well known attachment to the Southern cause led to his removal by the
Lincoln Administration. In General Sumner's reports to the War
Department in Washington we have impartial and official testimony as to
conditions in California during the period under consideration.
Naturally he came first in contact with the people about San Francisco
Bay, a majority of whom were loyal to the North, and consequently,
Sumner's first reports were encouraging. "There is a strong Union
feeling," he writes, "with the majority of the people of the state, but
the Secessionists are much the most active and zealous party."

A little later, better informed, he reported: "The Secessionist party in
this state numbers about 32,000 men and they are very restless and
zealous, which gives them great influence." Still later: "The
disaffection in the southern part of the state is increasing and is
becoming dangerous, and it is indispensably necessary to throw
reinforcements into that section immediately."

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