One regiment of infantry and five companies of cavalry have been
accepted from California to aid in protecting the overland mail route
via Salt Lake.

Please detail officers to muster these troops into service. Blanks will
be sent by steamer.

By order: George D. Ruggles.
Assistant Adjutant General.

While recognizing the great need of extending proper military protection
to the mail route, it must have been disheartening to Sumner and the
loyalists to see this force ordered into service outside the state. For
now, late in the summer of 1861, the time of national crisis - the
Californian trouble was approaching its climax. On July 20, the Union
army had been beaten at Bull Run and driven back, a rabble of fugitives,
into the panic stricken capital. Then came weeks and months of delay and
uncertainty while the overcautious McClellan sought to build up a new
military machine. The entire North was overspread with gloom; the
Confederates were jubilant and full of self-confidence. In California
the psychological situation was similar but even more acute, for
encouraged by Confederate success, the rebel faction became bolder than
ever, and openly planned to win the state election to be held on
September 4. If successful at the polls, the reins of organized
political power would pass into its hands and a secession convention
would be a direct possibility. And to intensify the danger was the
confirmed indifference or stubbornness of many citizens who seemed to
place petty personal differences before the interests of the state and
nation at large.