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082: California's Forgotten Soldiers: The Californio Lancers Part 2 · California Frontier

0:11
Damian Bacich: Welcome to the second half of my interview with Tom Prezelski, author of the book, California Lancers, the First Battalion of Native Cavalry in the Far West.
0:22
Damian Bacich: Now in the second half, we, discuss the end of the Civil War and the unit's deployment to Arizona and the different challenges and actions they took in that period.
0:37
Damian Bacich: Dealing with things like malaria and desertion, but also campaigns against the Apaches and dealing with French imperialists in Northern Mexico.
0:47
Damian Bacich: We also get into things like their uniforms, language barriers, different leadership dynamics, and, and commanders like, uh, Salvador Bajo and Captain Pico, Colonel Ronstadt, other interesting figures, and ultimately into their legacy, their ultimate legacy of the California lancers.
1:10
Damian Bacich: So listen now to the second half of my conversation with Tom Prezelski.
1:25
Damian Bacich: and then, eventually they were, they were sent to Arizona, as you mentioned.
1:31
Tom Prezelski: Mm-hmm.
1:32
Damian Bacich: Um, when did that happen and what was, and why did that happen?
1:36
Damian Bacich: Okay, that happens.
1:37
Damian Bacich: Well, they first start talking about it toward the end of the, um.
1:43
Damian Bacich: Toward the end of the Civil War, uh, by like, uh, late, uh, late winter, early spring in the, uh, when the war is still going, uh, of 1865 for various reasons that you'll have to read about in the book, because they get very complicated.
2:01
Damian Bacich: They aren't able to bring the whole battalion together until, um, the summer of, uh, 1865, by which time the war officially is over.
2:13
Damian Bacich: But, um, offic the war in one.
2:17
Damian Bacich: In some ways the war is over.
2:18
Damian Bacich: I mean, you know, the, the, the Confederate army has surrendered Appomattox, but the, uh, recruitment is continuing, especially in the west.
2:28
Damian Bacich: Uh, troops are still deployed in on the, in the East coast.
2:31
Damian Bacich: The troops are still deployed in the south for reconstruction duty.
2:34
Damian Bacich: So, um, it's, it's very.
2:38
Damian Bacich: The, um, the war is still on in the minds of the military planners.
2:45
Damian Bacich: And of course the important thing is, is that the war is still going on in Sonora and Mexico, and that's why they're sent to Arizona there.
2:57
Damian Bacich: Um, there's kind of two things going on.
2:59
Damian Bacich: Number one, uh, they need more soldiers in Arizona to fight the Apaches.
3:04
Damian Bacich: Uh, the original group of California volunteers have all been discharged.
3:11
Damian Bacich: Uh, they've had their three year enlistments, so they need to get to grab up any soldiers.
3:16
Damian Bacich: They can send them to Arizona to fight the Apaches.
3:19
Damian Bacich: Uh, general Mason is planning a massive campaign against the Apaches.
3:24
Damian Bacich: Um, the, um, the, uh, the other thing of course is that.
3:34
Damian Bacich: The French have invaded Sonora, and because the French have invaded Sonora, the imperialists are able to take over Sonora.
3:41
Damian Bacich: They're able to kick out the Republican, uh, government that was in Sonora, the governor of Sonora, his army is, has been completely broken.
3:52
Damian Bacich: Uh, him and, uh, his, uh, one of his officers who is a guy by the name of Ronstadt, by the way.
3:59
Damian Bacich: That's, that's, uh, it's very important if you're from Tucson.
4:03
Damian Bacich: Uh, so Governor Pesqueda and, and Colonel Ronstadt are fleeing into Arizona.
4:10
Damian Bacich: They actually arrive in Arizona at the same time the Native Cavalry does.
4:14
Damian Bacich: And, uh, so Ronstadt, uh, Frederick Ronstadt and, and, um, governor Pesqueda kind of set up while the, the Native Cavalry are coming in and kind of setting up what becomes known as Fort Mason.
4:30
Damian Bacich: Uh, the um.
4:33
Damian Bacich: Colonel Ronstadt and, and Governor Pesqueda are setting up, uh, kind of a ad hoc capital of Sonora in Arizona.
4:42
Damian Bacich: So they're actually in the United States running a Mexican government at a place called Kavas, uh, which is still, uh, which is now part of Cocky National Monument.
4:55
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
4:56
Damian Bacich: Or sorry, national Park.
4:58
Damian Bacich: And, um, so the native cavalry gets there and, uh, I guess a lot of activity has slowed down because that's, uh, they arrived in the middle of what is kind of the high malaria season in Arizona.
