Camp Far West Bridge I
by Robert Harris
Title
Camp Far West Bridge I
Artist
Robert Harris
Medium
Photograph
Description
Gold rush days in early California posed a series of contradictions, as far as Captain Hannibal Day was concerned. As commanding officer of Cantonment Far West, a temporary camp that lasted three years, he noted that the hardy and well armed miner was being defended by an under-fed and scurvy-weakened soldier from "a miserable race of savages . . . armed only with the bow and arrow."
Despite his post's mission to protect the emigrant trails and wagon roads to the mines, Day reported, "So far as the defense of the territory is concerned, no better force could be needed than the present population of the mines, armed and equipped as they very generally are."
At least two problems were at the root of the situation however. Desertion that weakened every California fort during 1850 touched Cantonment Far West equally. One captain and 27 enlisted men had taken off for the mines in the last half of 1849. Then the entire teamster detail followed suit, but first hampering pursuit by driving off the post's mounts. Day asked department headquarters what they had in mind for the officers to do, "when we shall have no rank and file left, which, I fancy, will not be a very distant period of time."
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April 24th, 2022
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