After Conquering California The Victors Turned on Each Other

 

U.S. Marines from the Navy's Pacific Squadron under Commodore John Drake Sloat conduct a bloodless amphibious operation to seize the Alta California provincial capital, Monterrey. 

Other men get most of the credit for the annexation of Alta California during the Mexican War of 1846-’48.  But Commodore John Drake Sloat, commander of the U.S. Navy Pacific Squadron, sailed into the harbor at Monterrey, the provincial capital, and after a bloodless skirmish with a small force of Mexican Coast Guard and silencing shore batteries with a few well-placed salvos, landed with a complement of sailors and Marines. Sloat raised the flag over the Customs House on July 7, 1846 and issued an edict annexing Alta California to the United States. 

Two days later he sailed up the coast and took Yerba Buena—today’s San Francisco.  He acted as self-proclaimed Military Governor of California until relieved by Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who reprimanded him for exceeding his orders.  That reprimand was later echoed by President James Knox Polk. 

Exceed orders of not, with a state of war between the counties, Stockton was not about to hand California back to Mexican authorities.  

                       

                                Commodore John Drake Sloat.

Sloat was a veteran Naval officer.  An orphan from New York he entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1800.  He left the service but re-enlisted for the War of 1812.  He was serving as Sailing Master under Captain Stephen Decatur on the frigate USS United States when it captured the British frigate HMS Macadonian and was promoted to Lieutenant for conspicuous gallantry under fire in the battle.  In his long naval service, he battled Caribbean pirates and commanded several ships before accepting command of the Pacific Squadron in 1844. 

As tensions with Mexico grew, Sloat was ordered to take Alta California in event of the outbreak of war.  He was sailing off of Mazatlán on the Mexican Pacific coast when he got fragmentary reports from shore that fighting had broken out along the Texas border.  Without waiting for official confirmation, he raced north to prevent a possible occupation of California by the British from Oregon.  Sloat eventually learned that fighting had already broken out in Northern California and that a Republic had been declared by a handful of settlers from the US. 

Famed explorer Captain John C. Frémont entered the rich agricultural Sacramento Valley at the head of a large 55 man “exploration” party early in 1846.  His appearance there was something of a mystery, as his official orders were to explore the source of the Arkansas River on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.  Many historians believe he was acting under secret orders from President Polk, although no evidence of such orders has been found.  Others think that the ambitious Frémont acted on his own accord.

At any rate, Frémont agitated among the U.S. settlers in the valley promising that if war broke out with Mexico that he and his men would, “be there to protect them.”  

A heavily romanticized view of Capt. John C. Fremont who mysteriously appeared in northern California at a critical moment and after the senseless slaughter of an innocent Klamath fishing village, rousted local Californio forces, claimed the brief Bear Flag Republic for the United States and anointed himself military governor.

Needless to say, Mexican authorities were unamused.  Commandante General José Antonio Castro, a native Californian who was himself often at odds with the distant Mexican government but who was a fierce opponent of foreign immigration, rallied his small force and forced Frémont to north into Oregon.  After a battle with Modoc warriors Frémont let a retaliatory attack on a wholly innocent Klamath fishing village massacring the residents.  He encountered Marine Corps Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie who was carrying secret oral orders for him from the President. 

He turned his force back south to California with his trusted scout Kit Carson and Lt.  Gillespie at his side.  When he arrived at Sutter’s Fort on June 25, Frémont found the settlers at Sonoma had declared the Bear Flag Republic on June 14.  He took command in the name of the United States and ended the nine-day existence of the Republic. 

Frémont went to work consolidating his force of men from the Army’s Topographical Engineers and experienced mountain men led by Carson with local volunteers, including some Mission Indians.  After defeating a small force under Castro at the Battle of Olompali, it seemed that Frémont was in control of California, a situation that did not thrill either Sloat or his successor Stockton. 

But Stockton had to use his force of sailors and Marines to garrison key points on the coast and to be kept in reserve as “shock” troops should serious fighting break out.  He needed to bring Frémont’s California Battalion under his orders and into U.S. service.  Frémont was brevetted Lt. Colonel in command of the unit dubbed the U.S. Mounted Rifles with Gillespie as Major and second in command.  Carson was appointed a Lieutenant. 

