Gentlemen Rovers

by E. Alexander Powell

The Sacramento Valley in 1845.
From a steel engraving of the period.

All told, Frémont's expedition numbered barely threescore men—no great force, surely, with which to overthrow a government and win an empire. In advance of the little column rode the four Delaware braves whom Frémont had brought with him from the East to act as scouts and trackers, and whose cunning and woodcraft he was willing to match against that of the Indians of the plains. Close on their heels rode the Pathfinder himself, clad from neck to heel in fringed buckskin, at his belt a heavy army revolver and one of those vicious, double-bladed knives to which Colonel Bowie, of Texas, had already given his name, and on his head a jaunty, broad-brimmed hat, from beneath which his long, yellow hair fell down upon his shoulders. At his bridle arm rode Kit Carson, the most famous of the plainsmen, whose exploits against the Indians were even then familiar stories in every American household. Behind these two stretched out the rank and file of the expedition—bronze-faced, bearded, resolute men, well mounted, heavily armed, and all wearing the serviceable dress of the frontier.

Frémont found the American settlers scattered through the interior in a state of considerable alarm, for rumors had reached them that the Mexican Government had decided to drive them out of the country, and that orders had been issued to the provincial authorities to incite the Indians against them. As they dwelt for the most part in small, isolated communities, scattered over a great extent of country, it was obvious that, if these rumors were true, their lives were in imminent peril. They had every reason to expect, moreover, that the news of war between Mexico and the United States would bring down on them those forms of punishment and retaliation for which the Mexicans were notorious. They were confronted, therefore, with the alternative of abandoning the homes they had built and the fields they had tilled and seeking refuge in flight across the mountains, or of remaining to face those perils inseparable from border warfare. Nor did it take them long to decide upon resistance, for they were not of the breed which runs away.

Leaving most of his men encamped in the foot-hills, Frémont pushed on to Monterey, then the most important settlement in Upper California, and the seat of the provincial government, where he called upon Don José Castro, the Mexican commandant, explained the purposes of his expedition, and requested permission for his party to proceed northward to the Columbia through the San Joaquin valley. This permission Castro grudgingly gave, but scarcely had Frémont broken camp before the Mexican, who had hastily gathered an overwhelming force of soldiers and vaqueros, set out upon the trail of the Americans with the avowed purpose of surprising and exterminating them. Fortunately for the Americans, Consul Larkin, getting wind of Castro's intended treachery, succeeded in warning Frémont, who instead of taking his chances in a battle on the plains against a greatly superior force, suddenly occupied the precipitous hill lying back of and commanding Monterey, known as the Hawk's Peak, intrenched himself there, and then sent word to Castro to come and take him. Although the Mexican commander made a military demonstration before the American intrenchments, he was wise enough to refrain from attempting to carry a position of such great natural strength and defended by such unerring shots as were Frémont's frontiersmen. Four days later Frémont, feeling that there was nothing to be gained by holding the position longer, and confident that the Mexicans would be only too glad to see his back, quietly broke camp one night and resumed his march toward Oregon.

Scarcely had he crossed the Oregon line, however, before he was overtaken by a messenger on a reeking horse, who had been despatched by Consul Larkin to inform him that an officer with urgent despatches from Washington had arrived at Monterey and was hastening northward to overtake him. Frémont immediately turned back, and on the shores of the Greater Klamath Lake met Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, who had travelled from New York to Vera Cruz by steamer, had crossed Mexico to Mazatlán on horseback, and had been brought up the Pacific coast to Monterey in an American war-ship. The exact contents of the despatches with which Gillespie had been intrusted will probably never be known, for having reason to believe that his mission was suspected by the Mexicans, and being fearful of arrest, he had destroyed the despatches after committing their contents to memory. These contents he communicated to Frémont, and the fact that the latter immediately turned his horse's head Californiawards is the best proof that they contained definite instructions for him to stir up the American settlers to revolt and so gain California for the Union by what some one has aptly described as "neutral conquest."

