Lee’s Encampment is located near the summit of the Blue Mountains in Oregon, on the great highway leading from the Columbia river to the rich gold fields of Idaho and Eastern Oregon. It is fifty miles south of Walla-Walla, and is also one of the out-boundaries of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, occupied by the Walla-Walla, Cayuse and Umatilla Indians.
The roads leading out from the several starting-points on the Columbia river, to the mines above-mentioned, converge on the Reservation, and, climbing the mountain’s brow, on the old “Emigrant trail,” cross over to Grand Round valley.
During the spring of 1863, the great tide of miners that flowed inland, to reach the new gold fields, necessarily passed through the Reservation, and thence via Lee’s Encampment. This circumstance of location gave abundant opportunity for observation by the writer. Of those who sought fortunes in the mines, I might write many chapters descriptive of the motley crowds of every shade of color and of character, forming episodes and thrilling adventures. But my purpose in this work would not be subserved by doing so, except such as have bearing on the subject-matter under consideration.
Of the thousands who landed at Umatilla City and Walla-Walla, en route to the “upper country,” few brought means of transportation overland. There were no stages, no railroads; and what though Haley & Ish, Stephen Taylor, and many others, advertised “saddle trains to leave for the mines every day of the week, at reasonable rates,” which were, say, sixty dollars, on ponies that cost perhaps forty dollars; yet there were hundreds that could not get tickets even at those rates. The few who engaged _reserved seats_ were started off on saddle-horses of various grades, under the charge of a “conductor,” whose principal duty was, not to collect fares, but to herd the kitchen mules,——every train had with it one or more animals on whose back the supplies and blankets were carried,——and indicate the camping places by pulling the ropes that loosed the aforesaid kitchens and blankets, when, like other trains, at the pull of the rope, the whole would stop, and not be startled into unnecessary haste by “twenty minutes for dinner” sounded in their ears. One or more nights the camp would be on the Reservation, thus bringing travellers and Indians in contact.