Pacific Destiny and Bear Flag Rising

by Dale L. Walker

  The next day, Long Bob Semple and a small force of Osos crossed the Golden Gate to Yerba Buena, took a few Mexican officials prisoner, and occupied the village without resistance.

  * * *

  On Independence Day, 1846, with new volunteers arriving every day, the Bear Flaggers held a celebration in Sonoma. The Declaration of Independence was read loudly in the town plaza, cannons banged salutes, whole beeves were roasted, tubs of tamales and chiles, and bottles, jugs, demijohns, and kegs of wine, brandy, and whiskey were consumed. The festivities ended on the night of the Fourth with a fandango held in Salvador Vallejo’s big adobe home, now serving as Frémont’s headquarters, with waltzes and quadrilles, mountain-men stomps, and Delaware war dances performed to whoops and loud chatter, and the music of fiddles, guitars, mouth harps, and concertinas.

  The next day, Captains Frémont and Ide and their officers met to discuss new strategy. Ide’s rebels now numbered nearly three hundred men, but it seemed clear that the Bear Flaggers’ day was ending. Although explicit news that the United States and Mexico were at war had yet to arrive in Sonoma, few doubted it would be long in coming. Frémont hedged and contradicted himself, telling the group he was determined to find and defeat Castro and his forces but that until war was a certainty, he was not aiming at conquering all of California. He pledged support of the Osos and said he would supply them from stores he had commandeered at Sutter’s Fort. In return, he asked the Bears to pledge to “conduct the Revolution honorably,” to “abstain from the violation of the chastity of women” and to “obey properly constituted officers.”

  He also announced, to the confusion of all, that the time had come to form a disciplined army, which he volunteered to command, to meet the exigencies of real war; a force that could march south, engage Castro and any other force of Californios, and conquer the entire province in the name of the Government of the United States. The Osos did not resist this move; Ide, ever the orderly minded, practical leader, even seems to have anticipated it: he resented Frémont’s usurpation of his command (and wrote vehemently of it in the years to come), but knew that his Bear Flaggers had started something they could not finish.

  Frémont set out to organize what he came to call the “California Battalion,” with Gillespie as his adjutant. His original exploring party served as the veteran core of the force, and over two hundred of Ide’s rebels, Sutter workers, and a handful of local Indians signed pledges to serve. In all, Frémont had close to three hundred men, whom he organized into four companies. Dick Owens, the Rocky Mountain trapper, Indian-fighter, and friend of Kit Carson’s, was named captain of Frémont’s men; John Grigsby, Granville Swift, and Henry L. Ford were named to lead the other three companies. Grigsby and fifty men remained in Sonoma; the rest of the battalion marched out with Frémont on July 6 for the American River camp near Sutter’s. There they planned the campaign against Castro and the Californios fifty-five days after the war against Mexico had been officially declared, twenty-nine days after the official news of the war had reached California, and three days before the official news of the war reached Frémont.

  * * *

  Commodore John D. Sloat and his Pacific Squadron had been patrolling between the Sandwich Islands and Mazatlán, on Mexico’s west coast, for many months, awaiting a message from the Navy Department on the war. Sloat had spent a lifetime at sea, an eternity awaiting orders from Navy Secretary George Bancroft. He was sixty-five years old, ill, and dreaming of retirement; indeed, in early May, he had requested that he be replaced in his command. While he waited for that eventuality, he had no orders and no initiative. For months after he reached Mexican waters, he knew only that when he learned “beyond a doubt” that the war was on, he was to sail north, seize San Francisco Bay, blockade the other main California ports, and “preserve, if possible, the most friendly relations with the inhabitants” of the province.

  On May 18, after detailed news of General Zachary Taylor’s army fighting on the Rio Grande reached him, Sloat sent the Cyane, under Captain William Mervine, to Monterey to inform Consul Larkin of the increasing rumors of war, and Commander John B. Montgomery’s Portsmouth to San Francisco Bay to be in a position to occupy the harbor. With Mervine, the commodore sent a confidential letter to Larkin in which he revealed his tentativeness. Despite admitting to Larkin “it appears certain that hostilities have commenced on the north bank of the Rio Grande,” he said it was his “intention to visit your place immediately, and from the instructions I have received from my government, I am led to hope that you will be prepared to put me in possession of the necessary information, and to consult and advise with me on the course of operations I may be disposed to make on the coast of California.”

