For the three years previous to his
assignment to the Ninth Infantry he had been stationed on the Pacific
coast, and the experience he had there acquired, added to his
excellent soldierly qualities, was of much benefit in the active
campaigns in which, during the following years, he was to
participate. Subsequently his career was brought to an untimely
close when, nine years after this period, as he was returning to the
scene of his successes, he, in common with many others was drowned by
the wreck of the ill-fated steamer Brother Jonathan. Colonel Wright
took command of the district in place of Rains, and had been at
Vancouver but a short time before he realized that it would be
necessary to fight the confederated tribes east of the Cascade Range
of mountains, in order to disabuse them of the idea that they were
sufficiently strong to cope with the power of the Government. He
therefore at once set about the work of organizing and equipping his
troops for a start in the early spring against the hostile Indians,
intending to make the objective point of his expedition the heart of
the Spokane country on the Upper Columbia River, as the head and
front of the confederation was represented in the person of old
Cammiackan, chief of the Spokanes.
The regiment moved from Fort Vancouver by boat, March 25, 1856, and
landed at the small town called the Dalles, below the mouth of the
Des Chutes River at the eastern base of the Cascade Range, and just
above where the Columbia River enters those mountains.
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