Page:Sherman - Memoirs of Gen. William T. Sherman, 1891, Volume 1.djvu/42

 quarters out of hewn pine-logs for the men. Lieutenant Minor, a very clever young o&#xfb03;cer, had taken violently sick and died about the time I got back from Los Angeles, leaving Lieutenants Ord and Loeser alone with the Company, with Assistant-Surgeon Robert Murray. Captain William G. Marcy was the quartermaster and commissary. Naglee’s company of Stevenson’s regiment had been mounted and was sent out against the Indians in the San Joaquin Valley, and Shannon’s company occupied the barracks. Shortly after General Kearney had gone East, we found an order of his on record, removing one Mr. Nash, the Alcalde of Sonoma, and appointing to his place ex-Governor L. W. Boggs. A letter came to Colonel and Governor Mason from Boggs, whom he had personally known in Missouri, complaining that, though he had been appointed alcalde, the then incumbent (Nash) utterly denied Kearney’s right to remove him, because he had been elected by the people under the proclamation of Commodore Sloat, and refused to surrender his o&#xfb03;ce or to account for his acts as alcalde. Such a proclamation had been made by Commodore Sloat shortly after the &#xfb01;rst occupation of California, announcing that the people were free and enlightened American citizens, entitled to all the rights and privileges as such, and among them the right to elect their own o&#xfb03;cers, etc. The people of Sonoma town and valley, some forty or &#xfb01;fty immigrants from the United States, and very few native Californians, had elected Mr. Nash, and, as stated, he refused to recognize the right of a mere military commander to eject him and to appoint another in his place. Neither General Kearney nor Mason had much respect for this kind of “buncombe,” but assumed the true doctrine that California was yet a Mexican province, held by right of conquest, that the military commander was held responsible to the country, and that the province should be held in statu quo until a treaty of peace. This letter of Boggs was therefore referred to Captain Brackett, whose company was stationed at Sonoma, with orders to notify Nash that Boggs was the rightful alcalde; that he must quietly surrender his o&#xfb03;ce, with the books and records thereof, and that he must account for any moneys received