I'm trying to work out a location detail from L.A. history, and hope that those more familiar than I with the area between the San Gabriel River and, say, Boyle Heights will be able to express in today's terms some close approximation to the routes taken, as expressed in the excerpt below, by the
Californio forces and the Yankee forces between the battle at Paso de Bartolo and the battle called the Battle de las Lagunas alias the Mesa battle. In particular, where specifically is Cañada de los Alisos?:
It's 1847. After the battle at Paso de Bartolo, "Flores, with a few people who kept together [
the other Californios had dispersed], went up a hill where the field hospital was to stay that night and summon the scattered forces. That’s where we were that night; and already the next morning some of those who had scattered had returned. We kept our eye on the enemy, which had struck camp and was heading towards Los Angeles—not by the road that led to where we were in the hills, but rather by the flatland. We went down on the other side of the hills until we got to the Cañada de los Alisos—a gully with water—where we had lunch […]. It was there that we agreed to make one more try against the enemy, and to place the forces along a bluff at a point where the Los Angeles road passes, and to surprise the enemy from there. Once again, our plans were frustrated: The Commodore and his army, in their trajectory from the Paso de Bartolo to the ponds did not go by the road, instead going along the flatland about two or three miles off the road” (from Narciso Botello's
Annals), and so they issued forth from the Cañada de los Alisos to meet the enemy at the site of the Battle de las Lagunas.
Going by today's roads, what route did the
Californios take, what route did the Yankees take, and where was that gol-darned gully with water, the Cañada de los Alisos?
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