First Oregon Cavalry Calls for 100 Volunteers
The Oregon Cavalry seeks 100 recruits to protect immigrants and secure the frontier.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Wanted: 100 Volunteers for the First Regiment of Oregon Cavalry, to serve three years unless sooner discharged. 100 Dollars Bounty. The company will consist of one Captain, one First and one Second Lieutenant, one First Sergeant, one Quartermaster Sergeant, one Commissary Sergeant, five Sergeants, eight Corporals, two Teamsters, two Farriers or blacksmiths, one Saddler, one wagoner, and seventy-eight privates. Total, one hundred enlisted men. In addition, the men will be furnished with clothing, subsistence, quarters, and medical attendance. The Governor of Oregon, in his proclamation calling for these volunteers, says that they will be needed the coming spring on the frontiers of this State and Washington Territory, and for an expedition against the Snake Indians who have so long been mercilessly engaged in robbing immigrants and murdering our fellow citizens.
“They will be needed... for an expedition against the Snake Indians who have so long been mercilessly engaged in robbing immigrants and murdering our fellow citizens.”
This 1863 recruiting notice reflects the brutal expansionism of the era, framing the conflict with Indigenous peoples as a 'defense' of the frontier. It illustrates the role of state-sanctioned violence in shaping the settlement patterns of the Pacific Northwest.
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