Former mountain man and guide, Kit Carson, left, seemed to be everywhere during the California campaigns of the Mexican Wars.  One of the few legendary figures of the old West whose real life lived up to the hype, Carson is pictured here with John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, after their famous and epic exploration of the Mountain west.  Carson would rise in the Army to the rank of Brigadier General and command forces in New Mexico during the Civil War.  He was the only Army general officer known to be illiterate.

The volunteers supported a landing by Marines and Bluejackets at San Diego on July 28 followed by taking Los Angeles on August 13.  The conquest of California seemed complete.  But Major Gillespie, left in command at Los Angeles with 60 men, infuriated the local ranchers with a harsh order of martial law and general contemptuous treatment of local citizens.  Previously many were sympathetic to the possibility of American rule, having become fed up with inept and corrupt government from Mexico City. 

On September 23 about 200-300 Californios under Gen. José María Flores staged a revolt besieging Gillespie and his garrison without water on Ft. Hill. American volunteer John Brown broke through the Californio lines and made a 400-mile ride to contact Stockton in San Francisco Bay.  Before Stockton could act to relieve the siege, Gillespie was forced to surrender and was allowed to retreat from Los Angeles to the near-by port of San Pedro.  

Brigadier General Stephen Kearny arrived in California at the head of a few hundred Dragoons after a punishing march from Santa Fe.  He eventually clashed with both Commodore Stockton and Fremont for leadership.

Meanwhile, an entirely separate American Force was heading to California overland from Santa Fe.  On September 25 about 300 Dragoons under the command of Brigadier General Stephen Kearny began an epic march across deserts and mountains to California.  On October 6 he encountered a small party led by Kit Carson which was sent from Los Angeles in early September with dispatches for President Polk proclaiming victory in California.  On the strength of this now outdated news, Kearny sent more than half of his troops back to Santa Fe along with Carson’s dispatches.  Carson agreed to turn around and guide Kearny the rest of the way to California by the best possible route.

By December 5 Carson brought Kearny’s exhausted men to within 25 miles of their destination in San Diego.  An intercepted Mexican courier alerted Kearny that Stockton and his forces were under siege in the city.  With his men mounted mostly on broken mules, Kearny decided to raid a camp of Californios under Andrés Pico at San Pasqual for much needed spare horses.  The camp was alerted that Kearny decided to attack.  But his 60 remaining exhausted men and their mules were no match for Pico’s skilled lancers who rode rings around the Americans and killed at least 22 of them.  Kearny was among the wounded.  

Lancers of the Californio Militia badly mauled Kearny's exhausted forces in a bloody battle but had to retreat as reinforcements from Stockton's sailors and Marines neared. It was the final major military action of the campaign and left Alta California securely in American hands.

The Dragoons set up a defensive perimeter and were besieged by Pico.  Carson and another man were dispatched to sneak through the lines into San Diego for help.  Miraculously, they arrived in the city with bloody bare feet.  Stockton dispatched 200 sailors and Marines with fresh horses for Kearny.  The arrival of reinforcements caused Pico’s men to scatter. 

The combined forces entered San Diego on December 12.  Kearny’s dispatches reported the Battle of San Pasqual a victory because the Californios “fled the field” when re-enforcements arrived.  Stockton reported it as a loss for the Army.  The Lancers considered it their victory. 

After a brief rest Stockton and Kearny’s combined force marched to Los Angeles where they were to join with 400 men under Frémont.  On January 8, 1847, with Stockton in command and Kearny his second, approximately 600 men from the San Diego column with artillery support dispersed 150 Californios under José Mariá Flores in the short but sharp Battle of Rio San Gabriel.  Remnants of Flores’s men were defeated again the next day at the battle of Battle of La Mesa, the last significant action of the California campaign.  

Commodore Robert Stockton won his bureaucratic and inter-service struggle with General Kearny for ultimate command and as Military Governor, but his choice of Fremont to succeed him fell afoul of the Pathfinder's Regular Army status as a mere Captain and therefore subordinate to Keary.

American forces re-entered Los Angeles and Major Gillespie personally raised the same American flag he had been forced to haul down months earlier. 

With fighting essentially over, the conquerors fell to bickering among themselves for command.  Both Stockton and Kearney held equivalent one-star rank but there was no ordinary precedent for an officer of one branch to serve under one of the other of the same rank.  Stockton on the scene longer and asserted military command as well as the post of military governor.    Kearny insisted his orders from Washington were more recent and included both military command and authority to establish a government.   

