Department of California

The Department of California was commanded first by Brevet Brigadier General Newman S. Clarke, Colonel U.S. 6th Infantry Regiment, until his death on October 17, 1860.

Colonel Benjamin L. Beall, U.S. 1st Dragoon Regiment, who had assumed command, by seniority of rank, on the death of General Clarke, on October 17, 1860.

His successor in October 1861 (six months after the beginning of the Civil War), Brigadier General George Wright (1803-1865), continued in command of the District even after losing command of the superior Department of the Pacific, on July 1, 1864, to Gen. Irvin McDowell (1818-1885), who had recently been embarrassingly defeated in the first major battle of the Civil War three years before in the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) in northern Virginia, just south of the national federal capital city of Washington, D.C., in July 1861.

During June 1865, Col. Edward McGarry (1820-1867), was ordered to succeed Brigadier General George Wright, (who was relocating to his new command of the Department of the Columbia, further north in Oregon, but unfortunately died later that year of 1865), in command of the District of California until General McDowell could take command of the District which was once again raised to Department status under the larger Military Division of the Pacific, now commanded by Major General Henry W. Halleck (1815-1872), (and former General-in-Chief during the previous early period of the Civil War at the U.S. War Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., under 16th President Abraham Lincoln).

[3] The territory encompassed by the new Department of California now consisted of the States of California and adjacent Nevada and further east of the District of Arizona and District of New Mexico in the adjacent federal Territories of Arizona and New Mexico.

From December 7, 1871, the one general officer at San Francisco commanded both the Division of the Pacific and the Department of California and the separate staffs were consolidated into one.