The news of Frémont's return spread among the scattered settlers as though by wireless, and from all parts of the country hardy, determined men came pouring into camp to offer him their services. But his hands were tied. His instructions from Washington, while ordering him to lend his encouragement to an insurrectionary movement, expressly forbade him to take the initiative in any hostilities until he received word that war with Mexico had been declared—and that word had not yet come. These facts he communicated to the settlers. Frémont's assurance that the American Government sympathized with their aspirations for independence, and could be counted upon to back up any action they might take to secure it, was all that the settlers needed. On the evening of June 13, 1846, some fifty Americans living along the Sacramento River met at the ranch of an old Indian-fighter and bear-hunter named Captain Meredith, and under his leadership rode across the country in a northwesterly direction through the night. Dawn found them close to the presidio of Sonoma, which was the residence of the Mexican general Vallejo and the most important military post north of San Francisco. Leaving their horses in the shelter of the forest, the Americans stole silently forward in the dimness of the early morning, overpowered the sentries, burst in the gates, and had taken possession of the town and surrounded the barracks before the garrison was fairly awake. General Vallejo and his officers were captured in their beds, and were sent under guard to a fortified ranch known as Sutter's fort, which was situated some distance in the interior. In addition to the prisoners, nine field-guns, several hundred stands of arms, and a considerable supply of ammunition fell into the hands of the Americans. The first blow had been struck in the conquest of California.

The question now arose as to what they should do with the town they had captured, for Frémont had no authority to take it over for the United States, or to muster the men who took it into the American service. The embattled settlers found themselves, in fact, to be in the embarrassing position of being men without a country. After a council of war they decided to organize a pro-tem. government of their own to administer the territory until such time as it should be formally annexed to the United States. I doubt if a government was ever established so quickly and under such rough-and-ready circumstances. After an informal ballot it was announced that William B. Ide, a leading spirit among the settlers, had been unanimously elected governor and commander-in-chief "of the independent forces"; John H. Nash, who had been a justice of the peace in the East before he had emigrated to California, being named chief justice of the new republic.

For a full-fledged nation not to have a flag of its own was, of course, unthinkable; so, as most of its citizens were hunters and adventurers, when some one suggested that the grizzly bear, because of its indomitable courage and tenacity and its ferocity when aroused, would make a peculiarly appropriate emblem for the new banner, the suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm and a committee of two was appointed to put it into immediate execution. A young settler named William Ford, who had been imprisoned by the Mexicans in the jail at Sonoma, and who had been released when his countrymen captured the place; and William Todd, an emigrant from Illinois, were the makers of the flag. On a piece of unbleached cotton cloth, a yard wide and a yard and a half long, they painted the rude figure of a grizzly bear ready to give battle. This strange banner they raised, at noon on June 14, amid a storm of cheers and a salute from the captured cannon, on the staff where so recently had floated the flag of Mexico, and from it the Bear Flag Republic took its name.

Scarcely had Frémont received the news of the capture of Sonoma and the proclamation of the Bear Flag Republic than word reached him that a large force of Mexicans was on its way to retake the town. Disregarding his instructions from Washington, and throwing all caution to the winds, Frémont instantly decided to stake everything on giving his support to his imperilled countrymen. His own men reinforced by a number of volunteers, he arrived at Sonoma after a forced march of thirty-six hours, only to find the Bear Flag men still in possession. The number of the enemy, as well as their intentions, had, it seems, been greatly exaggerated, the force in question being but a small party of troopers which Castro had despatched to the Mission of San Rafael, on the north shore of San Francisco Bay, to prevent several hundred cavalry remounts which were stabled there from falling into the hands of the Americans. Realizing the value of these horses to the settlers in the guerilla campaign, which seemed likely to ensue, Frémont succeeded in capturing them after a sharp skirmish with the Mexicans. Hurrying back to Sonoma, he learned that during his absence Ide and his men had repulsed an attack by a body of Mexican regulars, under General de la Torre, reinforced by a band of ruffians and desperadoes led by an outlaw named Padilla, inflicting so sharp a defeat that the only enemies left in that part of the country were the scattered fugitives from this force; these being hunted down and summarily dealt with by the frontiersmen. Having now irrevocably committed himself to the insurgent cause, and feeling that, if he were to be hanged, it might as well be for a sheep as for a lamb, Frémont decided on the capture of San Francisco. The San Francisco of 1846 had little in common with the San Francisco of to-day, remember, for on the site where the great Western metropolis now stands there was nothing but a village consisting of a few-score adobe houses and the Mexican presidio, or fort, the latter containing a considerable supply of arms and ammunition. Accompanied by Kit Carson, Lieutenant Gillespie, and a small detachment of his men, Frémont crossed the Bay of San Francisco in a sailing-boat by night, and took the Mexican garrison so completely by surprise that they surrendered without firing a shot. The gateway to the Orient was ours.