Again the Fourth of July was not celebrated here, the two factions in the community still opposing each other with bitterness. Hatred of the National Government had increased through an incident of the previous spring which stirred the town mightily. On the eighth or ninth of May, a group stood discussing the Fort Pillow Massacre, when J. F. Bilderback indiscreetly expressed the wish that the Confederates would annihilate every negro taken with arms, and every white man, as well, who might be found in command of colored troops; or some such equally dangerous and foolish sentiment. The indiscretion was reported to the Government authorities, and Bilderback was straightway arrested by a lieutenant of cavalry, though he was soon released.
Among the most rabid Democrats, particularly during the Civil War period, was Nigger Pete the barber. One hot day in August, patriotic Biggs vociferously proclaimed his ardent attachment to the cause of Secession; whereupon he was promptly arrested, placed in charge of half a dozen cavalrymen, and made to foot it, with an iron chain and ball attached to his ankle, all the way from Los Angeles to Drum Barracks at Wilmington. Not in the least discouraged by his uncertain position, however, Pete threw his hat up into the air as he passed some acquaintances on the road, and gave three hearty cheers for Jeff Davis, thus bringing about the completion of his difficulty.
For my part, I have good reason to remember the drought and crisis of 1864, not alone because times were miserably hard and prosperity seemed to have disappeared forever, or that the important revenue from Uncle Sam, although it relieved the situation, was never sufficient to go around, but also because of an unfortunate investment. I bought and shipped many thousands of hides which owners had taken from the carcasses of their starved cattle, forwarding them to San Francisco by schooner or steamer, and thence to New York by sailing vessel. A large number had commenced to putrefy before they were removed, which fact escaped my attention; and on their arrival in the East, the decomposing skins had to be taken out to sea again and thrown overboard, so that the net results of this venture were disastrous. However, we all met the difficulties of the situation as philosophically as we could.
There were no railroads in California until the late sixties and, consequently, there was no regular method of concentration, nor any systematic marketing of products; and this had a very bad economic effect on the whole State. Prices were extremely high during her early history, and especially so in 1864. Barley sold at three and a half cents per pound; potatoes went up to twelve and a half cents; and flour reached fifteen dollars per barrel, at wholesale. Much flour in wooden barrels was then brought from New York by sailing vessels; and my brother imported a lot during a period of inflation, some of which he sold at thirteen dollars. Isaac Friedlander, a San Francisco pioneer, who was not alone the tallest man in that city but was as well a giant operator in grain and its products, practically monopolized the wheat and flour business of the town; and when he heard of this interference, he purchased all the remainder of my brother's flour at thirteen dollars a barrel, and so secured control of the situation.
Just before this transaction, I happened to be in San Francisco and noticing the advertisement of an approaching flour auction, I attended the sale. This particular lot was packed in sacks which had been eaten into by rats and mice and had, in consequence, to be resacked, sweepings and all. I bought one hundred barrels and shipped the flour to Los Angeles, and B. Dubordieu, the corpulent little French baker, considered himself fortunate in obtaining it at fifteen dollars per barrel.
Speaking of foodstuffs, I may note that red beans then commanded a price of twelve and a half cents per pound, until a sailing vessel from Chile unexpectedly landed a cargo in San Francisco and sent the price dropping to a cent and a quarter; when commission men, among them myself, suffered heavy losses.
In 1864, F. Bachman & Company sold out. Their retirement was ascribed in a measure to the series of bad years, but the influence of their wives was a powerful factor in inducing them to withdraw. The firm had been compelled to accept large parcels of real estate in payment of accounts; and now, while preparing to leave, Bachman & Co. sacrificed their fine holdings at prices considered ridiculous even then. The only one of these sales that I remember was that of a lot with a frontage of one hundred and twenty feet on Fort Street, and a one-story adobe house, which they disposed of for four hundred dollars.
I have told of Don Juan Forster's possessions—the Santa Margarita rancho, where he lived until his death, and also the Las Flores. These he obtained in 1864, when land was worth but the merest song, buying the same from Pio Pico, his brother-in-law. The two ranches included over a hundred and forty thousand acres, and pastured some twenty-five thousand cattle, three thousand horses and six or seven thousand sheep; yet the transaction, on account of the season, was a fiscal operation of but minor importance.
The hard times strikingly conduced to criminality and, since there were then probably not more than three or four policemen in Los Angeles, some of the desperadoes, here in large numbers and not confined to any particular nationality or color, took advantage of the conditions, even making several peculiar nocturnal assaults upon the guardians of the peace. The methods occasionally adopted satisfied the community that Mexican bandidos were at work. Two of these worthies on horseback, while approaching a policeman, would suddenly dash in opposite directions, bringing a reata (in the use of which they were always most proficient) taut to the level of their saddles; and striking the policeman with the hide or hair rope, they would throw him to the ground with such force as to disable him. Then the ingenious robbers would carry out their well-planned depredations in the neighborhood and disappear with their booty.
J. Ross Browne, one of the active Forty-niners in San Francisco and author of Crusoe's Island and various other volumes dealing with early life in California and along the Coast, was on and off a visitor to Los Angeles, first passing through here in 1859, en route to the Washoe Gold fields, and stopping again in 1864.