Loyal General George Wright holds the golden coast. Governor
and Legislature, Senators and Congressmen, are united. The press
and public sentiment are now a unit against disunion or separation.
Colonel Valois looked for some effective action of the Knights of
the Golden Circle on the Pacific. Alas, for the gallant exile!
Impending defeat renders the secret conspirators cautious. In the
cheering news that wife and child are well, still guarded by the
sagacious Padre Francois, Valois frets only over the consecutive
failures of Western conspiracy. Folly and fear make the Knights of
the Golden Circle a timid band. The "Stars and Stripes" wave now,
unchallenged, over Arizona and New Mexico. The Texans at Antelope
Peak never returned to carry the "Stars and Bars" across the
Colorado. Vain boasters!
While Bragg toils and plots to hurl himself on Rosecrans in the
awful day of Chickamauga, where thirty-five thousand dying and
wounded are offered up to the Moloch of Disunion, Valois bitterly
reads Hardin's account of the puerile efforts on the Pacific. It
is only boys' play.
All energy, every spark of daring seems to have left the men who,
secure in ease and fortune, live rich and unharassed in California.
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