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.