Hidden History of Civil War Oregon

Author

Guarding the Homefront

Oregon Civil War Regiments

Hurrah for Jeff Davis and damn the man that won’t! Phillip Mulkey paraded up and down the streets of Eugene City shouting the praises of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Crowds of Union supporters surrounded Mulkey, yelling back at him, and the scene quickly devolved into chaos bordering on violence. Word was sent to summon the provost guard, and troops from the 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry double-timed downtown and placed Mulkey under arrest. As the soldiers were leading Mulkey away, someone handed the unrepentant Rebel a glass of water, and Mulkey defiantly raised the glass and drank a toast to Davis. Thus began the so-called Long Tom Rebellion, a little-known chapter in the hidden history of Civil War Oregon.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the whole of the Federal army numbered barely ten thousand men. Most of the soldiers were stationed at remote forts in the West, and Oregon had a fair amount of those troops. The 4th U.S. Infantry was based at Fort Vancouver and had small posts throughout Oregon and Washington Territories. Ulysses S. Grant was stationed in Oregon Territory briefly in 1852. Future Union general Philip Sheridan had a much longer tenure serving as a junior officer in Oregon from 1855 to 1861. Years after the Civil War, both Grant and Sheridan made triumphant tours of Oregon. The cities of Grants Pass and Sheridan are named in their honor.

When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for volunteers, and each state was given a quota of troops it was expected to provide. Tiny Oregon proved to be problematic for the Lincoln administration. Although Oregon was a free state and had voted for Lincoln in the election, its governor was a proslavery Democrat known as Honest John Whiteaker, and he was not keen on sending Oregon boys three thousand miles away to fight against his political kin. Lincoln pulled the regulars from Oregon and sent them to the front, which left the state’s small white population living in fear of reprisals from the suppressed native people.

Before achieving fame as a Civil War general, Phil Sheridan served six years as a junior officer in Oregon. Library of Congress.

HORSE SOLDIERS

The army replaced the regulars with volunteer soldiers from California. Then, as now, Oregonians resented California influence. After gaining assurances that local troops would remain in the Northwest, Governor Whiteaker commissioned state senator Thomas Cornelius a colonel and ordered him to raise ten companies of cavalry. Cornelius, a veteran of the Cayuse War, was a Republican from Missouri, so he appealed to both the northern and southern factions within the state. After the war, Cornelius became president of the Oregon Senate and later built Cornelius Pass Road. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1886. The town of Cornelius, Oregon, is named in his honor, and he is buried in the Methodist Church Cemetery there.

The Oregon cavalry was assigned to escort immigrants on the Oregon Trail and protect miners in eastern Oregon. They fought a number of skirmishes with bands of indigenous people but suffered just ten battle deaths, including one Native American scout from the Warm Springs tribe. The men of the Oregon cavalry were well paid for their time. While privates in the army drew $13 per month, Oregon cavalry troopers received an additional $100 bounty and 160 acres of land at the end of three years’ service. Despite above-average pay, Oregon soldiers were susceptible to gold fever. A gold strike in eastern Oregon in 1862 led to ten thousand mining claims being filed that year. Desertion became a major problem as soldiers sent to guard the miners snuck out of camp to try their luck in the gold fields. Nearly 150 men of the Oregon regiments were charged with desertion.

When the fortune-hunting deserters were caught, punishment varied from having their heads shaved to six months of hard labor chained to twelve-pound balls. A few repeat offenders received the ultimate sentence for wartime desertion: death by firing squad. In all but one case, the executions were stayed and the condemned men were pardoned.

The unlucky soldier was a twenty-four-year-old Irishman who had enlisted in the 1st Oregon Cavalry in Jacksonville. Private Francis Ely not only deserted his regiment, but he also took his government-issued mount with him. He was caught on the road to the gold fields and taken to Fort Walla Walla to face court-martial. Convicted of desertion and as a horse thief, he was sentenced to death. On the day set for Ely’s execution, his captain was so certain that a reprieve would be issued that he posted sentries along the road every twelve miles so that any arriving courier could be rushed to the fort. No message of mercy arrived, and at two o’clock in the afternoon of March 6, 1864, Ely was seated on his coffin in the back of a wagon and driven to the place of execution. The Irishman was stood against a high wooden fence, and a black hood was drawn over his head. A firing squad blasted a volley of four musket balls into his chest. One year later, President Lincoln granted amnesty to all army deserters. Ely is buried in an unmarked grave in the Fort Walla Walla Military Cemetery. He was the only soldier on the Pacific coast put to death by the military in the Civil War.

WEBFOOT VOLUNTEERS

In 1863, Portland’s Addison Gibbs was sworn in as Oregon’s first Republican governor. With Republicans in the top offices, Oregon’s southern Democrats were driven underground. The state swirled with intrigue as rumors spread of secessionists caching arms and of a shadowy organization known as the Knights of the Golden Circle planning to form an independent republic on the Pacific coast. Joseph Lane, who became governor of Oregon Territory only after Abraham Lincoln turned down the job, was unfairly implicated in the plots. With the cavalry away patrolling the high desert and guarding the coast reservations, the main cities in Oregon had almost no formal military presence and relied on militia for protection. In response to the perceived threat, Governor Gibbs obtained permission to raise a second regiment of Oregonians.

