Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/114

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
104
Robert Treat Platt.

cepted the task he set them to accomplish, and although to them the pomp and circumstance of war were missing, although no patriotic millions stood by to applaud their gallant feats, and the eye of Government was not upon them, yet for three long weary years they did their duty faithfully and well, and by that faithfulness preserved their beautiful State for the Union and the wonderful future that has come to it.

Some there were of Oregon blood and Oregon soil, however, who could not remain away from the greater theater of war, where the more dramatic destiny of the nation was being wrought out in havoc of blood and treasure. Col. Joseph Hooker, "Fighting Joe Hooker," living at Salem when the war broke out, went East, and became a brigadier-general, and Bancroft speaks of others as follows: "Volney Smith, son of Delazon Smith, was for a short time lieutenant in a New York regiment; James W. Lingenfelter, residing at Jacksonville, was made captain of a volunteer company, and killed at Fortress Monroe October 8, 1861; John L. Boon, son of the state treasurer, who had been a student of the Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, was at the battles of Shiloh and Corinth, in an Ohio regiment, in Gen. Lew Wallace's division; Major Snooks, of the Sixty-eighth Ohio, was formerly an Oregonian of the immigration of '44; George Williams, of Salem, was second lieutenant of the Fourth Infantry, and in the second battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Frederickburg, and Gettysburg, losing a foot at Gettysburg; Frank W. Thompson, of Linn County, was colonel of the Third Virginia Volunteers in 1863; Henry Butler, of Oakland, was a member of the eighty sixth Illinois Volunteers; Charles Harker was a lieutenant; Roswell C. Lampson, still living in Portland, was the first naval cadet from Oregon, and served with conspicuous gallantry and fidelity throughout the war; Capt. W. L.