§ Included in the dispatches was a promotion for Lieutenant Emory to captain; he will be so recognized from here on.
‖ One might argue that Andrew Jackson’s conquest of Spanish West Florida during his 1818 expedition to suppress a revolt of Seminole Indians and runaway slaves represented a U.S. military coup, but Jackson’s action was quickly disavowed by Washington as being unauthorized and the territory returned to Spain.
a In writing the code, Colonel Doniphan welcomed the assistance of the volunteer private Willard P. Hall. Doniphan and Hall, also a lawyer, were then opposing candidates for Congress in Missouri—the colonel as a Whig and Private Hall as a Democrat. When news arrived that Hall was the victor, Doniphan congratulated him and offered to discharge him from the army so he could serve his term. But Hall declined the offer and went on to California with the Kearny party, earning accolades for his service. He later was elected governor of Missouri.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Some Days You Eat the Bear;
Some Days the Bear Eats You
When Zachary Taylor was fighting and winning the Battle of Resaca de la Palma, John C. Frémont was tending to business in California. When he reappeared in the Central Valley at the end of May 1846, following the tempestuous tour of Oregon’s Klamath Lake, Frémont found the forlorn province in a political and civil uproar.
Word of war with the United States still had not reached California authorities, but there was trouble enough as it was. Governance of California had always been fragile. It was too far removed and too large to be effectively governed by Mexico City, which remained consumed by political turmoil and seemingly eternal war. Mexico was not only bankrupt but indebted to many nations of the western world. Moreover, the Californians and the Mexicans were frequently at odds with each other, and there was often talk of breaking away from Mexican rule. Then there was the fractious struggle for control between the southern Californians and northern Californians, with “general this” and “general that” (almost everyone who could ride a horse, it seemed, called himself a general) perpetually threatening to attack each other. Meantime, the Indians—who had been out of hand since the dissolution of the Franciscan missions—continued to prey on farmers, ranchers, and travelers. And now the American settlers had become the new focus of strife.
The once jovial General José Castro, military commander in the north, had not been the same since his disagreeable run-in with Frémont at Gavilan Peak. He insisted that California was becoming “Texasized,” meaning that the influx of American settlers would someday take over, as they had in Texas.
Meantime, in Los Angeles, Governor Pico concluded that California would be better off independent and had refused to recognize or obey the authority of President Herrera in Mexico City. To reimpose his supremacy, Herrera appropriated funds for General Mariano Paredes to equip a sizable punitive expedition to bring Pico back into line. Instead, Paredes used the money to finance a coup against Herrera and made himself president of Mexico. This was typical of the sort of political chaos that prevailed in Mexico City.
Just about the time Frémont was descending the valley from his Oregon expedition, Castro began making bellicose preparations, including the purchase of several hundred horses in Sonoma, which was quickly distorted by an American settler to “a force of 250 men on horseback” moving toward the Sacramento valley. By then California was in the full spring dry season as Frémont’s expedition picked its way southward. Wheat fields, wild oats, and other crops were brown and brittle. Trailside foliage was dusty and limp and the streams low and sluggish. But with each passing day it seemed a new report or rumor came in of impending danger to the American settlers.
Alarmed ranchers and farmers told that during the past few weeks Indians in their employ had begun sneaking off to join their wild brethren in the mountains in preparation for a general uprising. Other reports said that agents of Castro were inciting the Indians and offering rewards for burning the Americans’ wheat fields, which were just then dried to the point of being combustible.