Frémont, acting for Stockton signed the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13 which ended local fighting with the surrender of Californio artillery and return of prisoners on both sides, and which allowed the Californios to return unmolested to their homes without having to surrender Mexican citizenship until a final and comprehensive end to the broader war, which would finally be ended in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the official cession of California to the U.S. 

Stockton appointed Frémont his successor as governor.  Frémont, a mere captain in the Regular Army, several times defied a direct order from his Army superior to surrender the Governorship.  Kearney appealed to Washington, which confirmed him as Governor.  He had Frémont arrested, put in chains, and court marshaled for mutiny and insubordination.  Frémont was convicted and sentenced to be dishonorably discharged from the service.

Polk upheld the verdict but bowing to pressure from Frémont’s powerful father-in-law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and considering his service, vacated the sentence and allowed Frémont to honorably resign his commission.  

President James Knox Polk may or may not have given secret orders to Fremont and others before the War with Mexico officially broke out.  He also spent a lot of time sorting through the squabbles, charges, and counter charges involving Sloat, Stockton, Kearny, and Fremont.  About the only major figure to emerge with their reputation unsullied was Carson, who rose rapidly in the Army after the war

Frémont returned to California where he was subsequently elected Governor and Senator.  He was the first Republican Party candidate for President in 1856 and commanded Union forces in Missouri and in western Virginia during the Civil War displaying remarkably bad generalship in both assignments.  He ended up sitting out most of the war in disgrace. 

Kearney saw further service in the Mexican War and was appointed Military Governor of Vera Cruz and then Mexico City.  While in Mexico he contracted Yellow Fever.  He died of the illness at his home in St. Louis 1848. 

His rival Stockton resigned from the Navy in 1850 and was elected to the Senate as a Democrat from New Jersey the next year.  He was the sponsor of the bill that finally ended flogging in the Navy. In 1861 he was a delegate to an unsuccessful Peace Conference trying to head off the Civil War.  He was appointed commander of the New Jersey Militia during the war but saw no action.  He died in 1865. 

Frémont, Stockton, and Kearny—even Kit Carson—were all lauded as heroes for their part in the annexation of California.  Place names in several states honor each of them as did Army posts and Navy ships. 

And what of Commodore Sloat?  Ill health ended his career as a sea-going officer.  He was assigned shore duty, including the planning of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California.  He retired from the service in 1866 and died in New York the next year.  Largely forgotten, you can find a stone monument in his memory, if you know where to look at the Presidio of Monterrey and streets in residential areas of Monterrey and Los Angeles are named in his honor.

 

What the Hell Happened Wonder Republican Founders

The State of Wisconsin and the local Chamber of Commerce heavily promote the little school house officially designated the Birthplace of the Republican Party.  The most important organization of moderate to liberal Republicans, the Ripon Society, was named for the shrine.  Once an important voice in the party with many members of Congress and influential in shaping policy for the Party, it has slid into pariah status, it few remaining Congressional members automatically targeted for primary challenges and political oblivion by well funded right-wing attacks.

On March 20, 1854 a double handful of political malcontents—Whigs despairing of their failing party, Free Soilers, even an anti-slavery Democrat or two—met in a school house in Ripon, Wisconsin at the request of lawyer Alvan E. Bovay. They were upset by the Kansas-Nebraska Act then being debated in Congress which would junk the old Missouri Compromise and leave the door open to the extension of slavery in all of the western Territories by election—Popular Sovereignty. The meeting resolved that stronger measures must be taken to oppose the pet project of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas. The Ripon meeting is considered the founding meeting of the Republican Party. But it was just one of several such meetings held across the Midwest and in New York State contemplating or urging similar action. 

Another claimant for the title of Birthplace of the Republican Party is Jackson, Michigan where on where on July 6, 1854 several thousand gathered at an outdoor convention "Under the Oaks" to protest the Kansas-Nebraska Act and promote a new party.  The meeting was promoted as a national convention, but except for a handful of dignitaries was attended mostly by Michiganders with a sprinkling of visitors from Ohio. 

 

The extension of slavery was not the only part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that stirred passions and brought recruits. A now little remembered provision in the act forbad non-citizen aliens from voting or holding office in the Territories. That sounds benign today, but Wisconsin was being rapidly settled by waves of immigrants—Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Finns, and Welsh—who usually established settlements with their own countrymen. These people could not organize their communities if they did not vote and hold office. Wisconsinites naturally feared that such measures might then be extended even to established states.  Anti-slavery people also recognized that this would diminish the ability of anti-slavery residents including most immigrants from opposing slavery in Popular Sovereignty elections. 

