Eternity Street

by John Mack Faragher

  Unchallenged, Gillespie’s company departed for Warner’s Ranch the following morning in the midst of a winter storm, and at midday ran headlong into Kearny’s column, descending the mountain trail. While the enlisted men and volunteers exchanged hearty greetings, Kearny huddled with Gillespie, who conveyed Stockton’s message regarding Pico’s company. From Cupeño headman Antonio Garra Kearny had already learned about the Angeleno squadron, and he required little persuading. General Kearny’s determination to attack the enemy, Gillespie wrote, was “received with great pleasure by all parties.” The combined force of Americans, now numbering 179 men, followed the trail back down to Stokes’s ranch.

  Across the ridge of hills at San Pasqual, Indian spies informed Pico that the Americans had returned to Rancho Santa María. “Ellos son mas muchos,” they are very many, one of them reported. But Don Andrés refused to believe it. His previous intelligence indicated that Gillespie commanded a relatively small company, and he remained ignorant of the arrival of the American dragoons. “Be careful, Don Andrés,” one of the Indians warned, “they are very close, and may catch you unawares.” But Pico took no special precautions.

  LATE THAT EVENING Kearny convened a council of war in his tent and requested the opinion of his officers regarding their next move. Captain Benjamin Moore proposed an immediate surprise attack on the Angeleno camp. They would likely be caught sleeping, separated from their horses, he said, and “to dismount them is to whip them.” A general discussion followed. Navy Lieutenant Edward F. Beale, who had accompanied Gillespie from San Diego, strenuously objected to Moore’s plan. The dragoons appeared “wan, thin, and used up,” he said. The weather was uncooperative, the men were cold and hungry, and their arms were soaking wet. Better to press on to San Diego, join forces with Stockton, and begin preparations for the march on Los Angeles. Kearny had remained silent, but Beale’s argument roused him. “No sir,” he responded, “I will go and fight them.” But first he would send a scouting party to reconnoiter their camp.

  Lieutenant Thomas Hammond, assigned to lead the party, reported back to Kearny about two in the morning. He had located the enemy encampment across the hills at San Pasqual. It contained eighty or a hundred men, most of whom were sleeping, and were unprepared for an attack. But, he added, his party had been detected by the camp guards. The Californios knew they were here. The element of surprise was lost. But that fact did not alter Kearny’s resolve. “I then determined,” he wrote in his official report, “that I would march for and attack them by break of day.”

  That fateful decision is difficult to justify. “We were on the main road to San Diego, all the ‘by-ways’ being in our rear,” wrote Lieutenant William Emory in his journal. “It was therefore deemed necessary to attack the enemy and force a passage.” But that was simply not true. There was an alternate route, the one Gillespie had taken from San Diego two days before, and going that way the Americans would have avoided Pico completely. Kearny was not forced to confront the Californios; he chose to.

  He had adopted the view of Kit Carson and Archibald Gillespie. “The native Californians would not fight,” Carson told him. “All the Americans had to do was to yell, make a rush, and they would run away.” Gillespie made light of Californio valor, claiming that “Californians of Spanish blood have a holy horror of the American rifle.” Lieutenant Beale of the Navy held a different view. His experience in California with Stockton had convinced him that the Californios were “numerous as well as brave, and not to be despised as enemies.” But Kearny rejected Beale’s counsel. He was determined to attack. Then why not wait for daylight in order to survey the enemy encampment and the valley terrain from the hills, gathering as much information as possible, before committing his men to the fight? For that matter, why not commence the engagement with an artillery barrage from the highlands, which might scatter and confuse the Californios? Because Kearny did not want them scattered. He believed he possessed the power to defeat them decisively. He wanted the First Regiment of U.S. Dragoons to enter California in martial glory.

  Kearny did not know it, but his opponent, Andrés Pico, was a reluctant combatant. “He did not want to fight,” one Angeleno later recalled, but “was forced to do so by circumstance.” One of the first historians to write about Kearny’s decision got it right. “If General Kearny had marched into the valley of San Pasqual in open daylight and according to military rules,” wrote Benjamin Hayes after interviewing participants from both sides, “his advent would have been the signal for a treaty of peace and prompt submission to his authority. At any rate, he would have reached San Diego, it is easy to believe from all the circumstances, without the loss of blood on either side.” But that was not to be.

