OCTOBER 1846–JUNE 1847
Despite surface appearances, the pacification of California in August 1846 turned out to be illusory. Though the forces of Castro and Pío Pico had been dispersed, the Californios had no feeling that they had been conquered; they were only awaiting an opportune moment for rebellion. The area of greatest unrest was Los Angeles, where Arnold Gillespie, installed by Frémont as alcalde, was less than a howling success. His harsh measures were burdensome, and his superior attitude was insulting. Because those orderly citizens whose goodwill was so necessary to hold the chronic malcontents in check were the ones most deeply offended, Gillespie had no allies among the people when the disorders began.
A major uprising came to a head within six weeks after Gillespie took office, and it continued to grow until, in late September 1846, Gillespie was forced to surrender his forty-eight-man garrison. Captain José María Flores, a paroled Californio officer, accepted Gillespie’s capitulation and granted generous terms of surrender. Gillespie and his men were allowed to march out of the city to San Pedro, and on October 4, 1846, they sailed for Monterey aboard a merchant ship. The Californios under Flores—some three hundred in all—soon subdued the American garrisons in both San Diego and Santa Barbara. Stockton, at Monterey, was especially frustrated by this disorder because it meant postponing his departure for Mazatlán. He was back where he had been the previous August.
Stockton then set out to restore United States rule. First of all he ordered Frémont, whose California Battalion had remained in the Sacramento Valley, to march to Monterey, and to depart from there by water for San Pedro. Frémont, however, had no fondness for water transportation, and, besides, he had other designs. He therefore found excuses to remain in Sacramento. He would march overland at his own convenience.
Stockton apparently had Frémont sized up by this time and realized that he could not count on him. He therefore set out to retake Los Angeles with the naval forces he had available. The Savannah was on hand at Monterey with 225 men, and he could supplement that force with Gillespie’s men, who had left Los Angeles with him. Stockton could scrape together a makeshift landing force of about four hundred, all told, which he placed under the command of Captain Mervine. The move, admittedly, was a gamble, for Mervine lacked artillery, horses, and any means of resupply, but Stockton hoped that the Los Angeles garrison was weak enough that Mervine could brush it aside without much of a fight.
The gamble failed. On October 8, 1846, Mervine landed at San Pedro, only to be met by Flores on the plain between that port and Los Angeles. Almost playfully the Californios frustrated the Americans from the outset. Exhibiting their expert horsemanship, the Californios pranced around just out of range of Mervine’s small arms and systematically blasted away with their single artillery piece; then, when the dismounted Americans would surge forward too close to the piece, the horsemen would simply tow it away by a rope around the muzzle. Then, at a safe distance, they would fire it again. Mervine finally gave up in frustration; he had lost only four men killed and ten wounded, but he could see that he lacked the force to overcome the resistance that Flores would inevitably put up. He had accomplished nothing.
The failure of the effort meant that the Americans were not likely to retake Los Angeles in the near future, especially because Flores had managed to evacuate all horses and livestock from the surrounding region. The Californios’ strategy of keeping the Americans confined to San Pedro and the ports to the north had so far been successful.
In late October, three weeks after the San Pedro fiasco, Commodore Stockton decided to adopt a new tactic: he would change his base of advance against Los Angeles from San Pedro to San Diego. This he could do, he realized, because Flores, having seized that village, knew he could not retain his hold on it and had left. San Diego would provide Stockton with a good base from which to operate, and the flat terrain around the harbor would permit his naval guns to control the surrounding land area. Furthermore, it was far enough from Flores’s cavalry base to promise hope of accumulating supplies and horses from Lower California.
Flores, actually, had his own problems, and they were even greater than those of Stockton. The Californios were halfhearted revolutionaries, and men of fighting age were noticeably absent when the recruiters came searching for them. All supplies, including ammunition, were low, and he had little money on hand with which to pay his troops. To cope with his problems, Flores had decentralized his force, sending Castro to San Luis Obispo with one hundred men, and Andreas Pico (brother of former governor Pío Pico) with another hundred to San Diego to watch Stockton. As he was now elected provisional governor and comandante general by a grateful Californio legislature, Flores remained personally at Los Angeles with two hundred men,1 and waited for the American reaction.
