California provided 15,725 of her sons for the war effort which translates to 0.4% (ranked 34 out of 44 states and territories) of the total men who served on both sides of the conflict. There were a total of 88 raids, skirmishes and battles in the state. California had 1 Union P.O.W. Camps at Mare's Island
At the beginning of the Civil War, California was not an obvious member of the Union. The senior Army commander in California was Albert Sydney Johnston, a Southerner. Also, many secessionist groups throughout the state appealed to the local Hispanic population in their push for secession. Only when Johnston resigned and headed east without surrendering California to the Confederacy did the Union Government there begin to breathe more easily. Even then it took a while for the situation to settle.
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