California in The American Civil War - Outbreak of The Civil War

Outbreak of The Civil War

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Southern California secession seemed possible; the populace was largely in favor of it, militias with secessionist sympathies had been formed, and Bear Flags, the banner of the Bear Flag Revolt, had been flown for several months by secessionists in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. After word of the Battle of Fort Sumter reached California, there were public demonstrations by secessionists. However secession quickly became impossible when three companies of Federal cavalry were moved from Fort Mojave and Fort Tejon into Los Angeles in May and June 1861.

Suspected by local Union authorities, General Johnston evaded arrest and with Luis Armestead joined the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles as a private. Leaving Warner's Ranch on May 27, they journeied across the southwestern deserts to Texas, crossing the Colorado River into the Confederate Territory of Arizona, on July 4, 1861. The Los Angeles Mounted Rifles disbanded and members joined the Confederate Army shortly after they reached the Arizona Territorial capital of Mesilla (now in New Mexico). Like other pro-Confederates leaving California for the Confederacy, the volunteers joined up principally with Texas regiments. General Johnston joined the fight in the east as a general with the Confederacy and was later killed leading their army at the Battle of Shiloh.

The only Confederate flag captured in California during the Civil War took place on July 4, 1861, in Sacramento. During Independence Day celebrations, secessionist Major J. P. Gillis celebrated the independence of the United States from Britain as well as the southern states from the Union. He unfurled a Confederate flag of his own design and proceeded to march down the street to both the applause and jeers of onlookers. Jack Biderman and Curtis Clark, enraged by Gillis' actions, accosted him and "captured" the flag. The flag itself is based on the first Confederate flag, the Stars and Bars. However, the canton contains seventeen stars rather than the Confederate's seven. Because the flag was captured by Jack Biderman, it is often also referred to as the "Biderman Flag".

As he was recalling Federal troops to the east, on July 24, 1861, the Secretary of War called on Governor John G. Downey to furnish one regiment of infantry and five companies of cavalry to guard the overland mail route from Carson City to Salt Lake City. Three weeks later four more regiments of infantry and a regiment of cavalry were requested. All of these were volunteer units recruited and organized in the northern part of the state, around the San Francisco Bay region and the mining camps; few recruits came from Southern California. These volunteers replaced the regular troops transferred to the east before the end of 1861.

Charged with all the supervision of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Santa Barbara Counties, on August 14, 1861, Major William Scott Ketchum steamed from San Francisco to San Pedro and made a rapid march to encamp near San Bernardino on August 26 and with Companies D and G of the 4th Infantry Regiment later reinforced at the beginning of September by a detachment of ninety First U.S. Dragoons and a howitzer. Except for frequent sniping at his camp, Ketchum's garrison stifled any secessionist uprising from Belleville and a show of force by the Dragoons in the streets of San Bernardino at the end of election day quelled a secessionist political demonstration during the September gubernatorial elections in San Bernardino County.

Thereafter, with the Democrats split over the war, the first Republican governor of California, Leland Stanford, was elected on September 4, 1861.

Following the elections on September 7, there was a gunfight resulting from a robbery of travelers to Bear Valley and Holcomb Valley on the pack trail in the Upper Santa Ana Canyon where the Santa Ana River runs out of the San Bernardino Mountains. It was suspected that secessionists had been the culprits, doing the robbery as part of a larger plan of robberies in the valleys of Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. However, no such plan materialized.