U.S. Army Topographical Engineer Lieutenant George H.…
January 1851 CE
For his voyage, Derby is provided with transport by Captain Alfred H. Wilcox commanding the army transport schooner Invincible.
They had departed San Francisco on November 1, 1850.
In December, after making it only thirty miles from the Gulf of California, the Invincible was unable to proceed up the river any further.
Suspecting a problem and nearly out of food, Captain Heintzelman had constructed a raft with sails to travel down the river, some sixty miles to the Invincible.
With eight men and two civilians, the captain first sailed down the Colorado for three days before finding the Invincible, missing an anchor and run hard aground.
After some work trying to free the schooner, it is finally released and Captain Wilcox had decided to offload his supplies onto the Sonora side of the river
The raft was too small to carry the provisions so Heintzelman had directed First Lieutenant Edward Murray to cross into Mexico with a train of wagons to retrieve the supplies.
Fortunately for the Americans, their little invasion of Mexico in January 1851 goes unnoticed and the much needed supplies are brought to the fort.
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