Hill and a party of volunteers from Ashland at tacked some roving Indians a few miles from that place, killing six. Ten days later the Indians attacked an im migrant camp at Ashland, and killed Hugh Smith and John Gibbs, wounding M. B. Morris, William Hodgkins, A. G. Lordyce, and Brice Whitmore. On the fourteenth, Dr. William R. Rose and John R. Hardin, members of a volunteer organization, while patrolling the line of travel towards the north, with W. G. T Vault, S. S. Wall, and David Birdseye. were shot at from ambush, Rose killed, and Hardin mortally wounded. Says L. J. C. Duncan: " The outraged populace began to slaughter right and left," after these events.

Immediately after the outbreak, and while these events were in progress, a petition was addressed to Captain Alden, in command of Fort Jones, asking for arms and ammuni tion, who at once responded by coming in person with about a dozen men. On the fifteenth, a request was sent to Governor Curry at Salem, to make a requisition on Col onel Bonneville at Vancouver, for a howitzer, rifles, and ammunition, which were immediately forwarded in charge of Lieutenant Kautz and six artillerymen, escorted by forty volunteers under J. W. Nesmith, captain, and officered by L. F. Grover, first lieutenant; W. K. Beale, second lieuten ant; J. D. McCurdy, surgeon; and J. M. Crooks, orderly sergeant.

Over two hundred volunteers were enrolled in Rogue- river valley. John F. Miller was elected captain of the first company; B. B. Griffin, first lieutenant; Abel George, second lieutenant; and Clay Westfelt, orderly sergeant. This company numbered one hundred and fifteen men. Two other companies, under Captains John K. Lamerick and T. T. Tierney, were organized about the same time, while from Yreka came eighty fighting men under Cap tains Goodall and Rhodes. These all reported to Captain Alden, who assumed the command. No pr