While public discussion availed, Hardin and Valois listened to Thornton, Crittenden, Morrison, Randolph, Dr. Scott, Weller, Whitesides, Hoge, and Nugent. But the time for hope was past. The golden sun had set for ever. Fifteen regiments of Californian troops, in formation, were destined to hold the State. They guarded the roads to Salt Lake and Arizona. The arsenals and strongholds were secured. The chance of successful invasion from Texas vanished. It was the crowning mistake of the first year of secession, not to see the value of the Pacific Coast. From the first shot, the Pacific Railroad became a war measure. The iron bands tied East and West in a firm union.
Gwin's departure and Randolph's death added to the Southern discomfiture. No course remained for rebels but to furtively join the hosts of treason. Flight to the East.
In the wake of Sidney Johnston went many men of note. Garnett, Cheatham, Brooks, Calhoun, Benham, Magruder, Phil Herbert, and others, with Dan Showalter and David Terry, each fresh from the deadly field of honor. Kewen, Weller, and others remained to be silenced by arrest. All over the State a hegira commenced which ended in final defeat. Many graves on the shallow-trenched battle-fields were filled by the Californian exiles. Not in honor did these devoted men and hundreds of their friends leave the golden hills. Secretly they fled, lest their romantic quest might land them in a military prison. Those unable to leave gave aid to the absent. Sulking at home, they deserted court and mart to avoid personal penalties.
It was different with many of the warm-hearted Californian sons of the South who were attached to the Union. Cut off in a distant land, they held aloof from approving secession. Grateful for the shelter of the peaceful land in which their hard-won homes were made, it was only after actual war that the ties of blood carried them away and ranged them under the Stars and Bars. When the Southern ranks fell, in windrows, on the Peninsula, hundreds of these manly Californians left to join their brethren. They had clung to the Union till their States went out one by one. They sadly sought the distant fields of action, and laid down their lives for the now holy cause.
The attitude of these gallant men was noble. They scorned the burrowing conspirators who dug below the foundations of the national constitution. These schemers led the eager South into a needless civil war.
The holiest feelings of heredity dragged the Southerners who lingered into war. It was a sacrifice of half of the splendid generation which fought under the Southern Cross.
When broken ranks appealed for the absent, when invaded States and drooping hopes aroused desperation, the last California contingents braved the desert dangers. Indian attack and Federal capture were defied, only to die for the South on its sacred soil. "Salut aux braves!" The loyalists of California were restrained from disturbing the safe tenure of the West by depleting the local Union forces. Abraham Lincoln saw that the Pacific columns should do no more than guard the territories adjacent. To hold the West and secure the overland roads was their duty. To be ready to march to meet an invasion or quell an uprising. This was wisdom.
But the country called for skilled soldiers and representative men to join the great work of upholding the Union. A matchless contingent of Union officers went East.
California had few arms-bearing young Americans to represent its first ten years of State existence. But it returned to the national government men identified with the Pacific Coast, who were destined to be leaders of the Union hosts.
Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Halleck, Hancock, Hooker, Keyes, Naglee, Baker, Ord, Farragut (the blameless Nelson of America), Canby, Fremont, Shields, McPherson, Stoneman, Stone, Porter, Boggs, Sumner, Heintzelman, Lander, Buell, with other old residents of the coast, drew the sword. Wool, Denver, Geary, and many more, whose abilities had been perfected in the struggles of the West, took high rank.