 

A state-wide convention was held in Madison that July to formally establish the Republican Party and nominate candidates in the fall election. The delegates resolved: 

 

That we accept this issue [freedom or slavery], forced upon us by the slave power, and in the defense of freedom will cooperate and be known as Republicans.  

 

Influential editor Horace Greely had supported the name for a new party that June in his New York Tribune. “[Republicans] fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.” and no one had any better ideas. 

 

The infant Wisconsin party had immediate success. In the elections of 1854 Republicans won two of the three House of Representatives seats, a majority of the State Assembly seats, and a large number of local offices. And with control of the state Senate they were able to elect a U.S Senator. A year later they took the Governorship. Such impressive results obviously made Wisconsin a leader in the movement to create a national party. But others were busy as well. 

 

 In New York state wily political boss Thrulow Weed and ambitious Senator William Steward brought not only Whigs and Free Soilers but the locally powerful former American Party—Know Nothings—members together with the backing of Greeley’s Tribune. The name Republican was previously associated with slave holder Thomas Jefferson, ancestral founder of the Democrats. The irony was lost on no one. 

 

As in Wisconsin local parties in New York, Michigan, Ohio, and elsewhere in the North had success while the old Whig and shaky Free Soil parties continued to crumble. In July 1856 these local organizations met for the first time in a national convention in Philadelphia. By this time the Kansas-Nebraska Act was in full effect and the virtual civil war between pro and anti-slavery faction in Bleeding Kansas was stirring passions. 600 delegates attended, mainly from the northern states but also including the border states of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, plus the District of Columbia. The Territory of Kansas was seated as a state. 

 

Dashing and handsome John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, was nominated as the Republican Party's first presidential candidate.  He did surprisingly well.
 

The party nominated the dashing, arrogant, but somewhat dim soldier and explorer John C. Frémont. To hear him tell the tale, he had personally lassoed California for the Union by unilateral action during the Mexican War. His Army superiors and the naval officer in charge of California were not amused and the Pathfinder had been court martialed for mutiny. Despite this dust up, Frémont was a popular hero and he had the advantage of a determined and much smarter wife, Jessie and her powerful father, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, still a Democrat but opposed to violation of the old Missouri Compromise. 

 

Young up and coming Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln narrowly lost the nomination for Vice President to New Jersey’s William L. Dayton. The Whigs failed to nominate a candidate in 1856 and overnight the Republicans went from third party to major party status—the only minor party in American history to make the leap. 

 

The Democrats nominated colorless but capable James Buchanan, the Secretary of State and former Senator from Pennsylvania and like other Democratic Presidential candidates, a “Northern man of Southern Principles.” The Know Nothing American Party put up former President Millard Fillmore who promptly denounced the party’s nativist platform and ran as a savior of the Union. Fillmore went nowhere. Buchanan swept the South and was able to hold onto some northern states. Frémont surprised almost everyone and won a third of the popular vote and 11 Electoral votes including New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts. 

 

In the 1858 mid-term elections, Republicans won a majority in the U.S. House, a strong minority in the Senate, and a majority of northern Governorships. Southerners quickly became convinced that a Republican victory in 1860 would be a fatal blow to their “way of life”, the popular euphemism for slavery. 

 

The Republicans still sometimes--when they are not pandering to Southern White voters, Neo-Confederates, and Alt-Right bully boys--claims to be the Party of Linclon, the first Republican President.

 

When the Republican’s next met several powerful politicians expected to be the nominee—especially Seward and Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase. Both had strong bases and credentials as ardent opponents of slavery. But by shrewd maneuvering, particularly by appealing to border states by painting himself as a moderate who would “not disturb slavery where it existed” and as a champion for maintaining the Union, Lincoln walked away with the nomination. 

 

The Democrats shattered three ways by section and their strongest candidate, Lincoln’s old debating opponent Douglas, could not win enough Electoral votes. The Republicans were in and in short order the Confederacy seceded. You know the rest of that story. 

 

After the Civil War the Republicans were the ruling party with only three interruptions for the next 65 years. But they quickly developed factions. The Radical Republicans—whose reputations have been tarnished by generations of diligent pro-Southern historians—remained committed to racial equality in the old Confederacy. Many Republicans, including their large, loyal base of Germans in the Midwest, tended to support the rising labor movement. New England and New York elected officials tended to be far more liberal on most issues than Northern Democrats, support of the union movement aside. 

