| Bitter Spring Expedition | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the American Indian Wars | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 | Southern Paiute | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| | none | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Company K of First Regiment of Dragoons | unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 0 killed, 2 wounded | 5 killed, 1 wounded | ||||||
The Bitter Spring Expedition of 1860 was a U. S. Army expedition from Fort Tejon, by Company K, First Regiment of Dragoons, led by Major James Henry Carleton, to punish suspected Southern Paiute raiders that had attacked travelers at Bitter Spring along the Los Angeles - Salt Lake Road, the winter trade route and wagon road between Utah and California. [1]
Fort Tejon in California is a former United States Army outpost which was intermittently active from June 24, 1854, until September 11, 1864. It is located in the Grapevine Canyon between the San Emigdio Mountains and Tehachapi Mountains. It is in the area of Tejon Pass along Interstate 5 in Kern County, California, the main route through the mountain ranges separating the Central Valley from the Los Angeles Basin and Southern California. The fort's location protected the San Joaquin Valley from the south and west.
The 1st Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army regiment that has its antecedents in the early 19th century in the formation of the United States Regiment of Dragoons. To this day, the unit's special designation is "First Regiment of Dragoons". While they were the First Regiment of Dragoons another unit designated the 1st Cavalry Regiment was formed in 1855 and in 1861 was re-designated as the 4th Cavalry Regiment. The First Dragoons became the 1st Cavalry Regiment since they were the oldest mounted regiment.
Major is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world.
The Bitter Spring Expedition was the result of two incidents earlier in the year, on along or near the Mohave River the other at Bitter Spring. First was the killing of a cattleman in January 1860, on the Mojave River, reportedly by Southern Paiutes. [2] Two months later of two unarmed teamsters were killed at Bitter Spring by Native American men thought to be Paiute who had posed as friends before suddenly turning on them, feathering them with arrows. [3]
Bitter Spring is a spring within the Fort Irwin National Training Center in San Bernardino County, California. It lies at an elevation of 1355 feet and is located in a valley between the Soda Mountains to the east, the Tiefort Mountains to the northwest, Alvord Mountain to the southwest and Cronese Mountains to the south and southeast.
In April 1860 Major James Henry Carleton was appointed commander of the Bitter Spring Expedition. Brevet General Newman S. Clarke, Carlton's superior, commanding the Department of California, in San Francisco, ordered him to "proceed to Bitter Springs and chastise the Indians you find in the vicinity." The General specifically instructed Carleton that "the punishment must fall on those dwelling nearest to the place of the murder or frequenting the water course in its vicinity." Carlton at the head of Company K, First Regiment of Dragoons left the fort in early April. However Carlton's attitude toward the Paiute had been soured by his investigation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which colored the subsequent treatment of the natives his command encountered on this campaign.
James Henry Carleton was an officer in the U.S. Army and a Union general during the American Civil War. Carleton is best known as an Indian fighter in the southwestern United States.
In many of the world's military establishments, a brevet was a warrant giving a commissioned officer a higher rank title as a reward for gallantry or meritorious conduct but without conferring the authority, precedence, or pay of real rank. An officer so promoted was referred to as being brevetted. The promotion would be noted in the officer's title.
Newman S. Clarke was a career military officer in the United States army who served with distinction during the Mexican–American War.
After arriving and establishing his base at Camp Cady Carlton sent out patrols looking for hostiles. On April 22, on Carlton's orders, the bodies of two Native American men, earlier slain by a detachment of Dragoons on the Mojave River at the Fish Ponds, were taken to Bitter Spring. At Camp Bitter Springs the site of the earlier attack on the cattleman and the teamsters, the bodies were hung from an improvised scaffold. A few days after a May 2 engagement at Old Dad Mountain, the heads cut off of the three natives killed there, were placed on display with those hung on the gibbet at Bitter Springs. On May 28, following reports of the display in the San Francisco press and after General Clarke had read Carlton's dispatch telling of the display of severed heads at Bitter Spring, Clarke ordered Carleton to cease mutilating the dead and remove all evidence of the mutilation from public gaze. The post remained at the spring to guard travelers on the road, until abandoned in late July 3, 1860 at the end of Carlton's expedition. [1]
Camp Cady was a U.S. Army Camp, on the Mojave Road near the Mojave River in the Mojave Desert, located about 20 miles east of modern-day Barstow, California in San Bernardino County, at an elevation of 1690 feet. Camp Cady was named after Major Albemarle Cady, 6th Infantry Regiment, who was a friend of Carleton and commander at Fort Yuma in 1860.
The Mojave River is an intermittent river in the eastern San Bernardino Mountains and the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Most of its flow is underground, while its surface channels remain dry most of the time, with the exception of the headwaters and several bedrock gorges in the lower reaches.
Fish Ponds is one of the locations where the Mojave River rose to run on the surface of its course through the Mojave Desert. The site is located in the river bed in Nebo Center, in the eastern part of Barstow, in San Bernardino County, California. Fish Ponds was named for the Mohave chub that were to be found in the ponds in that location.
