as been eradicated forever, it is not likely to come again.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS of CALIFORNIA.

1846-1848.

In the spring of 1846 I was a first lieutenant of Company C,1,
Third Artillery, stationed at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. The
company was commanded by Captain Robert Anderson; Henry B. Judd was
the senior first-lieutenant, and I was the junior first-lieutenant,
and George B. Ayres the second-lieutenant. Colonel William Gates
commanded the post and regiment, with First-Lieutenant William
Austine as his adjutant. Two other companies were at the post,
viz., Martin Burke's and E. D. Keyes's, and among the officers were
T. W. Sherman, Morris Miller, H. B. Field, William Churchill,
Joseph Stewart, and Surgeon McLaren.

The country now known as Texas had been recently acquired, and war
with Mexico was threatening. One of our companies (Bragg's), with
George H. Thomas, John F. Reynolds, and Frank Thomas, had gone the
year previous and was at that time with General Taylor's army at
Corpus Christi, Texas.

In that year (1846) I received the regular detail for recruiting
service, with orders to report to the general superintendent at
Governor's Island, New York; and accordingly left Fort Moultrie in
the latter part of April, and reported to the superintendent,
Colonel R. B. Mason, First Dragoons, at New York, on the 1st day of
May. I was assigned to the Pittsburg rendezvous, whither I
proceeded and relieved Lieutenant Scott. Early in May I took up my
quarters at the St. Charles Hotel, and entered upon the discharge
of my duties. There was a regular recruiting-station already
established, with a sergeant, corporal, and two or three men, with
a citizen physician, Dr. McDowell, to examine the recruits. The
threatening war with Mexico made a demand for recruits, and I
received authority to open another sub-rendezvous at Zanesville,
Ohio, whither I took the sergeant and established him. This was
very handy to me, as my home was at Lancaster, Ohio, only
thirty-six miles off, so that I was thus enabled to visit my
friends there quite often.

In the latter part of May, when at Wheeling, Virginia, on my way
back from Zanesville to Pittsburg, I heard the first news of the
battle of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, which occurred on the
8th and 9th of May, and, in common with everybody else, felt
intensely excited. That I should be on recruiting service, when my
comrades were actually fight