 

On the other hand the Party quickly became the darling of the vigorous robber baron class of capitalists and monopolists of all stripes. That led to corruption in high places in government but the steady stream of money proved a siren song hard to resist. Factions of the party fought hammer and tong over issues like anti-trust laws and labor reforms for decades. In the late 19th Century Marc Hanna formalized the dominance of Big Business capitalists through his Civic Federation and a “grand bargain” that gave labor a symbolic but powerless “seat at the table.” 

 

In the meantime, in the Midwestern heartland of the party a kind of reflexive small town/successful farmer conservatism took root that was mostly entrenched stodgyism—reflective resistance to most change, anti-labor, Protestant, and more than slightly tinged with nativism. 

 

In the early 20th Century Robert La Follette and others in the upper Midwest infused the party with a new brand of Progressivism. Theodore Roosevelt, the accidental President and “that damned cowboy!” to party conservatives, brought his own brand of progressivism to the White House and in 1912 split the Republicans to form his personal Progressive Party--Bull Moose--helping hand the Presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Many of Teddy's progressive followers never returned to the Republicans. 

 

                                                            "Fighting" Bob La Follette of Wisconsi brought Progressivism to the Party.

 

As for those Democrats, they had their own divisions. In the South they returned to power after the end of Reconstruction, erased its reforms, instituted Jim Crow, and ruled the Solid South unopposed. Because they returned their Senators and Representatives time after time, virtually for life, the Southerners by seniority became enormous powers in Congress. 

 

On the other hand agrarian radicalism on the plains and out West led by William Jennings Bryan re-infused the Democrats with a brand of Jeffersonian suspicion of banks, hard money, and monopolies. And the big cities of the East and Midwest large immigrant populations, rebelling at the increasing nativism—and eventually prohibitionism—of the Republican dominance became overwhelmingly Democrat. That in turn brought the party to closer identification with the labor movement. 

 

After World War I the various factions of the Republican Party, each for its own reasons, ranging from pacifist revulsion at the carnage of the Great War, to xenophobia, to high tariff protectionism, to fervent belief in American exceptionalism, tended to unify around what became known as isolationism. The Great Depression seemingly permanently upset the Republican apple cart. 

 

They were ousted as the ruling power by re-invigorated Democrats, the New Deal, and a seemingly irresistible rise of liberalism. The Republicans reacted in two ways. First with sputtering outrage at “That Man!” Then party liberals got the upper hand with candidates like Wendell Willke and Thomas E. Dewey who simply promised a slightly more moderate continuation of the New Deal. “We can do it better,” was their argument. 

 

Japanese bombs ended isolationism as a viable political position, although forms of it via conservative voices like Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, would linger into the post war years. 

 

What really began to change the Republican Party was its decision to paint itself as the champion of Anti-communism. That began the long assault on party liberals, particularly the scorned Eastern Establishment as being either “pink” themselves or soft. The huge personal popularity of Dwight Eisenhower was able to hold that rising faction at bay, but the John Birch Society, the godfather organization of modern ultra-conservatism, reviled him. When Eisenhower began intervening on behalf of court ordered desegregation in the South, archconservatives began aping of Southern Democrats calls for states rights and the sacred right of private property as a sufficient reason for businesses to deny Blacks public accommodations. 

 

                            A Birch Society book by it's leading figure was an attack on popular Eisenhower. .

 

The Federal Government, including its ensnarement with the world community via the United Nations and other organizations, became increasingly the enemy for this still minority tendency. There were still plenty of pro-Civil Rights Republicans who gloried in being the Party of Lincoln as well as liberal internationalists. 

 

In 1964, however, conservatives led by Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, gave the back of their hand to party liberals and the Eastern Establishment represented by Nelson Rockefeller. Liberal, or even self-described moderate Republicans, would never again seriously vie for party leadership, even when Goldwater went down in spectacular flames against Lyndon Johnson. The long, slow withering of liberal Republicanism was under way. 

 

Taking advantage of Southern outrage at Democrats for the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s and the example of George Wallace’s electoral successes, Richard Nixon inaugurated the successful Southern Strategy to usurp Democratic power in the South. Soon the South was solid again—solidly Republican. 

