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Stanislaus Guard
 

Official or Other Titles: Stanislaus Guard, First Brigade, Third Division
 
Location: Knight's Ferry, Stanislaus County
 
Mustered in: December 29, 1860

Commanding Officers
M. M. McCauley, Captain (Elected December 29, 1860)
Frank Sturge, First Lieutenant (Elected December 29, 1860)


Official History
 
In the year 1860, a newspaper at Knight's Ferry, the Stanislaus Index, published a notice of the organization of a volunteer company called the Stanislaus Guard. This military unit was organized on December 29, 1860, with a muster roll of sixty five men and gave promise of becoming a very substantial unit of the California Militia. However, a series of mistakes and delays soon undermined the morale of the company., The organization papers and Bonds were sent to the Governor's Office, where they were delayed before being transferred to the Adjutant General's Office. Further delay was caused when the Bonds were registered in Sacramento County instead of Stanislaus County.

A copy of the minutes of March 22,, 1862, show that a motion was made and duly seconded, that the Stanislaus Guard be disbanded, but the presiding officer Captain M. M. McCauley, refused to entertain the motion. Whereupon a Mr. A. Shell put the motion and it carried eleven "Ayes" to one "No". A copy of these minutes were duly certified and sent to Adjutant General Kibbe. Two days later March twenty-fourth Captain McCauley wrote the Adjutant General, that political and religious influences were working to break up the Stanislaus Guard and a new company was to be organized called the Franklin Guard, which the Captain claimed would be political in character. Captain McCauley's organization continued, however, for on June fourteenth he sent in to Headquarters a new muster roll showing sixty-four members still active and also showing the names of members who had moved or else had joined the Franklin Guard. The Captain was preparing to file new Bonds and requisition arms, but there was no record of this company ever receiving the needed military equipment. It is likely that the Stanislaus Guard disbanded the latter part of 1862, as there is no further information available concerning this unit.
This history was written in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in conjunction with the office of the Adjutant General and the California State Library
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