Arizona Territory, colloquially referred to as Confederate Arizona, was an organized incorporated territory of the Confederate States of America that existed from August 1, 1861, to May 26, 1865, when the Confederate States Army Trans-Mississippi Department, commanded by General Edmund Kirby Smith, surrendered at Shreveport, Louisiana. However, after the Battle of Glorieta Pass, the Confederates had to retreat from the territory, and by July 1862, effective Confederate control of the territory had ended. Delegates to the secession convention had voted in March 1861 to secede from the New Mexico Territory and the Union, and seek to join the Confederacy. It consisted of the portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel, including parts of the modern states of New Mexico and Arizona. The capital was Mesilla, along the southern border. The breakaway region overlapped Arizona Territory, established by the Union government in February 1863.
The New Mexico campaign was a military operation of the trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War from February to April 1862 in which Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley invaded the northern New Mexico Territory in an attempt to gain control of the Southwest, including the gold fields of Colorado and the ports of California. Historians regard this campaign as the most ambitious Confederate attempt to establish control of the American West and to open an additional theater in the war. It was an important campaign in the war's Trans-Mississippi Theater, and one of the major events in the history of the New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War.
The Battle of Apache Pass was fought in 1862 at Apache Pass, Arizona, in the United States, between Apache warriors and the Union volunteers of the California Column as it marched from California to capture Confederate Arizona and to reinforce New Mexico's Union army. It was one of the largest battles between the Americans and the Chiricahua during the Apache Wars.
The Battle of Picacho Pass, also known as the Battle of Picacho Peak, was an engagement of the American Civil War on April 15, 1862. The action occurred around Picacho Peak, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Tucson, Arizona. It was fought between a Union cavalry patrol from California and a party of Confederate pickets from Tucson, and marks the westernmost battle of the American Civil War involving fatalities.
Stanwix Station, in western Arizona, was a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail Stagecoach line built in the later 1850s near the Gila River about 80 miles (130 km) east of Yuma, Arizona. Originally the station was called Flap Jack Ranch later Grinnell's Ranch or Grinnell's Station. In 1862, Grinnell's was listed on the itinerary of the California Column in the same place as Stanwix Ranch which became the site of the westernmost skirmish of the American Civil War. A traveler in 1864, John Ross Browne, wrote Grinnell's was six miles southwest of the hot springs of Agua Caliente, Arizona.
The California Column was a force of Union volunteers sent to Arizona and New Mexico during the American Civil War. The command marched over 900 miles (1,400 km) from California through Arizona and New Mexico Territory to the Rio Grande and as far east as El Paso, Texas, between April and August 1862.
The New Mexico Territory, comprising what are today the U.S. states of New Mexico and Arizona, as well as the southern portion of Nevada, played a small but significant role in the trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War. Despite its remoteness from the major battlefields of the east, and its being part of the sparsely populated and largely undeveloped American frontier, both Confederate and Union governments claimed ownership over the territory, and several important battles and military operations took place in the region. Roughly 7,000-8,000 troops from the New Mexico Territory served the Union, more than any other western state or territory.
The 1st Regiment California Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It spent its entire term of service in the western United States.
The First Battle of Dragoon Springs was a minor skirmish between a small troop of Confederate dragoons of Governor John R. Baylor's Arizona Rangers, and a band of Apache warriors during the American Civil War. It was fought on May 5, 1862, near the present-day town of Benson, Arizona, in Confederate Arizona.
The Battle of the Florida Mountains was an action of the Apache Wars. Forces involved were Chiricahua Apache warriors and mounted Confederate States militia. The battle occurred in a pass of the Florida Mountains within Confederate Arizona, now southwestern New Mexico. The engagement occurred sometime around the middle of August 1861.
The Company A, Arizona Rangers was a cavalry formation of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
The history of Tucson, Arizona began thousands of years ago. Paleo-Indians practiced plant husbandry and hunted game in the Santa Cruz River Valley from 10,000 or earlier BCE. Archaic peoples began making irrigation canals, some of the first in North America, around 1,200 BCE. The Hohokam people lived in the Tucson area from around 450–1450 CE in a complex agricultural society.
Union forces entered Tucson on May 20, 1862, with a force of 2,000 men without firing a shot.
Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón was a presidio located within Tucson, Arizona, United States. The original fortress was built by Spanish soldiers during the 18th century and was the founding structure of what became the city of Tucson. After the American arrival in 1846, the original walls were dismantled, with the last section torn down in 1918. A reconstruction of the northeast corner of the fort was completed in 2007 following an archaeological excavation that located the fort's northeast tower.
The Second Battle of Mesilla was an unusual engagement of the American Civil War. It was fought on July 1, 1862, and was the last engagement between Union and Confederate forces in the Arizona Territory. A skirmish outside of Confederate Arizona's capital of Mesilla between a confederate party and local pro-Union New Mexican guerrillas resisting the Confederate foraging expedition, resulted in a United States victory. Various accounts report from seven to twelve Confederates killed, including their commander Capt. Cleaver of the 7th Texas Infantry and as many as 40 of the local guerrillas.
Sylvester Mowry was an American politician, miner, and land speculator. He is best remembered as an early advocate for establishing the Arizona Territory. He was also a West Point graduate and officer of the United States Army who was later arrested as a traitor during the American Civil War.
The Butterfield Overland Mail was a transport and mail delivery system that employed stagecoaches that travelled on a specific route between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California and which passed through the New Mexico Territory. It was created by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until March 30, 1861. The route that was operated extended from where the ferry across the Colorado River to Fort Yuma Station, California was located, through New Mexico Territory via Tucson to the Rio Grande and Mesilla, New Mexico then south to Franklin, Texas, midpoint on the route. The New Mexico Territory mail route was divided into two divisions each under a superintendent. Tucson was the headquarters of the 3rd Division of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company. Franklin Station in the town of Franklin,, was the headquarters of the 4th Division.
Sherod Hunter was the commander of the Confederate unit operating against Union Army forces in present-day Arizona during the American Civil War. He later commanded various Confederate cavalry units elsewhere in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
Mowry City is a ghost town first in Dona Anna County, then Grant County and finally in Luna County, New Mexico, United States, approximately 25 miles (40 km) north of Deming. Originally it was the crossing point of Cooke's Wagon Road on the Mimbres River. Mowry City was formerly the location of Rio Mimbres, a stop on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line, and Miembre's River Station, a stagecoach stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail and later stagecoach routes. The town lasted from 1859 until the arrival of the railroad in southern New Mexico in 1881.
Dragoon Springs is an historic site in what is now Cochise County, Arizona, at an elevation of 4,925 feet (1,501 m). The name comes from a nearby natural spring, Dragoon Spring, to the south in the Dragoon Mountains at 5,148 feet (1,569 m). The name originates from the 3rd U.S. Cavalry Dragoons who battled the Chiricahua, including Cochise, during the Apache Wars. The Dragoons established posts around 1856 after the Gadsden Purchase made the area a U.S. territory.
