NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
November-December 1862
From The Missouri Democrat, November 17, 1862.
A BIT OF SECRET HISTORY.—It has transpired that the rebel Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston, killed at Shiloh, concerted a nice plan to possess the secessionists of California at the beginning of the rebellion. He was in command at San Francisco. At a given time the secessionists were to take the forts with his connivance, and seize 60,000 stand of arms shipped there by Floyd for the very purpose. San Francisco at their mercy, must have succumbed, and the rebels would thus have had a port in which to fit out privateers, and would likewise have obtained control of the vast treasures of the State. The fact was either suspected or known at Washington. Brig. Gen. E. V. Sumner was appointed to the command in California, and was privily put on board ship at sea, arriving at San Francisco without previous intimation of his coming. He walked, incognito, to the office of Johnston, informed him that he was his successor, showed him his papers, and demanded immediate possession. The astonished rebel had no alternative but to comply. In half an hour after all the guns of the forts were run out on the land side and heavily shotted. The same evening the 60,000 stand of arms at Benicia were secured. This brilliant, but quiet, coup d’état saved the El Dorado State.—Buffalo Commercial Advertiser.