My regiment spent a few weeks at Benicia barracks, and then was ordered
to Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, then in Oregon Territory.
During the winter of 1852-3 the territory was divided, all north of the
Columbia River being taken from Oregon to make Washington Territory.

Prices for all kinds of supplies were so high on the Pacific coast from
1849 until at least 1853--that it would have been impossible for
officers of the army to exist upon their pay, if it had not been that
authority was given them to purchase from the commissary such supplies
as he kept, at New Orleans wholesale prices. A cook could not be hired
for the pay of a captain. The cook could do better. At Benicia, in
1852, flour was 25 cents per pound; potatoes were 16 cents; beets,
turnips and cabbage, 6 cents; onions, 37 1/2 cents; meat and other
articles in proportion. In 1853 at Vancouver vegetables were a little
lower. I with three other officers concluded that we would raise a crop
for ourselves, and by selling the surplus realize something handsome. I
bought a pair of horses that had crossed the plains that summer and were
very poor. They recuperated rapidly, however, and proved a good team to
break up the ground with. I performed all the labor of breaking up the
ground while the other officers planted the potatoes. Our crop was
enormous. Luckily for us the Columbia River rose to a great height from
the melting of the snow in the mountains in June, and overflowed and
killed most of our crop. This saved digging it up, for everybody on the
Pacific coast seemed to have come to the conclusion at the same time
that agriculture would be profitable. In 1853 more than three-quarters
of the potatoes raised were permitted to rot in the ground, or had to be
thrown away. The only potatoes we sold were to our own mess.

While I was stationed on the Pacific coast we were free from Indian