Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/115

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Oregon in the Civil War.
105

Dall, of the steamship Columbia, was appointed a lieutenant in the navy; and many of the regular army officers, whose northwestern service is indissolubly connected with its early history, rose to great eminence during the progress of the war.

"Notable among them was Rufus Ingalls, who became lieutenant colonel on McClellan's staff; Captain Hazen and Lieutenant Lorraine, who was wounded at Bull Run. Grant, Sheridan, Augur, Ord, Wright, Smith, Casey, Russell, Reynolds, and Alvord, all became generals, as well as Stevens, who had received a military education, but was not in the regular army."

It is not the purpose of this paper to follow the patriotic service of the First Oregon Cavalry during the long and wearisome months and years during which they labored in heat and cold, in storm and sunshine, under pioneer and frontier hardships, in chastising the hostile Indians, guarding the immigrant caravans, or holding in check the forces of disunion and secession. That there was need of them, for all these high and patriotic duties, there is no doubt.

As early as shortly after Lincoln's election in 1860, Senator Gwin, of California, with the undoubted knowledge and coöperation of Joseph Lane, of Oregon, formulated a plan for a slave-holding republic on the Pacific coast, with an aristocracy similar to the old Republic of Venice, vesting all power in a hereditary nobility, with an executive elected from themselves.

Should the Southern States succeed in withdrawing from the Union and setting up a Southern Confederacy without war, then with a continuous line of slave territory from Texas to the Pacific, the Pacific coast should combine with the South; but if war ensued between the North and South, then the coast should be captured, and