Approaching the house, I ordered the men who were outside to go in.  They did not know me personally, and exchanged glances, but I had my musket cocked, and, as the two had seen Davis and Hill coming up pretty fast, they obeyed.  Dismounting, I found the house full of deserters, and there was no escape for them.  They naturally supposed that I had a strong party with me, and when I ordered them to “fall in” they obeyed from habit.  By the time Hill and Davis came up I had them formed in two ranks, the front rank facing about, and I was taking away their bayonets, pistols, etc.  We disarmed them, destroying a musket and several pistols, and, on counting them, we found that we three had taken eighteen, which, added to the six first captured, made twenty-four.  We made them sling their knapsacks and begin their homeward march.  It was near night when we got back, so that these deserters had traveled nearly forty miles since “tattoo” of the night before.  The other party had captured three, so that only one man had escaped.  I doubt not this prevented the desertion of the bulk of the Second Infantry that spring, for at that time so demoralizing was the effect of the gold-mines that everybody not in the military service justified desertion, because a soldier, if free, could earn more money in a day than he received per month.  Not only did soldiers and sailors desert, but captains and masters of ships actually abandoned their vessels and cargoes to try their luck at the mines.  Preachers and professors forgot their creeds and took to trade, and even to keeping gambling-houses.  I remember that one of our regular soldiers, named Reese, in deserting stole a favorite double-barreled gun of mine, and when the orderly-sergeant of the company, Carson, was going on furlough, I asked him when he came across Reese to try and get my gun back.  When he returned he told me that he had found Reese and offered him a hundred dollars for my gun, but Reese sent me word that he liked the gun, and would not take a hundred dollars for it.  Soldiers or sailors who could reach the mines were universally shielded by the miners, so that it was next to useless to attempt their recapture.  In due season General Persifer Smith, Gibbs, and I, with some hired packers, started back for San Francisco, and soon after we transferred our headquarters to Sonoma.  About this time Major Joseph Hooker arrived from the East —­the regular adjutant-general of the division—­relieved me, and I became thereafter one of General Smith’s regular aides-de-camp.

As there was very little to do, General Smith encouraged us to go into any business that would enable us to make money.  R. P. Hammond, James Blair, and I, made a contract to survey for Colonel J. D. Stevenson his newly-projected city of “New York of the Pacific,” situated at the month of the San Joaquin River.  The contract embraced, also, the making of soundings and the marking out of a channel through Suisun Bay.  We hired, in San Francisco, a small