1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment The 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment was an American Civil War era military regiment recruited in Oregon for the Union Army . The regiment was formed in November 1864 . At full strength , it was composed of ten companies of foot soldiers . The regiment was used to guard trade routes and escorted immigrant wagon trains from Fort Boise to the Willamette Valley . Its troops were used to pursue and suppress Indian raiders in eastern Oregon and the Idaho Territory . Several detachments accompanied survey parties and built roads in central and southern Oregon . The regiment ' s last company was mustered out of service on July 1867 . Background . Following the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861 , most regular army troops were withdrawn from the Pacific Northwest for service in the war ' s eastern theatres . This left Oregon and the Washington and Idaho territories without sufficient troops to guard Indian reservations from trespassing miners , escort immigrant wagon trains , and protect settlers and traders from Indian raiders in eastern Oregon and southern Idaho . Oregon officials were also concerned about possible conflicts between pro - Union and pro - Confederate supporters . As a result , the commander of the United States Army ' s Department of the Pacific , Brigadier General George Wright asked Oregon Governor John Whiteaker to recruit an Oregon cavalry regiment . At the same time , Wright asked Henry M . McGill , Washington Territory ' s acting Governor , to raise an infantry regiment in Washington . Both recruiting efforts were successful . The Washington infantry regiment was formed on 18 October 1861 , and the 1st Oregon Cavalry was activated a month later on 21 November . Formation . The initial enlistment period for six of the seven Oregon cavalry companies and five of ten Washington infantry companies expired in the fall of 1864 . As a result , Brigadier General Benjamin Alvord , the Army ' s senior commander in Oregon , asked Oregon ' s new Governor Addison C . Gibbs to raise a new infantry regiment and recruit backfills for the expected cavalry vacancies . Gibbs agreed , and formally asked Major General Irwin McDowell , who replaced Wright as commander of the Department of the Pacific , to request authority to recruit additional troops for military operations in Oregon . On 31 August 1864 , Gibbs and McDowell sent a joint letter to the War Department in Washington , D . C . requesting permission to recruit a new infantry regiment and cavalry replacements . On 20 October 1864 , the Governor received a positive reply from the War Department . The news arrived just one day before the end of Oregon ' s legislative session . Gibbs quickly asked the legislature to provide a $ 150 enlistment bounty , which the legislators enacted before going home . Governor Gibbs appointed well known civic leaders as county recruiting officers to give prestige to the effort . The state ' s pro - union newspapers including " The Oregonian " , the " Oregon Statesman " , and the " Jacksonville Sentinel " all encourage young men to join the new regiment . The publicity along with the $ 150 bounty helped make the recruiting drive a success . The first companies of the 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment were officially activated on 11 November 1864 . By June 1865 , the regiment reached ten full - strength companies . Three senior officers from the 1st Oregon Cavalry were promoted and placed in charge of the new infantry regiment . Colonel George B . Currey became the regiment ' s commander . Lieutenant Colonel John M . Drake was second in command , and Major William V . Rinehart was given the third most senior post . Operations . While some detachments of the 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment occasionally skirmished with hostile Indian bands , the regiment ' s main duties were much more mundane . Most companies spent their time in garrison duty at small posts in eastern Oregon , southeast Washington , and southern Idaho . They protected immigrant trails and escorted wagon trains from Fort Boise to the Willamette Valley . Two companies escorted survey parties , and another constructed a road in southwestern Oregon . While scouting sixteen miles from Camp Wright on the Selvies River , near present - day Burns , Captain Loren L . Williams and a party of twenty Oregon infantrymen from Company H were ambushed by a band of hostile Indians . Williams and his troops fought a harrowing retreat back to Camp Wright , defending themselves for about fifteen hours before they reached safety . All along the way Indians fired from concealed positions . At one point , they even set a brush fire in the soldiers path to prevent them from escaping . Despite their continuous attacks , the Indians only wounded two soldiers . In his report , Williams stated that his long - range rifles killed fifteen Indians . He also stated that his superior weaponry was the only thing that prevented his party from being overrun . In the summer of 1865 , Lieutenant Cyrus H . Walker and the men of Company B were responsible for disarming friendly Indians and guarding numerous wagon trains as they crossed southern Idaho . They also established Camp Reed at Salmon Falls Creek and Camp Wallace at Camas Prairie , both in Idaho . The troops built a blockhouse at Camp Wallace , but later abandoned the site in favor of winter quarters near Fort Hall . Lieutenant William Grant and his detachment accompanied David P . Thompson and his government survey team through central Oregon as they plotted the Deschutes Meridian , a north - south line extending from the Columbia River to the California border . In another party , Lieutenant John M . McCall led a detachment of forty - eight men responsible for escorting State Surveyor Byron J . Pengra and his assistants as they surveyed the route of the Oregon Central Military Road . The route they surveyed ran from Eugene , Oregon along the Middle Fork of the Willamette River , through the Cascades near Diamond Peak , then across arid southeastern Oregon to Idaho ' s mining country . Captain Franklin B . Sprague and twenty men of Company I built a section of road that linked the Rogue River with the John Day road . This connected Jacksonville and southwest Oregon with John Day ' s mining country . After the construction work was completed , Sprague published a list of the best camp sites along the road in the Jacksonville newspapers so that the wagon masters could find the best water and grass along the way . On 1 August 1865 , two hunters from Sprague ' s party rediscovered Crater Lake , which had been first visited in 1853 , but was never effectively recorded so that others could locate the lake . Based on directions from his hunters , Sprague and five other men visited the lake on 12 August . They climbed down the 800 foot caldera cliff to become the first explorers to reach the lake shore . Sprague ' s account of the visit to " Lake Majestic " was published in the " Jacksonville Sentinel " on 25 August . In the fall of 1865 , Colonel Currey was planning a winter campaign against the Indians in eastern Oregon . To prepare , he sent detachments of the 1st Oregon Infantry along with Oregon cavalry units to Camp Alvord in the Alvord Valley ; Camp Polk near present - day Sisters ; Camp Currey near Silver Lake ; Camp Logan and Camp Colfax along the Boise Road east of Canyon City ; Camp Wallace ; and Camp Lander near Fort Hall in the Idaho Territory . Detachment commanders were instructed to build winter quarters at their posts and prepare for a winter offensive . Winter provisions were to follow in supply wagons . However , the end of the Civil War in the east had freed up many regular officers for duty in the west , and as a result , Colonel Currey was released from duty in November 1865 along with the men from companies C , D , and E . Lieutenant Colonel Drake was released from service in December , so the planned winter campaign never got started . Disbanding . The remaining companies spent a long winter in field encampments waiting for orders . In February 1866 , Major General Frederick Steele arrived at Fort Vancouver to take command of the Military Department of the Columbia . As soon as the weather improved he ordered the dispersed infantry units , except Captain Sprague ' s Company I , to report to Fort Vancouver where the volunteers were mustered out of service . Several officers were reassigned to regular Army units arriving from the east , but few were retained more than a year . On 19 July 1867 , Captain Sprague , First Lieutenant Harrison B . Oatman , and the men of Company I were the last members of the 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment to be mustered out of the Army . Officers . The following is a list of officers who served in the 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment . The list was current as of 31 October 1865 , the date the first members of the regiment were mustered out of service .