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The main divisions surrounded the remaining four big armouries; the smaller squads combed the city house by house for arms. In the early morning the armouries capitulated. By sun-up every weapon in the city had been taken to Fort Gunnybags. Up to this time Nan Keith had undergone the experience of nine out of ten married women in early California: that is, she had been neglected.
Several announcements of "Feed," whatever that may be, not restaurant dinners, anyhow, also of "Shorts," terms mysterious to city ears as jute and cudbear and gunnybags to such as drive oxen in the remote interior districts. Then the marriage column above alluded to, by the fortunate recipients of the cake.
Even were the Vigilantes to win in the long run, the material for a very pretty civil war was ready to hand. Two hundred men were hastily put to filling gunnybags with sand and to fortifying not only headquarters but the streets round about. Cannon were mounted, breastworks were piled, and embrasures were cut.
On March 21, 1903, the California Historic Landmarks League placed a bronze tablet on the face of the building at 215 Sacramento street that had formerly been the headquarters of the Vigilance Committee of 1856, inscribed as follows: "Fort Gunnybags was situated on this spot, headquarters of the Vigilance Committee in the year 1856."
Behind headquarters was a long shed stable in which were to be found at all hours saddle horses and artillery horses, all saddled and bridled, ready for instant use. Twenty- six pieces of artillery, mostly sent in by captains of merchant vessels in the harbour, were here parked. Other cannon were mounted for the defence of Fort Gunnybags.
While the immense funeral cortège, the largest San Francisco has ever known, escorted the body of Mr. King up this street toward Lone Mountain Cemetery, Casey and Cora, another criminal, were hung in front of the Vigilance, Headquarters on Sacramento near Front." "You called it Fort Gunnybags ?" he queried.
They disembarked, greeted the horde of friends who had come to meet them, marched to Fort Gunnybags, looked it over, thrust their hands in their pockets, and walked peacefully away to the nearest barrooms! Wise men. By now the Vigilante dispositions were so complete that in the mere interest of examining so sudden yet so thorough an organization, a paragraph or so may profitably be spent on it.
"As a rule," says Bancroft, "within fifteen minutes from the time the bell was tapped, on any occasion, seven-tenths of the entire Vigilante forces would be in their places armed ready for battle." Another corps, not as heroic, but quite as necessary, it was found advisable to appoint. The sacking of which Fort Gunnybags was made was of very coarse texture.
Men, women, children, turned out to do the Vigilantes honor. A float symbolic of Fort Gunnybags was wildly cheered. Benito Windham, Adrian Stanley and their families stood at the window of an office which had "B. Windham, Attorney and Counselor," inscribed upon its door. Benito had but recently passed his law examination and Alice was accordingly proud.
By morning Fort Gunnybags, as headquarters was henceforth called, had come into existence. The fire-eaters arrived that night, but they were not five hundred strong, as excited rumor had it.
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