The 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry was formed in November 1864. At full strength, the regiment consisted of ten one-hundred-man companies. Captain George B. Currey of the Oregon cavalry was promoted to colonel and appointed commanding officer of the infantry. Currey was a prominent Oregon pioneer, lawyer and newspaperman. After the war, Currey held a number of Federal positions in Oregon before retiring to LaGrande, where he died in 1906. He is buried in the IOOF Cemetery in LaGrande.

Currey’s infantry was uniformed in regulation long, dark blue frock coats, sky blue trousers and wool kepis with a leather bill. They were armed with .58-caliber muskets. Oregon infantry recruits were paid a $150 upfront enlistment bonus. Currey sent his men on extensive patrols and scouting operations, but unlike the swift horse cavalry, infantry moved slowly, and for the most part, the mounted Indians they were chasing simply rode away when the foot soldiers approached. Despite all the rumors of secret Confederate cliques in Oregon, most Rebel activity was limited to raising a Confederate flag here and there, and those flags were quickly torn down by loyal citizens. Life in the webfoot army was best described as monotony broken only by tedium and complaining about the food. When a company of Oregon infantry arrived at Fort Hoskins in 1864, they found barrels of flour and salt pork dated 1852. The only fatalities suffered by the 1st Oregon Infantry came from disease or accident. Their most prominent operation came in the aforementioned Long Tom Rebellion.

INSURRECTION IN EUGENE CITY

It was May 6, 1865, when Philip Mulkey took to the streets of Eugene City hollering hurrahs for Jefferson Davis. The country was still mourning President Lincoln, who had been assassinated just three weeks earlier. Davis, his armies defeated, was fleeing for his life in fear of being hanged for treason. Mulkey, a pioneer Gospel preacher, had crossed the plains by covered wagon, arriving in Oregon from Missouri in 1853. He took a donation land claim west of Eugene, and by all accounts he was a respected and law-abiding citizen until his public outburst and arrest at the end of the Civil War.

As Reverend Mulkey sat in the Lane County jail, a pro-Union lynch mob decided to take matters into its own hands. In response to the threat of frontier justice, pro-Confederate sympathizers from Mulkey’s home area along the Long Tom River were arming themselves to come to their neighbor’s rescue. Guards were shoved aside as the Union rioters busted down the jail door. Mulkey pulled a hidden knife from his coat and slashed the first man through the door. The sight of the bloody blade caused the mob to pause just long enough for the Oregon infantry to arrive at the double-quick. The army surrounded the jail and dispersed the crowd. Late that night, the soldiers slipped Mulkey down to the river and put him under guard on a steamboat, and he was taken to the stockade at Fort Vancouver. With Mulkey out of town, the Long Tom men had no one to liberate, so they went home. Four days after Mulkey’s arrest, fugitive Jefferson Davis was captured in Georgia, and the Confederate States of America was extinguished.

Mulkey spent three months in prison, and when paroled, he filed suit against the government for false arrest and violation of his free speech rights. He sought $10,000 in compensation. After two years and fourteen court hearings, Mulkey settled for $200. The war over, Mulkey returned to his calling as a circuit-riding minister. It is said that he performed over one hundred weddings in Lane County. Reverend Mulkey was ninety-one when he passed away in 1893. He is buried in Mulkey Cemetery in Eugene.

OREGON VETERANS

Once the Civil War was over, the regular army returned to the Pacific Northwest. The Oregon cavalry mustered out in November 1866, and the infantry followed it out of service in July 1867. Several of the Oregon veterans went on to distinguished postwar careers. Notable among them are:

REUBEN F. MAURY was one of the few professional soldiers in the Oregon volunteer regiments. He graduated from West Point in 1846 in a class that included George Pickett and Stonewall Jackson. After serving in the Mexican War, Maury was an Oregon pioneer of 1852. Settling in Jackson County, he volunteered for service during the Civil War and was appointed major of the 1st Oregon Cavalry before eventually being promoted and named as the army’s last commander of the District of Oregon. Colonel Maury is buried in Jacksonville Cemetery.

JOHN MARSHALL MCCALL was an Oregon pioneer of 1851 and served as a captain in the Oregon cavalry. After the war, McCall founded Ashland Woolen Mills and the Bank of Ashland. He was the first treasurer of the City of Ashland and later served as mayor. In 1876, he was elected to the state legislature on the People’s ticket. In 1883, Governor Zenas Moody appointed McCall brigadier general of the Oregon militia. General McCall is buried in Ashland Cemetery.

WILLIAM HILLEARY is the author of the important Oregon history A Webfoot Volunteer: The Diary of William M. Hilleary, 1864–1866. The diary recounts Hilleary’s service as a corporal in Company F of the 1st Oregon Infantry. After the war, Hilleary became a schoolteacher and was active in the Grange movement, becoming a strong advocate for rural free mail delivery, a postal savings banking system and a canal across Nicaragua. In 1896, he was elected master of the Oregon State Grange and became a member of the Board of Regents of Oregon Agricultural College. A member of Brownsville GAR Post 49, he