Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/338

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322
W. D. Fenton.

thousand seven hundred and twenty-five. The states carried for McClellan were New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky, and all the others voting, including Oregon, voted for Lincoln. In Oregon, Lincoln received a total vote of nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight; McClellan eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven, a majority of one thousand four hundred and thirty-one in behalf of the republican electors. The thirty-ninth congress which, if convened, would have begun the first Monday in March, 1865, was made up as follows: Senate, ten democrats, forty-two republicans; total, fifty-two; house, forty-six democrats, one hundred and fifty-four republicans; total, one hundred and ninety-one. The main issue of the election had been the vigorous prosecution of the war and the indorsement of the administration in its war measures. Addison C. Gibbs was then Governor of Oregon, and on January 12, 1865, issued a call for a regiment of cavalry "to aid in the enforcement of the laws, to suppress insurrection and invasion, and to chastise hostile Indians in this military district.The call was issued at the request of Ma. -Gen. Irwin McDowell, then commanding the department of the Pacific. The regiment was to be called "First Cavalry Oregon Volunteers," and to consist of twelve companies, seven of the old regiment to be recruited to the minimum strength required, and five new companies to be raised. The state provided by law for payment of a bounty of $150 in state interest-bearing bonds, payable in gold, to each volunteer mustered in for three years, in addition to the bounty authorized by the United States of $100 for each volunteer enlisted for one year; $200 for each enlisted for two years; $300 for each enlisted for three years; one third payable at date of muster. Neither drafted men nor substitutes were entitled to the bounties, and, in addition, each man was to be paid $16