One story was that Castro was building a fort in the High Sierras that would turn back any new immigrants. Another account had it that Castro was in the process of acquiring Sutter’s Fort, which was the core support system for American settlers in the Sacramento valley. In fact, there was truth in this story, and had the acquisition gone through it would have made the Americans’ position in the valley untenable, since Sutter’s was the sole source of sustenance, civilization, and safe haven in case the Indians went on the warpath. Sutter, who had long ago become a Mexican citizen and was in fact an officer of the government, at first resisted Castro’s overtures to purchase his operation, but later he relented, apparently on the theory that, if the Mexican commander wished, he could simply seize the fort and pay him nothing. Castro never sought to occupy the fort, however, which rendered his acquisition moot, and in fact Frémont occupied it himself and in the name of the American government commissioned Sutter a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
Meantime, Kearny and his soldiers were still floundering around in the Arizona desert, but ever since Frémont’s standoff at Gavilan Peak in March 1846, settlers had begun looking to him for security and protection of their interests. Now they implored Frémont to defend them against Castro. By May, the Americans had become even more jumpy after word got around about the government edicts (or proclamations) forbidding foreigners from owning land in California and subjecting them to arbitrary expulsion at the whim of the authorities. They were not afraid of Castro, the settlers said, but they needed someone to take charge and organize them and lead them in a fight against his Californio forces.
But Frémont, still unaware that the United States and Mexico had gone to war a few weeks earlier, demurred. He told the settlers he held no authority to attack the Californios, but that if they wished to do so on their own he would not stand in the way—and as a matter of fact he would give them tacit assistance in planning their operations. Clearly Frémont was stalling, hoping for news of war to legitimize his actions.
In the coming days more groups of settlers gathered around Frémont’s camp with further disturbing rumors. Others began packing up to leave California, certain they would be attacked. Meantime, Frémont sent Lieutenant Gillespie to San Francisco to obtain much needed supplies from a U.S. warship anchored there. His request included such necessities as flour, soap, and tobacco, but also “a keg of gunpowder, three hundred pounds of musket-ball lead, and eight thousand percussion caps.”*
An event that was presently riling the Americans was the Californio acquisition of the aforementioned herd of horses from Sonoma. The horses were being driven by a military detachment toward General Castro’s headquarters in Santa Clara, about forty miles south of San Francisco at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. A rumor had leaked out that these animals were mounts for a newly recruited army, which would soon march against the settlers.
With Frémont’s blessing, at dawn on June 7 a posse of settlers made a surprise attack on the Californios’ camp, netting the Americans both weapons and the horse herd. Emboldened by their achievement, they next set out for Sonoma, residence of General Mariano Vallejo, who had sold the Californios their horses and commanded the garrison there. It was the settlers’ conviction that control of Sonoma, about forty miles northeast of San Francisco, would give them control of the Sacramento valley and at least temporarily stymie whatever plans Castro had in mind.
On June 12 a band of heavily armed settlers, led by a tall, nail-tough American named Ezekiel Merritt, closed in on Sonoma at dawn—in particular on the military barracks—and easily captured the place without a shot being fired. In the process they took into custody General Vallejo and his staff, as well as nine old brass cannons, two hundred fifty muskets, and a hundred pounds of gunpowder. For better or worse, the cat, or cat’s-paw, of insurrection was now out of the bag.
General Vallejo, who in fact considered himself a friend of American annexation of California, had donned his
best uniform to greet his captors, expecting, as was customary with men of his rank, to be released on parole, or upon his personal recognizance. Instead, the settlers began talking about making him a prisoner. At some point during the discussion Don Vallejo—known to be an excellent host—broke out the brandy, and by midday a full barrel had apparently been ordered up from his cellar reserve. With no clear leadership, the “negotiations” broke down into an orgy of conviviality until, said one of the settlers, the brandy “had well nigh vanquished the victors.”
At last it was decided to hold Vallejo, his American brother-in-law (and translator) Jacob Leese, and half a dozen other officials as a kind of ransom, or insurance, and incarcerate them in Sutter’s Fort. But beyond that no clear plan had emerged and it seemed the revolt was falling apart for lack of purpose. Then a man named William B. Ide entered the picture and rallied the crumbling morale. Ide, a fifty-year-old teacher, carpenter, and farmer from New England, set just the right tone for the reeling American rebels, crying out, “Saddle no horse for me—I will leave my bones here!” in reference to waverers who were talking about packing up and leaving California.
