1st Regiment New York State Volunteers

1 August 1846 : disband. August - October 1848.

Early in the war, President Polk and Secretary of War William H. Marcy, formerly governor of New York State, devised a plan to send a regiment to California to help colonize the region after the war. They authorized Col. Jonathan Stevenson, a New York State militia officer and former state senator, to recruit a regiment of unmarried, skilled artisans who would remain in California after the war. Drawn from New York City and Albany, Steuben and Chenango Counties, the regiment, according to the New York Herald, consisted of “strong, able-bodied mechanics, generally in the prime of life. . . [that] contains within itself the elements of prosperity, wealth, and greatness.”

Popularly known as the Stevenson Regiment, the California Regiment, or the California Guard, the 1st New York was garrisoned in Monterey and La Paz for most of the war. After the war, many remained in California, participating in the Gold Rush, settling new communities, and practicing their trades. Stevenson got involved in local politics and mining in southern California before heading to San Francisco where he had a prosperous career in real estate.

NYSMM Online Resources

Officers of the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers, 1846-1848

Search the Museum catalog for this unit

Other Resources

Clark, Francis D. The first regiment of New York volunteers : commanded by Col. Jonathan D. Stevenson, in the Mexican war. Names of the members of the regiment during its term of service in Upper and Lower California, 1847-1848, with a record of all known survivors on the 15th day of April, 1882, and those known to have deceased, with other matters of interest pertaining to the organization and service of the regiment. New York: Geo. S. Evans & Co., printers, 1882.
http://www.archive.org/details/firstregimentofn00clar
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.00118990997

New York (N.Y.). Common Council. Report of the proceedings of the Joint Committee appointed to make suitable arrangements for bringing on the bodies of the officers of the New York Regiment of volunteers, from Mexico, with the funeral ceremonies observed on the occasion of their interment. Presented Oct. 2, 1848. New York: McSpedon & Baker, Printers to the Common Council, 1848.

New York (N.Y.). Common Council. Report of the proceedings of the Joint Committee appointed to make suitable arrangements for bringing on the bodies of the officers of the New York Regiment of volunteers, from Mexico, with the funeral ceremonies observed on the occasion of their interment. Presented Oct. 2, 1848. New York: McSpedon & Baker, Printers to the Common Council, 1851.
ttp://www.archive.org/details/reportsofspecial00newy

Nihart, Brooke. "A New York Regiment in California, 1846-1848." Military Collector & Historian. 21 Spring 1969. 1-11.

Robarts, William Hugh. Mexican War veterans : a complete roster of the regular and volunteer troops in the war between the United States and Mexico, from 1846 to 1848 ; the volunteers are arranged by states, alphabetically. Washington, D.C. Brentano's, 1887.
https://archive.org/details/mexicanwarvetera00roba

Robbins, Harvey, b. 1824. The adventures and escapes of Harvey Robbins and family from the rebels, near Yorktown, Virginia. Baltimore: Printed by Sherwood & Co. 1861.

Society of the Survivors of the First Regiment of New York Volunteers. Survivors of Col. Stevenson's Reg't of New York volunteers, in service in California during the Mexican War, 1847-'48 : Including record of deaths during the years 1883-1894. [New York] 1895.
http://www.archive.org/details/survivorsofcolst00socirich

Stevenson, J. D. 1800-1894. (Jonathan Drake) Memorial and petition of Col. J.D. Stevenson of California San Francisco: J.R. Brodie, 1886.
http://www.archive.org/details/firstregimentofn00clar

"Van Rensselaer Guards, Albany, c. 1840." Military Collector & Historian. 59 :2 Summer 2007.