Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/527

Rh quota under the laws of congress, $150 in addition to other bounties and pay already provided for, to be paid in three instalments, at the beginning and end of the first year, and at the end of the term of service either to him, or in case of his demise, to his heirs. For the purpose of raising a fund for this use, a tax was levied of one mill on the dollar upon all the taxable property of the state. At the same time, however, an act was passed appropriating $100,000 as a fund out of which to pay five dollars a month additional compensation to the volunteers already in the service.

On the day the first bill was signed Governor Gibbs issued a proclamation that a requisition had been made by the department commander for a regiment of infantry in addition to the volunteers then in the service of the United States, who were "to aid in the enforcement of the laws, suppress insurrection and invasion, and to chastise hostile Indians" in the military district of Oregon. Ten companies were called for, to be known as the 1st Infantry Oregon Volunteers, each company to consist of eighty-two privates maximum or sixty-four minimum, besides a full corps of regimental and staff officers. The governor in his proclamation made an earnest appeal to county officers to avoid a draft by vigorously prosecuting the business of procuring volunteers. Lieutenants' commissions were immediately issued to men in the several counties as recruiting officers, conditional upon their raising their companies within a prescribed time, when they would be promoted to the rank of captain.