Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Inter Pocala & History of California (Various Pages) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: H.H. Bancroft # of Pages: 33 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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448 MILITARY. another detachment, and, not until J uly, the Mary and Adeline with the remainder of the regiment. Ri es 8 choice of a staff was cane H. W. Halleck and : C. Westcott, Major E. R. S. Canby, and ienion George H. Derby, known as a humorous writer under ignature of John Pheenix. ne general depot for military property was sales lished at Benicia,‘ the selection of the site bein my e by a commission composed of majors C. A. Ogden, J. L. Smith, and Danville Leadbetter of the army,ains Louis M. Goldsborough, J. G. Van Brunt, and Simon F. Blunt of the navy. The reg commissioners selected Mare island as a eee ‘ navy-yard. Military headquarters was estal ae temporarily in the old adobe suaemblioee, in Francisco, but after the arrival of General Ri Ha Ne assumed command of the department, Genera i ay : removed division headquarters to Sonoma, and ve ‘ ‘him went company ©, 1st dragoons, A. J. Smith, “Fre different companies were distributed as follore M, 3d artillery, Captain E. D. Keyes, to the pe ig of San Francisco; F, 8d artillery, aime ua oe H. S. Burton, to the redoubt at Monterey; fa G, 2d infantry, Colonel Silas Casey, to the gee ae Benicia; D and I, 2d infantry, Major S. P. : ws zelman, to San Diego; A, B, and K, 2d ae ph and one company of the 1st dragoons, Major 4 23 Miller, to the main crossing of the San ceca) : and F, 2d infantry, Major J. J. B. Kin etn on post near Sutter’s fort; two companies of the Is mn two of the 2d cavalry, majors L. P. Graham an ae H. Rucker, at Los Angeles and San Luis Rey; e remainder of the infantry, including about 70 ant : being divided between Monterey and a camp on i i isinterested, decided on ffi that Gen. Smith, being disin 7 ee B sina Ge ths pai point for the city, and where the army eat weg shoul be. See also Larkin Doc., vii., 113. The genera’ Bae “3 Ca square of land at Suisun, of M. G. Valleio, for $25,000. ; EFFECT OF THE GOLD DISCOVERY. 449 Stanislaus river. One of the companies at San Diego was ordered to escort the boundary commission under Major W. H. Emory of the topographical engincers. In May Los Angeles and San Luis Rey were abandoned as military stations on account of the wholesale desertion of the soldiery who were carried away by the attractions of gold-getting in the mines. Los Angeles had been an important post, but the stores were now sent to San Diego, and the guardhouse turned over to the alcalde to be a . as a prison, of which the town stood in need.’ Desertion had reduced the four companies of cavalry until little more than enough to form one remained ; while at San Diego it was feared the boundary commission would be without an escort. The depredations committed upon the inhabitants by the soldiers, who were unable to carry with them the means of subsistence, were the subject of much concern to the military authorities. Comparatively few arrests were made, though twenty-five or thirty persons were tried at Monterey and sentenced to be sent east to serve out at hard labor in confinement the remainder of their terms of service; and until a government vessel should be returning, they were to be kept at hard labor under guard in California, The severity of the punishment did not deter the soldiers from breaking away from their engagements. An expedition under Captain W. H. Warner of the topographical engineers, ordered to make an examination of the routes from the Humboldt valley to the Sacramento river, and which consisted of 80 men at the offset, had 34 desertions in less than a month. Captain Warner prosecuted his reconnoissance with his reduced force, and was ambushed and killed by the Indians near Goose lake, from which circumstance ®Los Angeles Arjunt Rec., 77. The need of prisons in which to confine offenders was often embarrassing. Mason in 1848 offered to contribute $1,000 toward the erection of secure prisons in each of the towns of Los Angeles, Sta Barbara, San José, Sonoma, and Sutter’s Fort; but it does nos appear that the offer was accepted. Hist. Can., VoL. VII 29