Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
time Crockett and his associates sent up their cards, but Terry and
the more violent of the Governor's followers denounced them as no
better than "Vigilantes," and wanted the Governor to refuse even to
receive them. I explained that they were not "Vigilantes," that
Judge Thornton was a "Law-and-Order" man, was one of the first to
respond to the call of the sheriff, and that he went actually to
the jail with his one arm the night we expected the first attempt
at rescue, etc. Johnson then sent word for them to reduce their
business to writing. They simply sent in a written request for an
audience, and they were then promptly admitted. After some general
conversation, the Governor said he was prepared to hear them, when
Mr. Crockett rose and made a prepared speech embracing a clear and
fair statement of the condition of things in San Francisco,
concluding with the assertion of the willingness of the committee
to disband and submit to trial after a certain date not very
remote. All the time Crockett was speaking, Terry sat with his hat
on, drawn over his eyes, and with his feet on a table. As soon as
Crockett was through, they were dismissed, and Johnson began to
prepare a written answer. This was scratched, altered, and
amended, to suit the notions of his counselors, and at last was
copied and sent. This answer amounted to little or nothing.
Seeing that we were powerless for good, and that violent counsels
would prevail under the influence of Terry and others, I sat down
at the table, and wrote my resignation, which Johnson accepted in a
complimentary note on the spot, and at the same time he appointed
to my place General Volney E. Howard, then present, a lawyer who
had once been a member of Congress from Texas, and who was expected
to drive the d---d pork-merchants into the bay at short notice. I
went soon after to General Wool's room, where I found Crockett and
the rest of his party; told them that I was out of the fight,
having resigned my commission; that I had neglected business that
had been intrusted to me by my St. Louis partners; and that I would
thenceforward mind my own business, and leave public affairs
severely alone. We all returned to San Francisco that night by the
Stockton boat, and I never after-ward had any thing to do with
politics in California, perfectly satisfied with that short
experience. Johnson and Wool fought out their quarrel of veracity
in the newspapers and on paper. But, in my opinion, there is not a
shadow of doubt that General Wool did deliberately deceive us; that
he had authority to issue arms, and that, had he adhered to his
promise, we could have checked the committee before it became a
fixed institution, and a part of the common law of California.
Major-General Volney E. Howard came to San Francisco soon after;
continued the organization of militia which I had begun; succeeded
in getting a few arms from the country; but one day the Vigilance
Committee sallied from their armories, captured the arms of the
"Law-and-Order party," put some of their men into prison, while
General Howard, with others, escaped to the country; after which
the Vigilance Committee had it all their own way. Subsequently, in
July, 1856, they arrested Chief-Justice Terry, and tried him for
stabbing one of their constables, but he managed to escape at
night, and took refuge on the John Adams. In August, they hanged
Hetherington and Brace in broad daylight, without any jury-trial;
and, soon after, they quietly disbanded. As they controlled the
press, they wrote their own history, and the world generally gives
them the credit of having purged San Francisco of rowdies and
roughs; but their success has given great stimulus to a dangerous
principle, that would at any time justify the mob in seizing all
the power of government; and who is to say that the Vigilance
Committee may not be composed of the worst, instead of the best,
elements of a community? Indeed, in San Francisco, as soon as it
was demonstrated that the real power had passed from the City Hall
to the committee room, the same set of bailiffs, constables, and
rowdies that had infested the City Hall were found in the
employment of the "Vigilantes;" and, after three months
experience, the better class of people became tired of the midnight
sessions and left the business and power of the committee in the
hands of a court, of which a Sydney man was reported to be the head
or chief-justice.
During the winter of 1855-'56, and indeed throughout the year 1856,
all kinds of business became unsettled in California. The mines
continued to yield about fifty millions of gold a year; but little
attention was paid to agriculture or to any business other than
that of "mining," and, as the placer-gold was becoming worked out,
the miners were restless and uneasy, and were shifting about from
place to place, impelled by rumors put afloat for speculative
purposes. A great many extensive enterprises by joint-stock
companies had been begun, in the way of water-ditches, to bring
water from the head of the mountain-streams down to the richer
alluvial deposits, and nearly all of these companies became
embarrassed or bankrupt. Foreign capital, also, which had been
attracted to California by reason of the high rates of interest,
was being withdrawn, or was tied up in property which could not be
sold; and, although our bank's having withstood the panic gave us
great credit, still the community itself was shaken, and loans of
money were risky in the extreme. A great many merchants, of the
highest name, availed themselves of the extremely liberal bankrupt
law to get discharged of their old debts, without sacrificing much,
if any, of their stocks of goods on hand, except a lawyer's fee;
thus realizing Martin Burke's saying that "many a clever fellow had
been ruined by paying his debts." The merchants and business-men
of San Francisco did not intend to be ruined by such a course. I
raised the rate of exchange from three to three and a half, while
others kept on at the old rate; and I labored hard to collect old
debts, and strove, in making new loans, to be on the safe side.