At about the time that Los Angeles was falling to the Californios, Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearny was winding up his activities in Santa Fe. The area seemed to be pacified, and the people were apparently content. So in preparation for his own move to California, Kearny had appointed a civilian governor, Charles Bent, in his stead. Bent seemed to be an ideal man for the position, and Kearny was confident that he was safe in leaving the administration of New Mexico in his hands.
Kearny was aware that the most difficult part of his transcontinental journey still lay ahead of him. Between Fort Leavenworth and Santa Fe he had been following the well-established Santa Fe Trail, but now he would be following a route known only to a few mountain men, the Gila River route explored by two trappers, Sylvester Pattie and his son James, in 1828.2 Even Kearny’s veteran guide, Tom Fitzpatrick, had never crossed it. So Kearny and his three hundred dragoons were prepared for the worst as they rode down the Rio Grande toward a point some seventy miles south of Socorro and about 230 miles from Santa Fe. There he would turn westward through the mountains.
As Kearny approached Socorro on the morning of October 6, 1846, he met a surprise. Nine wild-looking horsemen descended on his column, whooping like Indians out of sheer exuberance. Their leader turned out to be none other than Kit Carson, who had left Frémont in California in order to bear good tidings to Washington. Unaware of the upheavals that had ousted the Americans from Los Angeles and Santa Barbara since his departure from California, Carson reported the situation as it had existed the previous August. The occupation of the West, Carson disclosed, had been accomplished.
This news brought mixed emotions to Kearny and his men. Tidings of any victory were, of course, welcome. But the dragoons had come a long way across mountains and deserts, suffering loneliness and deprivations, and up to this time they had not fired a shot. Some were hoping that this tedium might have been relieved by some action, at least a “little kick-up” with the enemy.3
To Kearny himself, however, this news meant first and foremost a change in his mission. Up to now his mind had been focused on a military conquest of California with his three hundred dragoons, but this turn of events rendered taking such a force through the mountains unnecessary. An escort sufficient to ensure his own safety was all he needed, and a smaller party could better survive the shortage of water and forage along the Gila River. So Kearny sent most of his dragoons back to Santa Fe. With two companies—one hundred men—he would continue on to cross the mountains.
At the same time, Kearny prevailed on a disappointed Carson to hand his dispatches over to Fitzpatrick and personally guide his Army of the West back to California. Fitzpatrick would carry the news of victory to a grateful nation; Carson would expose himself once again to danger and discomfort. Admittedly, Kearny was laying a harsh demand on Carson, a demand he had no formal authority to insist on. But Carson could see the right in Kearny’s position, and he accepted the change in his lot with only a mild protest.
Kearny’s one hundred dragoons left the Rio Grande on October 15, striking out into the mountains past their first checkpoint, the old Santa Rita de Cobre Copper Mines, worked by the Patties nearly twenty years earlier but now a ghost town occupied by an Apache chief.4 Five days later Kearny encountered a group of about thirty Apache warriors. In a peaceful meeting the Apaches swore “eternal friendship” to the whites and a corresponding hatred for the Mexicans. Carson was suspicious, but Kearny’s only choice was to pretend to believe them.* The meeting ended with a hearty trading session at the camp, with apparent amity.
On October 20 Kearny reached the Gila River. The trail along the gorge of the river was difficult. Water was plentiful, of course, but the horsemen were forced to cross the stream every half mile or so, as the walls of the gorge jutted down to the very edge of the water. That scene of water and mountain was picturesque, but the roads were bad and did not improve. In the arid climate the dust assailed eyes and noses, and worst of all, the area provided no food. Carson remarked at one point that he had never seen a party on the Gila that did not leave it starving.5
On November 22, ten miles short of the point where the Gila empties into the Colorado, Kearny’s advance guard came upon a trail of hoofprints that could easily have been made by the mounts of a thousand men. Perhaps Castro was bringing an army from Sonora back to California. Kearny paused briefly to consider his plight. If such a Mexican force was actually in the vicinity, his only hope would be to find it and attack it. Such a bluff, an accepted frontier tactic, might hide the weakness of his force from a large enemy. So Kearny followed the trail of the hoofprints, only to discover that they had been made by a herd of some five hundred horses, escorted by only four men.6
The next day, at the junction of the Gila and the Colorado, one of Kearny’s officers picked up a suspicious-looking Mexican. The man turned out to be an important messenger from California carrying letters confirming that a counterrevolution had “thrown off the detestable Anglo-Yankee yoke” from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and other places. They also described the defeat of Mervine’s force at the hands of Flores at San Pedro.
Kearny was sobered. He could dismiss the pompous language in the letters as “Mexican braggadocio,” but he could not overlook the consistency of the reports. On the other hand the information was old—dated October 15—and it might have been overtaken by subsequent events.7 So Kearny decided to press on, despite the weakness of his tiny force. He crossed the Sandy Desert and, on December 2, reached Warner’s Ranch, nearly a thousand miles from Santa Fe.8
Warner’s Ranch, also known as Agua Caliente, was a hospitable place, like Sutter’s Fort, protected and worked by Indians. It was also a clearinghouse for rumor, and Kearny was easily able to confirm all the reports of the Californio revolt. Because of this new information Kearny changed his destination from Los Angeles to San Diego, but he realized that he could easily be intercepted along the way. Fortunately, an Englishman who was leaving for San Diego the next morning volunteered to carry a message from Kearny to Stockton. Kearny quickly wrote a message asking for reinforcements.
The much abbreviated Army of the West left Warner’s Ranch on the morning of December 4, 1846. On the other side of a range of rugged hills lay the small valley of San Pascual.
Kearny made his way into the Valley of San Pascual carefully, expecting to be confronted by Andreas Pico at every turn of the trail. By now his horses were gone; his mules were worn out; and his men, despite their efforts, could not shield their gunpowder from the downpour that beset them. Under these conditions he covered only thirteen miles that first day, to the Ranchería San Isabel.
On the next day the situation improved, for riding down to meet him was Arnold Gillespie at the head of thirty-five sailors and marines. Stockton had received Kearny’s message and responded immediately. Gillespie’s men had made the forty miles from San Diego in good time, but he reported that a force under Andrés Pico was waiting to intercept him at the small Indian village of San Pascual, only about nine miles away from Kearny’s destination for the evening.
Kearny’s men reached their planned campsite, the Rancho Santa María that evening, but they found the area unsuitable for camp. Kearny, impatient, pushed his men forward in the blackness of the early morning. After only a couple of miles he halted and sent Lieutenant Thomas C. Hammond forward to reconnoiter. Hammond found some Californios, but was discovered and nearly ambushed. Surprise was now lost, and Hammond had not been able to estimate the strength of the enemy in the dark.
Once more, as at the Colorado River, Kearny decided to employ the standard tactic of the time: he ordered an attack. Though his men and animals were exhausted—and he was probably outnumbered—he had nothing to gain by delaying. Besides, Carson and Gillespie, the two men most familiar with the Californios, had assured him that the enemy would run. At 2 A.M., December 6, 1846, Kearny ordered the call to horse.9
The village of San Pascual lay at the near (east) end of the broad, flat valley that bore its name. Since Kearny was entering the valley from a narrow ravine, he deployed his men in a column. They continued in the dark behind a twelve-man advance guard commanded by his aide, Captain Abraham R. Johnston. He himself followed next, accompanying the main body, fifty dragoons under Captain Benjamin D. Moore. Gillespie’s twenty volunteers and sailors followed, towing the two howitzers of the command.
Kearny’s tactic of headlong attack was a desperation move, and one that had worked countless times against Indians. But Andrés Pico was a first-class cavalryman, who, instead of fleeing, was setting an ambush; his horsemen were already in the saddle as Kearny’s men stumbled in the dark. The two sides clashed. Then some—but not all—of Pico’s horsemen scurried off. Kearny, fooled by the fleeing Californios, saw victory in sight.10 Behind Johnston’s advance guard, Moore spurred the main body, Kearny right behind them, in hot pursuit. On the dragoons went, exhibiting “more courage than conduct.”†
All of a sudden the fleeing Californios stopped. Turning on their heels, all 160 horsemen charged the strung-out, panting, disorganized Americans. The dragoons were helpless. Their gunpowder was still wet, and rifle butts were no match for the expert Californio lances. In fifteen minutes the lancers killed eighteen Americans and then, as quickly as they had appeared, they broke off. The main action of the Battle of San Pascual was over.