  After asking a civilian for guidance in his anticipated military operations, the commodore dallied at Mazatlán. He may have mistrusted the information he had received on May 18 from overland travelers, and may have been given contradictory information. But on May 31, he received reports that he knew were trustworthy, telling of Taylor’s battles at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma and the capture of Matamoros.

  But was there a war? On June 6, he wrote at length to Secretary Bancroft that he had, “upon more mature reflection,” concluded that in the absence of news of an actual declaration of war, he felt no justification in “taking possession of any part of California, or any hostile measures against Mexico (notwithstanding their attack upon our troops).” In referring to his original orders, he advised Bancroft that he would “be careful to avoid any act of aggression” and would proceed to California “to await further intelligence.” He said that the “want of communication” from Washington “renders my situation anything but pleasant; indeed it is humiliating and mortifying in the extreme, as by my order I cannot act, while it appears to the world that we are actually at war on the other coast.”

  By the time the secretary received this message, all had been rendered moot, but on August 13, Bancroft reacted with barely restrained fury: “The department willingly believes in the purity of your intentions,” he wrote, “but your anxiety not to do wrong has led you into a more unfortunate and unwarranted inactivity.” The secretary, referring to Sloat’s request to be replaced, and “other reasons,” which were unnamed, relieved the commodore of his command.

  While his fatal letter to Bancroft was en route by courier to Washington, Sloat had sailed north from Mazatlán on the Savannah on June 8, a day after he received news that an American squadron had blockaded Vera Cruz. He reached Monterey harbor on July 1, seventeen days after the Bear Flag had been raised in Sonoma. The Cyane and Levant had preceded him and were awaiting orders.

  He remained in a funk; instead of being inspired by the news of Taylor’s battles and the Vera Cruz blockade—in effect, a war confirmation—he seemed inert with uncertainty. What to do now? Spread out between Mazatlán, the Sandwich Islands, Monterey, and San Francisco Bay, he had six warships, an armed schooner, and a transport vessel. Mexico had no warships in California waters, and the British were the only potentially hostile foreign power Sloat had sighted in all his months in the Pacific. Admiral Sir George Seymour’s flagship Collingwood was, in fact, a nettlesome presence in its seemingly aimless patrolling of the Mexican coast from Mazatlán to San Francisco Bay. Moreover, there was a persistent fear among the Americans in California that the Mexican populace favored British intervention and that England had designs on the province.

  And Larkin, ever cautious, influenced the dithering Sloat with his ideas that Pico and Castro would eventually raise the Stars and Stripes voluntarily if courted with fine diplomacy rather than insulted by the rash tactics of Captain Frémont and the Bear Flaggers.

  And finally, the commodore allowed himself to be haunted by the mistake of 1842, when Captain Thomas ap Catesby Jones had “captured” Monterey because he acted on false information.

  Sloat took his gig ashore on July 4 and met at length with Larkin to hear the consul express his hope that California could be annexed to the Unite
d States without bloodshed. During this meeting, the officer bared his muddled state of mind to Larkin when he exclaimed, “I shall be blamed for doing too little or too much—I prefer the latter.”

  Still he delayed in occupying Monterey, and might have wavered longer had he not received a message from Commander Montgomery in San Francisco Bay telling of the developments in Sonoma and Frémont’s involvement with the Bear Flaggers. The news galvanized the ailing commodore. Frémont’s actions must have been sanctioned by Washington, he must be acting on orders, something Sloat desperately sought. His return message said he was “very anxious to know if Captain Frémont will cooperate with us,” and he told Montgomery: “If you consider you have sufficient force or if Frémont will join you, you will hoist the flag … at Yerba Buena … and take possession … you will secure the bay of San Francisco as soon as possible.”

