Early in March, Sanchez Street was opened by the Common Council. It was opposite the northern section of Arcadia Block, passed through the properties of Sanchez, Pico, Coronel and others, and terminated at the Plaza. The Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, part of the five thousand militia wanted by California, was organized on March 6th at a meeting in the Court House presided over by George W. Gift, with M. J. Newmark, who became an officer in the company, as Secretary. Late in March, John Fröhling rented from the City Fathers a space under the Temple Market building for a wine cellar; and in December, 1860, at the close of his vintage, when he had conducted a hearty harvest-home celebration, he filled the vault with pipes and other casks containing twenty thousand or more gallons of native wines. In a corner, a bar was speedily built; and by many Angeleños that day not associated with at least one pilgrimage to Fröhling's cool and rather obscure recesses was considered incomplete. Few who witnessed the momentous events of 1861 will forget the fever-heat of the nation. The startling news of the attack on Fort Sumter took twelve days by Pony Express to reach the Coast, the overland telegraph not being completed until six months later; but when, on the twenty-fourth of April, the last messenger in the relay of riders dashed into San Francisco with the story, an excited population was soon seething about the streets. San Francisco instantly flashed the details south, awakening here much the same mingled feelings of elation and sorrow. When the war thus broke out, Albert Sidney Johnston, a fellow-townsman who had married a sister of Dr. J. S. Griffin, and who, in 1857, had successfully placed Utah under Federal control, resigned from his command as head of the Department of the Pacific--General Edwin V. Sumner succeeding him--and, being a Southerner, left for the South, by way of Warner's Ranch and the Overland Route, with about a hundred companions, most of whom were intercepted at Fort Yuma through the orders of Captain W. S. Hancock. According to Senator Cornelius Cole, Sumner arrived at Johnston's headquarters in San Francisco after dark; and in spite of Johnston's protest, insisted on assuming command at once. Johnston took up arms for the Confederacy, and was made a Brigadier-General; but at Shiloh he was killed, the news of his death causing here the sincerest regret. I shall speak of the loss of one of General Johnston's sons in the disaster to the _Ada Hancock_; another son, William Preston, became President of Tulane University.