Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/194

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186
F. G. YOUNG.

many of the items in the commission 's report did look preposterous. General Wool and other army officers had meanwhile used with largest effect incidents that had taken place in the contact between disreputable miners and the Indians. It was so easy to assume that these were representative. The report of the commission which had been the result of nearly a year's labor on the scene of the war was referred to the third Auditor of the Treasury for revision. This official worked at his task at Washington, though he conducted some investigations through correspondence. The report of the committee on military and the militia, made March 29, 1860, which recommends the substitution of a bill based on the revised adjustment of the third Auditor of the Treasury for one based on the preceding adjustment made by the Secretary of War's commission, reviews the whole procedure with these claims and reveals the light in which they are viewed at Washington on the introduction of the bill that provided for their payment. The report of this committee was as follows: "The Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia, to whom was referred Senate Bill No. 11, making an appropriation for the payment of the expenses incurred by the people of the Territories of Oregon and Washington in the suppression of Indian hostilities therein, in the years 1855 and 1856, having the same under consideration, report : That a disastrous and general war with the Indians existed in Washington and Oregon Territories in 1855 and 1856, and that these Territories incurred an onerous debt in the prosecution of this war.

"The threatened extermination of the whole white population[1] prompted the Governor of the Territory of Oregon, as authorized by the local legislature, to call out two regiments of mounted men (the ninth regiment being already in the field) and, from time to time, other troops, within the limits of the laws and as the exigencies of the service required; so that during these hostilities from 2,500 to 4,500 men were

  1. ↑ The detractors of the people of Oregon and Washington at the capital, and General Wool was the leader among them, had instilled the belief into the minds of many of the Congressmen that the war had been nothing more than some "forays" indiilged in by the settlers as a speculation, hoping to make them the basis of future claims.
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