California Militia
and National Guard Unit Histories
Stanislaus Guard
Official or Other Titles: Stanislaus
Guard, 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, California Militia
Location: Knight's
Ferry, Stanislaus County
Mustered in: December
29, 1860 Date of Disbanding: 1862 Inclusive dates of units papers: 1860-1862
Unit papers on file at the California
State Archives
a. Organization Papers 2 documents (1860)
b. Bonds 1 document (1861)
c. Correspondence (Unclassified letters) 9 documents (1861-1862)
d. Election Returns none
e. Exempt Certificates, Applications for none
f. Muster Rolls, Monthly returns 1 document (1862)
g. Oaths Qualifications 1 document (1861)
h. Orders none
i. Receipts, invoices none
j. Requisitions 1 document (1861)
k. Resignations none
l. Target Practice Reports none
m. Other none
Commanding Officers
M. M. McCauley, Captain (Elected December
29, 1860)
Frank Sturge, First Lieutenant (Elected
December 29, 1860)
Official History
In the year 1860, a newspaper at Knight's
Ferry, the Stanislaus Index, published a notice of the
organization of a volunteer company called the Stanislaus Guard.
This military unit was organized on December 29, 1860, with a
muster roll of sixty five men and gave promise of becoming a
very substantial unit of the California Militia. However, a series
of mistakes and delays soon undermined the morale of the company.,
The organization papers and Bonds were sent to the Governor's
Office, where they were delayed before being transferred to the
Adjutant General's Office. Further delay was caused when the
Bonds were registered in Sacramento County instead of Stanislaus
County.
A copy of the minutes of March 22, 1862, show that a motion was
made and duly seconded, that the Stanislaus Guard be disbanded,
but the presiding officer Captain M. M. McCauley, refused to
entertain the motion. Whereupon a Mr. A. Shell put the motion
and it carried eleven "Ayes" to one "No".
A copy of these minutes were duly certified and sent to Adjutant
General Kibbe. Two days later March twenty-fourth Captain McCauley
wrote the Adjutant General, that political and religious influences
were working to break up the Stanislaus Guard and a new company
was to be organized called the Franklin Guard, which the Captain
claimed would be political in character. Captain McCauley's organization
continued, however, for on June fourteenth he sent in to Headquarters
a new muster roll showing sixty-four members still active and
also showing the names of members who had moved or else had joined
the Franklin Guard. The Captain was preparing to file new Bonds
and requisition arms, but there was no record of this company
ever receiving the needed military equipment. It is likely that
the Stanislaus Guard disbanded the latter part of 1862, as there
is no further information available concerning this unit.
This history was written in
1940 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in conjunction
with the office of the Adjutant General and the California State
Library
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