As is well known, Lincoln and the Federal Government accepted the defeat
at Bull Run calmly, and set about with grim determination to whip the
South at any cost. The President asked Congress for four hundred
thousand men and was voted five hundred thousand. In pursuance of such
policies, these urgent dispatches were hurried across the country:

War Department.
Washington, August 14, 1861.
Hon. John G. Downey,

Governor of California, Sacramento City, Cal.

Please organize, equip, and have mustered into service, at the earliest
date possible, four regiments of infantry and one regiment of cavalry,
to be placed at the disposal of General Sumner.

Simon Cameron,
Secretary of War.

By telegraph to Fort Kearney and thence by Pony Express and telegraph.

War Department, August 15, 1861.
Hon. John G. Downey,

Governor of California, Sacramento City, Cal.

In filling the requisition given you August 14th, for five regiments,
please make General J. H. Carleton of San Francisco, colonel of a
cavalry regiment, and give him proper authority to organize as promptly
as possible.