John Charles Frémont Court-Martial: 1847-48

Commodore Robert F. Stockton had arrived in California in 1846 as commander of a U.S. Navy squadron and then proceeded to take the lead in the fight to oust the Mexicans. With the end of the fighting, Stockton regarded himself as in charge of California and appointed Frémont as its military governor. In several of the final battles in December 1846 and January 1847, however, the American army forces were led by the newly arrived General Stephen Kearny, who was soon asserting that his orders placed him in command of all the civil and military forces in California. Frémont not unnaturally sided with Stockton. By March, however, Kearny had established that he was the real commander and, when Frémont continued to resist his orders, Kearny had Frémont arrested in August 1847 and ordered him to return to Washington to face a court-martial.