had been handled very roughly by Don Andreas Pico, at San Pascual, in which engagement Captains Moore and Johnson, and Lieutenant Hammond, were killed, and Kearney himself wounded.  There remained with him Colonel Swords, quartermaster; Captain H. S. Turner, First Dragoons; Captains Emory and Warner, Topographical Engineers; Assistant Surgeon Griffin, and Lieutenant J. W. Davidson.  Fremont had marched down from the north with a battalion of volunteers; Commodore Stockton had marched up from San Diego to Los Angeles, with General Kearney, his dragoons, and a battalion of sailors and marines, and was soon joined there by Fremont, and they jointly received the surrender of the insurgents under Andreas Pico.  We also knew that General R. B. Mason had been ordered to California; that Colonel John D. Stevenson was coming out to California with a regiment of New York Volunteers; that Commodore Shubrick had orders also from the Navy Department to control matters afloat; that General Kearney, by virtue of his rank, had the right to control all the land-forces in the service of the United States; and that Fremont claimed the same right by virtue of a letter he had received from Colonel Benton, then a Senator, and a man of great influence with Polk’s Administration.  So that among the younger officers the query was very natural, “Who the devil is Governor of California?” One day I was on board the Independence frigate, dining with the ward-room officers, when a war-vessel was reported in the offing, which in due time was made out to be the Cyane, Captain DuPont.  After dinner, we were all on deck, to watch the new arrival, the ships meanwhile exchanging signals, which were interpreted that General Kearney was on board.  As the Cyane approached, a boat was sent to meet her, with Commodore Shubrick’s flag-officer, Lieutenant Lewis, to carry the usual messages, and to invite General Kearney to come on board the Independence as the guest of Commodore Shubrick.  Quite a number of officers were on deck, among them Lieutenants Wise, Montgomery Lewis, William Chapman, and others, noted wits and wags of the navy.  In due time the Cyane anchored close by, and our boat was seen returning with a stranger in the stern-sheets, clothed in army blue.  As the boat came nearer, we saw that it was General Kearney with an old dragoon coat on, and an army-cap, to which the general had added the broad vizor, cut from a full-dress hat, to shade his face and eyes against the glaring sun of the Gila region.  Chapman exclaimed:  “Fellows, the problem is solved; there is the grand-vizier (visor) by G-d!  He is Governor of California.”