CH. V.] CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA. Doniphan lost but one man killed and eight wounded, one of whom afterward died. Chihuahua fell into Doniphan's hands on the 1st of March; and there he rested his toilworn band for six weeks; then, continuing his march, he reached General Taylor's encampment, near Monterey, late in the month of May, 1847.* Captain Fremont, of the topographical corps, set out in the spring of 1845, with an armed party, for the purpose of crossing the mountains and penetrating to the interior of California. His object was stated to be of a purely scientific character. On the 29th of January, 1846, he arrived in the neighborhood of Monterey, California. Here he sought and obtained permission of De Castro, the Mexican governor, to enter the valley of the San Joaquin, in order to obtain forage for 1846. his horses, and provisions for the men. Whilst availing himself of this permission, in March, 1846, he was informed by some American settlers, that De Castro was preparing to attack him and his men upon the pretext, that, | under the cover of a scientific mission, he was exciting the American settlers to revolt. Fremont then, in self-defence, took a position on a mountain overlooking Monterey, at a distance of about thirty miles, entrenched it, raised the flag of the United States, and with his own men, sixty-two in number, awaited the approach of the Mexican general. Having remained in this position from the 7th to the 10th of March, * See Mr. Benton's address to the corps under Doniphan, on their return; "Thirty Years' View," vol. ii., pp. 684-88. 1437 without molestation from De Castro, Fremont continued his march for Oregon. After entering Oregon, and being attacked by hostile Indians, who, it was alleged, were urged to this by De Castro, and having been informed that the Mexican general intended to crush him and his force, Fremont turned back, and resolved to overthrow the Mexican authority in California and establish an independent government there. Hurrying to the Sacramento, while Lieutenant Gillespie of the marines, (who had joined Fremont early in May), went down the river to secure the co-operation of the fleet, Fremont commenced operations; he captured two hundred horses one day; another day took Sonoma, with all its armament; and another attacked and defeated a squadron of seventy dragoons; he rallied round him, now forty settlers, now ninety, and soon had above two hundred at his command; and finally, on the 5th of July, at Sonoma, he and the American settlers proclaimed the Republic of California, with himself at the head of its affairs. Commodore Sloat, in command of the squadron of observation, had been ordered at the breaking out of the war, "to take and hold San Francisco;" but before that order reached him, on the 7th of June, he heard of the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and the next day sailed for Monterey. With proclamations in Spanish and English, on July the 7th, just two days after Fremont's proclamation, Monterey was in his hands; and on the 9th, San Francisco fell, and Sloat announced, "henceforward California will be a por United States, left Worth and Butler at Monterey and at Saltillo, (which had fallen soon after the capture of Monterey,) and about the middle of December, set out for Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas, where he designed to concentrate a portion of his army. While absent on this expedition, General Worth informed Taylor, that Santa Anna was making quite extensive preparations to expel the Americans from Mexico. After a careful calculation of the chances in his favor, he had judged it best to take the lead in that policy which was most popular in Mexico, viz., to resist the aggressions of the United States. Accordingly, at San Louis de Potosi, in the heart of Mexico, 1846. and on the high road from Monterey to the capital, he had collected an army of twenty thousand men, all eager for the combat, and confident of victory. The scanty and scattered detachments of the American army could scarcely have stood before a well-planned and resolute movement of such a force; but Wool was summoned from Parras to join Worth at Saltillo, and Taylor, finding that the movement a Turn we now to General Taylor, and the progress of affairs in which he was concerned. On a previous page (p. 435,) we have stated, that a suspension of hostilities had been agreed upon by the commanding general, under the conviction, that Mexico had already been brought to that position, that she would be glad to make peace on terms agreeable to the United States, and that the home government would sanction this proceeding on his part. But "the authorities at home," as Mr. Mayer states, "eager for fresh victories, or pandering to public and political taste, did not approve and confirm an act, for which General Taylor has, nevertheless, received, as he truly merits, the just ap-gainst Saltillo was not likely to take plause of impartial history." The armistice at Monterey accordingly ceased, and Taylor having been informed, on the 25th of November, that Tampico was occupied by the naval forces of the place, ordered General Quitman with the volunteers to march to Victoria, where he himself arrived, on the 4th of January, 1847. The administration, meanwhile, had come to the conclusion that a change in the plan of operations against Mexico must be made. Taylor's line of attack was not likely to prove successful; and 715-19. It is worth the reader's examination, and hence, as our ships had possession of For the account which Mr. Benton gives of the court-martial on Colonel Fremont (early in 1848), and its results, see his “Thirty Years' View,” vol. ii., pp. will help him towards understanding various matters connected with the California business, the Mexican war, etc. the sea, and an army could be thrown upon any point of the coast which might |