  It was three or four in the morning when Kearny ordered the bugler to sound “boots and saddles,” the signal to mount up, and the dragoons began the ten-mile ride to San Pasqual. The cold, drenching rain continued, slowing their pace. By the time the first of them reached the ridge separating the valley of Santa María from San Pasqual, dawn was breaking and the skies were clearing. The valley floor below was shrouded in fog, but through the mist the Americans could see the flickering light of the enemy’s fires. The blue flannel uniforms of the dragoons were soaking wet, and the cold wind from the mountains chilled them to the bone.

  Kearny called a halt and addressed the men from his saddle. “Be steady,” he shouted. “Obey implicitly the orders of your officers. Your country expects you to do your duty.” He laid out the plan of attack. Captain Abraham Johnston, accompanied by Kit Carson and a dozen hand-picked dragoons, mounted on the best available horses, would lead the assault. He and Lieutenant Emory, with a dozen riders, would go next, followed by Captain Moore and his brother-in-law Lieutenant Hammond, accompanied by another two dozen dragoons. All the officers were mounted on horses, most of the enlisted men on mules. Gillespie and his rifleros would bring up the rear, with the artillery. About half the men would be held in reserve, guarding the baggage. Once they reached the valley floor the men were to “charge as foragers,” that is, to advance at full gallop in open formation, each man choosing opponents at will, vanquishing as many as he could. Remember, Kearny concluded, “one thrust of the saber point is far more effective than any number of cuts.” Then he gave the order—“Forward!”—and the Americans began to descend the hill.

  WITH THE DISCOVERY of the American scouts Don Andrés ordered immediate preparations for a defense. As the Californios ran for their horses, they cursed their commander for his unpreparedness. But as it happened they had plenty of time to deploy. Don Andrés directed most of the men to hunker down on horseback in the gullies on either side of the road, while with a small contingent he took the center, hoping to draw the Americans into an ambush.

  The dragoons came down the hill in good order, flushed with anticipation. In their enthusiasm, Captain Johnston and the advance guard got considerably ahead of the others. Kearny, still descending the hill, called out an order, “Trot!” But as Johnston reached the valley floor he saw two mounted men some distance ahead, riding in the direction of the Californio encampment. They were Pico’s scouts, and Johnston resolved to cut them off. “Charge!” he cried, and his group took off after them. Johnston’s shouted order reverberated back to Kearny. “Oh, heavens, I did not mean that!” he cried. But the die was cast, and as soon as they completed the descent, Kearny and Emory also took up the charge, followed by their men, most of them mounted on uncooperative mules and unable to match the pace of the officers on horseback.

  The Californio scouts rejoined the lanceros only seconds before the Americans arrived. One of Pico’s officers shouted out the rule of engagement: “Un tiro, y a la lanza!”—One shot, then the lance! They had very little powder, only enough for one or two rifle volleys. They could hear the sharp clang of sabers in scabbards echoing across the valley, “like so many alarm bells,” Gillespie thought to himself, “to give notice of our approach.” The clamor roused the sleeping Indians at the ranchería, wh
o rushed from their huts. “The clouds hung low so that at first we could see nothing for the mist,” recalled Felicita, daughter of the community’s headman. “But soon there came the figures of men like shadows riding down the mountain. As they drew nearer we saw that they too were soldiers, wearing blue coats.”

  As they galloped toward the encampment, Captain Johnston and Kit Carson saw Pico and several other mounted men blocking the road ahead. Carson was leveling his rifle when suddenly his horse stumbled and went down, throwing him to the ground and breaking the stock of his weapon. As he rolled to one side to avoid the onrushing riders, he saw the flash of the Californio guns. Captain Johnston was caught in the first volley. A ball smashed into his forehead and blew off the back of his skull. Carson rushed into the fray, retrieved Johnston’s rifle and cartridge box, then retreated to an outcropping of rocks and began firing on the mounted Californios. He saw the dragoons enveloped and assaulted by the lanceros. The Americans were overpowered and confused. None of them had any experience fighting lanceros.