 

Despite his conservative rhetoric and political game plan, in retrospect Nixon’s presidency was not only moderate, but fairly liberal. Had he not personally surrendered to his demons and gone down in disgrace, he might have left behind a fairly moderate party. Instead his embittered hard core supporters blamed liberals—Democrats and Republicans alike. 

 

But you can’t win national elections based only on the South. Republicans began exploiting cultural resentments over hippies, anti-war protestors, and eventually bra burning feminists and abortion and in the process peeled away segments of traditional working class support from the Democrats. Becoming the perpetual party of against and demonizing liberalism was becoming intoxicatingly successful. And with the folksy charm of Ronald Regan conservatives were triumphant in the party. 

 

When his one-term successor George H.W. Bush, was ousted by charismatic Democrat Bill Clinton, Republican strategists decided that Bush had not been a true conservative after all and that a real right winger would have won the day. 

 

 Resentful conservatives did two things. First they began to contest party moderates and liberals in primaries and even non-partisan local elections. And they turned to the so-called Moral Majority of the burgeoning Evangelical movement for reliable foot soldiers and highly motivated voters. 

 

An infrastructure of think tanks, radio talk shows, and eventually a cable TV network, was financed by the deep pockets of supposedly libertarian billionaires, was set up to amplify orchestrated messages. Primaries became places where Republican candidates could only win by constantly trying to outflank each other on the right. 

 

By the early 21st Century old fashion New England liberal Republicans were extinct and socially moderate conservatives, derided as country club Republicans in the vast White suburbs were equally endangered. The creation of the Astroturf Tea Party Movement along with its anti-immigrant xenophobia, resentment of the poor as shiftless takers, and simple diffused rage, was welcomed by the Republican establishment, and then made its prisoner. 

 

Then in swooped the somehow populist billionaire celebrity Donald Trump and usurped the GOP entirely, making it his personal creation and a rubber stamp for his most authoritarian ambitions. For the results, pick up any newspaper. 

 

 

The party started in that Wisconsin school house persists only in its name. The ghosts of those founders must look down aghast at what the not-so-grand old party has become.

Conquering California—The Victors Turned on Each Other

U.S. Marines from the Navy's Pacific Squadron under Commodore John Drake Sloat conduct a bloodless amphibious operation to seize the Alta California provincial capital, Monterrey. 

Other men get most of the credit for the annexation of Alta California during the Mexican War of 1846-’48.  But Commodore John Drake Sloat, commander of the U.S. Navy Pacific Squadron, sailed into the harbor at Monterrey, the provincial capital, and after a bloodless skirmish with a small force of Mexican Coast Guard and silencing shore batteries with a few well-placed salvos, landed with a complement of sailors and Marines. Sloat raised the flag over the Customs House on July 7, 1846 and issued an edict annexing Alta California to the United States. 

Two days later he sailed up the coast and took Yerba Buena—today’s San Francisco.  He acted as self-proclaimed Military Governor of California until relieved by Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who reprimanded him for exceeding his orders.  That reprimand was later echoed by President James Knox Polk. 

Exceed orders of not, with a state of war between the counties, Stockton was not about to hand California back to Mexican authorities.  

                       Commodore John Drake Sloat.

Sloat was a veteran Naval officer.  An orphan from New York he had entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1800.  He left the service but re-enlisted for the War of 1812.  He was serving as Sailing Master under Captain Stephen Decatur on the frigate USS United States when it captured the British frigate HMS Macadonian and was promoted to Lieutenant for conspicuous gallantry under fire in the battle.  In his long naval service, he had battled Caribbean pirates and commanded several ships before accepting command of the Pacific Squadron in 1844. 

As tensions with Mexico grew, Sloat was ordered to take Alta California in event of the outbreak of war.  He was sailing off of Mazatlán on the Mexican Pacific coast when he got fragmentary reports from shore that fighting had broken out along the Texas border.  Without waiting for official confirmation, he raced north to prevent a possible occupation of California by the British from Oregon.  Sloat eventually learned that fighting had already broken out in Northern California and that a Republic had been declared by a handful of settlers from the US. 

Famed explorer Captain John C. Frémont had entered the rich agricultural Sacramento Valley at the head of a large 55 man “exploration” party early in 1846.  His appearance there was something of a mystery, as his official orders were to explore the source of the Arkansas River on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.  Many historians believe he was acting under secret orders from President Polk, although no evidence of such orders has been found.  Others think that the ambitious Frémont acted on his own accord.

At any rate, Frémont agitated among the U.S. settlers in the valley promising that if war broke out with Mexico that he and his men would, “be there to protect them.”  

