Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards (910 m) away and their shots caused members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover.
Sedgwick strode around in the open and was quoted as saying, "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Although ashamed, his men continued to flinch and he repeated, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
Just seconds later he fell forward with a bullet hole below his left eye.
Upon hearing of his death, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant repeatedly asked, "Is he really dead?"
A consequential visit by a foreigner occurred in the late 1930s. Kozo Nishino, the skipper of a Japanese oil tanker, visited the field to load up with oil. While walking with his crew to a formal welcoming ceremony onshore, he tripped and fell into a patch of prickly pear cactus (now below Fairway 11 of the Sandpiper Golf Course); the sight of the proud Japanese commander having cactus spines pulled from his buttocks provoked the laughter of a group of nearby oil workers.[11][12]
Kozo came back a few years later, possibly for revenge. During the Second World War, now captain of Japanese submarine I-17, he surfaced just off of Coal Oil Point on the evening of February 23, 1942, with his crew emerging to man the 5.5" deck gun of the sub. They fired between 16 and 25 rounds at a pair of oil storage tanks near the exact location where he had fallen into the cactus patch. His gunners were wretched shots, and most of the shells went wild, exploding either miles inland on Tecolote Ranch or splashing in the water; one of the explosions damaged well Luton-Bell 17, on the beach just below Fairway 14 of the present-day golf course, causing about $500 in damage to a catwalk and some pumping equipment. Kozo radioed Tokyo that he had "left Santa Barbara in flames."[13] This incident was the first direct attack by an enemy power on the U.S. mainland since the War of 1812.[14]