  Within moments Kearny, Emory, and other officers charged up, followed by a stream of enlisted men on mules. Now it was Pico’s turn to be surprised, for there were far more Americans than he expected. He shouted a command and his lanceros wheeled and retreated at full gallop, taking the road westward along the curve of the hills that marked the valley’s northern perimeter. Captain Moore was first to follow in hot pursuit. Thanks to Pico’s caution, the Californio horses were rested and well fed, and they quickly outpaced the tired mounts of the Americans. As the lanceros pulled ahead, the pursuing dragoons stretched out in a long, straggling line.

  About a mile west of the ranchería the road took a sharp right around a rocky point, and making that turn Don Andrés shouted another order and once again his men wheeled and halted, this time to face the oncoming Americans. Captain Moore was first to clear the point and confront them. Looking about and realizing he had outpaced his men, Moore pulled his pistol, fired a single ineffective shot, then drew his saber, put spurs to flanks, and charged directly at Pico, who parried the blow and made a counterthrust with his own sword. Simultaneously two Angelenos pierced Moore with their lances. He toppled from his horse and was dispatched with a pistol shot to the head by Lieutenant Tomás Sánchez, who a decade later would be elected sheriff of Los Angeles County. At that moment Lieutenant Hammond rounded the point and saw what was happening. “For God’s sake, men, come up!” he shouted, and he charged forward towards where Moore lay. Pierced by a lance driven deep into his side, Hammond fell near his brother-in-law, mortally wounded. For years Californios would tell the tale of “el valiente Morin,” the valiant Moore, the American who dared to single-handedly charge their line in a mad but courageous assault on their commander.

  Dragoons began arriving by twos and threes, officers first, then enlisted men, and as they did so the Angelenos charged into them. “¡Aqui vamos hacer matanza!” they shouted to one another, Here we go to the slaughter! From their hiding place on the rocky hillside, the Indians saw it all. “We trembled as we watched,” remembered Felicita. “The Americans did not shoot their guns many times; perhaps the rain had made the powder wet. They struck with their guns and used the sword, while the Mexicans used the long lances and their reatas. The mules that the Americans rode were frightened and ran all through the willows by the river. After them rode the Mexicans on their swift horses, striking with the lances and lassoing with the reata; it was a very terrible time.” Within minutes the ground was covered with dead and wounded Americans. General Kearny himself was lanced in the backside and grounded. In the words of historian Manuel Clemente Rojo, who spoke with many Californio veterans of the fight, “this was no battle, but a massacre.”

  Gillespie, Barton, and the other rifleros were among the last Americans to arrive at the scene of the carnage. They met the dragoons falling back along the road toward the ranchería. Gillespie attempted to turn them around. “Rally men, rally, for God’s sake,” he cried. “Show a front, don’t turn your backs, face them, face them!” But the panic-stricken men ignored him and continued their retreat, pursued by the Angelenos. Gillespie found his way to the thick of the fight. “Such an affray can hardly be conceived,” Navy Lieutenant Beale said afterward. “Men, horses, and mules were intermixed and rolling on each other. No one could tell whom he was grappling with, for the day had not broken and there was a dense fog.” One lancero was thrown to the ground when a dragoon on foot shot his horse out from under him. The Californio struggled up and charged forward, reaching the American before he could reload. The two were engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat when another Californio rode up and ran his lance through the dragoon, instantly killing him. “Asi se hace!” he shouted, that’s how it’s done.