Stunned, the Americans counted their losses. The eighteen dead included three key officers: Johnston, Moore, and Hammond. Thirteen men were wounded, some badly. Kearny had received a lance in the groin that forced him to turn over command to his deputy, Captain Henry S. Turner. Gillespie, also, had received an ugly face wound. The Army of the West had been granted its “little kick-up”; in the process it had lost a third of its strength. And as an added insult, it had lost one of its two howitzers. Stampeding mules had dragged it off in the confusion, and it was last seen arriving into the welcoming ranks of the Californios.
But the Battle of San Pascual now became the long, excruciating siege of San Pascual. Pico did not attack again; instead his horsemen simply hovered, just out of rifle range. Surrounded and burdened with wounded who could be neither moved nor abandoned, Kearny’s force would be wiped out unless it received further help from Stockton. So Turner, as commander, sent Alexis Godey and two others early the next morning to San Diego. But as help would be long in arriving, Turner set up camp, collecting the dead. That night Kearny’s men buried the eighteen comrades who had marched two thousand miles with them through hardships, dangers, and privations. Turner did everything possible to conceal the graves. The Californios, he knew, would exhume the bodies for plunder; the Indians, for mutilation.11
That night Kearny’s men were denied even periodic rest. Their position, on a rocky hill, afforded no room to stretch out, and the night was cold and wet. The next morning the “most tattered and ill-fed detachment of men that ever the United States mustered under her colors” set out again, Kearny once more assuming command. Eventually, with enemy horsemen watching every move, his men reached a ranch that provided some chickens and a few cattle. They fed the chickens to the wounded and decided to herd the cattle before them.12
The ranch was a welcome respite, but the surrounding area lacked grass and water. So Kearny moved on until confronted once again by a body of Pico’s men, this time defending from a position on a hill. With powder now dry, Kearny’s advance guard of eight men drove off this outpost, inflicting at least five Californio casualties without loss to themselves. On that hill Kearny had finally found a truly defensible position.13
Kearny’s men, weak and hungry, would remain on that hill awaiting help. During the first night Lieutenant William Emory took special care of the frail old Mexican, a gentleman of Santa Fe, who served as Kearny’s interpreter. Thanks to Emory’s solicitude, the old man lived through the night, and when morning came, the New Mexican, attributing his survival to Emory, gave his benefactor his most prized possession, a small cake made of brown flour, “almost black with dirt.” On breaking a piece, Emory discovered the bodies of “several of the most loathsome insects.” But he ate the cake anyway—and liked it.14
The siege now became a waiting game. At one point Pico proposed an exchange of prisoners. Each side had taken only one, so Kearny readily agreed. From the one American prisoner freed from captivity Kearny learned that the Godey party had made it to San Diego but had been captured on return. Stockton had received Kearny’s plea for help, but so far as the prisoner knew had taken no steps to respond.15 That being the case, Kearny decided to send another party that night, December 9, to San Diego. This time he sent three men: Carson, Lieutenant Edward Beale, USN, and an Indian. The Californios now knew that Carson was on the hill, and to stop the famous mountain man from getting through their position, they had posted special sentries.
Carson and his two companions spent the night sliding down the hill on their bellies, their shoes discarded. By morning they had wriggled their way through the ring of enemy sentries. They realized that they had a murderous trip before them, so by prior agreement they went by separate routes, thirty-five miles across jagged rocks to San Diego without shoes. Miraculously, all three survived the ordeal, but Beale’s health would be impaired for two years, and even the redoubtable Carson was crippled for several days. Upon arrival, the three messengers learned their miseries had been unnecessary: Stockton had already, before their arrival, sent 180 men to Kearny’s rescue.16
Back at San Pascual, Kearny remained in a standoff with Pico. On December 10 Kearny decided that he could remain no longer. With no assurance that help was on the way, he decided he would have to shoot his way out the next morning. But as his haggard men awaited daybreak, the sound of voices, talking in English, reached the ears of the outposts. A few minutes later came the tramp of a column and the hail of a sentinel. The detachment of one hundred sailors and eighty marines had arrived, having left San Diego on the night of the ninth, hidden during the day of the tenth, and continued marching that night.