5:17
Damian Bacich: And if, I mean, obviously in Arizona, the, you have to locate your post where there's water.
5:25
Damian Bacich: And back in those days, the only places there were water were basically swamps.
5:29
Damian Bacich: And they were, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of flies and, and in other insects that carry things like malarial fever and typhoid and stuff.
5:40
Damian Bacich: Uh, and of course they weren't used to this at all.
5:42
Damian Bacich: Uh, the folks who, there were some other soldiers there from Sonora who just fared this just fine, but the folks in from California did not do so well.
5:53
Damian Bacich: Um, but, uh, so there's this period of maybe a month or two where nearly all the soldiers are sick.
6:02
Damian Bacich: Uh, now while this is happening, uh, some of the soldiers who weren't so sick were actually sent into Sonora because soldiers who had deserted en route were rumored to have been captured by the imperialist army and held at Magdalena.
6:20
Damian Bacich: And this is like one of the strangest stories.
6:24
Damian Bacich: In the whole Native cavalry saga, uh, the company A and B, the, the, the ones who are well enough are sent down there basically to recover these deserters.
6:36
Damian Bacich: They confront the Imperial army, uh, and well, number one, when I say imperial army, uh, there's a, there's some wonderful description of what these guys were, and they, they were not, uh, they seem to have been like these, these conscripts without uniforms and with like, they were armed with muskets and stuff, but still they were the imperial army.
7:01
Damian Bacich: And the, um, there's this confrontation where Captain Pico basically is trying to start a war, or apparently is trying to start a war.
7:11
Damian Bacich: Uh, and, uh, someone, uh, someone talks him down and eventually he, he returns home, but on the way home, he accidentally shoots himself in the foot while.
7:23
Damian Bacich: Pursuing what he thought were Apaches.
7:25
Damian Bacich: And, uh, bear in mind, he's supposed to be the greatest horseman in all of California.
7:32
Damian Bacich: Uh, he fell off his horse, accidentally shot himself in the foot, and then he ends up spending the rest of his time in Arizona, convalescing either in Tuba or Tucson.
7:43
Damian Bacich: Um, and at one point there's this account of him, uh, being taken back to California by one of the, kind of the regular supply wagons that, uh, comes into Arizona.
7:57
Damian Bacich: And he, um, so he, he kind of, he doesn't, uh, ultimately he doesn't serve the whole time with his, with his company.
8:06
Damian Bacich: And eventually he does, uh, when he dies, I think it's like 1909 or something, they mention he died because of an infected foot.
8:14
Damian Bacich: And I always kind of wonder if that goes back to this incident or if it's.
8:20
Damian Bacich: Another incident where he was wounded at the Battle of San Pasqua when he was a very young man.
8:26
Damian Bacich: So did they then, um, they did wind up having also, uh, campaigns against the Apaches, you mentioned?
8:35
Damian Bacich: Yes.
8:35
Damian Bacich: Yes, they were, um, at one point, it's January of 1866.
8:40
Damian Bacich: Um, and, uh, which kind of tells you a little bit, um, about what the state of their morale was because the Civil War was over, the, uh, Sonora for the most part was no longer an an issue.
8:58
Damian Bacich: Uh, uh, they, it was under, it was getting to be under Republican control, so there was no threat coming from there.
9:05
Damian Bacich: And also they were on three year enlistments, and so they were all anxious to go home and get discharged.
9:14
Damian Bacich: Um, general Mason, however, wanted to.
9:20
Damian Bacich: Do this campaign.
9:22
Damian Bacich: And, um, there's a, uh, there's actually a, uh, there actually is an incident.
9:31
Damian Bacich: There are a few incidents where like, uh, there's a mine if you're, I don't know, there's much listeners are familiar with Arizona history.
9:39
Damian Bacich: Uh, there's a mine near a town called avac called Sarah Colorado.
9:44
Damian Bacich: And, um, apparently that was attacked by Apaches.
9:48
Damian Bacich: And they, the folks at Sarah Colorado sent, uh, a message to Fort Mason saying, Hey, we need some help here.
9:55
Damian Bacich: And gen and, uh, current and, uh, major Cremini, who at that point was in charge of the Post, uh, just said, Hey, no, we can't, we can't spare any men.
10:04
Damian Bacich: Too many people are sick.
10:05
Damian Bacich: We don't have enough weapons.
10:07
Damian Bacich: And General Mason wants to send us out to fight Apaches, uh, to fight Cochise, uh, you know, in east of the, east of the post.
10:18
Damian Bacich: So anyway, there's this, this massive campaign, which would have worked under slightly different circumstances.
