In Los Angeles disloyalty was more outspoken and unrebuked by public
opinion. Sometimes the surrounding ranchmen, many of whom were in
sympathy with the South, on the news of a Southern victory would come
into Los Angeles to celebrate with disloyal banners and transparencies.
Living on Main Street there was a Yankee, one of the leading citizens,
who upon such an occasion would take his rifle and, promenading the flat
roof of his wide-spreading adobe, hurl down defiance at the enemy,
calling them "rebels" and "traitors" and defying them to come up and
fight him man to man. But there must have been a feeling of good
fellowship through it all, since no stray bullet was ever sent to put a
stop to the taunts of the fiery old Unionist.
Some Spanish soldiers of the California Column, however, grew weary of
such open disloyalty, and one night, when off duty, captured two of the
Southern ranchmen and proposed to hang them to the oaks in the pasture
near where the city of Pasadena now stands. The American officers of the
troops, hearing of the affair, hurried out from Los Angeles and begged
their men to give up so disorderly and unsoldier-like an idea.
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