| Unit Name: | 1st Battalion of Veteran Infantry |
| Dates: | November 1864 to September, 1866, December 31, 1866 |
| Country: | United States |
| Allegiance: | Union |
| Branch: | Infantry |
The 1st Battalion of California Veteran Infantry was a California Volunteer infantry battalion in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It spent its entire term of service in the western United States.
This battalion was organized at Franklin, Texas, under the command of Major Joseph Smith, (formerly of 5th Regiment California Volunteer Infantry) between November and December, 1864, by consolidating the veterans of the 1st Regiment California Volunteer Infantry, into two companies, which became Companies A and B, and consolidating the companies of the 5th Regiment California Volunteer Infantry into five companies, which became Companies C, D, E, F, and G, of the battalion. On March 16, 1865, a Company F was broken up for the purpose of distributing the men among the other companies, due to the difficulty in obtaining recruits to keep up all the companies to the minimum required by law. The same order directed Colonel Rigg (formerly of 1st California Infantry) to assume command with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, with headquarters at Fort Craig. The battalion was mustered out in September 1866.[1]
When this battalion was mustered out in September 1866, officers and members who wished to be mustered out in California were consolidated into a company, under Captain William F. French, First Lieutenant Robert Edmiston, and Second Lieutenant William Oman and marched to the Presidio, San Francisco, where they arrived December 28, and were mustered out on December 31, 1866. The men of this company mustered out at the Presidio were accounted for in the individual record as having been "discharged at San Francisco, December 31, 1866, by final muster out of the regiment."[2]