(Captain L. S. Scott's, D) of Fourth Infantry California Volunteers. The three years' service ofsix companies of the First Oregon Cavalry, viz, A, B, C, D, E, and F, expire from November to March next. Company C, not in my district, being at Fort Klamath, is eighty-five strong at last accounts. The other five companies in my district, Companies A, B, D, E, and F, have now 316 enlisted men. The time of four companies, A, B, D, and E, expires in November and December next. The time of service of five companies of the First Washngton Territory Infantry, A, B, C, D, and E, expires from the 1st of February to the 15th of May, 1865. The time of the majority of Company F expieres by the 1st of July next. The five companies contain now 327 enlisted men. After the 1st of July, 1865, there would remain one company (G) of First Oregon Cavalry, whose time expires in November, 1866, and five companies, G, H, I, and K, of the First Washington Territory Infantry, whose time expires from July to December, 1865. Of the First Oregon Cavalry thirty-ne men have re-enlisted in this district, claiming the bounty given to veteran volunteers enlisted before the 1st of April, 1864. Six men of Company A, Frist Washington Territory Infantry, have also re-enlisted. It was the only company which came within the two years' service required. Captain L. S. Scott's company (D), Fourth California Volunteers, is distributed between Forts Hoskins, Yamhill, and the Siletz Block-House, on the Indian Reservation west of the Willamette Valley. The three years for which the company was raised expire on the 18th of September next, but only twenty-two men of he company remain to be discharged on that day and thirteen in October, 1864. Thirty-five have re-enlisted in the company and fourteen elisted since 1st of November last. The company is ninety-five strong. Captain Scott gets a good many recruits, and I recommend that special authority be given for Captain Scott and his officers to be remustered under their existing commissions into the service for three years, as provided in paragraph 1 of War Department Circular, Numbers 36, of 2nd May, 1864. It is true that the provisions of that circular have not been fully complied with, but I think that the general commanding will find it advisable to get permission in certain cases to perpetuate companies under their old organizations. I see nothing in the laws to prevent such discretion being given. Thus the time of 689 men expires in my district before the 1st of July next, 250 of them before 1st January next. Now, it has been well tested that very few troops can be raised here by voluntary enlistment. On the 6th of January, 1863, the Governor of Oregon, pursuant to request of War Department, through General Wright, issued a proclamation calling for six additional companies of First Oregon Cavalry. Not until the 10th of August, 1863, was one company mustered into the service. It is the only company raised under the call. The remaining five companies have never been raised. The Governor finally abandoned the undertaking, revoking the appointment of the second lieutenants and recruiting officers conditionally appointed under the provisions of War Department General Orders, Numbers 75, of 1862. The causes of this failure are to be found in the mining excitement and temptations of this coast, in the depreciation of legal-tender notes, and the absence of the war stimulus. The first six companies of the First Oregon Cavalry were raised under the war stimulus of 1861. Many of the privates in the ranks were highly respectable citizens, some owning considerable property and volunteered from the most patriotic impulses. The regiment was raised also at a time when the status of affairs in Oregon was not quite stable and satisfactory. Governor Whiteaker was Governor, who had talked loosely about a neutral position for Oregon.

57 R R-VOL L, PT II