426 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA. 
driven back to Monterey by bad weather, after being at 
sea twenty-nine days. A party of fifty-seven Americans 
under Captains Burrows and Thompson were attacked 
by a party of Californians, and Captain Burrows and 
three men slain. Colonel Fremont marched to their as¬ 
sistance, and the whole party arrived at San Fernando 
on the 11th of January, 1847. 
While these events were passing in California, General 
Kearney was on his way from the United States with a 
force intended to capture that country. On his way he 
had met Kit Carson, bearing an account of the capture 
of the city of the Angels by Commodore Stockton and 
Colonel Fremont, and he had therefore sent back the 
greater part of his troops. On the 5th of December he 
met Captain Gillespie coming with a small party of vo¬ 
lunteers to give him information of the state of the coun¬ 
try. The Captain informed him that at San Pasqual, 
three leagues distant, an armed party of Californians was 
posted with a number of extra horses. He marched upon 
them with an advanced party of twelve dragoons and 
twenty volunteers ; a desperate fight ensued, which had 
well nigh proved fatal to the Americans, at one time, 
their line becoming scattered by the sorry condition of 
the animals on which some of them were mounted. Gen¬ 
eral Kearney himself was wounded in two places, Cap¬ 
tain Gillespie and Lieutenant Warner each in three, and 
Captain Gibson and eleven others were also wounded, 
having from two to ten marks of lances on their persons. 
Captain Johnston, Captain Moore, Lieutenant Hammond, 
two serjeants, two corporals, and eleven privates, and a 
man attached to the topographical department, were slain. 
Two howitzers had been taken into the action, but were 
not used until its close, when the mules attached to one 
of them became frightened and ran away with it directly 
into the enemy’s lines. The severe wounds of the actors 
in this fight caused the march of the army to be delayed, 