Ide wrote a “proclamation” of the overthrow of the California government by the settlers, filled with blustery denunciations of “despotism” and other maltreatment by the authorities. The document announced that California was now a “republic” and that democratic elections would soon be held.
Then, in the Sonoma plaza, the Mexican flag was summarily hauled down and in its place was hoisted the famous “Bear Flag.”
Hastily cut and sewn from materials found at hand, this rude banner became the emblem of what became known as the Bear Flag revolt, a source of immense pride for some Californians and a cause of shame and reproach for others.
So the story goes, the flag was designed by William Todd, a cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the future president. One of the settlers’ wives was said to have donated some red flannel for a single stripe at the bottom, and a lone star was drawn and colored in, using a paint of brick dust and blackberry juice. Prominent on the face of the flag was the silhouette of a grizzly bear, symbolizing strength and ferocity. Missourians in the party insisted it looked more like a full-grown hog, but in any case this was the height of Manifest Destiny.†
In the meanwhile Frémont, while still refusing material help to the settlers on grounds it could be construed as interfering in another nation’s affairs, had decided to deal with the growing Indian threat, which he justified by noting that a large Indian war party theoretically could cut off his rear echelon as he tried to return to the United States.
Throughout his career Frémont had been exposed to and connected with a wide variety of Indians and developed an opinion of them fairly common with the times. He had seen firsthand their depredations and their capacity for cruelty, lying, thievery, killing, and other un-Christian, un-American, and uncivilized behavior—including the recent murder of his friend Basil Lajeunesse—and was therefore not disposed in general to think kindly of Native Americans.
Thus, while the settlers were moving against Sonoma, Frémont set out with most of his party of exploration to inflict a “rude but necessary” preemptive strike against the presumed Indian uprising. At dawn his party pitched into a camp along the Sacramento River, surprising the inhabitants, killing a few, scattering the rest, and firing or ripping down their shelters and food bins. A number of the natives, Frémont’s scouts reported, were wearing black paint (war paint) and some had been conducting war ceremonies. He repeated the procedure at villages up and down the river until by the end of the day the natives in that area of the valley had been sufficiently chastised—dispersed and defeated—so that Frémont now felt no threat or pressure to his rear.
Meantime, General Castro and Governor Pico had been doing an odd kind of Mexican hat dance with each other while they should have been organizing to put down the Bear Flag rebellion. Castro, convinced that Pico was out to get him, started recruiting an army, ostensibly to deal with recalcitrant American settlers but in fact had headed it south to Los Angeles to remove Pico from power. That’s what Consul Larkin believed the herd of 250 horses had been intended for. At the same time, Pico suspected as much and began raising his own army on the false pretense of riding north to assist General Castro against the settlers, when he actually intended to use it to oust Castro from power. It was in the midst of this mazy whipsaw that word arrived of the Bear Flag revolt, and the incarceration of General Vallejo and his companions at Sutter’s Fort, which rendered the question of power and control moot, and both Castro and Pico adjusted their focus to the problem of revolution in their country.
Castro immediately issued his own proclamation, which denounced the settlers as “adventurers” and called on the population to “arise en masse, divine providence will guide us to glory.” The general didn’t have much to work with, but he managed to raise 160 men, soon joined by a band of 25 more led by a barber. On June 23 they moved north toward Sonoma. On the way, a detachment of this force captured two American couriers and, it was said, butchered them with knives. As word of the atrocity spread, settler families began fleeing their farms into Sonoma.
For the next several days there was some desultory fighting all around San Rafael, which finally became too much for Frémont to bear. He decided to play his hand.