10:24
Damian Bacich: Basically, general Mason's idea was to have troops, uh, basically marching kind of a circuit around, uh, what is now Cochise County, uh, and, uh, to keep the Apaches constantly in motion and eventually exhaust them and forced them to surrender and, and, uh, presumably be placed on reservation.
10:54
Damian Bacich: Um, which is a strategy that worked under General Crook 20 years later.
10:59
Damian Bacich: But, uh, Mason did not have the, the, the resources that Crook did in terms of like, uh, communications infrastructure or anything like that.
11:09
Damian Bacich: He just had the native California cavalry and some other California volunteer units and.
11:15
Damian Bacich: Strangely enough, some volunteer units from New Mexico.
11:18
Damian Bacich: At one point they, they actually crossed paths with the volunteer units from New Mexico.
11:24
Damian Bacich: So the, um, they, they're marching, it's Captain Jimeno, I think it's Captain Jimeno and I don't remember the other one.
11:34
Damian Bacich: One Jimeno is leading, uh, a detachment native cavalry.
11:40
Damian Bacich: And I mentioned him specifically'cause he kept a journal of where he was going.
11:46
Damian Bacich: Um, it's a bit of a mess.
11:48
Damian Bacich: The first thing they have to do is they have to find their scouts.
11:52
Damian Bacich: Uh, their scouts never reported to Fort Mason, so they actually have to go into, uh, into Sonora to a town called Santa Cruz and find their scouts.
12:06
Damian Bacich: They know their scouts are like hanging out in Santa Cruz.
12:09
Damian Bacich: And I picture like it, this kind of very cinematic picture of.
12:13
Damian Bacich: You know, captain Jimeno walking into a bar and saying, you, you're supposed to be our scout.
12:17
Damian Bacich: Come with us.
12:19
Damian Bacich: So they find these, they, they, they get their, uh, their two scouts who are both, uh, I believe are both kind of assimilated.
12:27
Damian Bacich: OTA Indians, I don't remember their names, but they're, they, they turn up over and over again.
12:34
Damian Bacich: Um, and they're, um, they go across what's now called the Sulfur Springs Valley to the Ikawa.
12:46
Damian Bacich: And then, uh, you know what, uh, Fort, well, actually to Fort Bowie in the Cher Kawa Mountains for Bowie of course, was established by the California volunteers a few years earlier.
12:57
Damian Bacich: At this point, it was basically kind of these rock hovels in the, in the mountain side.
13:05
Damian Bacich: It was not a pleasant place to be.
13:08
Damian Bacich: And uh, they discovered.
13:12
Damian Bacich: For Bowie actually did not have enough food for the soldiers.
13:16
Damian Bacich: They were waiting on a shipment of food.
13:19
Damian Bacich: So they, they, they go south along the, um, ow mountains towards Sonora, and they happened to meet the supply wagon that has all the food and they end up escorting the supply wagon.
13:32
Damian Bacich: It, it, it gets to be a mess, but they, um, they find sign of the Apaches, uh, porphyria.
13:41
Damian Bacich: Jimeno actually does confront a group of Apaches, uh, at, uh, what's now called the Wilcox Playa a big dry lake bed in, uh, in what's now Cochise County.
13:54
Damian Bacich: And he pursues the Apache all the way to the Dragoon Mountains at what's now called the Cochise Stronghold.
14:01
Damian Bacich: And then they kind of disperse after that.
14:04
Damian Bacich: Um, one thing that becomes clear.
14:08
Damian Bacich: In addition to this, this campaign being really disorganized, is that the, um, the Apaches are already leaving.
14:18
Damian Bacich: Cochise is already just packing up and leaving Arizona, going to Sonora where he thinks he's gonna be safer.
14:25
Damian Bacich: Um, and though in the end, general Mason and General McDowell will take a lot of credit for driving the Apaches out of Arizona.
14:35
Damian Bacich: If you look at the full historical record, what's going on in, in, in, um, in Sonora as well as Arizona, it's pretty clear that the Apaches were leaving and they, they weren't pursuing them.
14:47
Damian Bacich: They were just following them.
14:50
Damian Bacich: Uh, and uh, and we definitely know they were not carrying lances in this campaign because, uh, major Cremini.
15:04
Damian Bacich: Mentions it in, in a, a letter where he says, when they went out on campaign, they exhausted the entire supply of, uh, of firearms that that was being kept at Fort Mason.
15:19
Damian Bacich: So they clearly turned in their lances and picked up rifles or carvings before they went out.
15:26
Damian Bacich: So there's clearly a time when, when lancers is just sort of a ceremonial title.
15:32
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
15:33
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
15:34
Damian Bacich: Who were these, just kind of circling back to the beginning of the, who were these men who were recruited and, and how did they go about recruiting them?