On the appearance of these fresh fighting men, Pico’s Californios vanished. And, in Emory’s grateful words, “These gallant fellows busied themselves till day distributing their provisions and clothes to the naked and hungry.”17
The next day Kearny and the remnants of his force staggered into San Diego, their journey finished. They had fought the only real battle of the California campaign, a supreme test of individual and collective courage, shared by dragoons, sailors, and marines alike. In his report Kearny described the action at San Pascual as a “victory.” In the commonly accepted definition of the term, it was, for his men had survived and had wound up in possession of the field. But one more such “victory” and the Army of the West would cease to exist.‡
At San Diego Kearny’s dragoons were greeted with warm hospitality by their navy brethren, who did everything possible to provide for their comfort. Kearny, however, was in low spirits, let down from his exertions of the past two months and still suffering somewhat from his wound. Further, he was a general without an army, as the vast bulk of the forces on hand were members of Stockton’s command. But Kearny perked up quickly when he and Stockton began preparing to move northward to take Los Angeles.§
The issue of command, a delicate matter, was taken care of with goodwill. Kearny, as a brigadier general, was the higher ranking officer—Stockton’s official rank was captain—but nearly all the troops to be employed were Stockton’s sailors and marines. Moreover, Kearny was the newcomer to the region, and he had not completely recovered physically. Kearny therefore volunteered to act as Stockton’s “executive officer” for the operation against Los Angeles.‖ Presumably Kearny would exercise the field command.
Kearny immediately set out to prepare Stockton’s sailors for combat. Stockton had already begun this process, and Kearny agreed with his approach completely. Since infantry drill was complicated in those days, the scheme adopted was to teach the sailors and marines to form up in a hollow square, a fine defensive formation against any attacker. That formation was to be assumed whenever the force was within sight of the enemy. In the attack the square itself would move forward, and supplies would be protected in its center. Fortunately, physical conditioning was no problem because the active life aboard a sailing ship had kept the Jack-tars and marines in tip-top shape. And they were extremely well disciplined; they adapted quickly to their new environment and quickly won high praise from Kearny’s staff.18
On December 29, 1846, the makeshift command set out for Los Angeles, about 140 miles distant. Since the sand was deep and the sailors were wearing homemade canvas shoes, the pace was slow. The expedition covered only thirty miles in the first three days.
At the Mission of San Luis Rey on January 4, 1847, Stockton received a message from Governor Flores proposing that the two sides suspend hostilities until a treaty of peace between the United States and Mexico decided California’s future status. Flores himself would of course remain in office. He was, after all, a Californio.
The message from Flores enraged Stockton, who not only rejected the proposal outright but in the process addressed Flores’s messengers in such terms that the Californio’s lifelong enmity was assured.a
With all hopes of negotiation gone, Flores was now forced to defend Los Angeles—or, more accurately, to defend his honor by going through the motions of defending Los Angeles. To do so he had about 450 badly armed and poorly motivated men, four artillery pieces, and inadequate powder for a prolonged fight. He had expected Frémont’s California Battalion to be the greatest threat against him, but Stockton had arrived first. So Flores placed his troops on a ridge six hundred yards behind the San Gabriel River, about twelve miles from the village of Los Angeles.19
On January 8, 1847, Stockton’s force arrived on the San Gabriel River and headed for the Bartolo Ford. Kearny, once more in high spirits, paid personal visits to each of the units in the force. This date, he announced happily, was the anniversary of Andrew Jackson’s victory at New Orleans in 1815, a fact he mystically assumed would bestow on his men unusual fighting prowess.
In early afternoon the hollow square began fording the river to face a band of mounted Californios, supported by artillery, on the low escarpment ahead.20
The Battle of San Gabriel was simple and quick. Most of the problems lay in getting the wagons across the river, even though the river, some fifty to a hundred yards wide, was nowhere more than kneedeep.21 Flores’s cavalry attacks were hopelessly ineffective against the hollow square, and the Californio artillery was totally useless. American artillery was taking its toll, and Stockton, apparently needing to participate personally in some way, played the part of a gunner and sighted one of the pieces personally. In ninety minutes Stockton’s force had taken the ridge north of the San Gabriel River.
The Americans camped on the heights during the night of the eighth, and the next morning, with the enemy out of sight, they moved out across the wide mesa leading to the San Fernando River. Except for sporadic enemy artillery fire, which was quickly silenced, the Americans were unopposed until they neared Los Angeles itself, at which time some Californio cavalry charged halfheartedly down a hillock against the side of the hollow square. A round of grape sufficed to disperse them. The Battle of Mesa was over except for an evening alarm that turned out to be false.22 The Americans camped for the night just outside the city.