A heavily romanticized view of Capt. John C. Fremont who mysteriously appeared in northern California at a critical moment and after the senseless slaughter of an innocent Klamath fishing village, rousted local Californio forces, claimed the brief Bear Flag Republic for the United States and anointed himself military governor.

Needless to say, Mexican authorities were unamused.  Commandante General José Antonio Castro, a native Californian who was himself often at odds with the distant Mexican government but who was a fierce opponent of foreign immigration, rallied his small force and forced Frémont to north into Oregon.  After a battle with Modoc warriors Frémont let a retaliatory attack on a wholly innocent Klamath fishing village massacring the residents.  He encountered Marine Corps Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie who was carrying secret oral orders for him from the President. 

He turned his force back south to California with his trusted scout Kit Carson and Lt.  Gillespie at his side.  When he arrived at Sutter’s Fort on June 25, Frémont found the settlers at Sonoma had declared the Bear Flag Republic on June 14.  He took command in the name of the United States and ended the nine day existence of the Republic. 

Frémont went to work consolidating his force of men from the Army’s Topographical Engineers and experienced mountain men led by Carson with local volunteers, including some Mission Indians.  After defeating a small force under Castro at the Battle of Olompali, it seemed that Frémont was in control of California, a situation that did not thrill either Sloat or his successor Stockton. 

But Stockton had to use his force of sailors and Marines to garrison key points on the coast and to be kept in reserve as “shock” troops should serious fighting break out.  He needed to bring Frémont’s California Battalion under his orders and into U.S. service.  Frémont was brevetted Lt. Colonel in command of the unit dubbed the U.S. Mounted Rifles with Gillespie as Major and second in command.  Carson was appointed a Lieutenant. 

Former mountain man and guide, Kit Carson, left, seemed to be everywhere during the California campaigns of the Mexican Wars.  One of the few legendary figures of the old West who's real life lived up to the hype, Carson is pictured here with John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, after their famous and epic exploration of the Mountain west.  Carson would rise in the Army to the rank of Brigadier General and command forces in New Mexico during the Civil War.  He was the only  Army general officer known to be illiterate.

The volunteers supported a landing by Marines and Bluejackets at San Diego on July 28 followed by taking Los Angeles on August 13.  The conquest of California seemed complete.  But Major Gillespie, left in command at Los Angeles with 60 men, infuriated the local ranchers with a harsh order of martial law and general contemptuous treatment of local citizens.  Previously many had been sympathetic to the possibility of American rule, having become fed up with inept and corrupt government from Mexico City. 

On September 23 about 200-300 Californios under Gen. José María Flores staged a revolt besieging Gillespie and his garrison without water on Ft. Hill. American volunteer John Brown broke through the Californio lines and made a 400 mile ride to contact Stockton in San Francisco Bay.  Before Stockton could act to relieve the siege, Gillespie was forced to surrender and was allowed to retreat from Los Angeles to the near-by port of San Pedro.  

Brigadier General Stephen Kearny arrived in California at the head of a few hundred Dragoons after a punishing march from Santa Fe.  He eventually clashed with both Commodore Stockton and Fremont for leadership.

Meanwhile an entirely separate American Force was heading to California overland from Santa Fe.  On September 25 about 300 Dragoons under the command of Brigadier General Stephen Kearny began an epic march across deserts and mountains to California.  On October 6 he encountered a small party led by Kit Carson which had been sent from Los Angeles in early September with dispatches for President Polk proclaiming victory in California.  On the strength of this now outdated news, Kearny sent more than half of his troops back to Santa Fe along with Carson’s dispatches.  Carson agreed to turn around and guide Kearny the rest of the way to California by the best possible route.

By December 5 Carson brought Kearny’s exhausted men to within 25 miles of their destination in San Diego.  An intercepted Mexican courier alerted Kearny that Stockton and his forces were under siege in the city.  With his men mounted mostly on broken mules, Kearny decided to try to raid a camp of Californios under Andrés Pico at San Pasqual for much needed spare horses.  The camp was alerted that Kearny decided to attack.  But his 60 remaining exhausted men and their mules were no match for Pico’s skilled lancers who rode rings around the Americans and killed at least 22 of them.  Kearny was among the wounded.  

Lancers of the Californio Militia badly mauled Kearny's exhausted forces in a bloody battle but had to retreat as reinforcements from Stockton's sailors and Marines neared. It was the final major military action of the campaign and left Alta California securely in American hands.

