March 15, 2021
Gillespie's Stand: A Siege in the City of Angels
This episode picks up as the U.S. shifts its attention west during the Mexican-American War. While Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie carried out covert operations across California, Marines were being mobilized, and the Navy split its focus. What followed was a fast-moving campaign marked by near-bloodless landings, flag raisings, and the temporary conquest of California. Holding ground was another story. In Los Angeles, Gillespie was left in command of an undisciplined volunteer force. What started as a quiet occupation quickly unraveled into open resistance, sparked by poor leadership decisions, thin troop numbers, and local resentment. Over the next few weeks, Gillespie found himself outnumbered, undersupplied, and surrounded. This episode walks through how California was taken, how Los Angeles was lost, and why some historians blame Gillespie, while others point the finger at Commodore Stockton.
References
- Fulkerson, S. V., Stevenson, G. J., & Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia. (January 01, 1992). To the halls of Montezuma: Samuel Vance Fulkerson's journal kept during the Mexican War. Historical Society of Washington County, Va. Bulletin, 29.)
- Gillespie, A. H. (1845). Archibald H. Gillespie papers.
- Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly. (1901). United States: Historical Society of Southern California.
- Horsman, R. (2009). Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press.
- J. Gregg Layne Papers (Collection 188). Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
- Johannsen, R. W. (1988). To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
- John Adam Hussey; The Origin of the Gillespie Mission. California Historical Society Quarterly 1 March 1940; 19 (1): 43–58. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25160859
- John O'Sullivan, "Annexation," The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Volume 17 (New York: 1845), 5-6, 9-10.
- Porter, V. M. (1911). General Stephen W. Kearny and the Conquest of California (1846-7): A Paper Read Before the Historical Society of Southern California, February 6, 1911. United States: (n.p.).
- Richard R. Stenberg, Archibald H. Gillespie; Further Letters of Archibald H. Gillespie: October 20, 1845, to January 16, 1846, to the Secretary of the Navy. California Historical Society Quarterly 1 September 1939; 18 (3): 217–228. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25160822
- Rives, G. L. (1913). The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848: A History of the Relations Between the Two Countries from the Independence of Mexico to the Close of the War with the United States. United States: C. Scribner's Sons.
- Smith, J. H. (1911). The Annexation of Texas. United States: Barnes & Noble, Incorporated.
- U.S.Cong. (1845). The Declaration of Independence: Articles of Confederation, and Constitution of the United States; the joint resolution of the Congress of the United States for annexing Texas, and the joint resolution of the Congress of Texas consenting to annexation; and the Constitution of the state of Texas
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