California Militia and National Guard Unit Histories

Lanceros de Los Angeles

 

Other or Official Titles: Lanceros de Los Angeles, 1st Brigade, California Militia
Location: Los Angeles, Los Angeles County

Mustered in: May 12, 1857

Date of Disbanding: 1861
Inclusive dates of units papers: 1857-1858

Papers on file at the California State Archives:

a. Organization Papers 2 documents (1857)
b. Bonds 1 document (1858)
c. Correspondence (Unclassified letters) none
d. Election Returns none
e. Exempt Certificates, Applications for none
f. Muster Rolls, Monthly returns 1 document (1858)
g. Oaths Qualifications none
h. Orders none
i. Receipts, invoices 1 document (1858)
j. Requisitions none
k. Resignations 1 document (1858)
l. Target Practice Reports none

 

 

Commanding Officers

 

Juan Sepulveda, Captain, Elected: May 12, 1857, Commissioned: May 12, 1857
Jose R. Carrillo, First Lieutenant, Elected: May 12, 1857, Commissioned: May 12, 1857

 

 

Official History

 

In May 1857, a petition signed by native Californians requesting that they be permitted to form a volunteer militia company was filed with the County Judge of Los Angeles County. Quote:

"We, the undersigned citizens of the County of Los Angeles would respectfully represent that an efficient, well equipped and well armed mounted corps is absolutely necessary for the preservation of order, the chastisement of criminals and the repression of outrages to which, from our sparse population and contiguousness to the Mexican frontier we are more exposed than any other portion of the State."

 

The petition was granted and on May 12, 1857, a meeting was held to complete the organization. Cristoval Avilas presided and the election of officers resulted in Juan Sepulveda being selected as Captain., and Jose A. Carrillo as First Lieutenant. The company was a cavalry unit and received from the Adjutant General sixty sabres, sixty sabre belts, sixty shoulder straps, and fifty sabre knots. For some unknown reason the unit was late in filing their bond for two thousand five hundred dollars; the record revealing that it was not accomplished until February 1858.

 

No records of the activities of this company are available. The Adjutant General Report of 1861 stated that the unit had failed to make returns as provided by law, but that Brigadier General Andreus Pico, commanding the First Brigade, had promised a report of the condition of the company.(1)

 

 

Footnotes

 

(1) Adjutant-General Report 1861, Page 78.

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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Updated 8 February 2016