Major Chinn and the Mounted Volunteers set base in Fort Henrietta where they built a stockade.

Rains, who had just 350 federal troops under his immediate command, urgently appealed to Acting Governor Charles Mason for military aid, writing that[2] ... all the disposable force in the district will at once take the field, and I have the honor to make a requisition upon you for two companies of volunteers to take the field the earliest possible moment.

[4] The Oregon Mountain Volunteers were expected to furnish their own horse, arms, and equipment, if possible.

One volunteer identified as 55ER wrote that[5] ... For the horse that I furnished and rode though, that service I was offered $225.00 in gold coin.

No bedding was furnished us except what we paid for ourselves.Six companies of the Oregon Mounted Volunteers, under Lt. Col. James Kelley, crossed into Frenchtown in the Walla Walla Valley December 7, 1855, skirmishing with the tribes for three days ending on December 11, 1855, and, eventually, capturing Piupiumaksmaks and several other chiefs.