The State and city both denied much of their public debt; in fact,
repudiated it; and real estate, which the year before had been
first-class security, became utterly unsalable.
The office labor and confinement, and the anxiety attending the
business, aggravated my asthma to such an extent that at times it
deprived me of sleep, and threatened to become chronic and serious;
and I was also conscious that the first and original cause which
had induced Mr. Lucas to establish the bank in California had
ceased. I so reported to him, and that I really believed that he
could use his money more safely and to better advantage in St.
Louis. This met his prompt approval, and he instructed me
gradually to draw out, preparatory to a removal to New York City.
Accordingly, early in April, 1857, I published an advertisement in
the San Francisco papers, notifying our customers that, on the 1st
day of May, we would discontinue business and remove East,
requiring all to withdraw their accounts, and declaring that,
if any remained on that day of May, their balances would be
transferred to the banking-house of Parrott & Co. Punctually to the
day, this was done, and the business of Lucas, Turner & Co., of San
Francisco, was discontinued, except the more difficult and
disagreeable part of collecting their own moneys and selling the
real estate, to which the firm had succeeded by purchase or
foreclosure. One of the partners, B. R. Nisbet, assisted by our
attorney, S. M. Bowman, Esq., remained behind to close up the
business of the bank.
CHAPTER VI.
CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK, AND KANSAS.
1857-1859.
Having closed the bank at San Francisco on the 1st day of May,
1857, accompanied by my family I embarked in the steamer Sonora for
Panama, crossed the isthmus, and sailed to New York, whence we
proceeded to Lancaster, Ohio, where Mrs. Sherman and the family
stopped, and I went on to St. Louis. I found there that some
changes had been made in the parent, house, that Mr. Lucas had
bought out his partner, Captain Symonds, and that the firm's name
had been changed to that of James H. Lucas & Co.
It had also been arranged that an office or branch was to be
established in New York City, of which I was to have charge, on
pretty much the same terms and conditions as in the previous San
Francisco firm.
Mr. Lucas, Major Turner, and I, agreed to meet in New York, soon
after the 4th of July. We met accordingly at the Metropolitan
Hotel, selected an office, No. 12 Pall Street, purchased the
necessary furniture, and engaged a teller, bookkeeper, and porter.
The new firm was to bear the same title of Lucas, Turner & Co.,
with about the same partners in interest, but the nature of the
business was totally different. We opened our office on the 21st
of July, 1857, and at once began to receive accounts from the West
and from California, but our chief business was as the resident
agents of the St. Louis firm of James H. Lucas & Co. Personally I
took rooms at No. 100 Prince Street, in which house were also
quartered Major J. G. Barnard, and Lieutenant J. B. McPherson,
United States Engineers, both of whom afterward attained great fame
in the civil war.
My business relations in New York were with the Metropolitan Bank
and Bank of America; and with the very wealthy and most respectable
firm of Schuchhardt & Gebhard, of Nassau Street. Every thing went
along swimmingly till the 21st of August, when all Wall Street was
thrown into a spasm by the failure of the Ohio Life and Trust
Company, and the panic so resembled that in San Francisco, that,
having nothing seemingly at stake, I felt amused. But it soon
became a serious matter even to me. Western stocks and securities
tumbled to such a figure, that all Western banks that held such
securities, and had procured advances thereon, were compelled to
pay up or substitute increased collaterals. Our own house was
not a borrower in New York at all, but many of our Western
correspondents were, and it taxed my tune to watch their interests.
In September, the panic extended so as to threaten the safety of
even some of the New York banks not connected with the West; and
the alarm became general, and at last universal.
In the very midst of this panic came the news that the steamer
Central America, formerly the George Law, with six hundred
passengers and about sixteen hundred thousand dollars of treasure,
coming from Aspinwall, had foundered at sea, off the coast of
Georgia, and that about sixty of the passengers had been
providentially picked up by a Swedish bark, and brought into
Savannah. The absolute loss of this treasure went to swell the
confusion and panic of the day.
A few days after, I was standing in the vestibule of the
Metropolitan Hotel, and heard the captain of the Swedish bark tell
his singular story of the rescue of these passengers. He was a
short, sailor-like-looking man, with a strong German or Swedish
accent. He said that he was sailing from some port in Honduras for
Sweden, running down the Gulf Stream off Savannah. The weather had
been heavy for some days, and, about nightfall, as he paced his
deck, he observed a man-of-war hawk circle about his vessel,
gradually lowering, until the bird was as it were aiming at him.
He jerked out a belaying-pin, struck at the bird, missed it, when
the hawk again rose high in the air, and a second time began to
descend, contract his circle, and make at him again. The second
time he hit the bird, and struck it to the deck.... This strange
fact made him uneasy, and he thought it betokened danger; he went
to the binnacle, saw the course he was steering, and without any