Thus ended the skirmishes known as the battles of San Gabriel and La Mesa. American losses: one man killed, thirteen wounded, including Gillespie and one other officer. Since the Californios carried off their casualties, Kearny had no way of estimating the number. He reported only that “it must have been considerable.”23
The next morning, January 10, 1847, a deputation from Los Angeles approached Stockton’s camp. Flores, they said, would evacuate the city if Californio property and persons would be respected. Stockton agreed to those terms, but Kearny, as a precaution, disposed the troops for battle. It was well that he did, for the streets turned out to be full of hostile citizens, some of them drunk, who “brandished their arms and saluted [the Americans] with every form of reproach.” The dragoons had difficulty restraining themselves when they noticed a Californio wearing a dragoon’s coat stolen from the disinterred body of one of their comrades killed at San Pascual.24
By this time most of the Californio army had dispersed, and Flores fled south to Sonora, leaving Andrés Pico with only about a hundred men to command.25
During both battles, San Pascual and San Gabriel, Frémont’s California Battalion had been conspicuously absent. Around midnight of January 14, 1847, however, Frémont and his men rode casually into the American camp, near Los Angeles, hauling several pieces of artillery, one of which, to the annoyance of Kearny’s men, was the howitzer they had lost at San Pascual.26 But more important than the howitzer was the document that Frémont carried in his hands: the “treaty” of Cahuenga, signed between Frémont and Andrés Pico. Its existence came as a surprise to everyone.
Frémont had stayed at Sacramento for about a month after deciding not to move south in October. In late November he had begun the four-hundred-mile journey overland.27 Though not dangerous, his march was arduous and uncomfortable. At San Luis Obispo, Frémont had found a great bonanza when he captured Jesús Pico, a cousin of Andrés Pico. Like Andrés, Jesús was a parole violator, and for that crime he expected to be shot. When Frémont spared his life, it was not surprising that he became one of Frémont’s devoted followers, and that he quickly arranged for Frémont to meet with his cousin. The remnants of Pico’s army were straggling northward from Los Angeles, but Jesús Pico succeeded in locating him. Andrés then presented a peace proposal to Frémont, who took it upon himself to sign it on behalf of the United States. Never mind that he was subordinate to both Stockton and Kearny and that they were both within communicating distance.
The Treaty of Cahuenga granted everything that the Californios could wish for, including provisions that Stockton had previously refused. It called for the Californios to lay down their arms and retire to their occupations, in return for which parole violators would be forgiven. All Californios would be granted the rights of American citizens without being required to take an oath of allegiance. The agreement was more generous than necessary, considering that the Americans now enjoyed an overpowering military advantage.b Nevertheless, Stockton quickly accepted the pact, and the California conflict came to an end. Stockton might not have been able to negotiate even that generous a peace himself, considering the way he had treated Flores’s representatives at San Luis Rey.28
Unfortunately, the California campaign ended with an internecine quarrel that could have been dangerous had the Californios been inclined to rebel. The impasse was as unnecessary as it was unseemly.
On January 16, 1847, less than a week after the American occupation of Los Angeles, Commodore Stockton arbintarily reappointed John C. Frémont as governor of California. This he did in the face of the orders from the President that Kearny produced directing him to assume that position. Stockton maintained that Polk’s orders had been overtaken by his own consolidation of power in that region.
Kearny protested the next day, but Stockton would have none of his remonstrances. By the “Law of Nations,” he contended that he had the right to set policy.
Kearny was thus placed in an impossible situation. Although he had no personal interest in being governor of this barren land, he was determined to carry out Polk’s orders. On the other hand, he was in no position to enforce his demands. His surviving dragoons constituted only a small fraction of the forces on hand, and Frémont, who commanded the strongest land force in the region, sided with Stockton for his own selfish purposes.
On January 18, 1847, the day following his confrontation with Stockton and Frémont, Kearny left Los Angeles with his fifty men, bound for San Diego. There he bided his time pending further word from Washington, even after Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke arrived with the Mormon Battalion to support him. Meanwhile Stockton went ahead with his plans.c
The issue was settled two weeks later by the arrival of Stockton’s successor, Commodore Branford Shubrick, whose appearance in early February was greeted with joy by soldiers, sailors, and Californios alike.d Shubrick, a sensible man, quickly lifted martial law and dispatched the Cyane to San Diego to bring Kearny to Monterey for a conference. When the two met, Shubrick quickly recognized Kearny’s authority but persuaded him to delay assuming authority pending the arrival of Colonel Richard B. Mason, 1st Dragoons, who was expected in a couple of days.
