John Hoopes

William Tecumseh Sherman and The Last Days of the Californios John Hoopes

Civil War hero General William Tecumseh Sherman was a mere lieutenant in 1847 when he came to California and witnessed the finale and aftermath of the American takeover of California from Mexico. During that time he also befriended the sophisticated, brilliant hostess, Doña Angustias de la Guerra, whose brothers, uncles and relatives, as well as she herself, were at the core of the Californio independence movement and dedicated to resist the American takeover. In those last day the Californios lost not only their dream of political autonomy, but more importantly were dispossessed of their way of life, their culture, and all its congeniality, gaiety, great open spaces and carefree leisure. The American Way would very quickly surround, absorb and eventually dissolve that culture, until it would be all but forgotten, and require in future years academic historians to investigate and piece together that old lost story and its grandeur.