been entered into with parties in New York and New
Orleans for a monthly line of steamers from those cities
to California, via Panama. Lieutenant-Colonel
Burton had come up from Lower California, and, as
captain of the Third Artillery, he was assigned to
command Company F, Third Artillery, at Monterey.
Captain Warner remained at Sacramento, surveying; and
Halleck, Murray, Ord, and I, boarded with Dona Augustias.
The season was unusually rainy and severe, but we
passed the time with the usual round of dances and
parties. The time fixed for the arrival of the
mail-steamer was understood to be about January 1,
1849, but the day came and went without any tidings
of her. Orders were given to Captain Burton
to announce her arrival by firing a national salute,
and each morning we listened for the guns from the
fort. The month of January passed, and the greater
part of February, too. As was usual, the army
officers celebrated the 22d of February with a grand
ball, given in the new stone school-house, which Alcalde
Walter Colton had built. It was the largest and
best hall then in California. The ball was really
a handsome affair, and we kept it up nearly all night.
The next morning we were at breakfast: present,
Dona Augustias, and Manuelita, Halleck, Murray, and
myself. We were dull and stupid enough until
a gun from the fort aroused us, then another and another.
“The steamer” exclaimed all, and, without
waiting for hats or any thing, off we dashed.
I reached the wharf hatless, but the dona sent my
cap after me by a servant. The white puffs of
smoke hung around the fort, mingled with the dense
fog, which hid all the water of the bay, and well
out to sea could be seen the black spars of some unknown
vessel. At the wharf I found a group of soldiers
and a small row-boat, which belonged to a brig at
anchor in the bay. Hastily ordering a couple
of willing soldiers to get in and take the oars, and
Mr. Larkin and Mr. Hartnell asking to go along, we
jumped in and pushed off. Steering our boat
toward the spars, which loomed up above the fog clear
and distinct, in about a mile we came to the black
hull of the strange monster, the long-expected and
most welcome steamer California. Her wheels
were barely moving, for her pilot could not see the
shore-line distinctly, though the hills and Point of
Pines could be clearly made out over the fog, and
occasionally a glimpse of some white walls showed
where the town lay. A “Jacob’s ladder”
was lowered for us from the steamer, and in a minute
I scrambled up on deck, followed by Larkin and Hartnell,
and we found ourselves in the midst of many old friends.
There was Canby, the adjutant-general, who was to
take my place; Charley Hoyt, my cousin; General Persifer
F. Smith and wife; Gibbs, his aide-de-camp; Major
Ogden, of the Engineers, and wife; and, indeed, many
old Californians, among them Alfred Robinson, and
Frank Ward with his pretty bride. By the time
the ship was fairly at anchor we had answered a million