Washington Territory in the American Civil War

[1] With the regular U.S. Army troops recalled from the District of Oregon to fight the Civil War in the east, soldiers were still needed to man the forts and outposts in Washington Territory.

The acting governor of the territory, Henry M. McGill, issued a proclamation on May 10, 1861, in response to President Lincoln's first call for volunteers, but it met with little reply.

When Colonel Steinberger arrived on the coast, he came to Puget Sound in January 1862, and after he consulted with the legislature, and visited towns and settlements west of the mountains, he realized he could not hope to raise more than three companies, at most, in the territory.

They also protected communications routes between the western and eastern United States in Oregon and Idaho from the Indians and against the threat of foreign intervention on the Pacific coast by Britain and France that never materialized.

He also said the Royal Navy and Marines were powerful and could easily do the job, ending with a statement that "with Puget Sound, and the line of the Columbia River in our hands, we should hold the only navigable outlets of the country—command its trade, and soon compel it to submit to Her Majesty’s Rule.

[4] On March 15, 1863, a schooner, called J. M. Chapman, had been seized in the harbor of San Francisco, just as she was preparing to put to sea as a Confederate privateer.

However early in 1863, Allen Francis, United States consul at Victoria, Vancouver Island, received information that led him to believe a plot was forming, to seize Shubrick, and convert her into a Confederate privateer.

[5][6] On May 13, 1863, Consul Francis, writing about the Shubrick incident to Captain Hopkins of the United States Navy steamer USS Saginaw, said: There is still in this city a rebel organization,[7] which has had several meetings within the last few weeks.

When Francis discovered two British ships entering the port, one with a cargo of shot and shell and the other with iron construction, he feared they would be used by the Confederacy and alerted the Navy, which sent USS Narragansett to patrol the waters near Victoria.