EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF CALIFORNIA--(CONTINUED).

1849-1850.


The department headquarters still remained at Monterey, but, with
the few soldiers, we had next to nothing to do. In midwinter we
heard of the approach of a battalion of the Second Dragoons, under
Major Lawrence Pike Graham, with Captains Rucker, Coutts, Campbell,
and others, along. So exhausted were they by their long march from
Upper Mexico that we had to send relief to meet them as they
approached. When this command reached Los Angeles, it was left
there as the garrison, and Captain A. J. Smith's company of the
First Dragoons was brought up to San Francisco. We were also
advised that the Second Infantry, Colonel B. Riley, would be sent
out around Cape Horn in sailing-ships; that the Mounted Rifles,
under Lieutenant-Colonel Loring, would march overland to Oregon;
and that Brigadier-General Persifer F. Smith would come out in
chief command on the Pacific coast. It was also known that a
contract had been entered into with parties in New York and New
Orleans for a monthly line of steamers from those cities to
California, via Panama. Lieutenant-Colonel Burton had come up from
Lower California, and, as captain of the Third Artillery, he was
assigned to command Company F, Third Artillery, at Monterey.
Captain Warner remained at Sacramento, surveying; and Halleck,
Murray, Ord, and I, boarded with Dona Augustias. The season was
unusually rainy and severe, but we passed the time with the usual
round of dances and parties. The time fixed for the arrival of the
mail-steamer was understood to be about January 1, 1849, but the
day came and went without any tidings of her. Orders were given to