THE ROGUE RIVER WARS. 369
reservation, and if removed before the main body of the Indians, would make trouble, and defeat the plans of the Indian department, which had trouble enough already to reconcile the people of Polk county to the contemplated reservation of their western border for Indian uses.
The following monthly report of Captain Chapman, brief as it is, gives a more definite idea of the service than pages of less succinct narrative :
December first, arrived at Little Meadows just at night ; second, was ordered out next morning at daylight ; camped that night on hill west of Whisky creek ; third, by four o clock P. M. reached Grave creek ; lay there until the sixth ; seventh, marched through the canon and reached Roseburg, thirty miles ; ninth, reached Winchester ; tenth, High water ; eleventh, arrived at headquarters at Oalipooya ; on the twenty-first, by order, moved to u Kellogg s " for headquarters ; stationed forty-five men at Providence, at mouth of Umpqua; selected thirty men for Kent s station in Ten-Mile prairie, and ordered remainder to headquarters ; while selecting station below, bad weather, snow, etc., set in, and stopped further progress. It now became necessary to feed the grain I had laid in, in Novem ber instead of grass, as ordered.
Such were the reports mere records of weary marches over nearly impassable roads, in rain and snow, to ward off possible attacks on isolated settlements, or pursue a small band of Indians intent on robbing if not on murder; for by robbery they must now live.
There was neither pay nor glory in that kind of warfare, nothing but self-sacrifice, not even the excitement of good fighting, for the Indians kept in seclusion excepting when their spies reported an opportunity to capture a pack train, or destroy property leit unguarded. This being the situa tion, a majority of the regiment under Colonel Williams applied for their discharge early in January, upon the ground that their term of enlistment had expired, they having been mustered into the service in October under Colonel Ross, and transferred the following month to the second regiment Oregon mounted volunteers. Their horses being worn out, Colonel Williams suggested to Adjutant-
