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.

 

The Murfin List—2016 Endorsements—Duckworth for Senate

Note:  Part Two of this blog’s 2016 election endorsements.

For United States Senate—Tammy Duckworth

Increasingly deep blue Illinois has been represented in the United States Senate for six years by a North Shore Republican, Mark Kirk.  He faces a challenge from Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth. It has become the hottest and most expensive race this year as Democrats drive to take back the Senate and give the likely next President, Hillary Clinton, much needed breathing room in critical future Supreme Court nominations and as a bulwark against the House of Representatives which will probably remain in troglodyte Republican hands.

Both candidates are disabled and frequently, although not exclusively, in wheel chairs and have been lauded for their courageous recoveries and are thus sympathetic figures.  Kirk suffered a devastating stroke in 2012 which left him temporarily paralyzed and affected his speech.  He was unable to attend Senate sessions or committee hearings for nearly a year.  He was reported to keep up with pending legislation and perform constituent services from rehabilitation and at home, although most of the work was done by his staff.  After emergency brain surgery and intensive physical and speech therapy, he returned to the Senate in 2013 and announced his intention to run for reelection a year later. 

Today he speaks clearly, walks with a leg brace, and has limited use of one arm.  He still tires easily and frequently uses a wheel chair, as he did in his joint appearance with Duckworth recently at the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board interview.

Captain Duckworth and her Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq.

Duckworth famously suffered critical injuries when the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was shot down in Iraq in 2004.  She lost her right leg near the hip, her left leg below the knee, and her right arm was almost completely destroyed but ultimately saved.  Captain Duckworth was the first female double amputee of the war.  While recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, she was promoted to Major and received her first public attention in a 60 Minutes segment on her courageous recover and rehabilitation.  Senator Bob Dole, the former Republican Presidential candidate and himself a disabled veteran was so impressed with her that he dedicated his autobiography, One Soldier’s Story, to her.

Fitted with prosthetic limbs Duckworth walks with the aid of a crutch, but like Kirk, she frequently uses a wheelchair and was in one for the Tribune appearance.

Duckworth got a medical waiver, and continued to serve in the Illinois National Guard in an administrative capacity.  She retired as a Lt. Colonel in 2014.

Senator Mark Kirk, named the GOP incumbent most likely to lose his seat.

But she is not the only veteran in the race.  Kirk served as a Naval Reserve intelligence officer.  He was called to active duty during the NATO air campaign during the 1999 Kosovo War in the former Yugoslavia.  His unit, based in Italy, coordinated American bombing missions and received the Vice Admiral Rufus L. Taylor Award by the National Military Intelligence Association.  Later, he served three brief tours during the Iraq War, and flew as an observer in one reconnaissance flight over the war zone.

Lt. Commander Kirk made much of his Navy experience in his first run for Congress in 2000 and later leveraged it to a seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.  But Kirk repeatedly either exaggerated or lied about his service—and was repeatedly caught and forced to retract and apologize.  He turned the unit award into a personal “Intelligence Officer of the Year” award and made it look like an official Navy commendation.  He made up a story of coming under enemy fire on his sole Iraq flight.  During his active tours, Kirk was also disciplined twice for conducting political activity on duty.  The Senator officially retired from the Navy Reserve as a Commander in 2013 following his stroke.

Kirk has often traded on his status a a Navy Reserve Intelligence officer, but his exaggerated claims for his service have backfired more than once. Here he is at his retirement ceremony.

Given the disparity of their actual military service, it is curious that Kirk decided to build his entire re-election campaign around attacking Duckworth for her service to veterans.  After losing her first bid for election to Congress in 2006, she was appointed Director of the Illinois Department of Veteran’s Affairs by Governor Rod Blagojevich.  It was one of his prestige appointments, unsullied by crass politics that governed so many of his decisions.  She was a high profile veteran’s advocate and initiated a program for those with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome that became a model for the nation. 

She escaped identification with the scandals that brought down the governor.  But during and after her tenure two whistleblower lawsuits were filed by former employees of a southern Illinois veteran’s home alleging that Duckworth had ignored complaints of patient abuse retaliated for the complaints.  The suits were twice thrown out of court and described by one judge disgruntled staff bickering.  The suit was refilled a third time and this year the Republican administration reached a small $26,000 settlement without an admission of guilt—the typical  go away payment on a nuisance suit that has become too expensive to defend.

Despite this the Kirk campaign made the charges, and other unrelated allegations from Duckworth’s service as Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009-11 the center piece of attack ads.  The ads continue to run, despite the claims made in them being shown to be exaggerated, sensationalized, or fabricated by independent fact checkers.

Duckworth answered the ad with one of her own with testimonials from veterans and an assertion that Kirk had lied about her.  The two ads frequently run virtually together.  Kirk has gotten the worst of it.  Veterans have rallied to Duckworth’s defense and he has looked like a bully.

The desperate move of attacking Duckworth on her strong point was a result of the pickle Kirk had gotten himself into.

Kirk rose to prominence by taking back a Democratic held Congressional seat on the North Shore, home to leafy, old money suburbs, racially diverse Evanston home of Northwestern University, and the mix of nouveau riche villages and grubby working class town in Lake County.  It was solidly liberal on social issues.  To be elected a Republican had to be independent of the increasingly conservative party mainstream.  Kirk was, obligingly, pro-choice, environmentally friendly, and occasionally bucked the party on other issues.  He was the kind of so-called moderate Republican who makes the Chicago media’s collective knees buckle.

