with Fremont in command. The California "Republic" disbanded and William Ide enlisted in the California Battalion, when it was established in late July 1846, as a private. The first job given to the California Battalion and was to assist in the capture of San Diego and Pueblo de Los Angeles. On July 26, 1846, Lieutenant Colonel Frémont's California Battalion of about 160 boarded the sloop , under the command of Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont, and sailed for San Diego. They landed July 29, 1846, and a detachment of Marines and blue-jackets, followed shortly by Frémont's California Battalion from Cyane, landed and took possession of the town without firing a shot. Leaving about 40 men to garrison San Diego, Fremont continued on to Los Angeles where on August 13, with the Navy band playing and colors flying, the combined forces of Stockton and Frémont entered Pueblo de Los Angeles, without a man killed nor shot fired. U.S. Marine Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, Frémont's second in command, was appointed military commander of Los Angeles with an inadequate force from 30 to 50 California Battalion troops stationed there to keep the peace. In Pueblo de Los Angeles, the largest city in California with about 3,000 residents, things might have remained peaceful, except that Major Gillespie placed the town under martial law, greatly angering some of the Californios. On September 23, 1846, about 200 Californios under Californio General José María Flores staged a revolt, the Siege of Los Angeles, and exchanged shots with the Americans in their quarters at the Government House. Gillespie and his men withdrew from their headquarters in town to Fort Hill which, unfortunately, had no water. Gillespie was caught in a trap, badly outnumbered by the besiegers. John Brown, an American, called by the Californios Juan Flaco, meaning "Lean John", succeeded in breaking through the Californio lines and riding by horseback to San Francisco Bay (a distance of almost ) in an amazing 52 hours where he delivered to Stockton a dispatch from Gillespie notifying him of the situation. Gillespie, on September 30, finally accepted the Californio terms and departed for San Pedro with his forces, weapons, flags and two cannon (the others were spiked and left behind). Gillespie's men were accompanied by the exchanged American prisoners and several non-Californio residents. It would take about four months of intermittent sparing before Gillespie could again raise the same American flag originally