We were followed all the way to Yuma by a band of Mexican robbers, as it was supposed we carried a great amount of treasure, and the fatigue of the journey by day and standing guard all night was trying on the strongest constitution in the hot summer month of June.

An account of the breaking up of Arizona and our journey across the deserts to California has been given by Professor Pumpelly, in his book, “Across America and Asia.”  The subject is so repugnant that the harrowing scenes preceding the abandonment of the country are only briefly stated.

The Civil War was in full blast upon my arrival in New York, and the change of venue from Apache Land was not peaceful.  The little balance to my credit from the silver mines was with William T. Coleman & Co., 88 Wall Street, and I put it up as margin on gold at $132 and sold for $250.

After resting a while in New York I went down to Washington, and found my old friend General Heintzelman in command of what was technically called “The Defenses of Washington.”  The capital of the nation was beleaguered!

The Civil War and its results set Arizona back about twenty years.

The location of the Iturbide Grant had been continued in Sonora and Lower California, under direction of Captain—­afterwards General—­Stone, an officer for the United States Army, of engineering ability.  I had first become acquainted with him when he was quartermaster at Benicia Barracks, in California, and met him the last time when he was chief of staff to the Khedive of Egypt at Grand Cairo, on the Nile.

Pesquiera, the governor of Sonora, held the state in quasi-independence of Mexico, and drove the surveying party under Stone out of Mexico by force of arms.

The funds for the location and survey of the Iturbide Grant had been furnished by French bankers in San Francisco, and obtained by them through their correspondent in Paris.  A large portion of the money had been contributed by the entourage of the Second Empire under Napoleon, as the French were desirous of getting a foothold in Mexico.  The expulsion of Stone’s locating and surveying party was considered an affront to France, as the survey and location were undertaken under a valid grant of land made by the Mexican government, and the French were not satisfied to lose the many millions of francs they had invested in the enterprise.  The influence of the shareholders in the Iturbide land location finally caused the intervention of the French government.

It will be remembered that the first intervention was a joint occupation of Vera Cruz by French, English and Spanish; but the English and Spanish soon withdrew, and left the French to pull their own chestnut out of the fire.

The time was not ripe for the French intervention in Mexico until we were in the midst of the Civil War, when Napoleon seized the opportunity to set up Maximilian of Austria, as Emperor of Mexico, protected by French forces under Bazaine.