Captain José Antonio Carrillo, leading fifty California troops, successfully held off an invasion of Pueblo de Los Angeles by some 300 United States Marines, capturing for the first time in the few instances of U.S. history the U.S.

Colors upon the battlefield,[5] while under the command of US Navy Captain William Mervine, who was attempting to recapture the town after the Siege of Los Angeles.

By strategically running horses across the dusty Dominguez Hills, while transporting their single small cannon to various sites, Carrillo and his troops fooled the Americans into thinking they had encountered a large enemy force.

Faced with heavy casualties and the superior fighting skills displayed by the Californios, the remaining Marines were forced to retreat to their ships docked in San Pedro Bay.

"…the enemy appeared before us, drawn up on each side of the road, mounted on fine horses, each man armed with a lance and carbine.

The gun was loaded with anything that would shoot: round shot, copper grapeshot, cannon balls, as well as metal scraps and cobblestone.

At some point, Mervine and his lieutenants realized that they could not make forward progress, they could not capture the gun, and they had wounded needing care.

Some say it was surrendered to the Americans after the Capitulation of Cahuenga; however, another account tells that the cannon was resurrected by the Californio dons in 1853 for the celebration of the Fourth of July.

According to the account of one Major Horace Bell, a Los Angeles Ranger, Juan Sepulveda dug up the gun from near his own property and took it to Dead Man's Island, where he and his friends set it up near the graves of the Americans and fired a salute "in the exuberance of his patriotism.