71st Illinois Infantry Regiment 71st Illinois Infantry Regiment The 71st Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The 71st Illinois Infantry was organized at Camp Douglas at Chicago, Illinois and mustered into Federal service on July 26, 1862, for a term of three months. It served garrisons in scattered garrisons in southern Illinois and western Kentucky. Company K unanimously elected James Creed as captain, which was responsible for protecting two bridges along the Big Muddy river in southern Illinois from Confederate sympathizers. The regiment was mustered out on October 29, 1862. The
Muddy River (Nevada) to the Colorado River and followed it westward. In 1844, the expedition of John C. Frémont discovered a cutoff route that avoided the Colorado River, following a route between Resting Springs in California, and the Virgin River Valley that passed through Las Vegas Springs and crossed the Muddy River near modern Glendale. Mormon pioneers blazed a wagon road from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles along this pack trail in 1847, followed by Forty-niners attempting avoid the winter snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and wagon trains of Mormon colonists on their way to settle in San Bernardino in 1852.