Mason arrived as expected, carrying orders from the President to take over the governorship himself whenever Kearny should determine that the territory was “pacified.” So Kearny assumed authority, with Shubrick’s assent, and set about “regularizing” Fremont’s California Battalion.
Frémont, frustrated, resisted violently, threatening a revolt and challenging Mason to a duel.29 But Frémont’s luck had run out; the members of the California Battalion, having accomplished what they had set out to do, soon melted into the countryside of the Sacramento. Even Stockton, shorn of his command, soon traveled overland to the East with Gillespie. In June 1847 Kearny and Frémont departed also. Frémont would stand court-martial for insubordination, charges preferred by his onetime friend Stephen Kearny.e
Thus ended the California episode which, with all its blunders and pettiness, consolidated American control of California for the duration of the Mexican-American conflict. Could it have been done better? Possibly so, although the object was achieved largely by the threat of force rather than by violence on the battlefield. Certainly a great deal of effort and recrimination—not to mention some bloodshed—could have been avoided had the peaceful counsel of Larkin, Sutter, and Vallejo prevailed.
* W. H. Emory, Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, p. 60. The Apaches could have been partly sincere. The Patties had been allowed to work the mines only because they were not Mexican (William H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, pp. 46–47). Kearny had three fine reporters along with him: Lt. William Emory, of the Topographical Engineers, Henry S. Turner, his second in command, and Dr. John S. Griffin. With their differing viewpoints, they together provided a balanced picture.
† John S. Griffin, A Doctor Comes to California, p. 47. He loyally blamed Moore, not Kearny, for the miscalculation.
‡ It was presumed at first that Pico had suffered almost no losses, and Kearny’s detractors have dubbed the battle a Californio victory. Evidence later turned up that Pico had lost about as many men as Kearny. At the Mission of San Juan de Capistrano, on January 5, 1847, Kearny’s surgeon found a house where four Californios were nursing wounds from the battle. Shortly thereafter he raised the estimate by two. Gillespie said later that Pico had suffered twenty-seven dead and wounded. Griffin, pp. 57, 76.
§ Emory, p. 114. On p. 115 he lists these troops (officers and men): Dragoons (Turner) 57 Sailors as artillery (Lt. W.B. Renshaw, USN) 47 Sailors and marines as infantry (Lt. J. Zeilen, USMC) 407 Volunteers (Gillespie) 54 Total: 565
‖ “At the request of Com. R.F. Stockton,” he later reported, “I consented to take command of an expedition against [Los Angeles]… Commodore Stockton accompanied us.” Kearny to TAG, January 12, 1847, Exec. Doc. November 1, pp. 516–17.
a Emory, p. 117. Flores had signed himself as “Governor and Commander in Chief.” Stockton, on the other hand, considered Flores to be a rebel. Stockton “would shoot him if he, the Commodore, could lay his hands on him” (Griffin, pp. 58–9).
b Griffin (p. 66) estimates the figures at 1,100 men and several pieces against the 500 infantry that Pico had managed to scrape up after San Gabriel.
c The issue was a sore one with Kearny’s men. All agreed that Frémont deserved court-martial, and most, such as Griffin (p. 71) agreed that Kearny was powerless. But Henry Turner (The Original Journals, pp. 155–56) put it uncharitably: “The secret of the whole matter is, [Kearny] is afraid of giving offense to Benton. He says that he will prefer charges against Frémont … but I do not believe it. I think he will do nothing calculated to give displeasure to Col. Benton.”
d “Commodore Stockton’s conduct out here has been extraordinary.… He is a low, trifling, truckling politician, regarded with as much contempt by the officers of the Navy, as by those of the Army … Commodore Shubrick’s arrival is a cause of great rejoicing; both [Stockton] and Fremont have become the most unimportant people in the Territory.… Turner, pp. 156–57.
e For a full treatment of this subject, see Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision, pp. 456–67, who comes foursquare on the side of Kearny. He describes Stockton as a “fool” and Frémont as “a blunderer on a truly dangerous scale.” He is lavish in his praise for Kearny. Others, while critical of Stockton and Frémont, are less laudatory regarding Kearny. See Justin Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. II, p. 454.