  On July 6, he summoned Larkin aboard the Savannah and spent the day with the consul preparing dispatches to Washington, messages to his officers, and a lengthy and carefully worded proclamation.

  The next morning he sent a party ashore under Captain Mervine to demand the surrender of Monterey. In his yellow stone presidio headquarters, Captain Mariano Silva, an artillery officer in command of the virtually nonexistent garrison, told Mervine he was not “authorized to surrender the town.” Silva was let off the hook and kept under guard.

  At mid-morning, after reading orders to his sailors on the conduct expected of them, Sloat sent boats from the Savannah, Levant, and Cyane and landed 225 sailors and marines on the beach. Within minutes of the landing, the American flag was hoisted over the two-story frame customshouse, and after a twenty-one-gun salute from the three warships offshore, Sloat’s expert, conciliatory proclamation was read. It announced the existence of war and the annexation of Monterey and the department of Alta California to the United States: “I declare to the inhabitants of California that, although I come in arms with a powerful force, I do not come among them as an enemy to California; on the contrary, I come as their best friend, as henceforward California will be a portion of the United States, and its peaceful inhabitants will enjoy the same rights and privileges as the citizens of any other portion of that territory.…”

  He promised a fair and permanent government, improved commerce, reasonable duties, guarantee of titles to real estate, payment for provisions and supplies, no confiscation of property or goods. He touched on such familiar grievances as governmental neglect, corruption among officials, high prices for imports, and high duties on exports.

  Messages from Sloat and Larkin were sent to General Castro, then located at San Juan Bautista, notifying him of the surrender of Monterey and asking him to a parley. Castro responded on the ninth: he intended to spare no sacrifice in defending his country and said he would consult with Governor Pico to plan this defense. The general added some lines condemning the activities of Frémont and his “gang of adventurers” and demanded to know whether these men were part of Sloat’s invading force.

  Sloat also dispatched a message to Pico in Los Angeles: “I beg your Excellency to feel assured that although I come in arms with a powerful force, I come as the best friend of California; and I invite your Excellency to meet me at Monterey, that I may satisfy you and the people of that fact.”

  By July 12, Sloat had three hundred officers and men ashore, had armed the presidio with two eighteen-pound carronades (short-barreled, muzzle-loading cannons that sailors called “smashers”) mounted on trunnions as fieldpieces, and had ordered construction of a stockade and blockhouse.

  Captain Mervine, appointed commander of the American garrison in Monterey, took up office in the customshouse and established a curfew, closed stores and shops for two days, and forbade the sale of liquor. He organized a company of horsemen to patrol the countryside and to confiscate arms.

  There were no untoward incidents; not a shot had been fired accidentally or in anger. Larkin was overjoyed at the wise proclamation authored by Sloat and the gentlemanly ease with which the war had come to his beloved California.

  Sloat himself could now relax. He had begun the annexation of this vast and priceless land for the United States and had done it fairly, democratically, and without violence. His dispatches on the occupation of Monterey and San Francisco Bay were en route to Washington, and his replacement in command of the Pacific Squadron, Commodore Robert Field Stockton, was due in Monterey within the week.

  He had made a mighty capstone for his military career, a thing for which he would be remembered in history.

  12

  Stockton

  1

  Lieutenant Charles Warren Revere had been commissioned a midshipman in the navy in 1828 at age sixteen. Promotion and command were the stuff of dreams in the peacetime navy, but his assignment to the Pacific Squadron in the summer of 1845 seemed to offer a rare opportunity: wartime service. He had shipped aboard the Cyane out of Norfolk, Virginia, made the passage around the Horn, and joined Commodore Sloat’s squadron off Mazatlán in November. He had been assigned to Commander John B. Montgomery’s sloop-of-war Portsmouth in time for its visit to Monterey in April, come to know Consul Larkin, and taken horseback rides into the piney hills above the bay. He fell in love with California and predicted that it would become “one of the brightest stars in the American galaxy.”

