California State Military
DepartmentAlfrez Pacheco returned just in time with 25 lanceros (lancers). Together with the fort's garrison they counterattacked. Mexican lances, sabers, and a few muzzle loaders faced native arrows, spears, and clubs Three soldados were killed while three others received arrow wounds. 28 Indians died in the battle. With hostile Kamias on the west and Quechan on the east, the situation at the fort was impossible, so they withdrew to San Diego, never to return an the first attempt at non-Indian settlement in the Imperial Valley was all but forgotten.
During the late 1950s a group of archeologists and historians, associated with the present Imperial Valley College Museum, began research on the ruins of the Mexican fort. A recorded Mexican description of the fort reported it as having been 60 feet square with stone or adobe walls, mud ramps and ledges and crowned by a thorny ocotillo barricade, Measurements taken in 1958, however, revealed a structure about 100 feet Square.