15:43
Damian Bacich: I mean, what kind of incentives were they given to join?
15:48
Damian Bacich: Well, um, definitely for companies c and d, it, there was a lot of economic, uh, there were a lot of economic issues.
16:01
Damian Bacich: Uh, the, there was, uh.
16:03
Damian Bacich: There were kind of, during the Civil War era in southern California, there were kind of three big disasters that occurred.
16:09
Damian Bacich: There was floods, uh, there was a smallpox outbreak, and then there was a drought.
16:16
Damian Bacich: And, um, I may have them in the wrong order, but they were all in rapid succession.
16:21
Damian Bacich: And, uh, especially the ranches were in really bad shape.
16:26
Damian Bacich: And of course, the, uh, the vaqueros were either itinerant or they were kind of, uh, almost surfs in some of the ranches, uh, depending on like their own personal circumstances.
16:40
Damian Bacich: And I think a lot of the, especially the vaqueros and, and people in general,'cause the economy was hit as a whole, they just didn't have any work.
16:50
Damian Bacich: And I, I, I know this is, this is precisely, there's actually a mention of this when.
16:58
Damian Bacich: They're talking about the recruitment of company C when there's mention of it in, in the, uh, in the newspapers.
17:04
Damian Bacich: That, uh, basically the De Lara family in particular was hit really hard by the, um, by the, the, the drought and their vaqueros had no work.
17:19
Damian Bacich: And so they, it was very, I'm not sure if, I mean, given kind of the, the almost kind of paternal power that the De La Garra family had in Santa Barbara at that point, if they were just telling their, if they were just ordering their vaqueros to, oh, you're joining the Army now.
17:42
Damian Bacich: And they said, okay.
17:44
Damian Bacich: Or if it was, Hey, um, we're not gonna be able to pay you, but you can join the Army.
17:51
Damian Bacich: I, I don't know how that worked.
17:54
Damian Bacich: I, I, you know, I'cause.
17:57
Damian Bacich: You know, you look at it kind of like in terms of when there's like a civil war in Sonora, uh, you know, all the vaqueros work for the asado as soldiers, and then when the, the conflict is over, they go back to, to herding cows, right?
18:14
Damian Bacich: So, I don't know if, if that was the dynamic that was going on or if it was, uh, that these people were actually volunteering because that was an option for them.
18:26
Damian Bacich: Company A was a little different'cause there was actually some patriotic fervor involved, uh, because, uh, uh, captain Pico was such a powerful political figure in San, in San Jose.
18:45
Damian Bacich: Uh, and he had given this very patriotic speech, which is, uh, of, I, of course it's in the book, but it, it was off, off, printed in the papers.
18:57
Damian Bacich: Um, and company B was, was weirder.
19:03
Damian Bacich: Uh, I'm pretty sure a lot of that was economic.
19:06
Damian Bacich: Some of it was patriotic, but initially, uh, there were a lot of French folks joining company B.
19:13
Damian Bacich: A lot of them deserted.
19:15
Damian Bacich: I saw that, that that group of French soldiers.
19:20
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
19:20
Damian Bacich: And then, but that gets weirder.
19:22
Damian Bacich: Okay.
19:22
Damian Bacich: So you have the, these, these Frenchmen who join most of them dessert.
19:27
Damian Bacich: I'm pretty sure it's because of the politics.
19:30
Damian Bacich: Uh, you even have them, they're even, there's a detachment that's sent to Angel Island.
19:36
Damian Bacich: I'm not sure exactly what they did on Angel Island.
19:39
Damian Bacich: I, I take it they did something about maintaining the, the battery there or something.
19:44
Damian Bacich: But um, they actually tried to Desert Angel Island.
19:47
Damian Bacich: It's like, how do you desert from Angel Island?
19:50
Damian Bacich: So I actually found an account of someone who deserted Angel Island.
19:54
Damian Bacich: Well, not a Native cavalry soldier, but he actually swam to Te Baron.
19:59
Damian Bacich: Wow.
19:59
Damian Bacich: Um, and apparently he had done this multiple times, and at one point he actually drowned in the process.
20:05
Damian Bacich: So, um, yeah, so there's, they're in different place.
20:09
Damian Bacich: There are different places, different motives.
20:12
Damian Bacich: Um, but he eventually, when, uh, captain Jimeno takes over after I think there's almost complete turnover in the company.
20:21
Damian Bacich: There's only a handful of people who are from the initial group that's recruited.
20:25
Damian Bacich: Um, captain Jimeno starts recruiting more kind of, uh, Latin American immigrants.
