Booknotes: Agents of Empire

New Arrival:
• Agents of Empire: The First Oregon Cavalry and the Opening of the Interior Pacific Northwest during the Civil War by James Robbins Jewell (Univ of Neb Press, 2023).

It was made clear through reading James Jewell's On Duty in the Pacific Northwest during the Civil War: Correspondence and Reminiscences of the First Oregon Cavalry Regiment (2018) that there was more than enough source material to produce a book-length regimental history of the unit. Fast forward a half-decade and we now have just the thing in Jewell's follow-up volume Agents of Empire: The First Oregon Cavalry and the Opening of the Interior Pacific Northwest during the Civil War. If I'm not missing anything, it's also the first full-length, standalone study of a Far West (Washington Territory, Oregon, and California) regiment raised during the Civil War for local and regional service.

From the description: Jewell's book "expands the historiographical scope of Civil War studies to include the war’s intersection with the history of the American West, demonstrating how the war was transcontinental in scope. Much more than a traditional Civil War regimental history, James Robbins Jewell’s work delves into the operational and social conditions under which the First Oregon Cavalry Regiment was formed. In response to ongoing tensions and violent interactions with Native peoples determined to protect their way of life and lands, Colonel George Wright, head of the military’s District of Oregon, asked the governor of Oregon to form a voluntary cavalry unit to protect white settlers and farmers."

As was the case across the vast western states and territories during the Civil War period, Oregon volunteers replaced Regular Army units sent east. They assumed many of the same roles, with the added responsibility of confronting secessionist threats both real and imagined. In performing those tasks, the "First Oregon Cavalry ensured settlers’ security in the Union’s farthest northwest corner, thereby contributing to the Union cause."