Kirks star shone brightly enough in his fourth term in the House to win the special election to fill Barack Obama’s seat.  A few months later he overcame some noisy rightwing primary challengers and edged out Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias who was dragged down by the unpopularity of Gov. Blagojevich and a brewing scandal from the collapse of his family’s Bank.

Kirk's ex-wife Kimberly Vertolli damaged his reputation with the revelation he had paid his mistrees $26,000 out of campaign funds.

Months after the 2010 election, Kirk faced a personal scandal when his wife sued him for divorce and accused him of making payments to his mistress from campaign funds.  He barely escaped serious trouble on that charge when the Election Commission ruled that the payments did not have to be reported because the woman was a paid sub-contractor on the campaign.  He may have escaped the legal consequences, but his previously squeaky clean image was shattered.

Before the stroke his term was marked with controversy, particularly about the inflated claims he made about his Naval service.  And, although he voted with his party more than 85% of the time, his straying from the reservation on gun legislation and choice enraged the Tea Party right which vowed to unseat him in the next primary. The sympathy generated by Kirk’s stroke and recovery plus the strong backing of the national party who saw him as the only hope of keeping the seat derailed most of those plans.

But upon returning to work and the public spotlight, Kirk stumbled with a series of head scratching gaffes.  He called bachelor Senator Lindsey Graham, then running for the Republican Presidential nomination, “The bro with no ho.”  He also quipped that “people drive faster through Black neighborhoods” and got caught on more exaggerations and lies like “someone got popped,” while he was on a ride along with Chicago Police.  There were mutterings that perhaps the stroke had affected his mind or judgment.

Then, just when it was too late to mount an effective primary challenge, Kirk made right wing heads explode first by agreeing to meet with Obama’s stalled Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, a graduate Niles West High School—my old alma mater—in his former Congressional District and then—after some bobbing and weaving—refusing to endorse or support Donald Trump.  Letters to the Editor columns and social media erupted with denunciations and vows never to vote for the traitor in the General Election.

Will they hold to that threat, even if it means loss of control of the Senate?  Probably most will swallow hard and vote for Kirk.  But if just 10% leave the line blank on their ballots or cast a protest vote for Libertarian Party nominee Kenton McMille, Kirk’s fading chances for re-election virtually evaporate.

Duckworth has had her own sometime rocky climb to the nomination of her party.

As part of a nationwide push, in 2006 Duckworth was recruited by the Democratic National Committee to run for the open seat left vacant by the retirement of arch-abortion foe Henry Hyde in the suburban 6th Congressional District.  Once an un-assailable Republican stronghold, demographic changes and the dissatisfaction of many pro-choice GOP women it became a potential swing district.

But Duckworth had to face Christine Cegelis, a favorite of progressive grass roots activists making her second run for the office.  Many felt Cegelis had earned the right to be the party’s nominee.  Duckworth’s campaign was heavily financed from outside the district and managed by top party pros. Duckworth rolled over Cegelis in the primary but despite out spending her General Election opponent, state Senator Peter Rostum, lost in November by more than 4,000 votes. Many party liberals remained bitter and subsequently opposed her.

Six years later, after Duckworth’s service in the state and Federal Veterans positions, she was once again tapped by the national party.  This time she was asked to run in the 8th Congressional District which extends from the western suburbs to Elgin with an odd narrow hook north along IL. Rt. 53 and then back east to near Wheeling.  He opponents charged that the district was drawn expressly to include Duckworth’s home.  The one term incumbent was Tea Party zealot and radio raver Joe Walsh.  After overcoming progressive favorite Illinois Deputy Treasurer Raja Krishnamoorthi in the primary she swamped Walsh picking up endorsements of normally Republican papers like the Chicago Tribune and Daily Herald in the process.

Two years later she romped to re-election against Marine Corps. Col. Larry Kaifesh.

A rising star in the Democratic Party, Duckworth address Democratic National Conventions in 2008,2012, and this summer in Philadelphia.

Duckworth has finally mended fences with most progressive activists.  Her blistering grilling while serving on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee of Strong Castle CEO Braulio Castillo for his fraudulent use of a disabled veteran set-aside to gain a $500 million contract became a viral sensation on social media.

As a Senate candidate Duckworth has become an outspoken advocate of positions dear to the heart of progressives and supporters of Bernie Sanders including opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, advocacy for a free college tuition program, sensible gun legislation, immigration reform including a clear path to citizenship, and expanded acceptance of refugees.  She remains a vigorous supporter of women’s rights and choice and is the leading voice of the disabled in Congress.

Duckworth is clearly doing something right.  A poll released earlier this week by the respected Paul Simon Institute at Southern Illinois University showed her widening her lead over Kirk and is now ahead 48 % to 34 %.  The Huffington Post average of major polls now shows her leading by a margin of 45.6 % to 36.6%.

Way to go, sister!

By the way, I should note that the Green Party candidate is a McHenry County local.  Scott Summers of Harvard is a former McHenry County College Trustee who has run for local and county offices as both a Green and a Democrat.  Since Duckworth has gained the support of both the Sanders and Clinton forces in the Democratic Party, Summers will get even less of a bump than Jill Stein is getting at the top of the ticket.  Expect him to finish a poor 4th in the race in the very low single digits behind the Libertarian who will be fattened by anti-Trump Republicans.