to protecting the frontier from marauding bands of Indians. Governor Whiteaker proved dilatory in responding to President Lincoln's call for volunteers; and after waiting until September of 1861 for the Governor to act, Colonel Wright, who commanded the United States forces within the State, requisitioned a volunteer troop of cavalry for three yearsservice against the Indians in eastern Oregon. By 1862 there were six companies in the field, forming a regiment known as the First Oregon Cavalry. This unit, in addition to its service against the Indians, held in check the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret order which opposed the war. There was a good deal of secession sentiment in the state, and several seditious newspapers were suppressed during the conflict.
Within a few years after the Civil War, Oregon was plunged into Indian troubles that continued intermittently for more than a decade. The Modocs went on the warpath in 1872, when attempts were made to force them onto the Klamath reservation. A mere handful of warriors, under the leadership of "Captain Jack," they retreated to the lava beds near Tule Lake, California, and there held out against a large force of United States soldiers, upon whom they inflicted defeat after defeat with little loss to themselves. They resisted until the courageous chieftain was captured and hanged, after he and some of his band had treacherously assassinated General E. R. S. Canby and an associate during a parley on April n, 1873.
In 1877, the younger Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces, incensed at the government's attempt to deprive his people of the beautiful Wallowa Valley, refused to be moved to an Idaho reservation. Several regiments of United States troops were dispatched to force him into obedience. After a number of sharp engagements and a retreat of a thousand miles across Idaho and Montana, ending about fifty miles from the Canadian border, Joseph was compelled to surrender. It is reported that he raised his hand above his head and said: "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." This great Indian warrior died in 1904 and was buried at the foot of Wallowa Lake, in the heart of the mountains he loved so well.
Soon after the close of the Nez Perce war, the Paiutes and Bannocks spread such terror throughout eastern and central Oregon that in 1878 the white farmers began moving into towns or erecting block houses for protection. This outbreak, however, was short-lived, and by 1880 the Indian troubles in Oregon were for the most part ended.
With the completion of the Union Pacific to Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, and construction of a connecting line to Portland in the