  When Sloat had ordered the Portsmouth north in May, Revere had resumed his horseback outings, visiting San José village and the old Santa Clara Mission, near which General Castro would later have temporary headquarters. After the capture of Sonoma on June 14, he had visited the town, met the Oso leaders, and escorted the ship’s surgeon to Sutter’s Fort to attend to the ailing General Vallejo.

  He was the senior lieutenant on the Portsmouth and now, on July 9, 1846, two days after Monterey’s forced surrender, he had the honor of claiming San Francisco Bay for the United States.

  At eight that Thursday morning, the handsome, gregarious Revere led a landing party of seventy sailors and marines ashore at Yerba Buena and raised the American flag—twenty-seven stars (Texas too new to be included)—over the customshouse. After a twenty-one-gun salute offshore, he read Commodore Sloat’s proclamation, with Vice Consul Leidesdorff translating it into Spanish. There was not a single Mexican official in Yerba Buena to surrender the town.

  Later in the day, Lieutenant Revere carried out his second flag-raising duty. In Sonoma plaza, before a gathering of cheering Osos and warily silent townsfolk, he again read Sloat’s words and had them posted in both English and Spanish. Afterward, the grandson of Paul Revere watched as the passant grizzly banner, fashioned by the nephew of Abraham Lincoln, was lowered and the Stars and Stripes raised in its place.1

  The twenty-five-day Bear Flag Republic had ended.

  On July 10, in his camp on the American River, Frémont was visited by the purser of the Portsmouth carrying a message from Montgomery on the navy’s occupation of Monterey and Yerba Buena. Now, at last, there was a war on and the word had spread that General Castro had retreated south to Los Angeles, seat of Pío Pico’s government and of whatever resistance the Californios would muster against the Americans. Even the British, whose warships Sloat had seen patrolling the sea-lanes between Mazatlán and Monterey, seemed to know something was brewing. The sloop Juno had sailed past the Golden Gate on July 11 and the HMS Collingwood, Rear Admiral Sir George F. Seymour commanding, arrived on July 16. These visitors caused Montgomery to take some steps to defend Yerba Buena, but after courtesy calls by Seymour and his officers, the Americans became convinced that the British were mere observers and posed no threat.

  On July 12—With the American flag now run up at Monterey, Yerba Buena, Sonoma, Sutter’s Fort, and Bodega Bay on the coast north of the Russian River—Frémont, with his original exploration party, and the Bear Flaggers who had followed him from Sonoma, rode into New Helvetia. A letter from Sloat was awaiting him there, giving details of the capture of Monterey. The commodore said he expected General Castro to surrender but
asked Frémont to bring in at least a hundred “well mounted” men to prevent Indian depredations against the Californios in the area.

  The request seemed specious to the explorer, but he had received orders from a superior officer and prepared to march. He sent Gillespie ahead and after provisioning his hundred and sixty men and requisitioning cattle, horses, pack mules, and two small fieldpieces at Sutter’s, he led his battalion down the Sacramento Valley. He expected that his meeting with Sloat would include plans to pursue Castro to Los Angeles.

  The Americans reached San Juan Bautista on July 16, raised the flag there, and entered Monterey three days later.

  The placid and picturesque town, accustomed to strangers strolling its pathways and bayfront trading posts, had seen nothing in its history like the entrance of the Americans that bright July day, and the citizenry, Californio and outlander alike, lined up to witness it.

  The Americans were preceded by their beef herd and horses and mules, three hundred animals kicking up an immense cloud of dust. Some yards behind them rode Frémont and his praetorian guard of Lenni-Lenape “real men,” the Delaware Indians, their faces painted, hair braided and strung with feathers, their big skinning-knives strapped at their waists, heavy muskets held across their saddle pommels. Next, two by two, rode Kit Carson, Alexis Godey, Lucien Maxwell, Dick Owens, Jacob Dodson, gunsmith Stepp, the French-Canadians, army lieutenants Talbot, Abert, and Peck, former Bear Flaggers Ide, Swift, Merritt, Ford, Semple, and others, most of them sunbaked, trail-fouled, bearded apparitions in grimy deer-skin trousers and coats, and high moccasin-like boots lashed with rawhide thongs.