Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/339

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Political History of Oregon.
323

per month, and to receive clothing, equipments, rations, medicines, medical attendance, and other allowances furnished by the government. First sergeants of cavalry were to be paid $24; sergeants, $20; corporals, $18; buglers, $16 per month. Each company mustered in was required to have not less than eighty-two enlisted men, and not to exceed one hundred and one. Horses were to be furnished by the government also. The close of the war approached, and orders were received to suspend recruiting, and only one hundred and eighty men had enlisted at the time. Oregon had already placed in the field the first regiment of infantry in obedience to a requisition of Major-General McDowell, made October 20, 1864, and this had been recruited in less than thirty days. Lieut. Charles Lafollett, of Polk County, was the first to present a full company ready to muster, enlisted in about a week in Polk and Benton Counties, known as Company A, of which he became captain. George B. Currey was commissioned colonel.

In addition to this military force furnished to the United States, the state had eleven thousand five hundred and ninety-four men enrolled as militia in the twenty counties in winch the state was then divided, varying in number from thirty-five in Tillamook, and sixty-eight each in Columbia and Curry, to one thousand three hundred and forty-two in Linn, one thuosand two hundred and sixty-four in Marion, one thousand three hundred and twenty-three in Wasco, nine hundred and twenty-five in Baker, and nine hundred and eighteen in Multnomah. These men were never called into active service, although an available force at any time.

The counties in the state in 1865 were Baker, Benton, Coos, Columbia, Clackamas, Clatsop, Curry, Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Umatilla, Washington, Wasco, and