The disputes which arose between Stockton, Kearney, and Frémont, as to the right to command in California, under the orders from their respective departments, are matters rather of private and personal interest than of such public concern as would entitle them to be minutely recounted in this brief sketch of the Mexican war. It is impossible to present a faithful idea of the controversy and its merits without entering into a detail of all the circumstances, but for this, we have no space, in the present history. Strict military etiquette appears to have demanded of Kearney, immediately upon his arrival, the assertion of his right to command as a general officer operating in the interior of the country. This was a question solely between Stockton and himself, in which Frémont, a subordinate officer, recently transplanted from the Topographical corps into the regular army as a Colonel, had of course, no interest save that of duty. Nevertheless he became involved in the controversy between the claimants, and although raised to the rank of Governor of California, by Commodore Stockton, he was deprived of his authority when General Kearney subsequently assumed that station. The disputes between the Commodore and the General seem to have arisen under the somewhat conflicting instructions of the War and
Navy Departments, and were calculated, as distinguished officers afterwards declared officially, to "embarrass the mind, and to excite the doubts of officers of greater experience" than the Colonel.
Although Frémont's services were lost for a while on the shores of the Pacific, he was not forgotten either there, or at home. What he had done for his country in that remote region by exploring its solitudes with his hardy band; what he added to geographical and general science; what regions he almost revealed to American pioneers; what services he rendered in securing a happy issue to the war in California—have all