Live, from 1860: It's the Civil War!

It is October, 1860 in Oregon's desolate High Desert. Members of the 1St Oregon Volunteer infantry have been sent to insure peace in the region. A column of blue clad soldiers step in cadence as they make their way into the sagebrush on their way to a distant post.

This Saturday and Sunday, the Sagebrush Soldiers will be firing muskets, gambling, doing drills, Dutch oven cooking over an open fire, and trying to recruit you, from 11 am to 3 pm at the High Desert Museum.

The infantry is out looking for bands of Indians committing “depredations” – from stealing settlers’ cattle and horses to burning settlers’ homes. Settlers’ retaliations have created increasing hostilities along the Santiam Wagon road that serves as a route to the John Day mining country to the east.

The troops have stopped at the cabin of one of the only settlers in the region; the family welcomes the military presence as a war party has recently been seen in the area. The 1St Oregon Volunteer infantry has experienced hardship including, starvation, thirst, and a largely Southern sympathetic population living in the mining camps they have been sent to protect.

The patrol will bivouac, repair and rest before proceeding east across the sagebrush on its last patrol and then over the cascades to muster out and return to civilian life.

Established in territory considered hostile to settler and soldier alike, the homestead family welcomes any visitors to their remote home situated on the edge of 9,000 square miles of High Desert.