The Dragoons set up a defensive perimeter and were besieged by Pico.  Carson and another man were dispatched to sneak through the lines into San Diego for help.  Miraculously, they arrived in the city with bloody bare feet.  Stockton dispatched 200 sailors and Marines with fresh horses for Kearny.  The arrival of reinforcements caused Pico’s men to scatter. 

The combined forces entered San Diego on December 12.  Kearny’s dispatches reported the Battle of San Pasqual a victory because the Californios “fled the field” when re-enforcements arrived.  Stockton reported it as a loss for the Army.  The Lancers considered it their victory. 

After a brief rest Stockton and Kearny’s combined force marched to Los Angeles where they were to join with 400 men under Frémont.  On January 8, 1847 with Stockton in command and Kearny his second, approximately 600 men from the San Diego column with artillery support dispersed 150 Californios under  José Mariá Flores in the short but sharp Battle of Rio San Gabriel.  Remnants of Flores’s men were defeated again the next day at the battle of Battle of La Mesa, the last significant action of the California campaign.  

Commodore Robert Stockton won his bureaucratic and inter-service struggle with General Kearny for ultimate command and as Military Governor, but his choice of Fremont to succeed him fell afoul of the Pathfinder's Regular Army status as a mere Captain and there fore subordinate to Keary.

 

American forces re-entered Los Angeles and Major Gillespie personally raised the same American flag he had been forced to haul down months earlier. 

With fighting essentially over, the commanders fell to bickering among themselves for command.  Both Stockton and Kearney held equivalent one-star rank but there was no ordinary precedent for the officer of one branch to serve under one of the other of the same rank.  Stockton had been on the scene longer and asserted military command as well as the post of military governor.    Kearny insisted his orders from Washington were more recent and included both military command and authority to establish a government.   

Frémont, acting for Stockton signed the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13 which ended local fighting with the surrender of Californio artillery and return of prisoners on both sides, and which allowed the Californios to return unmolested to their homes without having to surrender Mexican citizenship until a final and comprehensive end to the broader war, which would finally be ended in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the official cession of California to the U.S. 

Stockton appointed Frémont his successor as governor.  Frémont, a mere captain in the Regular Army, several times defied a direct order from his Army superior to surrender the Governorship.  Kearney appealed to Washington, which confirmed him as Governor.  He had Frémont arrested, put in chains, and court marshaled for mutiny and insubordination.  Frémont was convicted and sentenced to be dishonorably discharged from the service.

Polk upheld the verdict but bowing to pressure from Frémont’s powerful father in law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and considering his service, vacated the sentence and allowed Frémont to honorably resign his commission.  

President James Knox Polk may or may not have given secret orders to Fremont and others before the War with Mexico officially broke out.  He also spent a lot of time sorting through the squabbles, charges, and counter charges involving Sloat, Stockton, Kearny, and Fremont.  About the only major figure to emerge with their reputation unsullied was Carson, who rose rapidly in the Army after the war.

Frémont returned to California where he was subsequently elected Governor and Senator.  He was the first Republican Party candidate for President in 1856 and commanded Union forces in Missouri and in western Virginia during the Civil War displaying remarkably bad generalship in both assignments.  He ended up sitting out most of the war in disgrace. 

Kearney saw further service in the Mexican War and was appointed Military Governor of Vera Cruz and then Mexico City.  While in Mexico he contracted Yellow Fever.  He died of the illness at his home in St. Louis 1848. 

His rival Stockton resigned from the Navy in 1850 and was elected to the Senate as a Democrat from New Jersey the next year.  He was the sponsor of the bill that finally ended flogging in the Navy. In 1861 he was a delegate to an unsuccessful Peace Conference trying to head off the Civil War.  He was appointed commander of the New Jersey Militia during the war but saw no action.  He died in 1865. 

Frémont, Stockton, and Kearny—even Kit Carson—were all lauded as heroes for their part in the annexation of California.  Place names in several states honor each of them as did Army posts and Navy ships. 

And what of Commodore Sloat?  Ill health ended his career as a sea-going officer.  He was assigned shore duty, including the planning of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California.  He retired from the service in 1866 and died in New York the next year.  Largely forgotten, you can find a stone monument in his memory, if you know where to look at the Presidio of Monterrey and streets in residential areas of Monterrey and Los Angeles are named in his honor.