Simon Cameron,
Secretary of War.

Telegraph and Pony Express and telegraph.

The work of enlisting the five thousand men thus requisitioned was
carried forward with great rapidity. Within two weeks, on the 28th, the
Pony Express brought word that the War Department was about to order
this force overland into Texas, to act, no doubt, as a barrier to the
advancing Confederate armies who were then planning an invasion of New
Mexico as the first decisive step in carrying the conflict into the
heart of the Southwest. It was understood, further, that General Sumner
would be ordered to vacate his position as Commander of the Department
of the Pacific and lead his recruits into the service.

To the authorities at Washington, a campaign of aggression with western
troops had no doubt seemed the best means of defending California and
adjacent territory from Confederate attack. To the Unionists of
California, the report that their troops and Sumner were to leave the
state spelt extreme discouragement. They had felt some degree of hope
and security so long as organized forces were in their midst, and the
presence of Sumner everywhere inspired confidence among discouraged
patriots. To be deprived of their soldiers was bad enough; to lose
Sumner was intolerable. Accordingly, a formal petition protesting
against this action, was drawn up, addressed to the War Department, and
signed by important firms and prominent business men of San
Francisco[20].

In this petition they said among other things, that the War Department