When messengers from Ide arrived and pleaded for Frémont to join and lead the settlers’ revolt, Frémont concluded that a crisis was at hand and it was “unsafe to leave events to mature under unfriendly, or mistaken, direction,” or so he wrote later. He ordered his party, now consisting of 180 men, including some settlers, to saddle up and head for San Rafael, where the fighting was.‡
Castro’s forces had gone, however, and nothing remained but bitter talk about the mutilation of the two American couriers, who apparently had been well known and well liked. About that time a small boat, which had crossed San Francisco Bay, put in at San Pedro Point and landed three Californios right under Frémont’s nose. Kit Carson rode down with a party and apprehended these people, two youthful twins and an elderly man, then galloped back to Frémont for further instructions. The confusion over what happened next is yet another result of the contradictory evidence from this somewhat obscure period in U.S. history.
It is a fact that the three men who debarked from the boat were shot by Kit Carson and his crew. How and why remain murky; various testimony after the fact says they were shot trying to escape, killed by Frémont’s Delaware Indians, shot when they resisted, or murdered in cold blood on Frémont’s instructions. No one will ever know the truth, but the fact that Carson shot these men should surprise no one; among his most enduring traits was that he was a steely-eyed killer. Still, the incident remains a stain on Frémont’s record.
Castro’s forces managed to escape a confrontation with Frémont’s band entirely by means of a trick. They sent out a courier, knowing he would be captured, with a letter saying Castro was on his way to attack Sonoma. Frémont took the bait while the Californios rode off in the opposite direction. Finding Sonoma safe, Frémont went looking for a fight and wound up tracking his adversary all the way to Sausalito, only to find that the enemy had escaped in boats to the other side of San Francisco Bay.
Looking across the narrow neck of the bay Frémont could see an enemy fort guarding the entrance on the opposite shore. He determined that it needed to be reduced so American ships could safely enter the estuary with munitions and supplies. William D. Phelps, the salty captain of the Moscow, an American merchant ship, offered to ferry a detachment across the strait in one of the ship’s boats to attack the fort, and a spiking party was organized, consisting of Frémont, Carson, Lieutenant Gillespie, and a dozen others, “men singled out as the best shots,” including a gunsmith. Daybreak found them just off the southern “gate,” or entrance to the San Francisco Bay, now bathed in the first rays of sun, which Frémont promptly dubbed the “Golden Gate,” a name that has stuck through the years. Just as
they landed, several Californios fled the fort on horseback. Once inside the crumbling fortification they spiked fourteen long brass Spanish cannons with the aid of some rat-tail files procured from the Moscow.§
Afterward, Captain Phelps, an inveterate man of the sea, set down his impression upon first meeting Frémont, the famous landlubber, whom he had previously known only by reputation. “My imagination had pictured him out somehow as I thought he ought to look.… I suppose[ed] I should see a full-whiskered military man, towering in size above all his command, stiff with uniforms and straps, looking blood, bullets and grizzly bears.” Instead, Phelps said, someone “pointed out to me as Capt. Fremont, a slender, well-proportioned man of sedate but pleasing countenance, sitting in front of a tent. His dress, near as I remember, was a blue flannel shirt, after the naval style, open at the collar, which was turned over; over this a deerskin hunting shirt, figured and trimmed in hunter’s style, blue cloth pantaloons and neat moccasins, all of which had very evidently seen hard service. His head was not cumbered by a hat or cap, but a light cotton handkerchief, bound tightly round his head, [and] surmounted a suit which might not appear very fashionable at the White House or be presentable at the Queen’s levee, but to my eye it was an admirable rig to scud under or fight in.”
With the enemy fort silenced, and San Francisco Bay now open, on the Fourth of July, 1846, Frémont returned to Sonoma, which was by then teeming with settlers engaged in wild excitement at the prospect of ending Mexican rule. It had been almost exactly a year since he had crossed the Missouri with his Party of Exploration, and they’d made it two thousand miles across the continent to what might well have seemed the other side of the world. With Castro’s forces now on the run and northern California secure, at least for the moment, Frémont held an Independence Day celebration that included artillery salutes and speeches and concluded with a military ball. Next day he got down to more serious business.