20:33
Damian Bacich: Californias, uh, and I, I don't know exactly what their motives were, but, um, but it, it, it transforms the company.
20:46
Damian Bacich: However, this is the weird part, right toward the very end, shortly before they leave California to go to Arizona.
20:53
Damian Bacich: There's a group of French Surnamed soldiers who are all recruited all at once, and I think they may even be signing up in Los Angeles, uh, at, from Barrett's.
21:06
Damian Bacich: But they, um, it turns out that these are people who deserted the French Army in Sono.
21:16
Damian Bacich: In Mexico?
21:17
Damian Bacich: In Mexico.
21:18
Damian Bacich: Uhhuh, yeah.
21:19
Damian Bacich: I don't know if they were actually from Sonora, but they were, um, there's actually mention of of, oh, these guys were in their, and they, they're, they're listing their birthplace as like Algiers.
21:29
Damian Bacich: And in, in one case, uh, one of the soldiers may actually be African.
21:35
Damian Bacich: I mean like, you know,'cause they list them as being dark complected and stuff.
21:38
Damian Bacich: So this was a truly interracial unit, you know, because you had Native Americans.
21:44
Damian Bacich: And Mexican Americans, Anglos, and then at least one African.
21:50
Damian Bacich: Do you know anything about the, now that you mention it, anything about the Native Americans who participated and why they might have?
21:58
Damian Bacich: Um, well, I, I think, I mean you've had, you've had shows about this, that, uh, the notion of ethnicity in, in, uh, frontier really complicated.
22:11
Damian Bacich: I think some of them just basically considered themselves Mexicans and, um, some of them are from the mission tribes who are in a lot of way what they call the mission tribes.
22:24
Damian Bacich: They wouldn't use this term now, but they, uh, they are kind of assimilated into Mexican culture in a lot of ways, though.
22:32
Damian Bacich: They, they do maintain their own cultural identity.
22:35
Damian Bacich: Um, there's a lot of Yaki.
22:39
Damian Bacich: Uh, the Yas, of course, initially came to California during the Gold Rush from Sonora because they were already in the mining industry in Sonora.
22:48
Damian Bacich: So they had skills that they could bring into California.
22:52
Damian Bacich: So there are, uh, quite a few yas.
22:55
Damian Bacich: Um, and of course it's hard to break them out because they don't list the ethnicity.
23:00
Damian Bacich: They just list, you know, complexion and then, you know, oh, this guy's from, this guy's from this one village in Sonora, that's largely Yaki, so he might be Yaki.
23:11
Damian Bacich: Um, and of course the Yakes were, Yakes have a complicated history as far as like their cultural identity because they assimilated into Mexican culture entirely on their terms.
23:24
Damian Bacich: So, um, so, uh, again, they're not going to be to an Anglo American.
23:30
Damian Bacich: They're not gonna be distinguishable from other Mexicans, but, you know, in their interactions with, uh.
23:37
Damian Bacich: With other Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
23:39
Damian Bacich: People are gonna know, and people are gonna recognize like little linguistic things and, and that sort of stuff thing.
23:45
Damian Bacich: But um, yeah, so they are there and um, so again, it's a very racially mixed unit.
23:54
Damian Bacich: One of the things that's interesting is when you, you, you go through the pension documents, there's at least one soldier where there's like a little note in the pension documents and documentation that says, um, this man is an Indian.
24:07
Damian Bacich: Are we supposed to be giving him a pension?
24:10
Damian Bacich: And of course he gets the ruling from higher up is, yeah, he served in the army.
24:14
Damian Bacich: It doesn't matter if he's an indie.
24:15
Damian Bacich: Wow.
24:16
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
24:17
Damian Bacich: So remarkably progressive, uh, attitude for, but you know, it's reconstruction era, so there's, there's a lot of.
24:25
Damian Bacich: A lot of that going on.
24:27
Damian Bacich: Um, so, uh, we were JI would just, uh, read reading excerpts from Antonio Cord's, um, times in the gold fields in Alta California or in California, and he mentioned Sonoran.
24:41
Damian Bacich: There are a lot of Sonoran.
24:43
Damian Bacich: Mm-hmm.
24:44
Damian Bacich: So oftentimes when those Sonoran are mentioned, they could have been Yaki.
24:48
Damian Bacich: Is that, um, some of them, yeah.
24:51
Damian Bacich: I mean there's even some place names in like the gold country.
24:55
Damian Bacich: There's like Yaki Creek and that sort of thing.
24:57
Damian Bacich: Oh.
24:57
Damian Bacich: So yeah.
24:59
Damian Bacich: Um, and I used to work for the Paki Tribe, and there was actually, there's a small Yaki community to this day in Fresno.
