General Sherman had resigned his command of the military forces in disgust. In his stead was chosen General Volney Howard, a man typical of his class, blinded by his prejudices and his passions, filled with a sense of the importance of his caste, and without grasp of the broader aspects of the situation. In the Committee's present attitude he saw not the signs of a job well done, but indications of weakening, and he considered this a propitious moment to show his power. In this attitude he received enthusiastic backing from Judge Terry and his narrow coterie. Terry was then judge of the Supreme Court; and a man more unfitted for the position it would be difficult to find. A tall, attractive, fire-eating Texan with a charming wife, he stood high in the social life of the city. His temper was undisciplined and completely governed his judgment. Intensely partisan and, as usual with his class, touchy on the point of honor, he did precisely the wrong thing on every occasion where cool decision was demanded.
It was so now. The Law and Order party persuaded Governor Johnson to order a parade of state troops in the streets of San Francisco. The argument used was that such a parade of legally organized forces would overawe the citizens. The secret hope, however, which was well founded, was that such a display would promote the desired conflict. This hope they shared with Howard, after the Governor's orders had been obtained. Howard's vanity jumped with his inclination. He consented to the plot. A more ill-timed, idiotic maneuver, with the existing state of the public mind, it would be impossible to imagine. Either we must consider Terry and Howard weak-minded to the point of an inability to reason from cause to effect, or we must ascribe to them more sinister motives.
By now the Law and Order forces had become numerically more formidable. The lower element flocked to the colors through sheer fright. A certain proportion of the organized remained in the ranks, though a majority had resigned. There was, as is usual in a new community, a very large contingent of wild, reckless young men without a care in the world, with no possible interest in the rights and wrongs of the case, or, indeed, in themselves. They were eager only for adventure and offered themselves just as soon as the prospects for a real fight seemed good. Then, too, they could always count on the five hundred Texans who had been imported.