  Suddenly a group of mounted Angelenos recognized Gillespie. “¡Ya es Gillespie,” one shouted. “¡Adentro, hombres, adentro!” At him, men! Gillespie dashed away, bending low along the neck of his horse, but one of the lances found him, grazing his back, catching his collar, and hoisting him out of the saddle and onto the rough ground with a crash. He staggered to his feet just as his assailant—ranchero Francisco Higuera, a tall, powerful man, known to everyone as el güero (blondie), because of his light coloring—turned and charged again. This time Higuera’s lance caught Gillespie directly under his left arm, tearing a gaping wound in his side and puncturing a lung. The impact spun Gillespie around, into the path of another charging lancero, who struck a glancing blow to the American’s mouth, splitting his lip, breaking several teeth, and knocking him backside. Dazed, prone on his back, Gillespie prepared himself for the coup de grâce, but the moment passed. Struggling to his knees, he saw Higuera and several other Angelenos in pursuit of his fleeing horse, with its fine New Mexican blanket and silver-mounted saddle and tack. Blood gushing from his wounds, Gillespie staggered up, grabbed his saber, and swinging it wildly, cleared a path to the rear.

  The artillery had finally come up, but under furious assault the American gunners had great difficulty unlimbering the weapons. The mules harnessed to one of the howitzers panicked and bolted, and the Angelenos captured the weapon. Gillespie found his way to the other two field pieces, where several officers and a dozen dragoons were making a stand around General Kearny, who was on the ground amid a pool of blood. The men had successfully positioned and loaded one of the guns. “Where’s the match?” one of them called. “There is none,” another shouted back. One of the officers attempted to ignite the charge by firing his pistol at the touch hole, but without success. Gillespie, swooning from loss of blood, reached into his pocket and pulled out a mechero, a flint and steel cigar lighter, struck it, fired the gun, and fainted. Using the mechero, Lieutenant Beale got off a second shot, but by then Pico and his men had abandoned the field.

  SURGEON JOHN GRIFFIN surveyed the carnage. The Battle of San Pasqual, which lasted only fifteen or twenty minutes, cost the lives of eighteen Americans and left nineteen wounded. Griffin and two medical assistants spent the entire day attending the torn bodies of the injured, several in critical condition. Three would die, with another man missing in action and presumed dead, for a total of twenty-two lost in the fight. “This was an action,” Griffin concluded, “where decidedly more courage than conduct was showed.” Gillespie, despite being severely wounded, survived, Higuera’s lance missing his heart by only an inch or so. The gash on Kearny’s buttocks, while painful and humiliating, was not critical. William Dunne, a participant in the fight, later recalled that many of his fellow dragoons thought the general got what he deserved, some even declaring “it would have been well if they had killed him.” Dunne himself was bitter about Kearny’s decision to attack. “It was a disgrace, because if he had waited for daylight, no man would have suffered. They would have seen how to defend themselves.”

  Kearny acknowledged no such mistake in his official report, in which he claimed a technical victory, since the Angelenos left the field first. Many later commentators ridiculed that claim. “Another su
ch victory,” wrote one, “would have been disastrous.” His men paid a high price, Kearny conceded, but he was certain the enemy had suffered comparable or greater losses. He was wrong about that. Pico, in his report to Flores, bragged that his men had left many Americans dead on the field “without other casualty on our side than eleven wounded, none seriously.” Angeleno participants later revised Pico’s account, acknowledging the death of one man on the battlefield and another several days later. But casualties among the Californios were minor compared with the devastation suffered by the Americans, for whom San Pasqual was the costliest battle of the California conquest.

  After the remainder of the dragoons came up with the baggage, the Americans took refuge in the hills north of the battlefield, making a dry camp behind a breastwork of rocks, fearful of another assault by the Angelenos. They watched throughout the day as Pico’s men gathered and dispersed on the opposite side of the valley, but the feared attack never came. Pico kept his distance, wary of the American artillery. That evening, after a long day of worry, the dragoons buried their dead in a common grave. With Kearny incapacitated, the command fell to the next most senior officer, Captain Henry Smith Turner, who composed a letter to Stockton, providing a short account of the battle. “We are without provisions,” he wrote. “I have to suggest to you the propriety of dispatching, without delay, a considerable force to meet us on the route to San Diego.” Alex Godey, an experienced trapper from Frémont’s expedition and one of Gillespie’s rifleros, volunteered to take the letter to Stockton in San Diego, and about midnight, under cover of darkness, he and two other rifleros crept out of the camp. Earlier that day, Pico had dispatched a rider to Los Angeles with a request of his own for reinforcements.