The wounded having been removed with great difficulty, the cattle having been lost, and the danger of losing the sick and the packs being great, the General determined to halt at that place and await the arrival of reinforcements, for which messengers had been sent to San Diego on the morning of the 6th.  Accordingly the Americans occupied the high ground on which the action had been fought, bored holes for water, killed their fattest mules for meat, and awaited the arrival of their friends, until the morning of the 11th, when they were joined by one hundred seamen and eighty marines, under Lieutenant Gray, who had been sent out to meet them by Commodore Stockton; and, on the afternoon of the 12th, the combined parties entered the town in safety.

At this time commenced that memorable conflict between the two commanders—­General Kearney and Commodore Stockton—­respecting the chief command, which subsequently created so much trouble in the American ranks and throughout the country.  Commodore Stockton appears, however, to have retained the authority; and, having organized a force sufficiently strong to warrant the undertaking, and General Kearney having accepted an invitation to accompany the expedition, on December 29th he marched from San Diego, with two officers and fifty-five privates (dragoons, two officers and forty-five seamen acting as artillerymen; eighteen officers and three hundred seventy-nine seamen and marines acting as infantry; six officers, and fifty-four privates), volunteers, and six pieces of artillery, against the main body of the insurgents, near Los Angeles.  The command appears to have been given, at his own request, to General Kearney; and as the wagon train was heavily laden, the progress of the column was very slow—­the expedition reaching the Rio San Gabriel on January 8, 1847—­although the enemy had offered no opposition to its progress even in passes where a small force could have effectively kept it back.  At this place, however, he had made a stand to dispute the passage of the river; and here the second action was fought between the Americans and the Californians.

The Rio San Gabriel, at the spot where this action was fought, is about one hundred yards wide, the current about knee-deep, flowing over a quicksand bottom.  The left bank, by which the Americans approached, is level; that on the right is also level for a short distance back, but beyond this narrow plain a bank fifty feet in height commands the ford and the intervening flat, while both banks are fringed with a thick undergrowth.  On this bank, directly in front of the ford, four pieces of artillery were posted, supported on either flank by strong bodies of cavalry, while on the slope of the hill and the flat in front were posted the sharpshooters.