Starr King in California

by William Day Simonds

In this connection it should be remembered that when President Lincoln at the outbreak of the war called for 75,000 men, California was expected to furnish her quota of 6,000 soldiers, but so threatening was the local situation that not a loyal man could be spared from the State. On the contrary it was found necessary to retain in the State certain regiments of the regular army badly needed elsewhere. In the summer of 1861, the War Department proposed to transfer a portion of the regular army stationed in California to Texas, where the situation demanded immediate succor for the friends of the Union. How grave the situation had become in California may easily be determined by a fact which seems to have escaped so far the attention of historians. On August 28, 1861, the leading men of San Francisco sent a communication to Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, remonstrating against the withdrawal of United States troops from California for the following reasons:

1. "A majority of our present state officials are avowed secessionists, and the balance being bitterly hostile to the administration are advocates of a peace policy at any price."

2. "About three-fifths of our citizens are natives of slave-holding states and are almost a unit in this crisis."

3. "Our advices, obtained with great prudence and care, show us that there are about 16,000 Knights of the Golden Circle (a secret military organization of secessionists, said by many authorities to have been much stronger than was at the time believed) in the state, and they are still organizing even in our most loyal districts."

4. "Through misrepresentation the powerful native Mexican population has been won over to the secession side."

This document, remarkable in itself, becomes weighty evidence, when it is stated that after full and careful consideration, the petition was heeded and the regulars remained on the Coast.

General Sumner held command nearly a year, until, as we are accustomed to think, all danger of a disloyal California was over, yet as the date of his departure for the Army of the Potomac drew near, he was very anxious that Col. Wright, an able and loyal officer, should fill his place, and wrote to the authorities in Washington, "Col. Wright ought to remain in command. The safety of the whole coast may depend upon it." (italics ours).

A few weeks after the death of Starr King, the Pacific Monthly, leading magazine of the day, reviewed the situation at the beginning of the great conflict, as it was then known and understood by all intelligent Californians:

"On the breaking out of the rebellion, public opinion on this coast was sorely distracted at the issues raised. The great majority of the people were warmly attached to their Government; but they had drunk deep at the fountains of Southern eloquence, and had been measurably debauched by the dangerous teachings of the able men who had ruled the state from its infancy. When we consider the critical condition of public sentiment at that dark hour (1860-1861); how the public mind had been thrown off its poise by the false teaching of a long succession of political charlatans; how the insidious doctrine of separation and a Pacific Republic had been hissed by serpents into the ears of the people; how the great dark cloud of impending ruin hung over our central Government; how legions of armed patricides were almost battering at the gates of our National Capital; how rebellion had baptized itself in blood and victory at Bull Run—when we think how the effect of all these adverse teachings and adverse fortunes had rendered the public mind plastic to whoever had the genius to seize and direct it, and reflect that a man of King's abilities, but without his patriotism, might have grasped the opportunity to drift us upon shoals and rocks and quicksands of treason, we cannot feel too thankful that the man and the hour both arrived. His was a noble task, and nobly did he fulfill it. What he did for California and the Union can never be fully estimated,—the work he wrought in saving her to the country, and engraving upon her heart, the golden word—'Union'."

Leaving aside for a little space this fervent tribute to King's work, the quotation just given is evidence of a grave situation, of a state divided in opinion, of just such an "hour of decision" as gives the strong man his opportunity. There can be no doubt that the verdict of the Visalia Delta, a loyal and well-known newspaper, as to conditions in its own community would apply to every considerable town in the State: