Your excellent story “Fort Vancouver: Layers of history” (Aug. 21) includes the observation that the Fort was involved in the early settlement of the Pacific Northwest, and one of the darker chapters of our history, the Indian Wars. Perhaps the first internment of Native Americans at the Fort occurred in late 1855 when a group of Western Klickitats were moved near the post so that they might be dissuaded from joining their relatives, the Yakamas, in a new Indian war.
The Indians chose not to stay near the fort and pursuing volunteer soldiers caught up with them in mid-Clarke County, Territory of Washington.
The place of the encounter became known as the battle ground. A hundred years later the city of Battle Ground adopted the name.
The volunteer troops were led by a recent justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Oregon.