25:09
Damian Bacich: I don't know if it dates back that far, but, uh, the presence, and of course in, in, in Arizona, we have a rather colorful and complicated history with, with the Yaki tribe and, and the, the different communities that are, are located.
25:23
Damian Bacich: Basically between Tucson and Phoenix.
25:25
Damian Bacich: And then of course their heartland is, is in Sonora.
25:29
Damian Bacich: Now the complicated part is in Sonora, the Yas were supporting Maximilian for very complicated reasons.
25:37
Damian Bacich: Interesting.
25:39
Damian Bacich: So then, um, was initially, was Spanish, mainly the language used, or I guess since they had very few officers, it would've been English in terms of their training and commands, et cetera.
25:54
Damian Bacich: Most of the officers were bilingual.
25:56
Damian Bacich: Even the ones who were Anglo were bilingual.
26:00
Damian Bacich: Uh, cremini spoke Spanish fluently, uh, and he was, he was known to be really major.
26:07
Damian Bacich: Cremini was, uh, the second, uh, battalion commander for the Native Cavalry.
26:14
Damian Bacich: Um.
26:16
Damian Bacich: He, so he spoke both, uh, English and Spanish fluently.
26:21
Damian Bacich: Most of the officers spoke English and Spanish.
26:24
Damian Bacich: Uh, there is, uh, one officer, at least one officer, uh, Lieutenant Soto, they say he doesn't, he barely speaks.
26:35
Damian Bacich: Um, so there, then there's some controversy over, well, should we have officers that can't speak English.
26:42
Damian Bacich: But of course, um, you know, even like there's one of the D LARAs, uh, one of, there's a Lieutenant d Lara, he is said to really speak poor English, but they concede that because of the, the kind of the power the De la Garra family has in Santa Barbara, uh, there's no way they could have anybody who wasn't a member of the family in the chain of command.
27:08
Damian Bacich: So that's one of the concessions they make.
27:12
Damian Bacich: But, um, most of the officers speak both English and Spanish.
27:17
Damian Bacich: Uh, could we talk a little bit about their first battalion commander, please?
27:21
Damian Bacich: Yes.
27:21
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
27:21
Damian Bacich: Their, their first battalion commander was Salvador Vallejo.
27:25
Damian Bacich: And if, if you haven't, if you've heard of Salvador Vallejo's brother, but haven't heard of Salvador, there's good reason for that.
27:32
Damian Bacich: Apparently.
27:34
Damian Bacich: Um, Mariano Vallejo was, you know, famous for being very, um, smart and cultured and, and, uh, this great kind of diplomat as well as a political leader.
27:48
Damian Bacich: Uh, by the time the native cavalry's organized, I think he's already in his sixties, so he's not, they don't, uh, turn to him to take any role in the, in the battalion.
28:01
Damian Bacich: Instead, they talked to his brother.
28:03
Damian Bacich: Salvador Vallejo Salvador's, his younger brother, has extensive military experience as a militia officer, both in California and in the under the United States.
28:15
Damian Bacich: Um, and, um, supposedly one of the accounts of him is that, that in his numerous campaigns against various tribal folks in California, he had, he had broken nearly every bone in his body.
28:30
Damian Bacich: That was his, uh, that was almost like a qualification.
28:32
Damian Bacich: Well, he's been injured more times than anyone else.
28:36
Damian Bacich: Uh, he turns out to be everything that his brother wasn't.
28:41
Damian Bacich: He's like known to be rude.
28:44
Damian Bacich: Uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of women just don't like him.
28:49
Damian Bacich: They stay away from him.
28:51
Damian Bacich: In fact, I think Mariano Vallejo and his wife actually had a dispute, uh.
28:58
Damian Bacich: And his, uh, his wife did not want Salva Valejo living on the property.
29:03
Damian Bacich: Mariano insisted.
29:04
Damian Bacich: So she, she went away for a while, uh, and he was just apparently just a really foul, foul guy and was not very good at doing his duties as, as major of the battalion.
29:20
Damian Bacich: Uh, there's a lot of paperwork that just wasn't being done.
29:24
Damian Bacich: Um, he had apparently, uh, I'm not gonna say commissioned, but he had appointed some officers and nobody knew where they were.
29:36
Damian Bacich: Uh, and they were never actually, they're not on the roles or anything.
29:39
Damian Bacich: It's like, oh, no, no.
29:40
Damian Bacich: I appointed this guy to do recruiting out there.
29:42
Damian Bacich: And then people get confused about who's supposed to be doing the recruiting.
29:46
Damian Bacich: So he was eventually, uh, forced out.
29:50
Damian Bacich: And then he writes, uh, rather, I think he narrates, uh, a, uh.
