History of the 1st U.S.V.I.
The 1st U.S.V.I. was recruited at Point Lookout prison camp between January 21 and April 22, 1864, as a three-year regiment. Assigned to the District of Eastern Virginia,Department of Virginia and North Carolina, it moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where on orders of General Grant it was relegated to provost duty there, Portsmouth, Virginia, andElizabeth City, North Carolina. In August 1864 Grant ordered it to the Department of the Northwest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The 1st U.S.V.I. traveled by ship to New York City, and by train to Chicago, where it received further orders splitting the regiment. Four companies continued to Milwaukee, while six companies (B, C, D, E, H, and K) were sent to St. Louis, Missouri, arriving there August 22. They moved by the steamboat Effie Deans and by forced march to Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, arriving there October 17 for garrison duty. Conditions were hard over the winter, and fully 11% of the command died of illness, primarily scurvy. Between May 10 and August 31, 1865, Company K garrisoned Fort Berthold and Company B the trading post known as Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone, obliged to travel by steamboat through hostile territory.Four companies were present at Fort Rice, along with two companies of the 4th U.S.V.I., when a large force of Lakota and Cheyenne led by Sitting Bull attacked for three hours on July 28, 1865, making away with the entire horse herd and killing two soldiers. In October 1865 the battalion returned to St. Louis to muster out November 27.
The four companies continuing on to Wisconsin in August 1864 were ordered to the District of Minnesota. Their muster out in July 1865 was canceled, and in October they were ordered to build and garrison Fort Fletcher, Kansas, and man two outposts at Monument Station and Ponds Creek Station, also in Kansas, to protect the new Butterfield Overland Despatch stagecoach route. Companies A, F, G, and I of the 1st U.S.V.I. mustered out at Fort Leavenworth on May 22, 1866, after 25 months of active service, the longest service of any of the "galvanized Yankees."