Background
General Kearny had orders to assume command of U.S. forces in California, but before entering Alta California from Santa Fe, Kearny sent back 200 of his 300 mounted dragoons after hearing from messenger Kit Carson that all of California had already been captured by Commodore Robert F. Stockton and his 400 combined sailors and Marines, and John C. Frémont and his approximate 400 man California Battalion. After a grueling 850-mile (1,370 km) march across the Sonora Desert, Kearny and his mostly mule-mounted men finally reached California in a greatly weakened condition. There they met up with Captain Archibald Gillespie of the U.S. Marines. Captain Gillespie in the preceding weeks had recently been driven out of Los Angeles, and now marched from San Diego with a message from Stockton, accompanied by a detachment of mounted riflemen, a native San Diegan, and Navy Lieutenant Beale who commanded a small howitzer commonly known as the "Sutter cannon". The total American forces amounted to about 179.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of San Pasqual
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