29:57
Damian Bacich: Kind of a, a memoir, I think, to Bancroft.
30:01
Damian Bacich: And when he, they asked him about the Native Cavalry, he says, well, I felt I had to, uh, I had to do something to help the union.
30:10
Damian Bacich: The cause of the union, because that's the only thing that stands between, uh, it was something along the lines of, it's the lithian stance between, uh, d democracy and Republican government in the Western hemisphere and the tyranny of the European power.
30:26
Damian Bacich: So obviously he's looking at the, the whole conflict in Mexico.
30:31
Damian Bacich: Um, and he, and he even says, I don't care about, I don't care about the, the African Americans that they're, they're very irrelevant.
30:39
Damian Bacich: It's about, you know, preserving democracy and Republican government.
30:43
Damian Bacich: Um, and, um, but then he says, but I'm not gonna say anything else.
30:49
Damian Bacich: He doesn't give any accounts of what he did as commander of Native Cavalry.
30:53
Damian Bacich: He just says, I felt I had to do it.
30:56
Damian Bacich: And that's it.
30:59
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
30:59
Damian Bacich: That would make, well, if, if that was how his command went, the way you described it makes sense, huh?
31:04
Damian Bacich: Yeah, exactly.
31:07
Damian Bacich: How did the, uh, how did the unit dress?
31:12
Damian Bacich: What were they, did they have regular uniforms?
31:16
Damian Bacich: Unfortunately, they did, apparently.
31:19
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
31:19
Damian Bacich: I was, unfortunately, yeah, I was, I was hoping, um, there's a book that, uh, a friend of mine wrote in Texas about the, uh, the Mexican American unit, uh, union units in Texas.
31:35
Damian Bacich: Uh, they also had, and he thinks they may have been lancers as well, there's no definite proof of this, but he has on the cover a photo of one of the, uh, I think he's a corporal in one of the, the, these Texas units, and he is wearing just a standard union cavalry uniform.
31:55
Damian Bacich: But he has a sombrero and it, and it's like, oh, that's great.
32:00
Damian Bacich: I, I, I hope, I hope I have evidence that that's the way these guys dress, but I'm thinking the fact that I don't have evidence either way about their uniforms is an indication that they just wore the same uniforms that everyone else did.
32:14
Damian Bacich: Um, there's even, there's even like some, um, when the, um, when Captain Pico is in the Humboldt District, there's even just some throwaway comment about them throwing their caps in the air.
32:30
Damian Bacich: And it's, it's like, oh, they just had the same caps that the other soldiers had.
32:37
Damian Bacich: Although I, I'm pretty sure that most of them, most of the California volunteers wore the, uh, the hardy hat without any, um, decoration on it, just as a good, practical, wide brimmed hat.
32:52
Damian Bacich: Uh, and I, I think.
32:53
Damian Bacich: I think that's probably how they dressed.
32:57
Damian Bacich: I see.
32:59
Damian Bacich: So how was the, uh, unit eventually disbanded or, or, you know, closed down?
33:06
Damian Bacich: What?
33:07
Damian Bacich: It was a pretty brief time, it seems that they were in existence.
33:11
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
33:12
Damian Bacich: Um, they, uh, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm running low on power here.
33:19
Damian Bacich: Uh, they just had the three year window that all the volunteers unit, all the volunteer units had.
33:27
Damian Bacich: And, um, their, their, uh, I think their enlistments all expired in March of 1866.
33:36
Damian Bacich: So it was just kind of, you know, bur standard bureaucratic stuff.
33:40
Damian Bacich: They, um, they march out of Arizona.
33:44
Damian Bacich: Um, one of the companies, and I'm not entirely sure why actually gets on, uh.
33:53
Damian Bacich: Ocean going, well, they get on, at, at Yuma, they get on a, a steamer and then they get on an ocean going steamer around the Gulf of California and get dropped off, I think in Los Angeles.
34:06
Damian Bacich: And then they march to San to back to Santa Barbara and have a parade.
34:11
Damian Bacich: Uh, but the other units had just come back.
34:14
Damian Bacich: Um, apparently their uniforms were in a really bad state because there are accounts of them getting their final settlement on their salaries and all just rushing to clothing stores.
34:29
Damian Bacich: Uh, so, um, it's probably the same story you see repeated with a lot of the California volunteer units especially.
34:37
Damian Bacich: They just, they just come back.
34:39
Damian Bacich: The only ones who get any special recognition are, uh, our company see in Santa Barbara because of course, uh, of the influence of the d la Garra family and that these people were so, um.
34:51
Damian Bacich: Okay.
