"Well, he laid down sudden like, and as I now had time to draw my revolver, I informed the mob that I would shoot the first man that attempted to haul down that flag before sundown. That settled it. Friends removed my man to the store, and many Union men gathered to my assistance, which had the effect of stopping any further demonstrations in that direction. At the going down of the sun, we lowered the flag, cheering as we did so, and laid it away with the honor we considered to be due the 'flag of the brave and the emblem of the free.'"
In 1861 there were only about seven hundred men and nineteen commissioned officers in the regular army in the whole of Oregon and Washington, the force having been reduced to its lowest possible limit by withdrawals to strengthen the forces in the East. These troops were distributed as follows: 111 men, under Capt. H. M. Black, at Vancouver; 116 men, under Major Lugenbeel, at Colville; 127 men, under Major Steen, at Walla Walla; 41 men, under Captain Van Voast, at the Cascades; 43 men, under Capt. F. T. Dent, at Hoskins; 110 men at the two posts of Steilacoom and Camp Pickett, and 54 men under Lieutenant-Colonel Buchanan, at The Dalles, all under the general command of Colonel Wright, with Brig.-Gen. E. V. Sumner commanding the military department of the Pacific.
Twofold dangers threatened the widely scattered settlements; from without, the ever hostile Indians who were further emboldened by the inevitable spirit of uncertainty and unrest that followed on the heels of civil war, and from within, disunion intrigue might at any time blaze into armed rebellion. It was a time that tried men's souls.
In June, 1861, Colonel Wright made a requisition upon Governor Whiteaker for a three-year cavalry company to be mustered into the service of the United States and A. P. Dennison, former Indian Agent at The Dalles, was appointed enrolling officer. Suspicion of the loyalty of both the Governor and of Dennison to the Union cause, retarded enlistment and finally led to the abandonment of the undertaking.
In November, 1861, the War Department made Thomas R. Cornelius colonel, and directed him to raise ten companies of cavalry for the service of the United States for three years, to be a part, as it was supposed, of the five hundred thousand volunteers called for by President Lincoln. Colonel Baker from Washington had taken an active interest in encouraging the raising of this famous regiment—it was the original regiment of Rough Riders of the West. There was an impression that nowhere in the East could there be gathered together cavalrymen to withstand the onslaughts of the dashing Southron on his black charger and the First Oregon Cavalry was recruited on the express promise that should the war continue they would be speedily transferred to the Army of the Potomac and given opportunity to cross swords with the flower of Southern chivalry.
From the lava beds of Jackson County to the plains of the Tualatin rang the bugle call to duty and the pick of the youth of this young State were soon in the saddle under the guidon of freedom. R. F. Maury was commissioned lieutenant-colonel, Benjamin F. Harding, quartermaster, C. S. Drew major, and J. S. Rinearson junior major. Each volunteer furnished his own horse and received for himself and mount $31 a month, $100 bounty and a land warrant for one hundred and sixty acres of land. Company "A" was raised in Jackson County, Capt. T. S. Harris; Company "B" in Marion County, Capt. E. J. Harding; "C" at Vancouver, Capt. Wm. Kelly; "D" in Jackson County by Capt. S. Truax; "E" by Capt. George B. Currey in Wasco County; "F" by Capt. William J. Matthews in Josephine County; and Capt. D. P. Thompson of Oregon City and Capt. R. Cowles of the Umpqua also had companies. Six complete companies rendezvoused at Vancouver in May, 1862, and were clothed in government uniforms and armed with old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles, pistols, and sabres.
Colonel Baker was the warm personal friend of Lincoln; he had promised the boys of the First Oregon Cavalry before recruiting began that they should have a chance, if the war continued, of serving in the East; many of the present survivors have told me that they enlisted on this express promise, and had Colonel Baker lived there is every reason to believe that with his strong personal influence with the President, "Tom Cornelius' Rough Riders of Oregon" would have been the prototype in fame, as they were in fact, of "Roosevelt's Rough Riders" of the Spanish war. Colonel Baker was the colonel of the Fourth Illinois in the Mexican war, and it was hardly to be expected that a man of his ardent temperament could sit tamely in the halls of legislation while the rattle of musketry and the roll of drums were heard at the very gates of the national capital.
And thus it came to pass, for on June 28, 1861, he was mustered into service for three years as colonel of the First California Infantry, a regiment he recruited largely in Pennsylvania, and which was afterwards denominated the Seventy-first Pennsylvania. On August 6, 1861, he was commissioned Brigadier-General of Volunteers, to rank from May 17, which commission, although confirmed by the Senate, he declined, as he did also a later appointment as Major-General of Volunteers, as either appointment would have necessitated his resignation as senator from Oregon. It is stated that when General Scott had to give up general command of the army on account of his advancing years, President Lincoln tendered the succession to Colonel Baker, which was alike declined for the same reason.
With impetuous courage and passionate desire to serve his country upon the field of battle as well as on the floor of the Senate, Colonel Baker could not stay at the rear, but joined his regiment at the front, and was as active in the work of the camp as he had been upon the stump and rostrum. Occasionally he would revisit the Senate and participate in a day's debate and then hurry back to his military duties. It was at such a time, sitting in his seat in the Senate, clad in his colonel's uniform that John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, late pro slavery candidate for the presidency with Joseph Lane, delivered a speech which was but a reflection of the secession views of those braver Southerners who were already in armed rebellion. Colonel Baker grew restive under the words of Breckinridge, his face glowed with passionate excitement, and he sprang to the floor when the senator from Kentucky took his seat and then and there without previous preparation delivered that wonderful philippic, abounding in denunciation and invective which alone would make a niche for him in the world's temple of fame.
Passionately he asked "What would have been thought, if in another capitol, in a yet more martial age, a senator with the Roman purple flowing from his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was just and that Carthage should be dealt with in terms of peace? What would have been thought, if after the battle of Cannæ, a senator had denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasure, every appeal to the old recollections and the old glories?" Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, who sat near, responded in an undertone, "He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock;" and in tones of thunder Baker flashed forth the suggested fate and continued "Are not the speeches of the senator from Kentucky intended for disorganization? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant polished treason even in the very capitol of the Republic?" And then replying to a taunt of Breckinridge about the loyalty of the Pacific coast, he went on "When the senator from Kentucky speaks of the Pacific I see another distinguished friend from Illinois, now worthily representing the State of California, who will bear witness that I know that State, too, and well. I take the liberty, I know that I but utter his sentiments, to say that that State will be true to the Union to the last of her blood and treasure. There may be some disaffected men there and in Oregon, but the great portion of our population are loyal to the core and in every chord of their hearts. They are offering to add to the legions of the country, every day, by the hundred and the thousand. They are willing to come thousands of miles with their arms on their shoulders, at their own expense, to share, with the best offering of their heart's blood, in the great struggle of constitutional liberty."