ifornians
delivered their fire and fled, five of their number having been killed
or wounded by the rifles of the assailants.

The wounded having been removed with great difficulty, the cattle having
been lost, and the danger of losing the sick and the packs being great,
the General determined to halt at that place and await the arrival of
reinforcements, for which messengers had been sent to San Diego on the
morning of the 6th. Accordingly the Americans occupied the high ground
on which the action had been fought, bored holes for water, killed their
fattest mules for meat, and awaited the arrival of their friends, until
the morning of the 11th, when they were joined by one hundred seamen and
eighty marines, under Lieutenant Gray, who had been sent out to meet
them by Commodore Stockton; and, on the afternoon of the 12th, the
combined parties entered the town in safety.

At this time commenced that memorable conflict between the two
commanders--General Kearney and Commodore Stockton--respecting the chief
command, which subsequently created so much trouble in the American
ranks and throughout the country. Commodore Stockton appears, however,
to have retained the authority; and, having organized a force
sufficiently strong to warrant the undertaking, and General Kearney
having accepted an invitation to accompany the expedition, on December
29th he marched from San Diego, with two officers and fifty-five
privates (dragoons, two officers and forty-five seamen acting as
artillerymen; eighteen officers and three hundred seventy-nine seamen
and marines acting as infantry; six officers, and fifty-four privates),
volunteers, and six pieces of artillery, against the main body of the
insurgents, near Los Angeles. The command appears to have been given, at
his own request, to General Kearney; and as the wagon train was heavily
laden, the progress of the column was very slow--the expedition reaching
the Rio San Gabriel on January 8, 1847--although the enemy had offered
no opposition to its progress even in passes where a small force could
have effectively kept it back. At this place, however, he had made a
stand to dispute the passage of the river; and here the second action
was fought between the Americans and the Californians.

The Rio San Gabriel, at the spot where this action was fought, is about
one hundred yards wide, the current about knee-deep, flowing over a
quicksand bottom. The left bank, by which the Americans approache