34:52
Damian Bacich: We're so, uh, such a big part of that community.
34:56
Damian Bacich: That unit is very much about Santa Barbara, uh, to an, to an extent that the others are not about their places they're from.
35:06
Damian Bacich: So, is there, and just to wrap up,'cause I know you run a low on power.
35:10
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
35:11
Damian Bacich: Is there any place that, um, we can go either in California, Arizona, or elsewhere?
35:17
Damian Bacich: Any museum exhibits, any monuments to this unit or Yeah.
35:22
Damian Bacich: Are they somewhat forgotten?
35:26
Damian Bacich: Um, I know there's a guy in San Jose who's been trying to get, uh, the Graves memorialized.
35:35
Damian Bacich: He's found a, located a few of the graves.
35:37
Damian Bacich: He located Pico's grave in San Jose.
35:41
Damian Bacich: So, so those exist.
35:43
Damian Bacich: Um, I know at the Deera house, they, they.
35:47
Damian Bacich: In Santa Barbara, they had a, an exhibit about them at one point, and they may do that again.
35:54
Damian Bacich: Other than that, drum barracks in Los Angeles has, uh, has a little bit, um, the, to me, the best place to go is in Beck, where they, uh, in Arizona, where they actually have one of the native cavalry, lances on display.
36:17
Damian Bacich: And, uh, I, I, I, I took issue with the, uh, interpretation and I, I, I think they've corrected it, uh, since, since then.
36:27
Damian Bacich: So yeah, there's really not, again, yeah, these guys are unfortunately, uh, largely forgotten.
36:34
Damian Bacich: The California volunteers in general are kind of forgotten, but, um, these guys in particular, I think because.
36:41
Damian Bacich: They kind of come in the middle of the war.
36:43
Damian Bacich: They don't really have a lot of colorful stuff that they're doing.
36:48
Damian Bacich: Um, and then, uh, I think, you know, California and, you know, of course this is something you're fighting against.
36:57
Damian Bacich: California has a a and Arizona as well.
37:01
Damian Bacich: They, they has a very, uh, kind of dismissive view of its own history and, and people are very much wanting to move on and, and make progress rather than look back.
37:13
Damian Bacich: And there's some virtue in that.
37:14
Damian Bacich: But also it means that some of these very colorful stories that are important to who we are get forgotten.
37:21
Damian Bacich: I agree.
37:22
Damian Bacich: I agree.
37:22
Damian Bacich: Well, hopefully this will help your book and this interview and so on.
37:27
Damian Bacich: We'll, we'll help.
37:28
Damian Bacich: Memorialize these, uh, companies as battalion a little bit more.
37:32
Damian Bacich: And I do think it's an important part of, of the history of the West, and I'm, I'm glad I learned about it and glad I got to talk to you.
37:40
Damian Bacich: Um, Tom Prezelski, do you have any other projects going on right now?
37:45
Damian Bacich: Uh, I'm researching a book about one of the territorial legislatures in Arizona.
37:50
Damian Bacich: Probably not something that interests you necessarily, but, um, the weird connection with the Native Cavalry is when I was doing the research, one of the big issues was everyone has trouble getting to the capitol during the 1885 session.
38:05
Damian Bacich: And it, and there's a actually a newspaper account saying this is the worst winter.
38:10
Damian Bacich: Since 18 65, 66, and I'm thinking, oh, wait a minute.
38:15
Damian Bacich: That's when the Native cavalry was in Arizona, and it gave them a lot of problems then.
38:19
Damian Bacich: So it's like, okay, I know about this.
38:22
Damian Bacich: So, yeah.
38:23
Damian Bacich: Well, well good.
38:25
Damian Bacich: Well, we'll look forward to it.
38:26
Damian Bacich: I'm sure there's interest, there'll be interesting information in there, especially if it ties into the Native cavalry.
38:31
Tom Prezelski: Yeah.
38:32
Damian Bacich: Well, thank you so much for your time.
38:34
Damian Bacich: Um, this was, this was fascinating and once again, a little plug for the book, California Lancers, the first Battalion of Native Cavalry in the far West 1863 to 1866 by Tom Prezelski.
38:49
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
38:49
Damian Bacich: University of Oklahoma Press.
38:51
Damian Bacich: Uh, that's right.
38:52
Damian Bacich: University of Oklahoma Press.
38:53
Damian Bacich: I mean, they, they do some great things about Yeah.
38:56
Damian Bacich: California history and Western history in general.
38:59
Damian Bacich: Yeah.
39:00
Damian Bacich: All right.
39:00
Damian Bacich: Well, thank you so much.
39:01
Damian Bacich: Well, well, thank you.
39:03
I.