In March 1863, the Supreme Court ruled that the original Castillero claim to the New Almaden Mine was fraudulent and invalid, and President Abraham Lincoln, acting on that judgment, sent a writ to U.S. Marshall C.W. Rand in San Francisco ordering him to take possession of the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine for the United States. The Marshall prepared to take the mines by force, and General Wright, commander of the Department of the Pacific, ordered Company E of the Second Calvary and an infantry detachment to San Jose to enforce the order. Superintendent John Young, under instructions from the owners, who believed the order was illegal, refused to surrender the mines. A telegram from General Henry Halleck, General-in-Chief of the Army, to General George Wright countermanded Lincoln’s order, and the troops and the Marshall withdrew. Frederick Low, collector of the Port of San Francisco, also telegraphed President Lincoln that miners in California and the Territory of Nevada believed the U.S. government would seize all mines on public property, and Lincoln, recognizing the political implications and the possibility that this could fuel the cause of secession, retracted his writ.
